Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny

by The Caine Mutiny(Lit)

  "Damn it all, Steve, a naval officer is supposed to be capable of following simple logic. I have just taken great pains to prove to you that there is no other possible solution." Thereupon the captain repeated the entire chain of reasoning which he had developed in the interview. "Now then, did you follow me that time?"

  "I followed you, sir."

  "Well, thank heaven for small favors. Kay.... Now, here's the next step. Call the crew to quarters. Tell them ev-ery man is to write out a statement describing all his move-ments and whereabouts between the hours of 11 P.M. last night and 3 A.M. this morning, name two men who can substantiate his statement, and swear to the truth of it when he hands it in to you. All statements to be in by 1700 today, and on my desk."

  Urban knocked and came in, carrying a penciled despatch. "Visual from the beach, sir," he said, nervously feeling at his tucked-in shirt. The captain read the despatch and passed it to Maryk. It was orders for the Caine to leave Ulithi that after-noon to escort the Montauk, the Kalamazoo, and two dam-aged destroyers to Guam.

  "Kay," said Queeg. "All departments prepare to get under way. We ought to have some fun on this trip for a change, what with our little detective work to do."

  "Aye aye, sir," Maryk said.

  "At this point, Tom, we can use a little of your silver tongue," said the captain. He was at his desk, the crew's state-ments spread out in disorderly heaps before him. Keefer was leaning with his back to the door. It was nine o'clock of the following morning, and the Caine was steaming smoothly through an oily doldrums calm in the screen of the damaged ships. "Sit down, Tom, sit down. Park yourself on my bunk. Yes, it's breaking wide open, just as I figured," the captain went on. "I'm practically certain I've got my bird. It all adds up. Just the man who'd pull such a stunt, too. Motive, oppor-tunity, method-everything clicks."

  "Who is it, sir?" Keefer perched himself gingerly on the edge of the bunk.

  "Ah hah. That's my little secret, for a while. I want you to make a little announcement. Get on the p.a. system, will you, Tom, and say-putting this in your own words, you know, which is a hell of a lot better than I can do-tell 'em the cap-tain knows who's got a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox. The guilty party gave himself away by his own statement, which is the only one in the whole ship that doesn't check and-well, then say he's got till 1200 to turn himself in to the captain. If he does it'll be a lot easier for him than if I have to make the arrest.... Think you can get all that across?"

  Keefer said dubiously, "I think so, sir. Here's about what I'll say." He repeated the substance of the captain's threatening offer. "Is that it, sir?"

  "That's fine. Use exactly those words, if you can. Hurry up." The captain was in a glow of smiling excitement.

  Willie Keith, with the OOD's binoculars around his neck, was prowling the starboard wing, squinting up at the sky. The smell of stack gas was strong on the bridge. The novelist ap-proached him and said, "Request permission to make an an-nouncement, by order of the captain-"

  "Sure," said Willie. "Come here a minute, though." He led Keefer to the aneroid barometer affixed to the rear of the pilot-house. The needle on the gray dial inclined far to the left at 29.55. "How about that," said Willie, "on a nice quiet sunny blue day?"

  Keefer pushed out his lips judiciously. "Any typhoon warn-ings?"

  "Steve's got 'em all plotted in the charthouse. Come take a look."

  The two officers unfolded and scanned a large blue-and-yel-low chart of the Central Pacific. There were three storm tracks dotted in red on the chart, none of them within hundreds of miles of their position. "Well, I don't know," said Keefer, "maybe a new one cooking up around here. They're in season. Did you tell the captain?" Willie nodded. "What did he say?"

  "He didn't say. He went `ugh' at me, the way he does now-adays."

  Keefer went into the pilothouse, pressed the talk lever of the p.a. box, and paused a moment. He said, "Now hear this. The following announcement is made by order of the captain." Slowly and distinctly he repeated Queeg's message. The sailors in the pilothouse exchanged narrowed glances, and resumed their vacant stares.

  Queeg waited in his cabin all morning. Nobody came. At a quarter past twelve the captain began sending for various mem-bers of the crew, sometimes singly, sometimes by twos and threes. A new summons boomed over the loudspeakers every fifteen or twenty minutes. The procession of cross-examina-tions went on until four o'clock; then Queeg called for Maryk and Keefer. When the officers came into the cabin they found Jellybelly undergoing questioning. The yeoman's fat white face was expressionless. "I'd tell you if I knew, sir," he was saying. "I just don't know. I slept all through it-"

  "My observation," said Queeg, hunched in the back-tilted swivel chair, rolling balls in both hands, "is that the ship's yeo-man generally can find out everything there is to know on a ship. Now I'm not saying you know anything. I'm not telling you to squeal on anybody. I'm just saying that I'd like very much to approve your application for chief yeoman's school at San Francisco. Once this mystery is cleared up, the culprit punished, and the summary court typed up and all that, why, I think I'll be able to spare you, Porteous. That's all."

  A flicker of interest enlivened the yeoman's dull eyes. "Aye aye, sir," he said, and left.

  "Kay, boys," the captain said zestfully to the officers. "Now we close in."

  "Going to make the arrest, sir?" said Keefer.

  "I certainly am," said Queeg, "as soon as we check for one more bit of evidence. That's where you two come in. It's going to take a bit of organizing."

  "The crew expected an arrest at noon," said the exec.

  "Always good to keep 'em guessing. The next thing we've got to do-the last thing, actually-is find that duplicate key. And how do you gentlemen suggest we do that?" Queeg grinned from one officer to another. "Pretty tough, you think, hey? Well, here's what we're going to do. It's three simple steps. Step one. We're going to collect every single key aboard ship, tagged with the name of the owner. Step two. We're go-ing to make an intensive search of the ship and a personal search of everybody to be sure we've got all the keys. Step three. We test all the keys on the wardroom padlock. The one that opens it, well, the tag on it gives you the name of the guilty party."

  Keefer and Maryk were dumfounded. The captain glanced at their faces and said, "Well, any questions? Or do you agree that that's the way to go about it?"

  "Captain," said Keefer cautiously, "I thought you told me this morning you knew who stole the strawberries."

  "Of course I do. I spoke to the man this afternoon. He lied in his teeth, of course, but I've got him nailed."

  "Then why not arrest him?"

  "There's a little matter of evidence if you want a convic-tion," Queeg said sarcastically.

  "You said his statement gave him away-"

  "Of course it does. Logically. Now all we need is the key itself."

  "Sir, do you realize there may be a couple of thousand keys on the ship?" said Maryk.

  "What if there are five thousand? Sort 'em out, it'll take maybe an hour, and you'll only have a few hundred that could possibly fit the padlock. You can check one a second, sixty a minute, that's one thousand eight hundred keys in half an hour. Anything else bothering you?"

  The exec rubbed his hand over his head, took a deep breath, and said, "Sir, I'm sorry, but I don't think the plan has any chance of working. I think you'll upset and antagonize the crew for nothing-"

  "And why won't it work?" Queeg looked down at the rolling balls.

  "Tom, do you think it'll work?" Maryk turned to the gunnery officer.

  Keefer glanced sidewise at Queeg, then threw a wink at the exec and shook his head. "I don't know how it can hurt to try it, Steve."

  "I'd like to know your objections, Mr. Maryk," said Queeg through his nose.

  "Captain, I don't know where to begin. I don't think you've thought it through. Why-first of all, we don't know there is such a key-"

  "Let me interrupt you right there. I say there is, therefo
re for your purposes there is-"

  "All right, sir. Assume there is. Assume this search starts. There are a hundred million holes and ducts and cracks and boxes and crannies on this ship where a key could be hidden. It could be tossed over the side. The chances of our finding it are nil. And as for a man handing it in to you with his name tagged on it, do you think anyone would be that crazy?"

  "The world is full of crazy people," said Queeg. "Frankly, since you're talking to me as though I were a goddamned idiot, I don't think he'll hand it in. But I think he'll hide it and we'll find it, which'll prove my case. As for dropping it over the side, don't worry, he's not going to do that after all the trouble he had getting it-"

  "Sir, you could hide a key in the forward fireroom and I could search for a month and not find it, just in that one space-"

  "All you're saying is you're not competent to organize a thorough search, and I guess maybe you're right. Therefore I shall organize the search-"

  "Captain, you said a personal search of all hands, too. That means stripping the men-"

  "We're in a warm climate, nobody'll catch cold," said Queeg, with a giggle.

  "Sir, let me ask you, with due respect, is it worth doing all this to the crew for a quart of strawberries?"

  "Mr. Maryk, we have a pilferer aboard ship. Do you pro-pose that I let him go on pilfering, or maybe give him a letter of commendation?"

  "Captain, who is it?" Keefer struck in.

  Queeg assumed an air of sly secrecy, and hesitated. Then he said, "This stays among the three of us, of course- Well, it's Urban."

  Both officers exclaimed involuntarily, in the same amazed tones, "Urban?"

  "Yes. Innocent little Urban. Surprised me, too, a little, until I went into the psychology of Urban. He's a thief type, all right."

  "That's amazing, Captain," said Keefer. "Why, he's the last one I would have suspected." His tone was kind and soothing.

  Maryk looked at Keefer sharply.

  The captain said, with great self-satisfaction, "Well, it took quite a bit of figuring, I'll tell you that, Tom, but he's the one- Well. Let's get to work. Steve, start the key collecting at once. Announce the search for ten o'clock tomorrow morning, and tell 'em anyone who has a key of any kind on him or in his belongings at that time gets a summary. I shall personally direct the search tomorrow."

  The two officers went out, and in silence descended the lad-der to the wardroom. Keefer followed Maryk into his room, and pulled the curtain. "Well, Steve-is he, or is he not, a rav-ing lunatic?" he said in a low voice.

  Maryk dropped into his chair and rubbed his face hard with both palms. "Lay off, Tom-"

  "I have laid off, haven't I, Steve? I haven't talked about it since the Stilwell thing. This is something new. This is over the red line."

  Maryk lit a cigar and puffed blue clouds. "All right. Why?"

  "It's a genuine systematized fantasy. I can tell you exactly what's happened. Ducely's orders did it. They were a terrible shock to the captain. You saw what a spin he went into. This is the next step. He's trying to restore his shattered ego. He's re-enacting the biggest triumph of his naval career-the cheese investigation on the Barzun. The strawberries don't mean any-thing. But the circumstances were a perfect take-off for a detective drama by which he could prove to himself he's still the red-hot Queeg of 1937. He's invented this duplicate key to our icebox because there's got to be one, for his sake-not because it's logical. It isn't logical. It's crazy-"

  "Well, what do you say happened to the strawberries, then?"

  "Oh, Christ, the mess boys ate them, of course. You know that. What else?"

  "He cross-examined them all yesterday morning. Scared them white. And he's satisfied they didn't-"

  "I'd like to have heard those interviews. He forced them to keep up their lies. He wanted them to be innocent. Otherwise he couldn't act out the great drama of the key, don't you un-derstand-"

  "You've got nothing, Tom. Just another one of your fancy theories."

  "I've got a captain with paranoia, or there's no such thing as paranoia," retorted Keefer. Maryk impatiently picked up a log sheet on his desk and began reading it. The novelist said quietly, "Steve. Are you familiar with Articles 184, 185, and 186 of the Navy Regulations?"

  The exec jumped up. "For Christ's sake, Tom," he muttered. He put his head through the curtain for a moment to peer up the wardroom passageway. Then he said, "Watch your voice."

  "Are you, though?"

  "I know what you're talking about." The exec took a deep breath, and puffed out his cheeks. "You're the one that's crazy. Not the captain."

  "Okay," said Keefer. He looked the exec squarely in the eye; turned, and went out.

  That night the executive officer wrote a long entry in his medical log. When he was through he put away the folder, locked his safe, and took down the fat blue-bound Navy Reg-ulations volume. He opened the book, looked over his shoulder at the curtained doorway, then rose and slid shut the metal door, which was almost never used in the tropics. He turned to Article 184 and read aloud slowly, in a monotonous mutter: "It is conceivable that most unusual and extraordinary circum-stances may arise in which the relief from duty of a com-manding officer by a subordinate becomes necessary, either by placing him under arrest or on the sick list; but such action shall never be taken without the approval of the Navy Depart-ment or other appropriate higher authority, except when ref-erence to such higher authority is undoubtedly impracticable because of the delay involved or for other clearly obvious reason...."

  27

  The Search

  Flat gray clouds closed in overhead. A strong wind from the west whipped the bridge clean of stack gas, and heeled the Caine over steeply each time it rolled to starboard. Lines of white spray began to appear on the blackish rough surface of the sea. Sailors staggered here and there, collecting keys, dis-tributing tags, borrowing pens and pencils, and maintaining a murmur of rebellious cursing.

  By seven o'clock Willie Keith had interviewed all the men in his department. On his bunk was a large cardboard carton which contained a tangle of some four hundred tagged keys. He hefted the box, wobbled through the wardroom with it, backed up the rolling ladder to the main deck, and inched along the rainy, slippery passageway to the captain's cabin. He kicked at the door; it rang hollowly. "Open, please, sir. Both arms full."

  The door opened, automatically blacking out the interior of the cabin. Willie stepped over the coaming into the dark-ness. The door clanged behind him, and the lights flashed up brightly.

  There were four people in the room: the captain, Ensign Voles, Jellybelly, and Chief Bellison. The captain's bunk was a sea of keys-there seemed to be a hundred thousand of them, brass keys, steel keys, iron keys, of all shapes, tangled and knotted in each other and in the cords of the white tags. The deck was piled with cardboard cartons. Jellybelly and Bellison were clinking the keys into two separate heaps. Ensign Voles was passing the keys from the smaller heap one by one to the captain. Queeg, sitting at his desk, white-faced and red-eyed, but full of enthusiasm, plunged the keys one by one into the padlock, tried to turn them, and discarded them into a box between his feet. He glanced up at Willie, snapped, "Don't stand there gawking, dump 'em and run along," and resumed the regular smothered clank of key into lock, key into lock, key into lock. The air was fetid and smoky. Willie dumped his keys on the captain's bed, hastened from the room, and went out on the forecastle.

  Slant waving lines of rain were blowing across the bow. The wind whipped his trouser legs and water spattered his face. Willie wedged himself in the lee of the bridgehouse. The bow plunged into a trough, and cut a wave into two foaming black streams as it rose again. Spray blew past Willie and drenched the deck and the bridge, dripping down on him.

  He loved these lonely moments on the forecastle, in all weathers. There was balm in the wide sea and the fresh wind for all the itchy afflictions of life on the Caine. In the late stormy twilight he could see the dim forms of the Montauk, the Kalamazoo, and th
e nearest destroyers of the screen, small tossing shapes of an intenser black on the gray-black of the ocean. Inside those shapes were light, and warmth, and noise, and all the thousand rituals of Navy life, and-for all he knew-crises as wild and unlikely as the strawberry affair on the Caine. Which of the watchers on the other bridges, seeing the narrow old minesweeper plunging through the steep waves, could guess that its crew was full of mutinous mutterings, and that its captain was immured in his room, testing innumerable keys in a padlock, his eyes gleaming?

  The sea was the one thing in Willie's life that remained larger than Queeg. The captain had swelled in his conscious-ness to an all-pervading presence, a giant of malice and evil; but when Willie filled his mind with the sight of the sea and the sky, he could, at least for a while, reduce Queeg to a sickly well-meaning man struggling with a job beyond his powers. The hot little fevers of the Caine, the deadlines, the investiga-tions, the queer ordinances, the dreaded tantrums, all these could dwindle and cool to comic pictures, contrasted with the sea-momentarily. It was impossible for Willie to carry the vision back below decks. One rake on his nerves, a wardroom buzzer, a penciled note, and he was sucked into the fever world again. But the relief, while it lasted, was delicious and strength-ening. Willie lingered on the gloomy splashing forecastle for half an hour, gulping great breaths of the damp wind, and then went below.