"My God," said the little Annapolis man, pulling at his mustache and regarding Willie with awe, "what kind of drag do you have?"
"Keep it quiet," said Willie jauntily. "I am Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., traveling incognito." He strolled off to the fore-castle, the mystified stare of Carmody warming him like champagne.
Willie walked to the stem, where a cool breeze fluttered the blue starry jack. He sat on the deck, leaning against the jack-staff, and gave himself up to thorny analysis of recent scenes. What he had observed aboard the Moulton confused all his ideas about his own ship. In the first place, he had considered De Vriess a tyrant; but compared to Iron Duke Sammis his captain was lazily benevolent. Then, the Moulton was a model of naval order and efficiency, the Caine a wretched Chinese junk by comparison. Yet the smart ship had dropped a para-vane; the rusty tramp had led all the ships in minesweeping performance. How did these facts fit together? Was the loss of the paravane a meaningless accident? Was the Caine's work-ing skill another accident, owing to the presence of the fisher-man Maryk? In the hybrid world of destroyer-minesweepers all rules seemed to be confounded. The words of Tom Keefer came back to him: "The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots," and "Ask yourself, `How would I do this if I were a fool?' " He respected the communi-cator's mind; he had heard Maryk acknowledge its keenness. These maxims must guide him, he decided, until he could piece together his own views and make--
"Ensign Keith, report to the captain's cabin on the double!" the announcement rasped through the loudspeaker, bringing him to his feet. As he ran to the wardroom he rapidly reviewed possible reasons for the summons, and guessed that perhaps Carmody had told the captain about the admiral's barge. He knocked gaily at the captain's door.
"Come in, Keith."
De Vriess, in trousers and undershirt, sat at his desk, glower-ing at a long list of despatch headings, one of which was circled in heavy red crayon. Beside him stood Tom Keefer and the radioman who had brought Willie the forgotten message three days ago. The radioman twisted his white cap in his hands and gave the ensign a frightened look. Keefer shook his head at Willie.
The sight told Willie all. He experienced a longing to vanish or die.
"Willie," said the captain in a level, not unkind tone, "three days ago this ship received a despatch addressed to us for action. I learned this interesting fact for the first time five minutes ago while making a routine check of the headings of all despatches received while we were at sea. I always do that when we come into port. These dull habits sometimes pay off. Now, the radio shack has orders to shoot action despatches to the coding officer the instant they come in. Snuffy Smith here claims he gave the message to you three days ago. Is he lying?"
The radioman blurted, "Sir, I gave it to you on the after deckhouse while they were recovering paravanes. You remem-ber!"
"You did, Smith," said Willie. "I'm sorry, Captain. It's my fault."
"I see. Have you decoded the message?"
"No, sir. I'm sorry, but it-"
"Very well. Smith, lay up to the radio shack and bring Lieutenant Keefer the Fox sked on the double."
"Aye aye, sir." The sailor darted out of the cabin.
The "Fox skeds" were the log sheets on which all despatches sent to Navy ships at sea were copied by the radio operators. These were preserved for several months, then destroyed. Despatches concerning the ship were recopied on separate forms. It was such a retyped form that lay moldering in Willie's khakis in the clip shack.
"The next thing, Tom," said the captain calmly, "is to break that message faster than you've ever done anything in your life."
"I will, sir. I really think there's no great cause for concern. It's routine precedence. Maybe a BuShips modification or-"
"Well, let's see, shall we?"
"Yes, sir." As the communicator walked out he said in low tones of reproach, "Good God, Willie."
Captain de Vriess paced the narrow cabin, taking no notice of Willie. Except that he puffed his cigarette faster than usual, he gave no sign of being disturbed. In a few moments the coding machine began clicking in the wardroom. The captain went out, leaving the door open, and peered over Keefer's shoulder as he whirled through the message, working from the long white Fox schedule. De Vriess took the completed decode from Keefer's hands and scanned it.
"Thank you, Tom." He came into his cabin, closing the door. "Too bad you didn't break it when it came, Mister Keith. It might have interested you. Read it."
He handed the breakdown to Willie. Lieutenant Commander William H. de Vriess USN detached when relieved. Report to BuPers by air transportation for further assignment. Class two priority authorized. Training duty of Lieutenant Commander Philip F. Queeg has been canceled and he is proceeding to relieve at once.
Willie returned the despatch to the captain. "I'm sorry, sir. It's incredible stupidity and carelessness on my part," he said, choking over the words. "I don't know what else to say, sir, except-"
"What happened to the despatch Smith gave you?"
"It's still in the pocket of some dirty khakis. Smith handed me the despatch while Mr. Maryk was swimming for the float. I stuck it in my pocket and-I guess I became interested in the float recovery and forgot all about it...." The words sounded so lame to his own ears that he blushed.
De Vriess leaned his head on his hand for a moment. "Have you any idea, Keith, how serious the mislaying of an action despatch can be?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'm not sure you have." The captain ran his hands through his hanging blond hair. "Conceivably this ship might have failed to carry out a combat assignment-with all that that entails. I hope you realize that for such failure I would have borne sole responsibility at the court-martial."
"I know, sir."
"Well, how does that fact register on you?"
"With a determination never to let it happen again."
"I wonder." The captain picked up a stack of long yellow forms on his desk. "By a coincidence which is perhaps unlucky, I've been filling out the work sheet of your fitness report this morning, together with those of the other officers. I have to submit them to the Bureau when I'm detached."
A tremor and tingle of alarm passed through the ensign.
"How do you suppose this incident ought to affect your fitness report?"
"It's not for me to say, sir. Anybody can make one mis-take-"
"There are mistakes and mistakes. The margin for error is narrow in the Navy, Willie. There's too much life and property and danger involved in every act. You're in the Navy now."
"I realize that, sir."
"Frankly, I don't think you do. What just happened calls for me to give you an unsatisfactory fitness report. It's an unpleasant, dirty thing to do. These sheets lie in the Bureau forever. Everything written on them becomes part of your name. I don't like to wreck a man's naval career, even when he regards it lightly."
"I don't regard it lightly, sir. I've made a bad mistake and I'm desperately sorry. I've made that as clear as words can make it."
"Maybe now is the time to clean up your report," said the captain. He pulled out one of the forms from the batch, picked up a pencil, and started to write.
"May I say one thing more, sir?" Willie put in quickly.
"Certainly." The captain looked up, pencil poised.
"You're writing that report with this incident pretty fresh in your mind. It's bad enough, I know. But I wonder whether twenty-four hours from now your phrasing might not be a little fairer-"
De Vriess smiled in the familiar sarcastic way. "A good point. But I'll look over all the sheets tomorrow anyway before giving them to the yeoman. Perhaps I'll be feeling more charitable then, in which case I'll make the necessary changes."
"I'm not asking for charity, sir."
"Very well." De Vriess wrote several lines in his unex-pectedly neat small hand. He gave the report to Willie. Under-neath General Remarks he had written this:
Ensign Keith seems a bright and apt
young man. He has been aboard less than two weeks. He shows promise of be-coming a competent officer. But he must first overcome a somewhat light and careless approach to his duties.
Above this there was a space in which was printed, I consider this officer: Outstanding-Excellent-Above Average-Average-Unsatisfactory. De Vriess had erased a check beside Excellent and moved it to Above Average.
This was, in Navy usage, a blackball. The fitness report was so dread an instrument that few commanding officers had the bowels to be coldly honest. As a result the average officer was judged "Excellent" on these forms. To call a man "Above Average" was to inform the Bureau that he was a nonentity. Willie knew all this. He had typed dozens of the reports at CincPac. He read the report with rising anger and disturbance. This was damning with faint praise, skillful and malicious, be-yond hope of repair. He returned the sheet to the captain, trying to keep his face blank of emotion. "Is that all, sir?"
"Do you consider that summary unfair?"
"I'd rather not comment, sir. The fitness report is your province-"
"My duty to the Bureau requires as honest an opinion as I can give. That report is by no means unsatisfactory, you know. You can erase it with one good one."
"Thank you very much, sir." Willie was trembling with sup-pressed irritation. He wanted nothing but to leave the cabin at once. He felt De Vriess was detaining him merely to gloat over him. "May I go, sir?"
De Vriess looked at him, his expression mingling wry sad-ness with his habitual mockery. "It's my duty to inform you that if you feel the report is unjust you have the right to attach a letter challenging it."
"I've nothing to add to it, sir."
"All right, Willie. Don't mislay any more action despatches."
"Aye aye, sir." Willie turned and put his hand on the door-knob.
"One moment, please."
"Yes, sir?"
The captain tossed the fitness report on his desk and swiveled his chair back and forth slowly. "I think there's a matter of disciplinary action to be considered."
Willie threw a bitter look from the captain to the yellow form.
"The report, at least to my limited mind, doesn't come un-der that heading," observed De Vriess. "The punitive use of the fitness report negates the value of the system and is strictly forbidden by a SecNav directive."
"That's good to know, sir." Willie considered that a bold ironic thrust, but it made no dent on De Vriess.
"I'm putting you in hack for three days, Willie-the same length of time you held up that message. Perhaps that will drive the feathers out of your head."
"I'm sorry to be ignorant, sir. Exactly what does that in-volve for me?"
"Confinement to your room except for meals and calls of nature- On second thought," added the captain, "confine-ment to the clip shack would be cruel and unusual punishment, no doubt of that. Let's say you're confined to the limits of the ship for three days."
"Aye aye, sir."
"Well, I guess that's all."
As Willie turned to go, a thought penetrated his red haze of anger. He pulled the admiral's invitation from his pocket and silently handed it to De Vriess. The captain pursed his lips. "Well, well. Admiral Reynolds, hey? Pretty good company. How do you know the admiral?"
"I happened to meet him socially, sir."
"Why does he want you at this particular shindig?"
"I'm sure I don't know, sir." But this sounded too surly, so he added, "I play the piano a bit. The admiral seems to enjoy it."
"You do? I didn't know that. I play a sax myself, a little bit, when I'm home. You must be pretty good to get requisitioned by the admiral. Like to hear you play sometime."
"Delighted to oblige, sir, any time at your convenience."
De Vriess regarded the invitation, smiling. "Tonight, hey? Well, far be it from me to dampen the admiral's party. Let's say your confinement begins at 0800 tomorrow. How's that?"
"Whatever you say, sir. I don't want any special treatment."
"Well, we'll leave it at that. Have a good time tonight. Don't drown your sorrows too heavily."
"Thank you, Captain. Is that all?"
"That's all, Willie." He returned the invitation to the ensign, who turned and walked out, closing the door rather hard.
Willie dashed up the ladder and ran to the clipping shack. His course was clear to him now. His position on the Caine was hopeless. The new captain would read the fitness report and mark him once for all as an unreliable fool-not a fool in Keefer's sense, but in the Navy sense. There was only one thing to do: get off this cursed ship and make a fresh start. The penalty for his mistake was paid in the damning fitness report. "I can, and I will, erase that description from my record, so help me God," he swore to himself. "But not on the Caine. Not on the Caine!" He was sure that the admiral would get him transferred. Several times the great man had embraced him after a chorus of Who Hit Annie in the Fanny with a Flounder, and had declared that he would do almost anything to get Willie on his staff permanently. "Just say the word, Willie!" He had been joking; but it was a joke with a core of truth, Willie knew.
He dragged the qualification course from a grimy drawer in the clipping shack. He calculated the number of lessons due by this date. He spent the rest of the morning and the whole afternoon grimly filling out those assignments. After dinner he presented himself in Lieutenant Adams' room, shaved, glossy, and dressed in his last precious set of shore-laundered khakis. "Request permission to leave the ship, sir."
Adams glanced at him sympathetically. His eye moved to the four assignments in Willie's hand, and he smiled. "Granted. Give my love to the admiral." He took the assignments and laid them in his work-basket.
As Willie mounted the ladder to the main deck he met Paynter coming down with both fists full of wrinkled, moldy letters. He said, "Anything for me?"
"I dropped yours in the clip shack. This is all old stuff that chased us around SoPac for a couple of months. Just caught up with us."
Willie went aft. Sailors were milling around the mail orderly on the quarterdeck in the twilight as he shouted names and passed out letters and packages. Four dirty weather-stained canvas sacks of mail were heaped on the deck at his feet.
Harding was lying on his bunk in the gloomy clipping shack. "Nothing for me," he said sleepily. "I wasn't on the Caine mailing list way back then. You sure were."
"Yes, my folks thought I was going straight to the Caine- Willie snapped on the dim light. There were several old crumpled letters from May and his mother, and a few others; also a battered oblong package that looked like a book. His nerves were shocked when he saw his father's handwriting on the package. He tore it open, and found a black-bound Bible with a wrinkled note protruding from it.
Here's the Bible I promised you, Willie. Luckily I found one right here in the hospital bookstore, otherwise I'd have had to send out for it. I guess Bibles go well in hospitals. If my handwriting seems a little cramped it's because I'm sitting up in bed to write this. Everything's proceeding on schedule, I'm afraid. They're operating tomorrow. The surgeon is old Dr. Nostrand, who should know better than to try to kid me. But I appreciate his optimism only too eagerly, all the same.
Well, my son, take a look at Ecclesiastes 9:10, will you? I'll let that stand as my last word to you. Nothing more now, but good-by, and God bless you.
DAD
Willie turned to the Bible passage with shaking hands.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
The words were underlined with wavering ink lines. Beside them Dr. Keith had written in the broad margin: "He's talking about your job on the Caine, Willie. Good luck."
Willie turned out the light, threw himself on his bunk, and buried his face in the sooty pillow. He lay so, motionless, for a long while, heedless of the creasing of his last shore-laundered khakis.
Someone reached in and touched his arm. "Ensign Keith?" He looke
d up. The admiral's marine orderly stood just outside the shack. "Pardon me, sir. The barge is at the gangway for you.
"Thank you," said Willie. He raised up on an elbow, cover-ing his eyes with his hand. "Look, will you please tell the ad-miral- I'm terribly sorry, but I can't come tonight? It seems I have the duty."
"Yes, sir," said the marine in a wondering tone, and de-parted. Willie dropped his face into the pillow again.
The next morning, Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg reported aboard the Caine.
Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny Page 16
