Willie enjoyed and applauded the spectacle with no thought of its fatality. Under a garish pink-and-blue sunset, the bom-bardment was taking on the air of Mardi Gras. The green islands were blazing in wide red splotches now. Pretty crimson dotted lines of tracer bullets laced across the purple waters; the gouts of flame at the big guns' muzzles grew brighter and yellower in the twilight, and concussions regularly shook the atmosphere, while the smell of powder hung everywhere, strangely mingled, in the puffs of the breeze, with the spicy sweetness of crushed and burning tropic foliage. Willie leaned on the bulwark of the flying bridge, his life jacket dumped at his feet, his helmet pushed back from his damp forehead; and he smoked, and whistled Cole Porter tunes, and occasionally yawned, a tired but thoroughly entertained spectator.
This cold-bloodedness, worthy of a horseman of Genghis Khan, was quite strange in a pleasant little fellow like Ensign Keith. Militarily, of course, it was an asset beyond price. Like most of the naval executioners at Kwajalein, he seemed to regard the enemy as a species of animal pest. From the grim and desperate taciturnity with which the Japanese died, they seemed on their side to believe they were contending with an invasion of large armed ants. This obliviousness on both sides to the fact that the opponents were human beings may perhaps be cited as the key to the many massacres of the Pacific war. The Kwajalein invasion, the first of these, was a grand classic of sea warfare, a lesson for the generations. There has never been a more wisely conceived and surgically executed opera-tion. As a young man's first taste of war, however, it was too rich, too easy, too fancy, too perfect.
Whittaker poked his head over the top of the ladder to the flying bridge, and said, "Chadan, Mistuh Keith." Stars were already winking in the sky. Willie went below, and fell to with the other officers on an excellent steak dinner. When the table was cleared, Willie, Keefer, Maryk, and Harding remained around the green baize, drinking coffee.
"Well," said Keefer to Maryk, lighting a cigarette, "what did you think of the performance of Old Yellowstain today?"
"Knock it off, Tom."
"That was something, wasn't it, turning tail before we ever got to the line of departure and leaving those poor slobs in the LVT's to navigate for themselves?"
"Tom, you weren't even on the bridge," said the executive officer shortly. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I was on the flying bridge, Steve, old boy, seeing and hear-ing everything."
"We dropped a marker. They knew just where they were-"
"We dropped when the cutoff bearing was out almost twenty degrees-"
"Ten degrees. The captain read fifty-four, not sixty-four-"
"Oh, you believed that?"
"-and our advance while turning carried us another six or seven hundred yards. The dye marker was probably right on." Keefer turned on Willie suddenly. "What do you say? Did we funk off like a scared rabbit or didn't we?"
Willie hesitated for several seconds. "Well, I wasn't on the alidade. Urban could easily have read the bearing wrong."
"Willie, you had the deck all day. Did you ever see Captain Queeg on the side of the bridge that was exposed to the beach?"
The question startled Willie, and in a shocking flash he real-ized that he never had. The shuttlings and disappearances of the commanding officer during the day had puzzled him ex-tremely, especially since it had been Queeg's custom in previous maneuvers to stay fixed in the wheelhouse, where he could hear the TBS and watch the helmsman. But the novelist's suggestion was monstrous. Willie stared at Keefer and could not speak.
"Well, what's the matter, Willie? Did you or didn't you?" Maryk said angrily, "Tom, that's the goddamnedest remark I've ever heard."
"Let Willie answer, Steve."
"Tom, I-I was pretty busy trying to keep myself straight-ened out. I wasn't worrying about the captain. I don't know-"
"You do and you're lying, like an honorable little Princeton boy," said the novelist. "Okay. Take a bow for trying to protect the honor of the Caine and the Navy." He got up and carried his cup and saucer to the Silex. "That's all very well, but we're responsible for the safety of this ship, not to mention our own necks, and it's not wise to be anything but realistic." He poured fresh coffee, light brown and steaming, into his cup. "There is a new fact that all of us have got to live with, and let's face it, lads. Queeg is a poltroon."
The door opened, and Queeg came in. He was freshly shaved, still were his helmet, and carried his life jacket under his arm. "I'll have a cup of the same, Tom, if you don't mind."
"Certainly, Captain."
Queeg sat in the chair at the head of the table, dropped his life jacket on the deck, and began rubbing the steel balls in his left hand. He crossed his legs and danced the upper one, so that his whole slumping body bobbed rhythmically. He stared straight ahead, with a peevish, pouting look. There were heavy green shadows under his eyes, and deep lines around his mouth. Keefer put three spoons of sugar in a cup of coffee and set it before the captain.
"Thanks. Hm. Fresh, for once." These were the last words spoken in the wardroom for ten minutes. Queeg glanced swiftly at the officers from time to time and returned his eyes to his coffee cup. At last, draining the last mouthful, he cleared his throat and said, "Well, Willie, as long as you don't seem to be doing much of anything, how about letting me see some decodes, here? There are about twenty-seven numbers I'm still waiting for."
"I'll get on it right away, sir." The ensign opened the safe and languidly brought out the code devices.
"Tom," said the captain, staring into his empty cup, "my records show that Ducely's twelfth officers' qualification as-signment is due today. Where is it?"
"Sir, we've been at battle stations since three o'clock this morning-"
"We're not at GQ now and haven't been for two hours."
"Ducely's entitled to eat, and clean himself, and rest, sir-"
"Rest is something you do when your duties are fulfilled. I want that assignment on my desk tonight before Ducely turns in, and you're not to turn in, either, until you receive it from him and correct it. Is that clear?"
"Aye aye, sir."
"And watch those smart-alecky tones a little bit, Mr. Keefer," the captain added, rising, his eyes on the wall. "Fit-ness reports include such things as willingness and subordina-tion." He went out of the wardroom.
"Think he heard?" Willie whispered.
"No, don't worry," Keefer said in a normal tone. "That was sullen face number two. Ordinary fatigue plus maybe an ulcer twinge or two."
"You better watch your goddamn tongue," Maryk said.
The novelist laughed. "You can't say he isn't on the ball. Invasion or no invasion, Ducely does his assignment. You never saw a more fearless wielder of a check list than Old Yellow-stain-"
Maryk rose and walked to the door, setting a frayed overseas cap on his head. "All right," he said, in a dry voice. "Mr. Keefer, the name of the commanding officer of this ship is Captain Queeg. I'm his executive officer. I don't want any more of this name-calling in my presence, do you hear? None of this Old Yellowstain or anything but plain Captain Queeg."
"Turn me in, Mister Maryk," said Keefer, opening his eyes wide so that the whites glittered. "Tell Queeg what I think of him. Let him court-martial me for insubordination."
Maryk uttered a brief obscenity and went out.
"Well, I guess I'll hunt up poor Ducely," Keefer said, "and screw that assignment out of him."
Harding said, "My audit of the ship's service accounts is due." He tossed aside a magazine and yawned. "Guess I'd bet-ter do it before I turn in. Last month he sent for me at one o'clock in the morning and asked for it."
"Brilliant administrator, our captain," Keefer said as he went out.
Harding and Keith looked at each other with identical ex-pressions of wry, worried amusement. Harding scratched his head. "Willie," he said softly, "did the captain keep dodging to the covered side of the bridge?" His tone appealed to the brotherhood of three months in the clip shack, of two gree
n ensigns sick together at the top of a mast.
"Harding, I'm not sure," answered Willie, in a tone invol-untarily hushed. "It seems to me I saw a lot less of him than usual. But-hell, you know how Keefer hates the captain." He dropped his eyes to the code machine.
Harding stood. "That's great-great."
"Maybe he's all wrong."
"What happens if this ship gets in a jam?" Harding's lips were tight in vexation and fear. "The purpose of a captain is to get us out of jams, Willie, not to check off due dates on reports and assignments. Christ, this ship's service audit is ludicrous! I'm a graduate CPA. I've done audits for Onondaga Carbide. Christ knows what my boss would say if he saw me in that canteen, counting Oh Henry bars and tubes of tooth-paste!... Well, all that doesn't matter, see? I volunteered for the Navy, and I'm on the Caine, and if it helps the Caine for a professional CPA to audit the nickel-and-dime ship's service, why, I'll audit it. But in return the Navy's supposed to give me a ship that goes, and a captain that fights- That's what all this muck is for, isn't it?"
"Look, it's an old story by now. We're stuck with a lemon. Misfortune of war. We could be in a Jap prison camp. We've got to see it through, that's all-"
"Willie, you're a good guy," Harding said, getting up, "but you're not a married man. We're different animals. I'm scared for five people, me, my wife, and three kids. One kid in par-ticular. A six-year-old boy with a very nice smile. Remind me to show you his picture sometime."
Harding hurried up the passageway and disappeared behind the green curtains of his stateroom.
21
Death and Ice Cream
At dawn next day another entertainment was staged for En-sign Keith by the Northern Attack Force.
The whining bangs of the general alarm brought him, half dressed, scampering up to the bridge, in a misty blue twilight torn by zigzags and parabolas and bursts of red-and-orange fire. The crash of big guns made his ears ring. He hastily chewed up two of the sheets of toilet paper he kept tucked in his life jacket for this purpose, and thrust the wet wads in his ears. At once the explosions dimmed to comfortable thuds. This was his own invention, devised when cotton had once run short during a gunnery exercise.
The Caine's three-inch pop guns had no part to play in the barrage. Queeg kept the crew at battle stations until the sun rose, and then dismissed them. Willie remained on the bridge to enjoy the thumping, blazing show. At half-past eight a long arc of assault boats crept across the quiet waters toward Roi--Namur, main northern fortress of the atoll. The islands were no longer green at all, but sandy gray, spotted here and there with black. Little fires flickered on them, pale in the white sunlight. The foliage had all burned or withered away, leaving splintered, crisscrossed tangles of tree trunks, through which could be seen ruins of squat buildings, and some empty broken walls. Willie watched through binoculars the arrival of the as-sault boats on the beaches, the swarming forward of the tanks and the marines, the unexpected puffs of white and orange from the inner gray wastes of the islands. He saw some marines fall. The sight was thrilling and a little saddening, like seeing a fighter knocked out.
He turned on the special short-wave radio, the JBD 640, and eavesdropped eagerly on the talk of the embattled men in the tanks ashore. He was surprised to notice that they had dropped the phrases of Navy communications. They spoke to each other, and to the ships trying to protect them with gunfire, in short, angry, vicious sentences. They used fearful obscenity. There was a half-comic contrast between the formal, apolo-getic tones of the men on the ships and the bitter heat of the men on shore. It was such an interesting novelty that Willie listened for almost two hours. He had the thrill of hearing one man die in the middle of an incredibly foul stream of cursing. At least he surmised the death, because the man was pleading for naval shelling to eliminate a blockhouse that was spraying him with machine-gun fire; and suddenly his words were cut off. Willie had a vague shameful sense that he was storing up anecdotes for future parlor chats while other men were per-ishing, and that such behavior showed a want of feeling. But he didn't turn off the radio.
However, he was troubled at lunch, at one particular in-stant. He was pouring thick chocolate sauce over his ice cream when a shocking explosion, more violent than any he had heard so far, made the silverware and glasses rattle; it felt palpable in the air against his face. He jumped up, with Keefer and Jorgensen, and ran to the starboard scuttle. Jorgensen yanked the tin wind scoop out of the opening, and the officers peered through. A colossal black cloud was climbing skyward over Namur. Long, ugly vermilion flames licked out of its boiling base. "Main ammunition dump, no doubt," observed Keefer.
"I hope it blew a few thousand Japs to kingdom come," said Ensign Jorgensen, adjusting his glasses.
"I doubt that it did." Keefer returned to his seat. "They're all in nice deep holes, what's left of 'em. Some of our guys went up with it, though, that's for sure."
Willie stared at the holocaust for a minute or so, while a warm fragrant breeze fanned his face, and Ensign Jorgensen breathed on his neck, audibly chewing meat. Then Willie sat at his place again, and dug his spoon into the mound of white cream attractively laced with brown. It occurred to him that there was an unsettling contrast between himself, eating ice cream, and marines on Namur a few thousand yards away, being blown up. He was not sufficiently unsettled to stop eating the ice cream, but the thought worked around like grit in his mind. At last he spoke it aloud.
The other officers gave him vexed looks. None of them stopped eating their desserts. But Ducely, who was in the habit of dousing his plate with chocolate sauce in quantities that sickened the others, paused in the act of reaching for the sauce; then he poured only a thin spiral of brown on his ice cream, and put the pitcher down furtively.
Keefer, pushing back his clean-scraped plate, said, "Willie, don't be an ass. War is a business in which a lot of people watch a few people get killed and are damn glad it wasn't them." He lit a cigarette. "Tomorrow they may have us sweep-ing mines in the lagoon. The islands will probably be secured. A lot of marines sitting around on their duffs on the beach, eating lunch, may see us all blown sky-high. None of them will skip a bite."
"At least they'll be eating K-rations, not ice cream with sauce," said Willie. "It's so-so luxurious, somehow."
"Look, nobody will court-martial you if you don't eat your ice cream," said Keefer.
"We ferried a bunch of marines along the coast one night at Guadal," said Maryk, spooning up his dessert. "Calm night, but they all got sick as dogs. This marine captain was laying over on that couch. He says, `I sure as hell don't like Guadal-canal, but I'd rather stay on it a year than on this bucket a week.' He said he'd jump ship if he heard we were going to sweep mines. He says, `Of all the lousy deals I know of in this war, sweeping mines is the worst. I don't know how you guys can sleep nights just knowing you're on a minesweeper.' "
"Can this ship really sweep mines?" said Ducely. "It seems so unbelievable, really-"
"You just handed in an assignment," said Keefer, "explaining in seven pages exactly how we do it."
"Oh, that. You know I copied it straight out of the Mine-sweeping Manual. I don't even know what the words mean. What is that paravane thing they keep talking about?"
"Mr. Keith," said Maryk, with a small groan, "take your assistant by the hand, right after lunch, and show him a goddamn paravane."
"Aye aye, sir," said Willie, and he squinted over his ciga-rette like an old sea dog.
The table was still being cleared when a radioman brought Willie an action message. He broke it in a hurry. The Caine was ordered to proceed to Funafuti Atoll next day, escorting an LST group. Funafuti was far south, well clear of the battle zone. Willie was regretful at the thought of leaving the attack force.
He stopped at the rail outside the captain's cabin to see the sights, but the show had tamed down. Sporadic fire-support shelling was still going on, but the mass barrages were over. The fleet in the lagoon was losing its warlike air. Naked sailors we
re diving off some of the anchored ships, splashing merrily in water which was no longer blue, but yellow-brown and full of garbage. Other ships were airing bedding in ragged white patches along the life lines.
"Funafuti, hey?" The captain, at his desk, was eating ice cream out of a soup plate with one hand, and fitting pieces into a jigsaw puzzle with the other. "Kay. Tell Maryk to come up here. And tell Whittaker to send me up another big plate of ice cream, and some coffee-"
A knock sounded at the door, the tentative rap of an en-listed man. It was the radioman, Smith, grinning in apologetic fright. "Beg pardon, Captain. They told me Mr. Keith was here- Big day, Mr. Keith. Another action message-"
Queeg said, "Give it here." The radioman placed the des-patch on the captain's desk and backed out hastily. Queeg glanced at the heading, half started out of his chair, then leaned back, and said very calmly, "What do you know! Bu-reau of Personnel. Orders for somebody, no doubt-"
Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny Page 34
