by Herman Wouk
Greenwald said, “Defense has finished its presentation.”
“Recess until one o’clock,” said Blakely.
CHAPTER 37
The Verdict
Challee had the face of a man sailing into a fist fight when he rose for his opening argument.
“If it please the court, I am almost at a loss to discuss the case the defense has presented. I have nothing to refute. It’s no case at all. It has nothing to do with the charge or the specification. It has nothing whatever to do with the accused, or the acts for which he is undergoing a general court-martial.
“The defense counsel’s very first question in this trial was, ‘Commander, have you ever heard the expression “Old Yellowstain”?’ I objected then, I object now to the entire strategy and tactics of the defense counsel before this court. His one idea has been to twist the proceedings around so that the accused would become not Maryk but Commander Queeg. To a certain extent he has succeeded. He has dragged out every possible vicious and malicious criticism of the commander from the other witnesses, and forced Queeg to defend himself against them in open court, on the spur of the moment, without preparation, without advice of counsel, without any of the normal privileges and safeguards of an accused man under naval law.
“All right. What has defense counsel proved in this orgy of mudslinging, insults, trick questions, and defamation? Let’s assume that everything he tried to prove against Commander Queeg is true-which I don’t for a moment concede-even so, what has he proved, I say, except that Queeg was not a good officer? What has he tried to bring out except that the commander’s term aboard the Caine was an unhappy mess of bad judgment and poor administration? Did that give Lieutenant Maryk the right of summary relief of command? Can this court possibly endorse the precedent that a captain who seems to be making mistakes can be deposed by underlings? And that his only recourse after that is to be placed on the witness stand at a general court-martial to answer every petty gripe and justify all his command decisions to a hostile lawyer taking the part of his insubordinate inferiors? Such a precedent is nothing but a blank check for mutiny. It is the absolute destruction of the chain of command.
“The one issue in this trial was the insanity of Commander Queeg-the insanity, not the mistakes or misdeeds or poor judgment. The language of Articles 184, 185, and 186 excludes every possibility except the complete, utter, and unmistakable madness of the captain. The defense made no effort to establish such a justification for the simple reason that it never existed. Captain Queeg always was and still is as sane as any of us, whatever his errors may have been, and defense counsel knows it.
“Has any officer of this court ever sailed with a captain who committed no errors of judgment? Has any officer who has been in the Navy more than a few years failed to find himself under a captain with marked personal and emotional eccentricities? Naval command is the greatest strain that can be brought to bear on a person. The captain is a god-in theory. Some lapse more, some less, from that ideal. But the procurement policies of the Navy are rigid. That is why the presumption is always overwhelmingly on the side of the commanding officer in any dispute. He’s a man who has been tried in the fire. Whatever his weaknesses-and they may even be grave weaknesses-he’s a man who can command a combatant ship.
“In proof of this I need only cite the recorded fact that this case is the first in thirty years impugning the captain of a Navy ship under those articles. And even in this case the scientific findings of psychiatrists are forcibly and unanimously on the side of the Navy’s system of command appointments. The doctors say that the Navy did know what it was doing in giving the Caine to Commander Queeg.
“With the leeway the court gave him, defense counsel brought out every single mistake, every single lapse of judgment that the captain of the Caine made or that some underling thought he made. The court knows that it all adds up to pulling complaints against strictness and meticulousness-all but one point. That point is the imputation that this officer of the Navy was a coward under fire. I shall not discuss that point. I leave it to this court to determine whether a coward could rise to command of a combatant ship and remain undetected by his superiors through fifteen months of battle service. I count on the court to see the difference between bad judgment and poltroonery. I leave it to the court to reject this smear on the Navy.
“Let’s look at the facts. Commander Queeg was given command of an obsolete, decaying, run-down ship. He brought it through fifteen months of combat unscathed, and carried out a multitude of assignments to the satisfaction of his superiors. There’s no complaint against him on the record by his superiors-only by his underlings. He achieved this record of satisfactory battle service despite the hostility and disloyalty of his officers. He achieved it despite personal inner tensions, which the doctors have described-and which the defense viciously hammered at in a vain attempt to exaggerate them into insanity. Commander Queeg’s achievement in the face of his own emotional difficulties and the disloyalty of his wardroom adds up, not to a bad record, but to a fine one, to an impressive one. He emerges as a loyal, hard-working, terribly conscientious officer who has been unjustly forced through a harrowing ordeal.
“The accused emerges without any justification. The defense counsel brought no psychiatrists to refute the findings of the medical board. He didn’t because he couldn’t have found any. Once the cloud of mudslinging settles down, the facts remain as they were at the outset. A commanding officer of a United States Navy ship was relieved of his command willfully and without authority. The claimed authority of Articles 184, 185, and 186 was voided by the medical board. No justifiable cause, either mental illness or any other, has been brought forward by the defense. It has been proved by expert testimony that Commander Queeg’s ship-handling decisions in the typhoon up to the moment he was relieved were not only sensible and sound, but the best possible in the circumstances.
“The accused stands convicted by the facts. In his defense not one mitigating fact has been established. The court will reject, I am certain, the cynical, insulting attempt of the defense counsel to sway its emotions. The court will find the specification proved by the facts.”
The contrast between Challee’s manner and Greenwald’s could not have been sharper. The pilot was soft, apologetic, hesitant after the judge advocate’s passionate shouting. He kept looking from Blakely to Challee. He started by mentioning that he had undertaken Maryk’s defense reluctantly at the judge advocate’s request. “I was reluctant,” he said, “because I knew that the only possible defense of the accused was to show in court the mental incompetence of an officer of the Navy. It has been the most unpleasant duty I’ve ever had to perform. Let me make one thing clear. It is not and never has been the contention of the defense that Commander Queeg is a coward. The entire case of the defense rests on the opposite assumption: that no man who rises to command of a United States naval ship can possibly be a coward. And that therefore if he commits questionable acts under fire the explanation must lie elsewhere.”
Proceeding in the same calm, diffident tone, Greenwald reviewed all the damaging evidence against Queeg, laying especial stress on the points that had seemed to impress Blakely. He emphasized that both psychiatrists had admitted, in one form of words or another, that Queeg was sick. And he repeated over and over that it was up to the court, who knew the sea, to decide whether or not the sickness of Queeg was bad enough to incapacitate him. He referred briefly and apologetically to Queeg’s behavior in court-his evasiveness, incoherence, changing stories, and inability to stop speaking-as further unfortunate evidence of his mental illness. He said very little about Maryk. It was all Queeg, Queeg, Queeg.
The court debated for an hour and ten minutes. Maryk was acquitted.
Maryk and Greenwald were surrounded on the sidewalk outside the court-martial building by a small jubilant knot of people. The exec’s mother clung to him, weeping and laughing: a fat little woman in a green hat, with a round seamed face like a wrinkled photograph of
her son’s. Beside her stood the father, a heavy quiet shabby man, patting her shoulder. All the officers of the Caine were there. Willie Keith capered and shouted, slapping everyone on the back. All was noise and congratulation and joy. Greenwald was jostled by eager handshaking. “All right now listen, listen everybody,” yelled Keefer. “Listen to me. We’re going to celebrate!”
“Sure! Sure! Celebrate! Let’s celebrate! Let’s all get stiff! Fried! Boiled!”-a ribald chorus.
“No, will you listen? It’s all arranged. Dinner at the Fairmont! I’ve hired a room. I’m paying. I’m rich!” shouted Keefer. “It’s a double celebration! I got the contract on my novel in the mail this morning, and a check for a thousand bucks! It’s all on Chapman House!”
Sailors a block away from the building turned to stare in amazement at the frantic little group of officers yelping and dancing in the hot sunshine. “I will get monumentally drunk,” cried Harding. “I will wake up in the alcoholic ward. And I’ll love it.” Jorgensen hugged and kissed the trunk of a eucalyptus tree in excess of joy. His glasses fell off and shattered. He peered around, giggling wildly. “Nothing but champagne will be served,” yelled the novelist. “Champagne to toast the Fifth Freedom. Freedom from Old Yellowstain!”
Maryk blinked confusedly. “Greenwald’s invited, isn’t he?”
“Invited! Hell, he’s the guest of honor,” Keefer bawled. “A Daniel! A Daniel come to judgment! Momma and Poppa, too! Wire your brothers! Tell ’em to fly down! Bring anyone you want!”
Greenwald said, “You guys have a fine time. Leave me out of it-”
The mother said through sobs, “You’re a good boy, Steve. You never did anything wrong-”
“The hell with that,” Maryk said to Greenwald, wriggling in his mother’s embrace. “If you don’t come I don’t. It’s all off.”
“Man, don’t ruin it,” said Keefer, throwing his arm over Greenwald’s shoulder. “What’ll the party be like without the hero of the occasion?”
“You’re the hero-a thousand bucks-” said the lawyer, disengaging himself.
Keefer cried, “I’ll send a limousine and chauffeur for you-”
“That won’t be necessary. Fairmont? Okay. I’ll be there.” Greenwald turned and started up the steps.
“Where you going, Barney?” Maryk said anxiously.
“Got to clean up the debris with Challee. You go along, Steve. See you tonight.”
Keefer shouted after him, “Give Challee a crying towel, with the compliments of the Caine!” Howls of joyous laughter went up from the officers.
A huge green-iced cake baked in the shape of a book was the most prominent decoration of the table.
MULTITUDES, MULTITUDES
A NOVEL BY
Thomas Keefer
Was written on it in flourishing letters of thick yellow sugar. It was surrounded by a bank of ferns and roses. The table was crowded with flowers, and candles, and silver, and bottles of champagne. Shreds of gold and silver foil from the wine bottles were scattered on the white cloth. It was seven o’clock, the chair at the head of the table was still vacant, and no food had yet been served. The officers were already boisterously drunk. Mr. and Mrs. Maryk smiled uncomfortably at the roistering jokes all around them, and laughed aloud whenever their son did. The exec sat at the right of Greenwald’s empty chair, with his parents beside him. Opposite them were Keefer and Keith, side by side, sparking the merriment with a running fire of shouted jokes about Old Yellowstain. It was an inexhaustible topic. Jorgensen, at the foot of the table, was dissolved in howling giggles; tears ran down from his squinting bloodshot eyes. Several new officers who had reported aboard since the ship’s return, and who had never seen Queeg, listened in wide-eyed wonder, and laughed uneasily at the jokes, and drank vast quantities of Keefer’s champagne.
Willie was having a wonderful time. Though he suspected that Keefer had not been especially manly in the court-martial, he had no way of knowing the truth of the matter. Witnesses were not permitted to hear each other testify; and Maryk had never spoken a word against Keefer throughout the affair. All qualms had been forgotten in the grand wonder of the exec’s acquittal, and Willie’s release from fear. He drank as much of the novelist’s champagne as anybody, excepting perhaps Harding. His old roommate of the clipping shack was in an alcoholic nirvana. From time to time Harding would get up and stagger to hug somebody, Keefer, or Maryk, or Paynter, it didn’t matter who. He kissed Willie, maundering, “He gave me his hat to puke in. One of nature’s noblemen, Willie Keith-”
Keefer said, “He’ll probably have to do it again before the night’s out.” Willie thereupon seized a silver bowl of celery and held it under Harding’s mouth, and Harding pretended to throw up, and it was a joke which made everybody roar except the two puzzled old folks. In this happy vein the party was proceeding when Keefer jumped up, yelling, “Here he comes! Fill your glasses! A toast to the conquering hero! Greenwald the Magnificent!”
The lawyer’s blues were rumpled and baggy, and his walk was not of the steadiest, but nobody at the table was in a condition to notice. He came to the head of the table and stood stupidly, resting a hand on the empty chair, looking around slack-mouthed. “Party’s pretty far along, hey?” he said, as wine splashed in a dozen glasses and all the officers shouted greetings. Keefer made his glass ring with a knife.
“All right, quiet, you drunken mutineers- A toast, I say!” He lifted his glass high. “To Lieutenant Barney Greenwald-a Cicero with two stripes-a Darrow with wings-the terror of judge advocates-the rescuer of the oppressed and the downtrodden-the forensic St. George who slew with his redoubtable tongue that most horrible of dragons-Old Yellowstain!”
They all cheered; they all drank; they sang For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow in bellowing discords. The lawyer stood, pallid and skinny, his mouth foolishly twitching in momentary grins. “Speech! Speech!” said Keefer, clapping his hands and dropping into his chair, and everybody took up the cry and the applause.
“No, no,” Greenwald mumbled, but in a moment he was standing alone, and all the faces at the table were turned to him. The party settled into expectant quiet. “I’m drunker’n any of you,” he said. “I’ve been out drinking with the judge advocate-trying to get him to take back some of the dirty names he called me-finally got him to shake hands on the ninth whisky sour-maybe the tenth-”
“That’s good,” Maryk said. “Challee’s a decent guy-”
“Had to talk loud ‘n’ fast, Steve-I played pretty dirty pool, you know, in court-poor Jack, he made a wonderful argument- Multitudes, Multitudes, hey?” He peered blearily at the cake. “Well, I guess I ought to return the celebrated author’s toast, at that.” He fumbled at a bottle and sloshed wine into a glass and all over his hands. “Biblical title of course. Can’t do better for a war book. I assume you give the Navy a good pasting?”
“I don’t think Public Relations would clear it, at any rate,” the novelist said, grinning.
“Fine. Someone should show up these stodgy, stupid Prussians.” Greenwald weaved and grabbed at the chair. “I told you I’m pretty far along- I’ll get to my speech yet, don’t worry- Wanna know about the book first. Who’s the hero, you?”
“Well, any resemblance, you know, is purely accidental-”
“Course I’m warped,” said Greenwald, “and I’m drunk, but it suddenly seems to me that if I wrote a war novel I’d try to make a hero out of Old Yellowstain.” Jorgensen whooped loudly, but nobody else laughed, and the ensign subsided, goggling around. “No, I’m serious, I would. Tell you why. Tell you how I’m warped. I’m a Jew, guess most of you know that. Name’s Greenwald, kind of look like one, and I sure am one, from way back. Jack Challee said I used smart Jew-lawyer tactics-course he took it back, apologized, after I told him a few things he didn’t know- Well, anyway ... The reason I’d make Old Yellowstain a hero is on account of my mother, little gray-headed Jewish lady, fat, looks a lot like Mrs. Maryk here, meaning no offense.”
He actually sa
id “offensh.” His speech was halting and blurry. He was gripping the spilling glass tightly. The scars on his hand made red rims around the bluish grafted skin.
“Well, sure, you guys all have mothers, but they wouldn’t be in the same bad shape mine would if we’d of lost this war, which of course we aren’t, we’ve won the damn thing by now. See, the Germans aren’t kidding about the Jews. They’re cooking us down to soap over there. They think we’re vermin and should be ‘sterminated and our corpses turned into something useful. Granting the premise-being warped, I don’t, but granting the premise, soap is as good an idea as any. But I just can’t cotton to the idea of my mom melted down into a bar of soap. I had an uncle and an aunt in Cracow, who are soap now, but that’s different, I never saw my uncle and aunt, just saw letters in Jewish from them, ever since I was a kid, but never could read them. Jew, but I can’t read Jewish.”
The faces looking up at him were becoming sober and puzzled.
“I’m coming to Old Yellowstain. Coming to him. See, while I was studying law ‘n’ old Keefer here was writing his play for the Theatre Guild, and Willie here was on the playing fields of Prinshton, all that time these birds we call regulars-these stuffy, stupid Prussians, in the Navy and the Army-were manning guns. Course they weren’t doing it to save my mom from Hitler, they were doing it for dough, like everybody else does what they do. Question is, in the last analysis-last analysis-what do you do for dough? Old Yellowstain, for dough, was standing guard on this fat dumb and happy country of ours. Meantime me, I was advancing my little free non-Prussian life for dough. Of course, we figured in those days, only fools go into armed service. Bad pay, no millionaire future, and you can’t call your mind or body your own. Not for sensitive intellectuals. So when all hell broke loose and the Germans started running out of soap and figured, well it’s time to come over and melt down old Mrs. Greenwald-who’s gonna stop them? Not her boy Barney. Can’t stop a Nazi with a lawbook. So I dropped the lawbooks and ran to learn how to fly. Stout fellow. Meantime, and it took a year and a half before I was any good, who was keeping Mama out of the soap dish? Captain Queeg.
