"I did? On what occasion?"
"On the occasion of a loss of a crate of yours in San Fran-cisco Bay. He assumed responsibility and paid for the loss."
"Yes. I remember now. It was over a year ago. December or thereabouts. He was responsible for the loss, and insisted on paying, and so he did."
"What was in the crate that cost a hundred and ten dollars?"
"Personal belongings. I don't recall. Probably uniforms, books, navigating instruments-the usual."
"You remember the figure of a hundred and ten dollars?"
"Something like that, I don't recall exactly."
"How was Keith responsible for the loss?"
"Well, he was boat officer and in charge of the unloading. He issued foolish and contradictory orders. The men got rat-tled and the crate fell into the water and sank."
"A wooden crate full of clothes sank?"
"There were other things in it, I guess. I had some souvenir coral rocks."
"Commander, wasn't the crate entirely full of bottles of in-toxicating liquor?"
After a barely perceptible pause-the skip of a heartbeat, no more-Queeg answered, "Certainly not."
"Keith has testified you charged him for thirty-one bottles of liquor."
"You'll hear plenty of strange distortions about me from Keith and Maryk. They're the two culprits here and they're apt to make all kinds. of strange statements."
"Did you make this crate yourself?"
"No. My carpenter's mate did."
"What was his name?"
"I don't recall. It'll be on the personnel records. He's been gone from the ship a long time."
"Where is this carpenter's mate now, Commander?"
"I don't know. I transferred him to the beach at Funafuti at the request of the commodore for a carpenter. This was back in May."
"You don't recall his name?"
"No."
"Was it Carpenter's Mate Second Class Otis F. Langhorne?"
"Lang, Langhorne. Sounds right."
"Commander, there is a Carpenter's Mate First Class Otis F. Langhorne at present in damage-control school at Treasure Island, right here in the bay. Defense has arranged to subpoena him if necessary."
Queeg was obviously brought up short. His head sank be-tween his shoulders. He shot a look at Challee. "You're sure it's the same one?"
"His service record shows twenty-one months aboard the U.S.S. Caine. Your signature is in it. Would it be useful to have him subpoenaed, sir?"
Challee said, "Objection to this entire interminable irrele-vancy about the crate, and request it be stricken from the record."
Greenwald said, "The credibility of the witness is being es-tablished. I submit to the court that nothing could be more relevant to this trial."
Challee was overruled. The question was repeated. Queeg said, "Well, it's a question which crate Langhorne nailed up. I had two crates, as I recall now."
"Oh?" Greenwald paused for a long time. "Well! This is a new angle, not mentioned by Keith. Did Langhorne make both crates, sir?"
"Well, I don't recall whether I had both crates on that oc-casion or two crates on two different occasions. It's all very trivial and happened a long time ago and I've had a year of combat steaming in between and a typhoon and all this hospital business and I'm not too clear. As I recall now on two different occasions there were two crates."
"What was the other occasion?"
"I don't recall. It might even have been back in peacetime, for all I know."
"Did you lose both crates in San Francisco Bay?"
"As I say, I'm not clear on all this, I don't recall."
"Commander, there are many points in this trial which turn on the issue of credibility between yourself and other officers. If you wish I will request a five-minute recess while you clear your mind as well as you can on the matter of these crates."
"That won't be necessary. Just let me think for a moment, please." In the silence Blakely's pencil made a thin rattling noise as he rolled it under his palm on the bench. Queeg sat staring from under his eyebrows. "Kay. I have it straight now. I made a misstatement. I lost a crate in San Diego Harbor back in '38 or '39 I think it was, under similar circumstances. That was the one containing clothes. The crate Keith lost did contain liquor."
"Thirty-one bottles?"
"Something like that."
"How did you obtain thirty-one bottles of-"
Challee said, "May it please the court, Courts and Boards requires evidence to be developed briefly, materially, and rele-vantly. It is useless for me to stall this trial indefinitely with objections. I question defense's entire tactic of expanding on irrelevancies which confuse the issue."
Blakely said, "Court is aware of requirements of evidence and thanks the judge advocate for emphasizing them. Defense will proceed."
"How did you obtain thirty-one bottles of whisky, Com-mander, in wartime?" said Greenwald.
"Bought up the rations of my officers at the wine mess in Pearl."
"You transported this liquor from Pearl to the States in your ship? Do you know the regulations-"
Queeg broke in, "I'm aware of regulations. The crate was sealed prior to getting under way. I gave it the same locked stowage I gave the medicinal brandy. Liquor wasn't obtain-able in the States, and was at Pearl. I'd had three years of steady combat duty. I gave myself this leeway as captain of the Caine and it was a common practice and I believe rank has its privileges, as they say. I had no intention of concealing it from the court and I'm not ashamed of it. I simply mixed up the two crates in my mind."
"Keith testified, Commander, that you gave all the orders to the boat crew which caused the loss of the crate."
"That's a lie."
"Also that you refused to sign his leave papers until he paid for the loss."
"That's another lie."
"It seems to be the issue of credibility again, sir-this time your word against Keith's. Correct?"
"You'll hear nothing but lies about me from Keith. He has an insane hatred for me."
"Do you know why, sir?"
"I can't say, unless it's his resentment against fancied in-juries to his crony, this sailor Stilwell. Those two were mighty affectionate."
"Affectionate, sir?"
"Well, it seems to me every time Keith thought I looked cross-eyed at Stilwell there was all kinds of screeching and hol-lering from Keith as though I were picking on his wife or something. I don't know how else to explain the two of them ganging up so fast to back Maryk when he relieved me unless they were pretty sweet on each other and had a sort of under-standing."
"Commander, are you suggesting there were abnormal re-lations between Lieutenant Keith and the sailor Stilwell?"
"I'm not suggesting a thing," Queeg said with a sly grin. "I'm stating plain facts that everybody knew who had eyes to see."
Greenwald looked around at Blakely. "Does the court de-sire to caution the witness about the gravity of this insinuated charge?"
"I'm not insinuating a thing, sir!" Queeg said nasally. "I don't know of anything improper between those two men and I deny insinuating anything. I said Keith was always taking Stilwell's part and it's the easiest thing in the world to prove and that's all I said or meant. I resent the twisting of my words."
Blakely, his face all wrinkled, said to Greenwald, "Are you going to pursue this topic?"
"No, sir."
"Very well. Go ahead."
"Commander Queeg, during the period when the Caine was towing targets at Pearl Harbor did you ever steam over your own towline and cut it?"
"Objection!" Challee was on his feet again. Blakely gave him a frankly irritated look and ordered the court cleared, motioning to the two lawyers to remain behind.
The skin of Challee's face was leaden gray. "I beg the court's indulgence. I must object. This towline business is the last straw. The tactics of the defense counsel are an outrage on the dignity of these proceedings. He's systematically turning this trial into a court-martial of Command
er Queeg. He's not bringing out any evidence bearing on the issue. He's trying to smear and defame Queeg and nothing else."
Greenwald said, "Sir, the judge advocate has made it per-fectly clear that he thinks he has a prima facie case in the re-port of the three psychiatrists. Maybe he wants the defense to switch to a guilty plea. But I say it's still up to the court, not to shore-bound doctors, however brilliant, to judge whether the captain of the Caine was mentally well enough to retain his self-control and his post during a typhoon. This is a direct argument to the issue. I have no way to conduct it except to review the witness's performance of duty in critical situations prior to the typhoon."
"Counsel will step outside," said Blakely.
"I must respectfully state," said the judge advocate, "that in my opinion, if my objection is overruled, and the reviewing authority disapproves the court's ruling, it will be a fatal error invalidating the entire proceedings, and a miscarriage of jus-tice will result."
"Very well, clear the court."
There was a fifteen-minute wait. Blakely and the other court members looked grim when the parties returned. "The objec-tion is overruled. The witness will answer the question." Challee appeared stunned, sitting down slowly. The stenographer read the question about the towline from the record.
Queeg answered promptly, "Well, here's the story on that particular slander. I saw some AA bursts close aboard to star-board. I was gravely concerned that my ship might be within range of somebody's firing. We were in a gunnery area. I was watching the bursts. This same sailor Stilwell, a very dreamy and unreliable man, was at the helm. He failed to warn me that we were coming around the full 360 degrees. I saw what was happening, finally, and instantly reversed course, and I avoided passing over the towline, to my best knowledge. However, the line parted during the turn. There was a lot of vicious gossip, circulated mainly by Stilwell and Keith, to the effect that I'd cut the towline. I ascribed the mishap to a defective line in my written report to ComServPac. And he was cogni-zant of all this vicious gossip. And he knew all the circum-stances. And he still accepted my report. It's on file. So I say it's conceivable that this vicious gossip was correct, but I con-sider it much more likely that the judgment of ComServPac in the matter can be relied on."
Greenwald nodded. "You were distracted, you say, by AA bursts. Did anything else distract you?"
"Not that I recall."
"Were you engaged in reprimanding a signalman named Urban at length for having his shirttail out, while your ship was turning 360 degrees?"
"Who says that-Keith again?"
"Will you answer the question, Commander?"
"It's a malicious lie, of course."
"Was Urban on the bridge at the time?"
"Yes."
"Was his shirttail out?"
"Yes, and I reprimanded him. That took me about two sec-onds. I'm not in the habit of dwelling on those things. Then there were these AA bursts, and that was what distracted me."
"Did you point out these AA bursts to the OOD or the exec?"
"I may have. I don't recall. I didn't run weeping to my OOD on every occasion. I may very well have kept my own counsel. And since this shirttail thing has been brought up-and it's a very typical Keith distortion, the whole business-I'd like to say that Ensign Keith as morale officer was in charge of en-forcing uniform regulations and completely soldiered on the job. When I took over the ship it was like the Chinese Navy. And I bore down on Keith to watch those shirttails and he kept funking it and for all I know that's another reason he hated me and circulated all this about my cutting the towline."
"Ensign Keith did not testify on this point, Commander. Can you name any officer who will testify that he saw those AA bursts?"
"Maybe all of them did and then again maybe none of them did. It was fifteen months ago and we've been fighting a war and we've had much more on our mind than a few AA bursts off Pearl."
"Did you drop a yellow dye marker off Jacob Island on the first morning of the invasion of Kwajalein?"
"I may have. I don't recall."
"Did your orders include dropping the marker?"
"I don't recall. There have been several other invasions since."
"Do you recall what your first mission was during the in-vasion?"
"Yes. To lead a group of attack boats to the line of depar-ture for Jacob Island."
"Did you fulfill that mission?"
"Yes."
"Why did you drop the dye marker?"
"I don't know for sure that I did drop one."
"Commander, the orders of the Caine on that morning are a matter of record, and there's no mention of dropping a dye marker. This court has heard repeated testimony to the effect that you did drop one. Do you deny that testimony?"
"Well, it sounds as though I may have dropped it to mark the line of departure plainly, if I did it, but it's all dim in my mind."
"How far was the line of departure from the beach?"
"As I recall, a thousand yards."
"Did you stay close to the attack boats, leading them in?"
"Well, naturally, not wanting to swamp them with my bow wave, I was a bit ahead."
"How far ahead?"
"This all happened a year ago-"
"Fifty yards? Twenty thousand yards?"
"Well, I don't know. A couple of hundred yards, maybe."
"Commander, did you run a mile ahead of the attack boats, drop your marker, and retire at high speed, leaving the boats to grope to the line of departure as best they could?"
Challee leaped to his feet. "The question is abusive and flagrantly leading."
"I am willing to withdraw the question," said Greenwald wearily, "in view of the commander's dim memory, and pro-ceed to more recent events."
"Court desires to question the witness," said Blakely. Green-wald retreated to his desk, watching the president's face. "Commander Queeg," Blakely said, "in view of the implica-tions in this line of testimony, I urge you to search your mem-ory for correct answers."
"I am certainly trying to do that, sir, but as I say these are very small points and I've been through several campaigns since Kwajalein and the typhoon and now all this business-"
"I appreciate that. If necessary the court can call a recess for several days to obtain depositions from officers and men of that attack group. It will facilitate justice if you can remem-ber enough to give a few definite answers on points of fact. First of all, can you recall whether your orders contained in-structions to drop a dye marker?"
"Well, to the best of my recollection they didn't. That can be checked against the record. But I believe I can say definitely that they didn't, as I recall now."
"Very well. Will you please repeat your explanation of why you dropped it?"
"Well, I guess to mark the line of departure plainly."
"Were those boats on the line of departure when you turned away from the beach?"
"As near as I could calculate, yes. This was all a matter of tangent bearings and radar ranges of course, but I brought them as close to the line as was humanly possible."
"In that case, Commander, if they were already on the line, what purpose did the dye marker serve?"
Queeg hesitated. "Well, you might say a safety factor. Just another added mark. Maybe I erred in being overcautious and making sure they knew where they were but then again I've always believed you can't err on the side of safety."
"From the time you made rendezvous with the boats, Com-mander, until the time you dropped the marker, what was the widest gap between you and the boats?"
"Well, distances are deceptive over water, particularly with those low-lying boats."
"Did you stay within hailing distance of them?" Blakely said with a slight acrid impatient note.
"Hailing distance? No. We communicated by semaphore. I might have swamped them if I'd stayed within hailing dis-tance."
Blakely pointed at the redheaded officer at the far left of the bench. "Lieutenant Murphy informs the court that he was
a boat officer in similar situations in three invasions. He says the common practice was to stay within hailing distance, never more than a hundred or a hundred fifty yards apart."
Queeg, slumped in his seat, looked out from under his eye-brows at the lieutenant. "Well, that may be. It was a windy day and the bow wave made a lot of wash. It was simpler to semaphore than to go screaming through megaphones."
"Did you have the conn?"
Herman Wouk - The Caine Mutiny Page 61
