Mister Roberts

by Thomas Heggen

  His arrival on board the Reluctant, or rather the manner of it, was a genuine event. It was discussed in the wardroom and the mess hall and the engine room for months, and it is not likely to be forgotten within the lifetime of any member of the ship's company. Keith caught the ship while it lay at anchor in the bay of Tedium Island. The day was typically hot and sticky, and the lightest shirt was uncomfortable. The Captain was ashore, and the gangway watch had relaxed accordingly. Ed Pauley, the officer-of-the-deck, was sitting on a bitt reading an Ellery Queen story, and Farnsworth, the messenger, was poring over a comics book when Farnsworth glanced over the side and saw this most remarkable thing. A boat from the beach was making the gangway and an officer, lugging heavy baggage, was climbing aboard. Neither the arrival of the boat nor of an officer with baggage was necessarily remarkable, but the officer himself was spectacularly so: he was wearing blues! "Holy Jesus!" croaked Farnsworth, "Mr. Pauley!"

  Pauley got to his feet just in time to see a young ensign stand rigidly at the head of the gangway, salute the colors, step aboard, salute him and announce with great positiveness: "Request permission to come aboard, sir. Ensign Keith reporting for duty." The face of Ensign Keith, whose cheeks were perhaps naturally rosy, was now a fiery red and streaming with perspiration; at his armpits and at his back wide black stains were spreading, his trousers hung like wet washrags, and his white shirt was sweated to a solid gray. In a kind of trance Pauley, who was wearing faded khakis, dirty trousers, almost buttonless shirt open at the neck and torn down the sleeve, returned the salute and mumbled, "Sure, sure . . . My name's Pauley." It took Pauley a minute or two to collect himself, and then he led the new arrival in to see the executive officer.

  Mr. LeSueur was an outspoken man. He was sitting at his desk when Pauley, trailed by Keith, appeared. For a moment he just stared, popeyed; then, before Pauley could say a word, before Keith could even state his business, he shouted: "What in the hell are you doing in those things?" You could hear him far down the passageway.

  Ensign Keith was visibly upset. At midshipmen's school they had taught that reporting aboard ship was a very formal business; they had never even intimated that he might be greeted like this. "I'm Ensign Keith," he said as well as he could. "Reporting for duty, sir."

  Mr. LeSueur pounded the desk. "That doesn't answer my question! What in the hell are you doing in blues?"

  Ensign Keith, who was standing at rigid attention, turned even redder. "When reporting for duty, blue baker is the uniform prescribed by Navy Regs, sir," he said stiffly, Mr. LeSueur passed a hand over his face. "Blue baker," he muttered. "Navy Regs." Finally he got up and shook hands with Keith. "And for Christ's sake get out of those things in a hurry!" he told him. He turned to Pauley: "Take him to your room, Ed. You'll live with Mr. Pauley." Without another word he sat down and returned to his work.

  Ensign Keith lingered uncertainly in the doorway. He licked his lips. "Sir," he said weakly, "when shall I meet the Captain?"

  Mr. LeSueur turned around with fearsome self-control. "In the morning," he said. "I'll take you up there in the morning."

  "Thank you, sir," said Keith. Still he lingered. At midshipmen's school they had taught that you must send your card up to the Captain. He wasn't quite sure with whom you sent it up; he thought it was probably the executive officer. He fumbled in his pockets. "Will you give him my card, sir?"

  Then Mr. LeSueur was shouting again. "Card! Card! What the hell would he do with a card! The stupid bastard can't even read! Card!" Pauley grabbed Ensign Keith and led him hurriedly off, and when they got to the room they could still hear: "Card! Card!" The interview hadn't gone at all the way it was supposed to.

  If the way to enter cold water is to dive head-first, then perhaps Ensign Keith's ungentle immersion into his new life was for the best. Perhaps it had the virtue of numbing him against the shocks to follow. Certainly there were plenty of them. In the next few days he was buffeted with surprises like a non-stop punching bag. Almost everything he saw and heard, contradicted, refuted, ignored, or scorned one of the impregnable Truths he had learned so well. His new roommate, Ed Pauley, didn't get up at seven o'clock, when an officer should; he slept until noon. He didn't shave daily as an officer should; he was growing a shaggy red beard. The officers lounged all day in the sacrosanct wardroom. They kept their hats on in the wardroom, a scandalous violation of naval etiquette. Some of them even sat with their feet on the tables. None of them seemed to do any work. None used the title "sir" in addressing each other, but other more vigorous and colloquial titles were freely used. Coarse, extramarital exploits were discussed openly at the dinner- table. Some of the officers drank: Keith was sure he had smelled liquor on Ed Pauley's breath, and fairly sure he had smelled it on the Doctor. He had heard any number of the officers addressing the enlisted men by their first names, or by nicknames. With his own ears he had heard various officers speak seditiously of the ship and the Navy and, worst of all, of the Captain. He had even heard one officer, this Ensign Pulver, threaten in a convincing voice to commit a piece of shocking mischief against the Captain. And they didn't refer to him as the Captain at all; they called him "Stupid."

  Or worse than that.

  Young Keith was shocked; he was shocked. He could scarcely have been more shaken had his own mother gone out and robbed the Kenmore Trust and Savings. In all of his twenty and a half years nothing like this had ever happened. Everything had always come off in good order: the planets had stayed in their orbits; once a week, before Sunday dinner, his mother had served the family one Martini; a really well-mannered girl didn't swear; and people — one's own kind, that is — were always nice and considerate and well- bred. Life revolved smoothly about certain fixed and astral values and intangibles; things like character and family and the Episcopal Church, things whose sanctity it would be insane even to question. And when he joined the Navy, Keith had added another: the Navy. Now, suddenly, these untouchables were not only handled, they were mauled; they were assaulted continually. When a thing like that happens, when the roots of a man's faith are torn out and examined, he can do one of two things; he can bind them to himself all the more fiercely, or he can let them go. For a few days Ensign Keith was very quiet, and it wasn't clear which course he would take. Then, consciously or not, he seemed to make a decision.

  The first time Keith stood a watch, it became clear which way he would go. It was Dowdy, the boatswain's mate, who brought this to light. Dowdy was over on the beach one day, ostensibly on ship's business. Actually he had another purpose. He had heard of a Seabee who would part with beer for a price. This Seabee wanted, and got, two dollars a bottle, and Dowdy bought six bottles which he concealed delicately in the only cardboard box available, one which bore the startling label "Kotex". Dowdy wondered for a while where the hell that box came from and then, on the way back to the ship, he quit thinking about the box and began thinking of the beer. It had been four months since he had had beer, and he thought with almost unbearable affection of his cargo. When he got back aboard, he knew exactly what he would do: he would get a bucket, fill it with ice from the galley, lock himself in the boatswain's locker and wait for the beer to cool, and then drink it all, every lovely bottle. Maybe he would give one bottle to his friend Olson, the first-class gunner's mate. He considered this as he trudged up the gangway.

  As he stepped aboard, he threw the usual perfunctory salute to the colors and started aft. He noticed, more or less in passing, the officer-of-the-deck—it was that new kid, what was his name? —but he didn't bother saluting. Dowdy was pretty much of a personage on the ship, and all the officers either respected him or left him alone. He had gotten perhaps ten feet when he heard someone call: "Where do you think you're going?" and he turned around and saw this boot ensign standing there, giving him the dirtiest kind of look. Dowdy was all set to put the kid in his place, but before he could say a word, Ensign Keith shot a question that absolutely floored him: "How long have you been in the Navy?"

  We
ll, Dowdy had eleven years in, and to hear this question from the mouth of a brand-new ensign was too much. Dowdy was too flabbergasted to speak. He just stood there and his mouth worked like a fish and no sound came out.

  "When you come aboard you salute the officer-of- the-deck," Ensign Keith explained acidly. "Now go back and come aboard properly!"

  It was a moment before Dowdy could even move. Then in a kind of idiotic sleepwalk he went back and came aboard properly: he saluted Ensign Keith.

  "That's better," said Ensign Keith bitingly. "Watch it after this." He looked Dowdy up and down coldly. He noticed the box under Dowdy's arm. "What's that?" he asked suspiciously.

  Dowdy stared stupidly at the box, as though seeing it for the first time. He got his voice back now, but his thinking remained stalled. "That's Kotex," he said. "They use it down in sick-bay." It wasn't a very likely story.

  "Let me see," said Ensign Keith. And Dowdy's will was so paralyzed that he handed him the priceless box, a thing he never would have done in his right mind.

  Ensign Keith tore open the box. Then his eyes went wide and his voice got shrill. "Beer!" he shouted. "Beer! Bringing liquor on board a Navy ship! Don't you know that's a general court-martial offense? How long have you been in the Navy anyhow?" And before Dowdy's helpless, pleading, agonized eyes he flung the box over the side. The gift of movement returned to Dowdy then, and he rushed to the rail just in time to witness a scene of incredible waste: six bottles of irreplaceable beer sinking in eight fathoms of water. The sight brought tears to his eyes. For a brief, burning moment of insanity, he thought of strangling Ensign Keith; but his will for even that pleasurable task was gone before he could act. A broken man, Dowdy stumbled off to the compartment. It would take him hours and maybe days to figure out what had hit him. A boot ensign! Dowdy felt like crying.

  Young Keith's reputation was made right there. From the obscure "new ensign" he was transformed overnight into the best-known officer on the ship. News of the gangway incident spread like a kerosene fire: let alone, it would certainly have attained a fabulous legendary character; it was the most startling thing to happen in months. But Ensign Keith didn't let it stand alone; he added to it. He added to it the very next morning when he put the messenger on report for sneaking below to smoke without his permission. He added to it that same afternoon when he put two men on report for appearing on deck without their shirts — a foolish requirement of the Captain's which no one had ever attempted to enforce. Every day and every way he added to it. At sea, standing junior O.O.D. watches, he insisted that the gun crews stay on their feet; and two more men went on report for sitting on a ready box. Dolan, the second-class quartermaster, talked back to him and made the report list. Steuben, the yeoman, made it by appearing two minutes late to relieve the watch. The report list was no longer an exclusive thing. Twelve cases appeared before Captain's mast one Saturday, and for ten of them Ensign James L. Keith was the complaining witness. He was hell on wheels. He seemed to be trying, singlehanded, to atone for the laxity of the rest of the ship. In port, on his watch, he required every man who approached the quarterdeck to salute him and state his business. He banished all reading matter from the gangway desk. He demanded that his messengers stand their watches in immaculate dungarees. He seemed to be trying, singlehanded, to restore the ship to the Navy, from whence it had strayed.

  One morning in port on the four-to-eight watch he decided that the crew wasn't turning out for reveille. He was very right. Chief Johnson made reveille at six- thirty and at a quarter of seven Ensign Keith went down in the compartment and found it loaded with sleeping bodies. He summoned his most resolute voice and addressed the bodies: "All right! Get up here! Get out of those sacks. Every man who's not out of here in five minutes goes on report!" Not a sound.-Not a movement. Here and there an eyelid cracked ever so slightly to peer at the intruder; that was all. Suddenly from the far, after corner of the compartment a clear, unstuttering voice sounded: "Get out of here, you son- of-a-bitch. I'm warning you!" Dowdy lived in that corner, but the voice could have been anyone's. Ensign Keith jumped. "Who said that?" he demanded weakly. Silence. Heavy breathing. Not a movement. Ensign Keith repeated his previous threat: "I'll be back here in five minutes. Everyone who's not out goes on report." It didn't sound at all convincing. He didn't come back either.

  A wise man would have profited from that experience, and perhaps it left a mark on young Ensign

  Keith; but nothing that was immediately apparent, He went on much as before, only he didn't try to make a personal reveille again. The report list stayed as long as ever. He gave the crew a thoroughly bad time. If he were embarked upon a deliberate program of self- destruction, he could not have chosen a more likely means to achieve his end. He became the object and the focus and the intention of a quite terrifying pitch of hatred. He had strayed onto an area which few of the officers ever violated, a buffer area of good feeling between officers and men constructed painstakingly of mutual tolerance, compromise, and tacit understanding. The officers left the men alone and the men did the same: that way both were free to concentrate upon the Captain. Ensign Keith not only trespassed on that area, he stomped all over it. In a very short time the feeling against him competed favorably with that against the Captain, and it wasn't long until the Captain was completely outstripped and relegated to the role of second-rate enemy. Considering Ensign Keith, one man, Ludlow, a first division coxswain, was even moved to speak these treasonous words: "You know the Old Man ain't so bad." He was hushed up before any real damage could be done, but the fact remained that young Keith put the Captain in a very favorable light. The compartment at night buzzed with talk of the new ensign, and in the dark corners little sinister groups would gather and plot and threaten and scheme. A quite wise man, Dowdy, listened to this talk and gauged it, and when he became convinced of its serious intent, he went to his friend, Lieutenant Roberts: "Mr. Roberts," he said, "if he doesn't knock it off, that new ensign is going to wake up some day with a marlinspike through his skull. Can you pound some sense in his head? The boys down there are really getting to feel mean." Roberts promised to talk with Ensign Keith.

  The talk wasn't very successful. Roberts found Keith alone in his room and in a very nice, tactful way tried to explain a few things. He was very decent about it. He pointed out that, for such a ship, Keith was being unnecessarily regulation. He pointed out that Keith was making a great many enemies, and that, in a small, interdependent community like this it wasn't a good idea to have too many enemies. Then he asked Keith very politely if he didn't think he could ease up just a little.

  Ensign Keith listened with the respect due his senior officer, then he answered formally: "I appreciate your interest, sir, but I feel that I'm just doing my duty. The regulations which I'm trying to enforce were made by the fathers of our Navy and they've lasted a long time. I feel that there must be a reason for them and, as a naval officer; it's a matter of conscience with me to see that they're obeyed. After all," he finished loftily, "a man's first duty is to his conscience."

  You really couldn't argue with such moral superiority, but Roberts did his best. "Yes," he said, "I don't doubt that they're excellent regulations on a combatant ship. But on a ship like this they're just not very practical. On this ship you have to depend on co-operation to a great extent. There's a good bunch on here, and I think you'll find that, if you just give them a break, treat them decently, don't push them around, they'll do anything you ask. Why don't you give it a try?"

  Ensign Keith regarded him coldly. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, "but I don't believe in fraternization. I believe," he said with finality, "that familiarity breeds contempt."

  That was the failure of mediation, and Ensign Keith continued on his implacable way. It seemed then that there was no solution short of the marlin- spike. His case looked hopeless, and it looked black. The mutterings grew louder and bolder in the dark corners of the compartment. His life expectancy dropped lower and lower, and just when it seemed nil, a so
lution came to pass of such aptness, happiness, and general satisfaction that Ensign Keith was completely forgiven his transgressions and restored in full standing to the community of good-will, from which he never strayed again. It happened one night at sea.

  Under way, young Keith stood junior O.O.D. watches under Ed Pauley. The J.O.O.D. was the battery officer and he was also, nominally, the security officer. He was presumed, at least once a watch, to make the rounds of the ship and determine that everything was safe, peaceful, and reasonably quiet. The other J.O.O.D.'s frequently left the bridge on security patrol, but the only place they ever visited was the wardroom, where they investigated the quality of the coffee. Ensign Keith examined every corner of the ship. On this night he was standing the eight-to- twelve watch with Pauley. It was perhaps ten o'clock when he left the bridge to make the rounds. He went through the compartment, through the galley and the mess hall, around past the refrigeration spaces and the storerooms and the offices, down into the 'tween-decks spaces along the starboard side and back again on the port side, past more storerooms and the barber shop and the armory. At the armory he stopped. A crack of light was showing under the door, and inside he could hear voices and a rattling sound. There was a funny smell, too. Ensign Keith pushed the door open.

  A startled group looked up at him from the deck. Dowdy was there, and Olson, and Dolan, and Vanessi, the storekeeper, and Stefanowski, the machinist's mate, and over in the corner by the rifle racks, holding a glass in one hand and with the other trying to force a record onto the turntable of the portable phonograph was Schaffer, another gunner's mate. The air in the armory was thick with smoke and this other smell. On the deck beside Olson was a large pewter crock from the galley, and the men had glasses beside them. The group on the deck was huddled kneeling before the after bulkhead, and Dowdy had just thrown a pair of dice against the bulkhead. Each man had a pile of bills beside him, and in the middle of the cleared space there were other piles.