Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny

by The Caine Mutiny(Lit)

  "I finally stopped trying to persuade that criminal lunatic to let me off the hook," Keefer said between grunts, hauling armfuls of books out of the safe, "because I realized that he would never give up the luxury of those revolting interviews where he had me begging him for something. He would hold me on as custodian of the Caine if I rose to admiral, so long as he was an admiral one number higher than me. The man's a classic psychotic. A full-dress analysis of him would super-sede all the studies of the Jukes and the Kallikaks." He went on in this vein for several hours. Willie threw in some sympathetic remarks, to hide the fact that he was meanly amused.

  Next morning Keefer brought the inventory to the captain's cabin, and handed it to Queeg with a shamefaced smile. "Per-mission to use the gig to visit the Montauk, Captain?"

  "Permission granted. Thank you, Tom," said the captain, flipping the pages of the report. "Enjoy yourself."

  "Willie Keith would like to come along, sir."

  Queeg frowned. "Why doesn't he ask permission himself?... Well, I'm just as glad not to have to look at his stupid face. He can pick up some of these AlPacs and AlComs that he's always behind on, while he's at it."

  When Keefer came out on the well deck Willie was waiting for him, looking drooped despite fresh khakis and a gleaming shoeshine. "Tom, the carriers are under way-"

  "Oh, Christ, no-"

  "A couple of them are in the channel already. Montauk's chain is straight up and down."

  "Let's see." The novelist ran up the bridge ladder. He stood by the bulwark, staring grimly northward. Four carriers were steaming toward the Caine.

  Willie said, "Maybe they're just going to the south anchor-age." Keefer did not answer.

  Towering high over their heads, the leading carrier drew abreast of the Caine, a moving mountain of gray-painted iron, no more than a hundred yards away. The minesweeper rocked in the wash. "Let's go up on the flying bridge," Keefer said.

  It was only eight o'clock, but the sun was already hot on the unprotected flying bridge. Keefer squinted at the carriers, seven of them now, moving slowly over the glittering water. The Montauk was sixth in line. Down-channel, the leading carrier swung ponderously to port and headed out toward the open sea. "Wrong way for the south anchorage," Keefer said bit-terly.

  "They didn't stay long," Willie said. He felt apologetic, as though in some way Keefer's disappointment was his fault. The two officers watched the vast procession for a while in silence.

  "This must be the Philippines," Keefer said, gnawing at his lower lip. "Preliminary strike. Or maybe they're rendezvousing with the transports. This is it, Willie. The push."

  "Well, Tom, I'm just as glad to stay here and tow targets. I'm like Roosevelt. I hate war."

  Two more carriers went slowly past. The Caine rolled and pitched, straining at its anchor chain. "All I've ever wanted since this war began," murmured the novelist, looking up at the airplanes clustered on the stern of the Arnold Bay, "is to serve on a carrier." Another carrier slipped by, and another.

  "I think I see him," said Willie. "Look there, in that gun tub, the twin-forty on the hangar deck, just aft of the hawse. There, that's him. He's waving a megaphone."

  Keefer nodded. He pulled a green megaphone from a bracket in the bulwark, and flourished it over his head. As the Montauk approached, Willie had a clear look at Roland Keefer through binoculars. His old roommate, wearing a purple base-ball cap, had the same good-humored grin, but his face was much leaner. He resembled his brother more. It might almost have been the novelist in the gun tub.

  Roland bawled something through his megaphone, but it was muffed by the sucking, washing noises of the water be-tween the ships. "Repeat-repeat," yelled Keefer. He put the megaphone to his ear. Roland was now directly opposite, about twenty feet above them, recognizable without binoculars. As he slipped past he shouted again. A few words came across, "... luck... next time for sure... Shinola... 'By, Tom..."

  The novelist roared, "Good luck, Roland. You'll tell me all about the war next time."

  They could see Roland laugh and nod. He was far ahead of them in a moment. He called back once more, but nothing was distinguishable except the word "... brother..."

  Willie and Keefer stood watching the purple dot of the base-ball cap as the Montauk swung into Mugai Channel, increased speed, and headed out to sea.

  The people in the United States knew more about the great Battle of Leyte Gulf when it happened than the sailors who fought it, and much more, of course, than the men of the Caine becalmed in Ulithi. On the old minesweeper the develop-ment of the battle trickled through slowly in terse coded des-patches, mostly damage reports, fogged with unfamiliar names-Surigao, San Bernardino, Samar. Willie was decoding one of these on the morning of October 26, when he struck the name Montauk. He worked on for a while, his face grave, and then brought the unfinished message to Keefer's room. The novelist sat at his cluttered desk, striking out a paragraph on a yellow manuscript sheet with thick red crayon lines. "Hi, Willie. How's our side doing?"

  Willie handed him the message. Keefer said quickly, "Mon-tauk?"

  "Fourth paragraph."

  The gunnery officer shook his head over the message, and glanced up at Willie with sickly embarrassment. He handed back the despatch, shrugged, and laughed a little. "My brother, being the lucky clown he is, came through okay, don't worry, Willie. Probably earned himself a Congressional Medal of Honor. He's indestructible."

  "I hope he's all right-"

  "Did he ever tell you about the auto accident he was in, in prep school, when four kids got killed and he came out with a sprained ankle? People run to patterns. He has a lucky life."

  "Well, Tom, we ought to know for sure in a couple of days. They'll be in here-"

  "A suicide plane, Christ, they really bought it-" Willie said, "How's your novel coming?"

  The gunnery officer laid his hand protectingly on the manu-script. "So-so. Old Yellowstain has really slowed the progress of American literature. I've done less in a year than in two months under De Vriess."

  "When do I get to read some of it?"

  "Pretty soon," said Keefer vaguely, as he had said a dozen times before.

  Two days later, toward evening, Keefer was drinking coffee in the wardroom, when the phone buzzed. "This is Willie, Tom. I'm on the bridge. Montauk is standing in."

  "Coming right up. How does she look?"

  "Banged up."

  Keefer came to the bridge with a despatch blank initialed by Queeg. "Get one of your boys to send this, Willie. It's okay."

  Engstrand flashed the Montauk as it turned into the anchor-age. The signal light on the carrier's buckled, blackened bridge gleamed in reply: Boat will come to Caine when we anchor. Keefer spelled the Morse aloud. He turned to Willie and said irritably, "What the hell kind of answer is that?"

  "Tom, they're all fouled up over there. Don't worry-"

  "I'm not worried. It's just a damn lamebrained answer." When they saw a motor whaleboat put out from the carrier and head toward their berth the officers went down to the main deck and stood by the sea ladder. "There he is, in the stern sheets," said Keefer, looking at the boat through glasses. "Lost his admiral's cap, that's all." He handed Willie the binoculars. "That's him, isn't it?"

  Willie answered, "Sure looks like him, Tom." The officer in the boat did not resemble Roland at all. He was slight and slope-shouldered, and Willie thought he had a mustache.

  In a minute or so Keefer said, "That isn't Roland." Harding, the OOD, joined them. The three officers stood in silence as the Montauk's boat drew alongside. A young, scared-looking en-sign with a blond mustache and thin childish lips came up the ladder. His left hand was wrapped in a heavy bandage stained yellow. He introduced himself as Ensign Whitely. "What's the story on my brother?" said the novelist.

  "Oh. You're Lieutenant Keefer?" said the ensign. "Well, sir." He looked at the others, and back at Keefer. "Sir, I'm sorry to be the one who tells you. Your brother died of burns yesterday. We buried him at sea.
"

  Keefer nodded, his face calm and apparently half smiling. "Come on below, Mr. Whitely, and tell us about it. Keith here is an old friend of Rollo's."

  In the wardroom he insisted on pouring the coffee for all three of them, though Willie tried to take the pot from him.

  "Well, I'll tell you this, Mr. Keefer, your brother saved the, Montauk," Whitely began, after a nervous gulp of half the cup of coffee. "He'll get the Navy Cross. His name's already gone in. I realize that doesn't mean much-I mean, to you and your family, compared to-but anyway, it's a sure thing, and he deserved it-"

  "It'll mean a very great deal to my dad," said Keefer in a tired tone. "What happened?"

  Ensign Whitely began to tell of the surprise encounter of Admiral Sprague's escort-carrier force with the main battle line of the Japanese Navy off Samar, in a chaos of rain squalls and smoke screens. His picture of the action was fragmentary and confused. He became more coherent in describing the damage to the Montauk.

  "The shells started the fires aft. It was bad because secondary conn was knocked out and the exec got it, and ordinarily he took charge at the scene of a fire-at drills, you know. Damn good guy. Commander Greeves. Well, anyway, Roland was damage-control officer and he took over. A lot of av-gas went up on the hangar deck so it made things bad, but Roland got the torpedoes and ammo jettisoned. He kept his head real good and had the fire-fighting parties going strong, see. And it looked as though we were okay. He had the fire pretty well cornered on the port side amidships, mostly on the hangar deck. And then this goddamn suicide just came flying through the smoke screen and the rain and smashed into the bridge. Must have been carrying a torpedo because this time all hell really broke loose. Terrific explosion, fire everywhere you looked, big roaring red flame all over the flight deck, and the ship took a list to starboard. Nobody could raise the bridge on the phones and it was a cinch the old man had got it, and it was nothing but confusion and guys running every which way like ants and some of them jumping overboard. I had a damage-control party on the port side, that's why I'm alive. Mostly the starboard side got it. Well, the loudspeaker system had failed, too, power connections all torn out around the bridge. The ship was steaming around in a crazy circle, making flank speed, and destroyers dodging out of our way-and all this goddamn fire and smoke, and the gas attack alarm started screaming, too, for no bloody reason, and nobody could shut it off-Christ-

  "Well, Roland really took over. There was a gasoline genera-tor for stand-by communications power on the hangar deck port side. First thing, he cut that in and started directing the fire fighting over the loudspeakers. He got 'em to flood the magazines and turn on all the sprinklers and carbon-tet systems and all that, then the steering engine room got through to him on sound power phones and told him they weren't getting any steering orders, so Roland started conning the ship, too, over the loudspeaker, running out on the catwalk to see what was doing up ahead.

  "Well, some big goddamn flaming wreckage came tumbling down from the flight deck all over him out on the catwalk--I don't know what it was, nobody does. He was pinned under it. They dragged him free and dumped the junk off the catwalk, and he was in bad shape. But he kept on with the fire fighting and conning. A couple of sailors holding him up and greasing him and bandaging him and giving him morphine-

  "Well, about that time the air officer, Lieutenant Com-mander Volk, he came crawling out of the mess on the bridge, and he was pretty stunned but still in better shape than Roland, and he was senior surviving officer, so he took over the conn, and Roland passed out and they took him down to sick bay. But by that time he had all the guys back to doing every-thing they always did at drills, and of course that's what counts. So as I say, Commander Volk wrote him up for a Navy Cross, and of course he'll get it-"

  "Did you see him after that?" Keefer said. His eyes were reddened.

  "Sure. I was down in sick bay for hours with him. See, I was taking over his department, and he was telling me what to do, talking through a hole in the bandage all over his face. He was weak but still on the ball. Made me read the damage--report despatch to him and told me how to correct it. Doctor said he had a fifty-fifty chance of pulling through. About half his body was third-degree burns. But then he got pneumonia on top of it, and that did it.... He told me to come to see you in case-" Whitely paused, picked up his cap, and fumbled with it. "He was asleep when he died. He went off easy, as far as that goes, with the dope, and all-"

  "Well, thanks, I appreciate your coming." The novelist stood.

  "I-I've got his gear in the boat-there isn't a hell of a lot-" Whitely rose, too. "If you want to look it over-"

  "I think," Keefer said, "you'd better send it all on intact to his mother. She's listed as next of kin, isn't she?"

  Whitely nodded. The novelist put out his hand, and the young officer from the Montauk shook it. He ran a forefinger over his mustache. "I'm sorry, Mr. Keefer, he was a damn good guy-"

  "Thank you, Mr. Whitely. Let me see you to the gangway." Willie sat, elbows on the green baize, staring at the bulkhead, reliving the fire on the Montauk. Keefer returned to the ward-room in a few minutes. "Tom," said Willie, getting up when the door opened, "I know how tough this must be-"

  The novelist grinned with one side of his mouth, and said, "Rollo did pretty well, didn't he, though?"

  "Damn well-"

  "Give me a cigarette. Makes you wonder. Maybe a military-school upbringing has its points, Willie. Could you have done what he did, do you think?"

  "No. I'd have been one of the first guys over the side when the plane hit. Roland was wonderful at midshipmen school, too-just took to it-"

  Keefer dragged noisily at the cigarette. "I don't know what I'd have done. It's decided below the threshold of intelligence, that's for sure. It's instinct. Rollo had good instincts. You never really know till you're tested- Well." He turned and started to walk to his room. "Kind of wish I'd gotten to see him last week-"

  Willie reached out a hand and touched his arm. "I'm sorry, Tom. For Roland, and for you, too."

  The novelist paused. He put a palm over both his eyes and rubbed hard, saying, "We were never really very close, you know. We lived in different cities. But I liked him. We had a chance to get better acquainted at college-I'm afraid I thought he was too dumb. My dad's always preferred Rollo to me. Maybe he knows something." Keefer went into his room, drawing the curtain.

  Willie walked up to the forecastle and paced back and forth for an hour, glancing often across the water at the twisted, sooty hull of the Montauk. A tremendous red sunset flared and died, and a cool breeze flickered over the rippling lagoon. All the while he kept trying to fit the sly, profane, lazy, fat Roland Keefer into the heroic role he had played at Leyte. He could not do it. He noticed the evening star gleaming in the sky over the palm trees of Ulithi, and beside it the merest silver knife edge of a moon. The thought came on him that Roland Keefer wouldn't see such sights any more, and he crouched down beside the ready ammunition box and cried a little.

  Willie came off watch that night at twelve o'clock and tum-bled heavily into bed. He was dozing amid brightening visions of May Wynn when a hand poked his ribs. He groaned, bury-ing his face in the pillow, and said, "You want Ducely. Other bunk. I've just been on watch."

  "I want you," said the voice of Queeg. "Wake up."

  Willie jumped out of bed naked, his nerves prickling. "Yes, Captain-"

  Queeg, shadowy against the dim red light of the passageway, held a Fox sked in his hand. "There's a BuPers despatch for us on this sked. It came in two minutes ago." Mechanically Willie reached for his drawers. "Never mind putting anything on, it isn't cold in the wardroom, let's get this thing broken."

  The leather of the wardroom chair felt clammy on Willie's naked thighs. Queeg stood over him, watching each letter as it emerged from the code machine. The despatch was short: Ensign Alfred Peter Ducely detached. Proceed best available air transportation to BuPers Washington for reassignment. Class four priority.

&nb
sp; "That's all of it?" said the captain in a choked tone.

  "That's it, sir."

  "How long has Ducely been aboard, anyway?"

  "Since January, sir-nine, ten months."

  "Hell, that cuts us down to seven officers-the Bureau is crazy-"

  "We have those two new ones on the way, sir. Farrington and Voles. If they ever catch up with us."

  "Mr. Ducely can damn well wait to be detached until they do. Guess I overdid his fitness report, or something."

  As the captain shuffled to the door, slouching in his ragged bathrobe, Willie said with sleepy malice, "His mother owns a shipyard, sir."

  "Shipyard, hey?" said Queeg, and slammed the door.