The Caine Mutiny (32 page)

“God damn the
Caine
,” said Keefer, “and strike everyone aboard it, including me, with a curse.”

Maryk peered gloomily around at the old ship, as though he were reporting aboard for the first time. “This is it,” he thought-but he could not have said what he meant by “it.”

It was not hard for Mrs. Keith to see that her Willie was not the same lad who had left for Yosemite three days earlier. They were having dinner at the Mark Hopkins Hotel in her suite overlooking the bay. The view was fine, the dinner was excellent, the champagne a rare French vintage; but Willie ignored the view, picked at his dinner, and left the wine sloshing in the bucket of melting ice, except when his mother reminded him to pour.

Mrs. Keith was aware that the
Caine
had changed Willie. His face was narrower. The innocent curves which she affectionately thought of as baby fat were disappearing, and her own marked cheekbones and square jaw were taking shape in her son’s countenance. His eyes and mouth gave less the impression of his old easy good humor than of fatigue and a certain petulant doggedness. His hair seemed thinner, too. These things Mrs. Keith had noted in the first moments on the pier. But there was a deeper change now, an uneasiness and gloomy abstraction, and the mother had a good idea of what the trouble was. “May Wynn is a remarkably pretty young woman,” she said, breaking a long silence, pouring tea for Willie.

“She sure is.”

“How do things stand between you and her?”

“I think I may marry her, Mother.”

“Oh? Pretty sudden, isn’t it?”

“No. I’ve known her along time.”

“How long?” Mrs. Keith smiled. “You’ve been very cagey about it all, I must say, Willie.”

He told his mother briefly about the romance, and explained that he hadn’t talked to her of it because until recently he hadn’t regarded it seriously.

“But now you do, eh?”

“Obviously, Mother.”

“Well, you underestimated her from the first, Willie. She’s extraordinarily attractive. What’s her background? Do you know her parents?”

Willie admitted everything. He added some sentiments about the equality of all Americans and the need to judge people on their merits rather than their background. He put in a good word for May, in conclusion, by disclosing that she was working her way through college so as to be more worthy of him. Mrs. Keith took the whole revelation calmly, allowing Willie to talk himself out. She lit a cigarette, left the table, and stood at the window, looking out at the bay. Willie had the curious sensation that he had been through such scenes before. He realized that he had felt the same way in childhood, discussing a bad report card with his mother.

“Have you proposed to her?”

“Yes.”

“You proposed out at Yosemite, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I rather thought so.”

“She hasn’t exactly accepted me,” said Willie, stating the fact as though it added to May’s stature. “She said I’d better think about it some more, and tell you.”

Mrs. Keith smiled pityingly over her shoulder at her son and said, “I think she’ll accept you, Willie.”

“I hope she will.”

“Willie-what’s your exact relationship with this girl?”

“That’s a hell of a question, Mother.”

“I think you’ve answered me, Willie.”

“Don’t get any wrong ideas. She isn’t a tramp, and I haven’t been living with her-”

“I’m sure she’s not a tramp-”

“She’s a sweet, good girl, and you’ll just have to take my word for that.”

“Willie, you’re through with your dinner, aren’t you? Come here and sit with me on the sofa. I want to tell you a story.”

She sat close beside him, and took his hand in hers. Willie disliked the touch; it was too intimate, too parental, made him too much the confused child needing guidance, but he lacked the heart to pull his hand away. “Before your father married me,” said Mrs. Keith, “while he was a medical student and an intern, he lived for three years with a nurse. I don’t suppose you know that.”

Willie did remember his father’s short, bleak reference to the nurse, in their one conversation about May, but he said nothing.

“Well, I never met her, but I saw her picture and found out a lot about her. Her name was Katherine Quinlan, and she was a tall, beautiful brunette, with lovely large eyes-a little cow-like, if you’ll forgive my saying it, but lovely-and a gorgeous figure. I knew about her before we married. Your dad told me the whole story. It almost broke up our engagement. I was furiously jealous.” She gave a soft reminiscent sigh. “Well, I took his word that it was all over, and it was. But he too, Willie, at one time, had wanted to marry this girl. It was natural. His father persuaded him not to, simply making your dad face facts about himself. Your dad liked to mingle with the best people, and to live easily and luxuriously, Willie. He used to talk a lot about a Spartan life of research, but it was just a dream with which he amused himself. Had your father married the nurse he would have had his Spartan life, and he would have been sorry for it. That was why he waited to get married until he met me- Give me a cigarette, please.”

She continued, “Any man has a feeling of debt toward a decent girl with whom he has had an affair. Furthermore, he acquires a taste for her. All that is inevitable. The point is, any girl, with half a brain knows these things. And if she really wants a man, and feels that her chances are good, she’ll risk it. It’s the last throw of the dice.”

Willie’s cheeks became red, and he started to speak. His mother rode over him. “Willie dear, this is all a process, natural and inevitable. It’s happened a million times. Anybody can get caught up in it. Only remember, a marriage shouldn’t be based on a bad conscience, or a taste for a girl’s looks, but on similar background and values. If you get married out of a guilty feeling, very well, the guilty feeling passes-to a certain extent-but what else have you got? Now, honestly-do you think you love this girl-or do you feel obligated to her?”

“Both.”

“That means you feel obligated to her. Naturally you’re trying to tell yourself you love her, to make the marriage as palatable as possible. Willie, do you want this night-club singer to bear your children? Do you want the Italian fruit peddlers in the Bronx-I have no doubt they’re decent, good people-but do you want them for your in-laws, coming into your home whenever they choose, being the grandparents of your sons and daughters? Can you picture it?”

“How do I know I’ll ever do better? At least I want this girl. She’s the only one I’ve ever wanted.”

“Willie, you’re twenty-three. Your dad married at thirty. You’ll meet a thousand girls in the next six years.”

“You keep saying I want to marry her because I feel guilty. How do you know what I feel? I love her. She’s beautiful, she’s good-natured, she’s not stupid, I’m sure she’ll make a good wife, and if her background is crude, what of it? I think I’ll be sorry the rest of my life if I let her go-”

“Darling, I broke two engagements before I married your father. Each time, I thought the world had come to an end.”

“What do I need background in a wife for? If I ever come back from this blasted war, what will I be? A piano player-”

“There you’re wrong, and you know you are. Willie, you’re growing up fast. Does show business still appeal to you, really? Aren’t you beginning to realize that there’s more to you than fooling with a piano?”

It was a good blow. In the long watches on the
Caine
Willie had come nearer and nearer to the decision that at the piano he was an untalented dilettante. What he wanted after the war was a university career, at a quiet, noble school like Princeton, teaching literature, perhaps eventually (this his innermost dream, hardly confided even to himself) writing works of scholarship, or even a novel or two. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s all so far in the future-”

“
I
know what you’re going to do. You’re going to be a distinguished scholar. And when I’m gone you’ll be wealthy, and independent, and you’ll move in the circle of educators and philosophers-Conant, Hutchins, people like that are your kind-and in the name of truth, Willie, does May fit into that picture? Could she be happy as a faculty wife? Do you see her pouring tea for Dean Wicks or chatting with Dr. Conant?”

He rose, went to the table, and fished the bottle out of the bucket. There was only half a glass of flat wine left. He poured it and drank it off.

“Willie dear, I’m telling you what your dad would have told you. God knows he would have been less crude and tactless. I’m sorry, but I’ve done my best. If I’m all wrong, just ignore me.”

She walked quickly to her purse on a bureau, and touched a handkerchief to her eyes. Willie immediately came and put his arm around her shoulders. “Mother, I’m not angry. I know you’re doing what you think is right. This is one of those tight corners. Somebody’s got to be hurt-”

“So long as it isn’t you, Willie, I don’t care.”

Willie left her side and walked into the bedroom, where he paced between the twin beds and the dresser, noting even as his mind gyrated the spare neatness with which his mother had laid out her slippers and flowered silk night robe, and the silver toilet set he had given her for her fiftieth birthday.

His position was crumbling. It was true that he had proposed to May out of a guilt feeling; true that he suspected her of gambling for marriage by yielding to him; true that he was ashamed of her background; true that he couldn’t picture her as his partner in an academic life. He was not sure that he loved her. The night in Yosemite had clouded his feelings, and spread a murk of doubt and ill will over his whole tie to May. Was he a trapped fool, or an eager lover? There was no doubt whatever that he felt much more like a trapped fool. His self-respect gave way, and he was overcome with a wave of sickness. He saw in the mirror that he was wretchedly pale. “You pitiful jackass,” he murmured at the mirror, and went back to the sitting room. His mother stood where he had left her. “Look Mother, let’s not talk about it any more.” He dropped into an armchair and put a hand over his eyes. “Nothing’s going to be done tomorrow. Give me a chance to think.”

“Weren’t you planning to get married during this trip to the States, dear?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. We hadn’t made definite plans. I told you she hadn’t even accepted me.”

“She’s very wise. Oh, Willie, wait at least until you come back again. It’s not fair to any girl to tie her up when you’re going back out into the war. Promise me you won’t get married this time. That’s all I ask, and believe me I ask it for your sake.”

“I believe you, Mother. I probably won’t. But I can’t tell you I’ll give her up, because I probably won’t do that, either.”

“I’m satisfied, darling.” She put her hand comfortingly on his shoulder, and walked into the bedroom. Her son remained wilted in the armchair. After a few moments she called to him, while she powdered her nose at the dressing table, “You know what I’d like to do, dear?”

“What?”

“I’d like to have a couple of stiff brandies, and then go see a very funny and silly movie. Do you know whether there’s one playing in town?”

“Sorry, Mother. I’m meeting May a little later.”

“Oh. Well,” she said cheerily, “have you time for a drink with me first?”

“Sure.”

“Where is May staying?”

“At a small hotel near the St. Francis.”

“Oh. Well, maybe you can drop me off at a movie on the way down.”

“Certainly, Mother.” Willie walked to the window, and leaned his forehead on the cool pane, without seeing anything. He had never felt more empty and sick. His mouth rested against the wooden frame of the window. Unthinking, he bit into the wood, made a deep print of teeth in it, and got a mouthful of cracked varnish and dust. He wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, and stared ruefully at the two rows of tooth marks in the wood.

“Well,” he thought, “some people carve hearts on trees.”

Next day he saw May off at the airport. Their parting kiss was passionate. Nothing was settled. He had lied to May about the talk with his mother. They were vaguely and informally engaged, but there was to be no ring, and no definite planning, until after the war. May seemed satisfied; at any rate she didn’t argue.

CHAPTER 18

Stilwell’s Leave

Suspend all work on
Caine
not thirty per cent or more complete. Cut overhaul period to three weeks.
Caine
under way for Pearl not later than 29 December
.

Willie brought the despatch to Maryk in the temporary ship’s office in a warehouse near the drydock: one desk, actually, in a corner of a big, busy shipping room, where the new executive officer and Jellybelly spent most of the day transacting ship’s business on an extremely senile typewriter, surrounded by toppling heaps of records, forms, files, reference books, and miscellaneous papers of all sizes and colors.

“Stabbed, by God,” said Maryk.

“What does it mean?” said Willie. “No leave for the second section?”

Jellybelly paused in his pecking at the typewriter and, though he did not look up, his face seemed to grow appreciably longer.

“I hope not. Jellybelly, get the captain on the phone.”

The yeoman put through the call to Phoenix, while the officers fidgeted. “Sir,” he said, putting his hand over the mouthpiece, “it’s Mrs. Queeg. She says the captain was out late last night and is still asleep. She wants to know whether it’s urgent.”

Glancing at the wall clock, which showed a quarter past twelve, the exec said, “Tell her it’s urgent.”

The yeoman obeyed and hastily handed Maryk the receiver. After perhaps two minutes, Maryk heard Queeg’s voice, hoarse and cranky, “Hello? What’s the trouble now?”

The exec read the despatch slowly over the telephone. There was a pause during which he heard the captain breathing heavily. “Kay. Those are our orders. Carry them out,” said Queeg. “Notify the yard repair officer, and so forth. You know what to do-Or do you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see no necessity for me to come up there, but I will if you think you can’t handle it.”

“I think I can, sir. I wanted to ask you about the leave situation.”

“Hm. Well, what about it? I can’t spare you, Steve. I’m sorry, it’s just one of those tough breaks-”

“Sir, I was thinking mainly about the. men. The way things are now the second section won’t get any leave at all.”

“Well, that’s not my fault. It’s just one of those things-”

“I only thought, sir, if we could get the first section back early, we might still give the others a week-at least most of them.”

“How the hell can you do that? They’re scattered all over the country.”

“Well, I have all their forwarding addresses. I’ll wire them.”

“Ha! You don’t know sailors. They’ll say they never got the wires.”

“Well, I’ll order them to acknowledge by return wire. The ones that don’t answer, I’ll telephone. The ones I don’t get by telephone, I’ll send special-delivery registered letters to.”

“Who’s going to pay for all these wires and phones and special deliveries?” said the captain peevishly. “We have no appropriation for-”

“We have a surplus in the ship’s welfare fund, sir.”

There was a silence. Then the captain said, “Well, if you want to go to all that trouble I have no objection. I want to see the men get their leave as much as you do, bearing in mind, however, that there are other important things to be done at this point, too. Go ahead with your wires and phone calls. For every man that comes back you can send one on leave.”

“Thank you, sir. How about the officers?”

“No, I’m afraid the officers are just out of luck. We’ll recommend extended leave for them whenever they get orders. How’s everything coming?”

“Well, this despatch will foul us up pretty badly, sir. But I guess it’ll just be a question of buttoning up again as fast as we can.”

“Those new officers reported aboard yet?”

“Two of them have, sir-Jorgensen and Ducely.”

“Well, get them started at once on their qualification courses. They’re to turn in an assignment a day, or no shore leave.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“All right. Don’t hesitate to call me if there’s any doubt in your mind about anything. Will we get those new radars installed?”

“Yes, sir. That work is more than half finished.”

“Well, good, that was the main idea, anyway. Kay. Good-by.”

“Good-by, Sir.”

The yeoman ran out clumsily, clutching a list of the sailors in the first section and a scribbled copy of the telegram dictated by Maryk to recall them. He brushed past Stilwell, who approached the desk, twisting his hat.

“Sorry to bother you, Mr. Maryk,” the gunner’s mate said in a shaky voice. “Hello, Mr. Keith.” He took a wrinkled telegram from his trouser pocket and gave it to the exec. Maryk frowned over it and showed it to Willie.

MOTHER VERY SICK. DOCTOR SAYS MAY NOT LIVE. COME HOME. PAUL.

“Paul’s my kid brother,” the sailor said. “Do you think I could get emergency leave, Mr. Maryk?”

“Your case is a little complicated, Stilwell- Willie, what’s the procedure on emergency leave?”

“Don’t know. Hasn’t come up since I’ve been morale officer-”

“Jellybelly knows, Mr. Maryk,” Stilwell put in. “De Lauche, he got emergency leave when we were down at Guadal. His father died-”

“Willie, call the yard chaplain. Ask him about procedure.”

The chaplain was not in his office; but his yeoman told Willie that it was customary to check with the sailor’s minister in his home town or with the local Red Cross, to verify the seriousness of the illness.

“How can we get in touch with your minister, Stilwell? Do you know his address?” said Maryk.

“Don’t belong to no church, sir.”

“Well, then, it’s the Red Cross, I guess. Willie, send a wire-”

“Sir, I live in a small town,” broke in the sailor. “I don’t remember no Red Cross office-”

Willie, watching the sailor carefully, said, “The Red Cross will track down the case, Stilwell, don’t worry-”

“By that time my mother may be dead. Sir, you’ve got my brother’s wire, what more do you want?”

Willie said, “Stilwell, step away from this desk a moment. I want to speak to the exec.”

“Yes, Sir.” The sailor withdrew to the other side of the room, and slouched against the wall, his thumbs hooked in his trousers, his hat tilted back on his head, his face sullen and despairing.

“Stilwell got his brother to send that wire,” Willie told the exec. “There’s nothing wrong with his mother. He’s worried about his wife-apparently she’s the kind you have to worry about. I’m surprised he didn’t go over the hill a week ago.”

Maryk rubbed his palm slowly against the back of his head. “I know about Stilwell’s wife. What am I supposed to do?”

“Let him shove off, sir. He lives in Idaho. He can fly home in a few hours. Give him a seventy-two-hour pass. The captain may never even know about it. If he does, there’s the telegram to excuse it.”

“If the captain finds out, the telegram isn’t going to help me, Willie.”

“Sir, Stilwell is human. He didn’t do anything to deserve being chained up like a beast.”

“I’m supposed to carry out the captain’s orders and intentions. I know damn well what his intention would be in this case. Hell, if his mother really was dying Captain Queeg might not let him go-”

“You’re not Queeg, Sir.”

Maryk gnawed his lips. “This is just the beginning. To let Stilwell go is wrong, Willie. Gorton wouldn’t have done it. If I start wrong I’m going to finish wrong.”

Willie shrugged. “I beg your pardon for arguing with you so much, sir.”

“Hell, I don’t blame you. I’d be arguing, too, if someone else was the exec. Call Stilwell over.”

The sailor responded to Willie’s wave by strolling listlessly back to the desk. “Stilwell,” said the exec, touching the phone, “I’m going to call the captain about you.”

“Don’t waste your time, sir,” said Stilwell, in a tone edged with hate.

“Do you expect me to conduct the ship’s business in a manner contrary to what the captain wants?” The sailor did not answer. Maryk looked at him for a long while, with a pained grimace. “How long would it take you to get home from here?”

Stilwell gasped, and stammered, “Five hours, sir, tops, by plane and bus-”

“Would a seventy-two do you any good?”

“Christ, sir, I’ll kiss your feet-”

“Never mind that damn foolishness. Will you give me your word to come back at the end of seventy-two hours?”

“I swear, sir, I swear I will-”

Maryk turned to the ensign. “There’s a file of forms in that yellow folder on top of the mail log. Instead of waiting for Jellybelly, how’s for you to type out a seventy-two now? I’ll sign it and he can shove off. The sooner the better.”

Willie flew into a frenzy of motion and clatter; and in three minutes he passed the papers to Maryk. Stilwell stood by in a daze. The exec signed the papers. “Do you have an idea, Stilwell,” he said, “what it means to me to have you back on time?”

“Yes, sir. I hope to die if I’m not back, sir.”

“Shove off.”

“God bless you, sir.”

The officers looked after the sailor as he scampered out. Maryk gloomily shook his head, and picked up his work progress chart. Willie said, “An exec sure has the power to do a hell of a lot of good. I guess it’s the best part of the job.”

“The duty of an exec,” Maryk said, coloring a line of squares on the chart with a red pencil, “is to do exactly what the captain would want him to do. It’s the only way to run a ship. Don’t bring any more requests like that to me, Willie. I’m not going to go soft in the head any more.”

Unfortunately, Stilwell didn’t return to the
Caine
at the end of seventy-two hours, and Captain Queeg did.

Willie learned these two unpleasant facts by telephone at six-thirty in the morning, in his mother’s hotel suite, where he had spent the night. Jellybelly telephoned him, apologizing for disturbing him and explaining that the captain had arrived and wanted a muster at eight o’clock.

“Okay, I’ll be there,” Willie said sleepily, and added, “Hey, is Stilwell back yet?”

“No, sir.”

“Jesus.”

When he arrived at the Navy Yard the shrunken crew of the
Caine
had already gathered in ragged lines at the edge of the drydock. He fell in place with the officers, yawning, wishing he had had time to eat breakfast. A few drops of rain spattered down from massed gray clouds as Maryk and the captain came up the gangplank. The men assumed a dreary semblance of attention. Queeg, freshly shaved and wearing a new blue raincoat, looked spruce, but his eyes were bloodshot and his face puffy and pallid.

“Well, I won’t keep you men long,” he said, peering around at the crew and pitching his voice high above the riveting and the snorts of the cranes. “Our California sunshine is a little damp this morning. I just want you to know I’m making every effort to see to it that you all get some kind of leave despite the curtailing of the overhaul. It’s just one of those things. As you know, there’s a war on, and we can’t all have things just the way we want them. I want to caution you all as strongly as I can against taking it on yourselves to go over the hill. Just remember, leave is not a right, but a special privilege, and if the Navy wants to work you 365 days out of 365 and one extra in leap year, why, there just isn’t a damn thing you can do about it, so nobody owes you any apologies. As I say, I’ll see what I can do, but don’t go taking French leave, any of you. The Navy will find you even if you’re down in a coal mine, and they’ll send you back to the
Caine
even if the ship is in the Indian Ocean. And so I hope you’re all having a pleasant stay in San Francisco and-well, Mr. Maryk, let’s, dismiss the men before we all get soaked.”

Willie watched Queeg’s face for a sign of wonder or displeasure at the absence of Stilwell; but the captain maintained a look of jolly good humor. The crew trotted off to their barracks, and the officers straggled after the captain and exec for a conference at the BOQ. Willie saw Stilwell come out of a side street, out of the captain’s view, and go bounding down the gangplank to report to the duty officer. The ensign was immensely relieved. He wanted to whisper the good news to Maryk, but the exec was talking to Queeg.

The officers grouped around a couch in a corner of the BOQ lobby, drinking Coca-Colas. Queeg handed out the new departmental assignments. Keefer became gunnery officer. Willie was exalted to communications officer.

Willie had his first good look at the two newcomers to the wardroom. Ensign Jorgensen was a tall, heavyish fellow with curly blond hair, thick glasses over narrow peering eyes, and a fixed apologetic smile. He was remarkably sway-backed; his rump projected like a small bustle. Ensign Ducely was thin and creamy-faced, and had girlish features and long slender hands. Willie suspected that physical standards had been lowered since his Furnald Hall days. Ensign Jorgensen’s lordosis was cavernous compared to Willie’s; yet here he was with a glistening gold stripe.

“By the bye,” said Queeg suddenly to Maryk, “did I see our friend Stilwell at muster or didn’t I? Seems to me I didn’t.”