Next day Willie went to his post on the bridge as junior officer of the deck shortly after sunrise. It was a lovely morning, bright and fragrant. The harbor was blue, and the surrounding hills of Oahu a soft yellow-green, flecked here and there by the fat shadows of puffy clouds which drifted over the north mountains, evaporating on the fair-weather side of the island without shedding rain. Willie was full of fresh eggs and coffee. The lively zest that comes over a ship’s company upon getting under way—no matter where bound—infected him. Pago Pago was far behind the combat zone, almost as safe as Hawaii, but at least it lay southwestward, and it was Somerset Maugham country. Romantic adventure seemed to be opening before him at last. Perhaps there would be encounters with submarines, he thought, and he could begin to redeem himself for his months of piano playing in Pearl Harbor.
Captain Queeg came up to the bridge, brisk and smiling, with a pleasant greeting for each sailor and officer. Willie recognized the narrow blue book under his arm: On a Destroyer’s Bridge, a manual of ship handling. “Good morning, Captain. All lines singled up, sir,” Willie said, saluting smartly.
“Ah, good morning. Thank you, thank you, Willie.” Queeg leaned over the bulwark, taking a quick look at the mooring lines. The Caine was tied to the Moulton, which was secured fore and aft to buoys. The two ships lay in the far corner of West Loch, a narrow inlet of the harbor. Ahead, astern, and to starboard there were muddy shallows. The Caine had a few hundred yards of dredged channel in which to maneuver its way out of the corner.
“Tight squeeze, hey?” Queeg said jovially to Maryk and Gorton, who stood together on the port wing, awaiting with interest the new captain’s first demonstration of ship handling. The two officers nodded respectfully. Queeg called, “Take in all lines!”
The manila ropes came snaking aboard the Caine. “All lines taken in, sir!” said the telephone talker.
“Kay.” Queeg glanced around the wheelhouse, wetted his lips, dropped the book on the chair, and said, “Well, let’s go. All engines back one third!”
The ship vibrated, and things began to happen so fast that Willie couldn’t tell exactly what went wrong or why. As the Caine moved backward the sharp fluke of the decked anchor came ripping down along the forecastle of the other ship, bending several stanchions and ripping two out by the roots. It then gashed a jagged hole in the Moulton’s bridge with a ghastly metallic screech. At the same time a gun on the galley deckhouse went battering along the Moulton’s side, carrying away two ammunition boxes and an antenna, which squealed and crunched and then fell into the water. Captain Queeg shouted a tangle of wheel and engine orders; the stacks vomited billows of black smoke which poured down on the bridge; there ensued a few moments of wild yelling and running around in the smoky gloom. Then it was all over. The Caine was stuck fast by the stern in the mud on the other side of the loch, canted over about ten degrees.
In the shocked quiet that followed, Captain Queeg seemed the least disturbed person on the bridge. “Well, well, beginner’s luck, hey?” he said smiling, as he peered astern. “Mr. Gorton, lay aft and find out if there’s been any damage.” He sent a blinker message to Captain Sammis apologizing for the mishap. The executive officer returned in a few minutes, staggering on the slanted deck, and reported that there was no visible damage to the hull, and the propellers were buried in mud to their hubs.
“Kay, a little mud bath never hurt a propeller,” Queeg said. “Shine ’em up a little, maybe.” He was looking out toward the harbor.
“Guess we’ll have to send a grounding report despatch to ServPac, Captain,” Gorton said. “Shall I—”
“Maybe we will and then again maybe we won’t,” Queeg said. “See that tug? Over there by the point? Give him a call on your blinker light.”
The tug obligingly turned out of the main channel and came chugging into West Loch. A towline was soon rigged, and the Caine was easily pulled off the mud. Queeg shouted his thanks through a megaphone to the tug captain, a grizzled chief boatswain, who waved cordially and steamed off. “So much for that,” Queeg said affably to Gorton. “And so much for your grounding report, Burt. No sense getting old ServPac in an uproar over nothing, hey? All engines ahead one third.”
He conned the ship confidently across the harbor to the fueling dock where they were to spend the day taking on oil, food, and ammunition. He stood on the starboard wing, steadily rolling the two steel balls in the fingers of his right hand, his elbows hanging on the bulkhead. Coming alongside the fueling dock, he gave everybody on the bridge a bad scare. He tore in toward the dock at a sharp angle at fifteen knots. Gorton, Maryk, and Willie huddled together on the wing behind him, exchanging pallid looks. A crash with the stern of a tanker in the berth ahead of theirs seemed inevitable. But in the very last seconds Queeg backed down emergency full, and the Caine slowed, shuddering fearfully, and dropped into its berthing space as neatly as a New York taxicab parking. “Kay,” said Queeg as the mooring lines flew over to the dock. “Double up all lines. Out smoking lamp and commence fueling.” He dropped the balls into his pocket and sauntered off the bridge.
“Jesus,” Willie heard Maryk mutter to the exec, “a wild man from way back.”
“Shifty as hell, though,” Gorton murmured. “How about the way he dodged that grounding report? De Vriess would never have dared—”
“Why the hell didn’t he get his stern out before we left the Moulton? Wind on the beam outboard—”
“Christ, Steve, first time out—give him a chance—”
That afternoon Willie interrupted his coding to write off a letter to May, the last before the start of the voyage. He filled it with warm affectionate descriptions of how badly he missed her, and he praised her doughty persistence in going to Hunter College. He felt impelled to write something about Queeg, though up till now he had remained purposely vague about life on the Caine.
Our new captain is a rather strange man, like most of these regular officers, but I think he’s just what the ship needs. He’s a strict perfectionist and a hard taskmaster, and pure Navy through and through. Yet at the same time he has a remarkably pleasant disposition. He seems to be a very daring seaman, maybe a little inexperienced, but full of zip. All in all I think the Caine has had a wonderful change in luck, and I expect my spirits are going to improve accordingly. I’ve really been pretty low…
A radioman knocked at his open doorway. “Pardon me, Mr. Keith. Action from ComServPac. Just come over the harbor circuit.”
“Sure, give it here.” Willie went to the coding machine and broke the despatch. A written report is desired explaining grounding of Caine this morning in West Loch. Include explanation of failure to report grounding via despatch to this command.
Willie had very little desire to face Captain Queeg with this unpleasant message, but there was no way to avoid it. He brought the decode to the captain’s room. Queeg was sitting in his underwear at the desk, working over a pile of official mail. When he read the message he sat upright with a loud squeak of the swivel chair. He stared at the sheet for a long time while Willie tried to think of a good excuse to sneak out of the room.
“Fussy so-and-so, this ComServPac, hey, Willie?” Queeg looked at him sidewise.
“Wonder how he got the dope, sir—”
“Hell, nothing hard about that. Damn mustang on that tug just skipped on home and reported the whole thing. First useful duty he’s performed in a month, no doubt. I might have thought of that—” Queeg picked up the balls from his desk and rolled them rapidly, eying the despatch. “Well, hell, he wants a grounding report. We’ll give him a grounding report. Spruce up, Willie, and stand by to deliver it by hand. Seems to have his pants on fire for some reason.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Riding to the ComServPac building on the yard bus an hour later, Willie’s curiosity about the grounding report became too strong for him. The manila envelope was closed only by a flexible metal clasp. He glanced from side to side in an automatic guilty gesture; none of the passengers were watching him. He slid the report out of its envelope on his lap and read it.
1. Subject vessel ran slightly aground on mudbank in subject area on subject date at 0932. It was floated off by YT 137 at 1005. There were no casualties or damage.
2. The reason for the grounding was failure of the engine room to respond in time to engine orders telegraphed from the bridge.
3. This command has recently been relieved. The state of training aboard is believed to warrant a drastic drilling program to bring performance of crew up to proper standards. Such a program has been instituted.
4. It was intended to submit a grounding report in full tomorrow morning by messenger. Report was not made by despatch to ComServPac at the time because help was at hand, damage was nil, and the matter appeared to be disposable without troubling higher authority unnecessarily. Regret is expressed if this estimate was erroneous.
5. It is believed that the intensive drilling already instituted in this command will rapidly bring about competent performance, and such incidents will not recur.
PHILIP FRANCIS QUEEG
That night at the officers’ club in the Navy Yard the Caine wardroom had a drinking party to celebrate their departure from Pearl. Captain Queeg joined his officers for an hour or so before moving on to another party of lieutenant commanders in the patio. He was full of jocular good humor, drank faster than anybody else without becoming fuzzy, and entertained them with long anecdotes about the invasion of North Africa. Good feeling ran high. Willie was more convinced than ever that BuPers had sent the Caine a prince of a skipper to replace the sour sloven, De Vriess. He snuggled down in the clip shack at three in the morning, feeling that his term aboard the minesweeper was going to be pretty good, after all, while it lasted.
He was shaken out of his sleep by Rabbitt when day was just dawning. “Sorry to bother a man with a hangover, Keith,” the OOD said, “but we just got an action from ComServPac.”
“Right, Rab.” Willie pulled himself wearily out of the clip shack and went to the wardroom. While he was clacking away at the coding machine Gorton came out of his room naked and watched over his shoulder, yawning. The words formed one by one: Caine departure Pago Pago canceled. Moulton replace Caine convoy duty. Caine remain Pearl target-towing duty. Obtain towing gear target repair base.
“Now what the hell?” said Gorton. “What kind of quick switch is that?”
“Ours not to reason why, sir—”
“Hope that goddamn grounding didn’t—Well.” Gorton scratched his bulging belly. “Okay, put on your asbestos suit and take it in to the skipper.”
“Think I ought to wake him, sir? Reveille’s only—”
“Hell, yes. Right away.”
Willie disappeared into the captain’s cabin, and the executive officer paced the wardroom, chewing his lips. In a couple of minutes the ensign came out, grinning. “Well, it didn’t seem to faze the skipper any, sir.”
“No? What did he say?”
“Why, he just said, ‘That’s fine, fine. Nobody can get me mad by switching me to Pearl Harbor duty. The more the merrier.’ ”
Gorton shrugged. “I guess I’m crazy. If he’s not worried, no reason why I should be.”
Through the loudspeaker came the shrill boatswain’s piping of reveille. Gorton said, “Well, time to retire. Call me if anything else comes in.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Willie left.
The exec went into his room, wallowed into his bunk like a big pink bear, and dozed off. The captain’s buzzer brought him sharply awake an hour later. He threw on a bathrobe and went to Queeg’s cabin. He found the captain sitting cross-legged on his bunk in his underwear, unshaven and frowning. “Burt, take a look at the despatch on my desk.”
“I saw it, sir, while Keith was breaking it—”
“Oh, you did, hey? Well, that’s something we can start knocking off right now. Nobody, repeat nobody, will have access to action despatches except the coding officer and myself until such time as I release them. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir—”
“Kay, kay, just so’s you know,” Queeg grumbled. “Well, if you’ve seen it, what do you make of it?”
“Well, sir, it seems to me we tow targets instead of going to Pago Pago—”
“Do you take me for an idiot? I can read English, too. What I want to know is, what does it mean? Why the changed orders?”
Gorton said, “Sir, it bothered me, too. But according to Keith, you were perfectly satisfied—”
“Hell, I’d rather stay here in Pearl any day than go moseying out west—if there’s no more in it than meets the eye. That’s what I’m beginning to wonder about. I want you to get dressed and haul yourself over to ComServPac. Find out what this is all about.”
“From whom, sir—the operations officer?”
“I don’t care from whom. You can go to the admiral for all I care. But don’t come back without the dope, understand?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The office building of Commander, Service Squadron Pacific, was a U-shaped white wooden structure atop a hill behind some warehouses in the Navy Yard. Lieutenant Gorton appeared there at eight-thirty, dressed in his cleanest, newest khakis, with gleaming fresh collar pins. He went to the operations office and, not without misgivings, presented himself to Captain Grace, a fierce-looking old officer with a square red face and heavy white eyebrows.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” Grace growled. He was sipping coffee from a paper cup. He looked as though he had been at his desk since dawn.
“Sir, I’m here with regard to your despatch 260040 to the Caine.”
The operations officer picked up a loose-leaf file of despatches on green tissue paper and flipped through them. “What about it?”
“Well, sir—I—I wonder if you can tell me why our orders were changed.”
Captain Grace wrinkled his nose at Gorton. “You’re the commanding officer?”
“No, sir. Exec.”
“What!” The operations officer banged the despatch file to his desk. “What in blazes does your skipper mean, sending you over to question orders? You go back and tell your captain—what’s-his-name—”
“Queeg, sir—Lieutenant Commander Queeg—”
“You go tell Queeg that if he has any inquiries about operations he’s to come here in person, and not send subordinates. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s all.” Captain Grace picked up a letter and made a show of contracting his heavy white eyebrows over it. Gorton, bearing in mind Queeg’s injunction not to come back without “the dope,” nerved himself for one more try.
“Sir—pardon me—did the change have anything to do with our grounding in West Loch yesterday?”
Captain Grace looked as startled at the sound of Gorton’s voice, speaking after being dismissed, as though he had heard an ass bray in his office. He turned and stared at Gorton’s face for perhaps thirty very long seconds. Then his eyes shifted to Gorton’s Annapolis ring, and he stared at that for a good long while. Then he stared at Gorton’s face again, shook his head incredulously, and turned to the letter. Gorton slunk out.
At the gangplank of the Caine the OOD, Carmody, saluted the exec and said, “The captain wants to see you in his cabin the minute you return aboard, sir.”
Gorton went below and knocked at the captain’s door. There was no answer. He knocked louder, then cautiously turned the knob and peeked into a black room. “Captain? Captain?”
“Oh. Come in, Burt.” Queeg switched on his bed light and sat up, scratching his stubbly face. He reached to the shelf over the bunk and took down the two steel balls. “Well? What’s the dope?”
“I don’t know, sir. The operations officer wouldn’t tell me.”
“What!”
Gorton, perspiring, described the interview with Captain Grace. Queeg glowered at the rolling balls.
“And you let it go at that, hey?”
“I didn’t see what more I could do, sir. I was practically thrown out—”
“Did you think of snooping around among some of the ensigns on the staff?”
“No, sir.”
Queeg turned his head to glare briefly, then resumed looking at the balls. “Well, why didn’t you?”
“I—” Gorton was baffled by the question. “Well—I—”
“I’m not delighted,” said the captain after a silence. “When I send an officer out for the dope, I expect him to return with the dope, and to use whatever ingenuity is called for to get it—That’s all.”
He lay back on his pillow. Gorton said diffidently, “Will you be going down there, sir? I’ll arrange transportation—”
“Maybe I will and then again maybe I won’t,” said Queeg. “I don’t appreciate being placed in the position where I might get read off like a midshipman for the stupidity of the Caine’s engine-room personnel—” There was a knock at the door. “Come in!”
Signalman Third Class Urban entered, carrying a despatch board in one hand and his frayed hat in the other. His dungarees were faded and streaky, and his shirt hung outside his trousers. He was an undersize roly-poly sailor with a round, red, perpetually puzzled face. “Visual from ComServPac, Cap’n.”
Captain Queeg took the board and read: Caine under way 29 September 0600. Pick up target and operation order at target repair base.
“Kay,” said the captain, initialing the despatch and returning the board to the sailor.
“Thank you, sir.” Urban scuttled out.
“Now,” said Queeg, rattling the balls in his fist, “that’s another thing I want knocked off right away, Mr. Gorton.”
“What, sir?”
“You know damn well what. Since when do uniform regulations permit the crew to wear their shirts outside their trousers? They’re sailors, not Filipino bus boys.”
“Aye aye, sir,” said Gorton resignedly.
“Aye aye, sir, hell!” snapped Queeg. “I’m serious about this, Burt. You will make the following announcement in the plan of the day tomorrow. ‘Hereafter all shirts will be tucked inside trousers. Failure to comply will result in heavy disciplinary action.’ ”
“Yes, sir,” said Gorton. “They’ve been doing it for years on this ship. I don’t know if we can change them overnight—”
“Those are orders,” said Queeg, “and sailors don’t have to be changed overnight to obey orders. If there’s any trouble we’ll hand out a few captain’s masts, and if necessary we’ll hand out deck courts, and if necessary we’ll hand out general court-martials for defiance of orders—but there will be no more flapping shirttails on my ship! Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I want a meeting of all officers in the wardroom at 1300.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The exec went out, closing the door softly. Captain Queeg lay back on his bed and stared at the green overhead. Rub, rub, rub, rub, went the little steel balls.
The officers of the Caine sat around the green table, chatting in low tones, a ring of perplexed, sullen faces. “Two wardroom meetings in a week,” said Keefer aside to Maryk. “De Vriess didn’t have two all the time he was captain.”
“Take it easy, Tom,” muttered Maryk.
“I’m just beginning to wonder, that’s all,” said Keefer, very low.
Gorton came out of Queeg’s room. “The captain, gentlemen.”
All the officers rose. Keefer slouched, his hands in his pockets. Captain Queeg entered at a businesslike pace, head down, rolling the balls as usual. “Kay,” he said. “Kay, gentlemen.” He sat, and the officers did, too. He pulled out a fresh package of cigarettes, opened it, took out a cigarette, lit it, and laid the cigarettes and matches carefully on the table.
“Gentlemen,” he said at last, looking out from under his eyebrows at the empty air over the table, “I regret to say that I am displeased.”
His eyes shifted momentarily from side to side, taking in the faces around him, and he resumed his stare at nothing. “I am displeased, gentlemen, because I have told you that on my ship I expect excellent performance to be standard—and—well, it isn’t standard. No, it isn’t standard. You all know what I’m talking about, so I won’t embarrass the department heads by going into particulars. Perhaps some of you feel that in your departments excellent performance is standard. Well, in that case, I’m not addressing you. But those whom the shoe fits—well, they’d better get on the ball, that’s all.
“Now, as you know, this ship was supposed to go to Pago Pago. Well, this ship isn’t going to Pago Pago. This ship is going to stay at Pearl Harbor and tow targets. Nice, soft, pleasant duty. The only question is, why have we been favored so generously by ComServPac?
“Well, your guess is as good as mine. A naval officer isn’t supposed to speculate about his orders. He’s supposed to execute them. That’s exactly what I intend to do, and don’t kid yourselves about that!” He looked around at blank faces. “Kay, any questions? No? Then I assume you all know exactly what I’m driving at, is that correct? Kay. Now I would like to point out that there are only two possible reasons why we got our orders changed. Either ComServPac decided that this ship is so outstanding that it deserves some extra-nice duty—or ComServPac decided that this ship is so lousy that it might not be competent to carry out an assignment in the forward area. Can anybody here suggest any other possible reason?
“Kay. Now, I’m not saying which I think it is. But if this ship is not outstanding now it had damn well better become so P.D.Q., meaning pretty damn quick. Now, it happens I had occasion to report to ComServPac recently that the engineering performance of this ship was below par, and it’s entirely possible that that’s why our orders were changed. But as I say, a naval officer is supposed to execute his orders, not speculate about them, and that’s how it’s going to be on this ship!”
Keefer was seized with a fit of coughing. He bent double over the table, his shoulders shaking. The captain glanced at him in annoyance.
“Sorry, sir,” gasped Keefer, “some smoke went down the wrong way.”
“Kay,” said Queeg. “Now I want you gentlemen to remember that anything that’s worth doing at all is worth doing well—and furthermore on this ship what’s difficult we do at once, and the impossible takes a little longer, and—Now, our duty for the next few weeks seems to be target towing. Well, we’re just going to be the best goddamn target-towing ship this Navy has ever seen, and—And as I say, we’re supposed to execute our orders, not speculate about them, so let’s not worry about anything that’s happened. As far as the grounding of the ship is concerned I feel that I’m not responsible for the state of training in which I found the ship, and I’m certain that ComServPac will see eye to eye with me on that and so—that’s that. But I am damn well responsible for anything that happens on this ship from here on in. I don’t intend to make a single mistake and—I won’t tolerate anybody making any mistakes for me, and I kid you not. And, well, I think you get the idea without my drawing you a picture, and—oh, yes, I knew there was something else.” He looked about and said, “Who’s the morale officer?”
Glances of puzzlement traveled around the table. Gorton cleared his throat. “Ha—hem. Captain, an ensign named Ferguson had that as collateral duty last I knew. It seems to me it was never reassigned when he got detached—”
Queeg shook his head slowly, and rasped the balls in silence for several moments. “Kay,” he said. “Mr. Keith, as of now, you’re the morale officer, in addition to your other duties.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Your first task is to see to it that every man on this ship begins to tuck his shirttail inside his pants.”
Willie looked startled.
“I don’t want to see a flapping shirttail again while I’m captain of this ship, I don’t care what steps you take. You can be as tough as you please. I’ll back you to the limit. If we want these men to start acting like sailors we’ve got to make them start looking like sailors. Woe betide the officer during whose watch I see a sailor with a flapping shirttail—and woe betide that sailor’s department head—and woe betide the morale officer. I kid you not.
“Well, gentlemen, that concludes my business, and, as I say, let’s get excellent performance established as the standard around here, and—and has anybody got any comment to make? No? You, Gorton? You, Maryk? You, Adams?…” In this way he went around the table, darting a forefinger at each officer. They shook their heads, one after another. “Fine. In that case I can assume that you all fully understand and enthusiastically support what I’ve said today, is that correct? And—well, that’s all I have to say, and—and remember that we are now running the best goddamn target-towing ship in the Navy, and—and let’s get on with the ship’s business.”
All the officers rose for the ceremony of the captain’s withdrawal. “Kay, kay, thank you,” he said, and hurried off into his room.
During the next two weeks, the “best goddamn target-towing ship in the Navy” carried out several towing assignments without mishap.
Queeg’s ship handling underwent a striking change after the brush with ComServPac. His dashing first manner disappeared, replaced by painful inching toward a dock or away from it. The exaggerated caution fretted the nerves of the crew, who were used to De Vriess’s spirited ease and accuracy. But there were no crashings or groundings.
Willie Keith posted a long notice in the crew’s quarters, headed: Morale—Smart Seamanlike Appearance as an Improver of. In five paragraphs of rolling prose he asked the crew to tuck in their shirttails. Much to his amazement, he was obeyed; the flapping tails vanished. He read his notice over and over, in a proud agony of authorship, and decided that he had a literary gift which could move men’s souls. This was optimistic. The crew, wise as wolves, knew perfectly well where the order came from. They were walking softly with their new captain. For the Caine had fallen on fat days; a stretch of Pearl Harbor duty was the dream of all the destroyer sailors in the Pacific. It meant fresh fruit in the pantry, and milk, and cream, and steaks, and revelry by night in the bars and byways of Honolulu. Nobody wanted to be restricted to the ship for the small luxury of a hanging shirttail.
The trouble started one morning when there was a fog. Captain Queeg came on the bridge at dawn and saw nothing but a blue blur, dimly relieved by yellow blotches of lamps on the dock. The air was muggy and smelled of mildew. “The hell with this,” the captain snorted. “Secure special sea details. We’ll get under way when this mess is gone. The sun’ll dry it up.”
But the blue turned light gray, then a drizzly white, and the channel echoed with the mournful, irritated hoots of foghorns, and the clock stood at 0815. From the bridge, the cranes on the fantail could barely be seen; beyond that was blank whiteness. Captain Queeg had been pacing the bridge for an hour, muttering. “Stand by to get under way,” he snapped at last.
Sounding fog signals, with the engines at dead slow, the Caine backed out into the channel. The dock was swallowed in drifting mist. The blind ship floated in a steamy void, rocking, and around it the foghorns suddenly seemed louder. They bawled and screeched from every direction, as hard to place as crickets in a dark cellar. Queeg ran from wing to wing, straining his eyes at the dripping blank windows and at the tumbling mists astern. His jaw was slack; his lips trembled. “Get out of my way, God damn it,” he yelled at Willie on the port wing, and the ensign leaped backward.
All at once a blast shattered the air, a tremendous foghorn apparently right on top of the Caine. Willie bit his tongue in sudden fright. Queeg came racing past him, bawling, “All engines stop! Who sees it! Where is it? Doesn’t anybody see anything?” He ran past Willie again and again, circling the bridge in frenzy four times, stopping each time for an instant in the wheelhouse to yank the foghorn cord. Again the big horn blasted, and a monstrous shadowy shape, a tanker, loomed through the fog, slipped past the Caine’s stern, and disappeared.
“Whew!” said Queeg, arresting his orbit beside Willie. He went to the charthouse door. “Navigator, how about giving me a course here? What the hell is the holdup?”
Gorton looked up from his chart in surprise. The course from this point was 220 degrees straight to the target base. Captain Queeg knew it as well as he. “Aye aye, sir, I—”
“What do you mean, aye aye, sir? What’s the course?” squeaked the captain, pounding his fist against the iron bulkhead.
Gorton stared at him. “Sir, I didn’t think you wanted a course until we turned around—”
“Turned around?” exclaimed Queeg. He glared at Gorton for a moment, then rushed into the pilothouse and issued the engine and rudder orders to turn the ship around. In a moment the minesweeper began to shudder as its screws pounded in opposite directions. The circle of gleaming green numbers on the black face of the gyroscope compass ticked steadily counterclockwise and the heading increased: 95 degrees, 100, 105, 120, 150. Queeg watched the compass intently for a few moments. Then he said to the helmsman, “Call out every twenty degrees of course change,” and ran out on the wing. Maryk, with both hands gripping the bulwark, was squinting out into the mist. The water was visible now around the ship for a couple of hundred yards, and overhead the whiteness had become dazzling.
“I think she’s breaking up, sir,” said the first lieutenant.
“About time,” growled Queeg, panting a little.
“Heading 180,” called the helmsman, a gunner’s mate second class named Stilwell. He was tall, and had thick straight black hair and sensitive boyish features. He gripped the wheel and stood with his legs apart, eyes fixed on the gyrocompass.
“I guess maybe we’ll get out of here today yet,” said Queeg. He called to the navigator’s shack, “What’s the course to the gate, Tom, 220?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Heading 200,” called the helmsman.
The foghorn blasts were diminishing in number, and stretches of black water could now be seen around the ship. “Bet she’s clear up at the channel entrance already,” said Maryk.
The helmsman called, “Steadying up on 220, sir.”
“WHAT?” yelled Queeg. He dived into the pilothouse. “Who gave you the order to steady up?”
“Sir, I thought—”
“You thought! You thought! You’re not being paid to think!” the captain screeched. “You just do as you’re goddamn told and don’t go thinking—please!”
The helmsman’s legs were trembling. His face was white and his eyes seemed to be popping from his head. “Aye, aye, sir,” he gasped. “Shall I come left again—”
“Don’t do ANYTHING!” Queeg screamed. “What course are you on?”
“Tu—tu—two-two-five, sir, coming right—”
“I thought you steadied on 220—”
“I stopped steadying, sir, when you said—”
“For Christ’s sake will you stop telling me what I said? Now, you come left and steady on 220!! Is that clear?”
“Aye aye, sir, l-left and steady on 220.”
“Mr. Maryk!” shouted the captain. The first lieutenant came running into the wheelhouse. “What’s this man’s name and rating?”
“Stilwell, sir, gunner’s mate second—”
“If he doesn’t watch himself he’ll be seaman second. I want him relieved and I want an experienced man at this wheel hereafter when we’re in the channel, not a green stupid idiot—”
“He’s our best helmsman, sir—”
“I want him relieved, do you hear—”
Willie Keith put his head in. “Something, looks like a battleship, dead ahead, Captain, three hundred yards!”
Queeg looked up in horror. A vast dark bulk was bearing down on the Caine. Queeg opened and closed his mouth three times without uttering a sound, then he choked out, “All engines back full—bah—bah—belay that—All stop.”
The order had barely been countermanded when the battleship slipped down the starboard side of the Caine, hooting angrily with perhaps ten feet of open water between the hulls. It was like a steel cliff going by.
“Red channel buoy, one point port bow,” called down a lookout from the flying bridge.
“No wonder,” said Maryk to the captain. “We’re on the wrong side of the channel, sir.”
“We’re not on the wrong side of anything,” snapped the captain. “If you’ll tend to your business and get another helmsman, I’ll tend to my business and conn my ship, Mr. Maryk!”
The Caine suddenly drifted through a gray curtain into sparkling sunshine and green water. The way was clear to the target repair base, in plain view about half a mile down-channel. The fog lay on the channel astern like a pile of cotton.
“Kay,” said Queeg. “All engines ahead one third.” He reached a shaking hand into his trousers and brought out the two steel balls.
The atmosphere on the bridge remained unpleasant long after the shore sank from sight and the Caine was steaming peacefully over calm blue water. It was the first time the new captain had burst out against a sailor; and it was the first time in the memory of anyone aboard the Caine that a helmsman had been summarily relieved. It wasn’t even clear to the crew what Stilwell had done wrong.
Willie, relieved of the watch when the ship left the channel, went to the clipping shack and told Harding the story. “I may be crazy. I hope I am,” he said. “It seemed to me that the captain just lost his head in the fog, and got scared, and took out his scare on the handiest sailor.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Harding from directly beneath him, lying back and smoking. “A helmsman isn’t supposed to steady up without an order.”
“But he knew the captain wanted course 220. He heard him say so to the navigator. Isn’t a sailor ever supposed to use his head?”
“Willie, it takes time to get used to a new captain’s ways, that’s all.”
The delicate question arose, when Stilwell’s turn came to relieve the wheel that afternoon, whether he had been banished perpetually from the bridge, or merely dismissed from his post for that one time. He asked his chief petty officer; the chief asked Lieutenant Adams; Adams asked Gorton; and Gorton reluctantly decided that he would have to ask Queeg.
The Caine at that time was steaming placidly on a straight course, the target trailing in its wake a mile behind, and on the horizon to starboard a division of destroyers was deploying into position for the last firing run of the afternoon. Gorton approached the captain and asked him about Stilwell. Queeg laughed pleasantly and said, “Hell, of course let him stand his watch. I’ve got nothing against the boy, he seems like a cleancut sailor. Anybody can make a mistake. Just tell him not to go doing things to the helm without orders.”
Stilwell came up to the bridge at a quarter to four dressed in brand-new dungarees and a newly bleached white hat. He was freshly shaved and his shoes were shined. He saluted the captain smartly. “Ah, good afternoon, good afternoon, Stilwell,” said Queeg with a smile. The gunner’s mate took the wheel, and studied the compass with painful concentration, trying to keep the ship from drifting even half a degree off course.
Over the TBS, the short-wave speaker in the wheelhouse, the squadron leader of the destroyers spoke up: “Gwendolyn, Gwendolyn, this is Tarzan. Ready to commence final run. Out.”
“Two-block Baker!” called the captain.
The signalman ran the red flag to the yardarm. Yellow flashes appeared all along the leading destroyer. Splashes shot up near the target as the boom of the five-inch guns came rolling over four miles of water. Again and again came the salvos, and then the second ship in line began firing.
Willie Keith was lolling on the fantail with his shirt off, enjoying the show and acquiring a sunburn. His lazy thoughts were of May Wynn, of walks through snow and rain along Broadway, of long languorous kisses in taxicabs—
“Ensign Keith, report to the bridge on the double!”
When a note of emotion managed to filter through the public-address system, as it did in this strident announcement, the effect was frightening. Willie jumped to his feet, put on his shirt, and scuttled up the main deck. A horrid sight confronted him on the bridge. The little moonfaced signalman, Urban, stood at cataleptic attention, his face frozen in lines of fear. His shirttail hung outside his pants. On one side of him stood the captain, glowering out to sea and rolling the balls. On the other side was Keefer, nervously twisting the lenses of his OOD binoculars.
“Ah, the morale officer,” said Queeg, turning sharply as Willie approached. “Mr. Keith, have you any explanation for the appearance of this sailor?”
“Sir—I—I didn’t know—” Willie turned on the signalman. “Didn’t you read my notice?” he said as fiercely as he could.
“Ye-yes, sir. I just forgot, sir. I’m sorry, sir—”
“Well, damn it,” said Willie, “the least you can do is tuck in your damned shirttail now!”
“Sir, the captain won’t let me,” bleated Urban.
Willie glanced at the captain. “Of course not,” said Queeg irritably. “First I wanted you to see what a lousy job you were doing, Ensign Keith, and—”
“Gwendolyn, Gwendolyn, this is Tarzan,” came from the wheelhouse. Queeg ran inside and seized the receiver.
“This is Gwendolyn. Go ahead.”
“Gwendolyn, cease present exercise and return to base. Well done. Out.”
“Roger, thank you, out,” said Queeg. He turned to the helmsman. “Right standard rudder.”
“Right standard rudder, sir,” said Stilwell, with a glance at the captain that showed all the white of his eyes. He spun the wheel hard.
The captain went out to the starboard wing. “Kay. Now, first of all, Keith, do you or don’t you have an explanation for this?”
“Sir, I was on the fantail, and—”
“I didn’t ask for an alibi! I’m talking about your failure to carry out my orders, and impress this ship’s crew with my desires regarding uniforms!”
The Caine, responding to the helm, swung around in a wide arc to the right. The target and towline, lagging behind on the turn, drifted up the starboard side.
“Kay,” said Queeg, “you will submit a written report, Mr. Keith, explaining this failure.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Now then, Mr. Keefer,” said the captain, wheeling on the officer of the deck, who was watching the target. “Have you any explanation for the fact that the first man to violate my uniform orders is in your department?”
“Sir, there are limits to what a department head can do while he has the deck—”
“Well, there are no limits,” shrilled Queeg, “to the duties of the officer of the deck! He is responsible for every goddamned thing that happens aboard ship during his watch, every goddamned thing!”
The ship was swinging in a circular path. The target and towline were well forward of the beam. The helmsman was staring at the target, his mouth gaping. The turning diameter of the Caine was a thousand yards, and the towline was twice that long; it was therefore obvious to Stilwell that at the present rate the ship was going to cut far inside the target, and pass over its own towline. Ordinarily he would have called this fact to the captain’s attention; but today he would have bitten his tongue out before speaking. He held the helm at right standard rudder.
“Kay, Mr. Keefer,” Queeg was saying, “you will submit a written report explaining (a) why this man’s shirt was out when he is in your department and (b) why this man’s shirttail was out when you had the deck. Is that clear?” (The target was now drifting across the bow.)
“Aye aye, sir.”
Chiefs Budge and Bellison were sitting on a ventilator on the forecastle, enjoying a smoke in the salt breeze. Bellison suddenly dug a bony elbow into the water tender’s fat ribs. “Budge, am I seeing straight? Are we cutting back across the towline?”
Chief Budge stared out at the target, then looked wildly at the bridge, then catapulted his heavy body to the life lines, and peered over the side of the water. “Christ, yes. What’s the matter with the old man?”
Bellison said, “Should I yell?”
“It’s too late. We can’t stop any more—”
“Jesus, the screws, Budge—suppose that tow cable wraps around the screws—”
The chiefs held their breath and clung to the lifelines, fearfully watching the bobbing target, far on the port beam. The Caine majestically steamed over its own tow cable. There was a slight jar, no more, and the old ship continued on its way. Nothing, apparently, happened to the target.
The two chiefs turned to each other. Bellison uncorked a flood of horrible profanity, which, translated, meant, “This is extremely unusual.” They stared at the sea and the ship’s curving wake for a long while, half stunned. “Budge,” said Bellison at last in a low, shaken tone, “I’m an unholy son of a bitch. This ship has gone around a full circle, and is starting around again!”
Budge, his stomach resting heavily on the life line, nodded in wonder. On the sea the ship’s wake was a complete circle of smooth green water flecked with bubbles, a mile across. The Caine was plowing into the same track again, still heeled over by the rudder. “What the Christ are we steaming in circles for?” said Bellison.
“Maybe the old man’s slipped his trolley—”
“Maybe the rudder’s jammed. Maybe the cable’s cut. Let’s see what the hell goes on—” They ran off the forecastle.
Meanwhile, on the bridge, Captain Queeg was winding up the shirttail emergency, after a long general harangue on the subject. “Kay, Signalman Third Class Urban. You may now adjust your uniform.” The little signalman frantically stuffed his shirt into his trousers and snapped to rigid quivering attention again. “There,” said Queeg. “Don’t you think you look better? More like a sailor in the United States Navy?”
“Yes, sir,” choked Urban.
The Caine had now steamed partly around the circle for the second time, and once more the target lay ahead. Queeg walked away from the palpitating sailor, with a curt “Dismissed.” He saw the target, started with surprise, and threw a savage glance at Keefer and Keith. “What the hell is that target doing up there?” he exclaimed. “Where the hell are we? What the hell’s going on?” He scurried into the wheelhouse and took a look at the rapidly rotating compass. “What the hell are you doing?” he screamed at Stilwell.
“Sir, you told me right standard rudder. I’m holding at right standard rudder,” said the helmsman desperately.
“Kay, that’s right, I did tell you right standard rudder,” said Queeg, turning his head from side to side, looking first at the target, then at the departing destroyers. “Why the hell isn’t that target coming around after us? That’s what I want to know—All engines stop! Steady as you go!”
The Caine wallowed to a stop. The target drifted on the port beam, about five hundred yards away. The telephone talker poked his head into the wheelhouse. “Pardon me, Captain—” he said, in a scared voice. “It’s Chief Bellison, sir, from the fantail. He says we ain’t got the target no more. The towline’s broken.”
“How the hell does he know it’s broken?” Queeg snapped. “Tell him not to be so goddamn positive when he’s just making a goddamn surmise.”
Grubnecker moved his lips, as though rehearsing the message, then spoke into the phone strapped on his neck. “Chief, the captain says not to be so goddamn positive with your goddamn sammizes.”
“All engines ahead standard! Rudder amidships! We’ll see whether we’ve got a target or not.”
The Caine steamed two miles. The target dwindled to a bobbing dot on the waves, not moving at all. Utter silence hung in the wheelhouse. “Kay,” said the captain. “Now we know what we want to know. We haven’t got the target.” He looked at Keefer and shrugged humorously. “Well, Tom, if ComServPac gives us cables that part when we come right a few degrees that’s his lookout, hey?… Willie, give me a despatch blank.”
He wrote, Defective towline parted southwest corner gunnery area Charlie. Target adrift, menace to navigation. Am returning to base. Suggest tug recover or destroy target at dawn tomorrow.
“Send it out on the harbor frequency,” he said.
As Willie took the despatch Maryk came running into the wheelhouse, his khaki shirt black with sweat. “Sir, the motor whaleboat is swung out and the target detail is standing by. It’ll take us about an hour to recover. If we close to about fifty yards—”
“Recover what?”
“The target, sir.” The first lieutenant seemed amazed at the question.
“Show Mr. Maryk the despatch, Willie,” said Queeg, grinning. The first lieutenant ran his eye over the scribbled sheet. Queeg went on, “As I see it, Mr. Maryk—maybe your insight is more profound than mine—my responsibility doesn’t include emergencies arising from defective gear. If ServPac gives me a towline that parts my duty is to let him know and then get back home and await the next operation, instead of fooling away the Navy’s time out here to no purpose—Mr. Keefer, kindly ask the navigator for a course back to Pearl.”
Maryk followed Keefer out to the port wing and tugged at his shirt sleeve. “Tom,” he whispered, “doesn’t he know that we went around in circles and cut the target loose?”
“Steve,” murmured the communications officer, shaking his head, “don’t ask me what goes on in his mind. We’re in trouble with this joker, Steve. I’m not fooling.”
The two officers went into the charthouse, where Gorton was calculating a sun line. Keefer said, “Skipper wants a course to Pearl, Burt.”
Gorton’s mouth fell open. “What! How about the target?”
Maryk told him Queeg’s reasoning on the subject and added, “Burt, if you want to keep him out of trouble, try to talk him into recovering it—”
“Listen, Steve, I ain’t talking the old man into anything, he—”
Queeg’s scowling face poked into the charthouse. “Well, well? What’s the staff conference all about? I’m still waiting for a course to Pearl—”
“Captain, I’m sorry if I seem pigheaded, sir,” Maryk blurted, “but I still think we ought to try to recover that damn target. It’s worth thousands of dollars, sir. We can do it if—”
“How do you know we can do it? Has this ship ever recovered one?”
“No, sir, but—”
“Well, I haven’t got such a high opinion of Caine seamanship as to think they can do such a specialist job. Fool around here all afternoon, maybe get some of these enlisted dumbheads drowned on us, miss the closing of the gate—how do I know the next op-order isn’t waiting for us right now? We’re supposed to be back prior to sunset—”
“Sir, I can recover it in an hour—”
“So you say—Mr. Gorton, what’s your opinion?”
The exec looked unhappily from Maryk to the captain. “Well, sir—I think Steve can be relied on—if he says—”
“Oh hell,” said Queeg, “get Chief Bellison up here.”
The boatswain’s mate came into the charthouse in a few minutes, dragging his feet. “Yes, Captain?” he croaked.
“Bellison, if you had to recover that target how would you go about it?”
Bellison screwed up his face into a thousand wrinkles. After a pause he rattled off a confusing answer involving heaving lines, U-bolts, swivels, pelican hooks, slip hooks, pad eyes, spring lines, and chains.
“Hm, hm,” Queeg said. “How long would it take?”
“Depends, sir. Sea ain’t bad—maybe forty minutes, an hour—”
“And nobody would get killed, hey?”
Bellison peered at the captain like a suspicious monkey. “Nuthin’ to get killed about, Cap’n—”
Queeg paced the bridge, muttering, for a few minutes, and then sent another despatch to ComServPac: If you prefer can attempt recover target. Request instructions.
The minesweeper steamed in a long lazy circle around the target for an hour. The answer came from ComServPac: Act at discretion. Willie delivered the despatch to the captain on the port wing, where he stood with Gorton and Maryk, watching the target.
“Helpful, aren’t they?” Queeg said crankily, passing the despatch to the exec. He glanced up at the sun, which was about an hour and a half above the horizon. “That’s the Navy for you. Pass the buck and get a receipt. Act at discretion, hey? Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to do, and I kid you not. They’re not hanging the responsibility on me for missing tomorrow’s exercise and maybe breaking some thick sailor’s neck. Let’s head for the barn.”
But no exercise was scheduled for the next day, and the Caine lay alongside the dock, doing nothing. At eleven o’clock in the morning Gorton sat at the wardroom table, sipping coffee as he worked through a basketful of correspondence. The door was opened by a smart sailor in dress blues, who whipped off a snowy hat and said to the exec, “Pardon me, sir, where is the captain’s cabin?”
“I’m the executive officer. What can I do for you?”
“Sir, I have a mailgram to be delivered to the captain personally.”
“Mailgram from whom?”
“ComServPac, sir.”
Gorton pointed at the captain’s cabin. The sailor knocked. When the door opened Gorton caught a glimpse of Queeg in underwear, his face heavily lathered. In a moment the sailor emerged, said to Gorton, “Thank you, sir,” and went out, his steps echoing up the half-deck ladder. Gorton sat still, waiting. He waited perhaps forty-five seconds, then he heard the buzzer in his cabin ring frantically. Draining off the coffee at a gulp, he pushed himself out of his chair and trudged in to the captain’s cabin.
Queeg sat at his desk, lather still on his face, the ripped-open envelope on the floor, a sheet of flimsy paper in his right hand. His head was sunk down between his shoulders, and his left hand, resting on his knee, trembled. He glanced up sidewise at the exec for a moment, then silently held out the mailgram to him, looking away.
At 1300 22 October commanding officer Caine will submit in person repeat in person written report on latest fiasco to operations officer ComServPac.
The captain rose, and fished the steel balls out of khaki trousers hanging on a hook. “Will you tell me, Burt,” he said thickly, “what you think that means?”
Gorton shrugged unhappily.
“Fiasco! In an official mailgram!—I’d sure as hell like to know why he calls it a fiasco. Why should I have to submit a written report? Didn’t they tell me to act at discretion? Tell me frankly, Burt, was there anything I could possibly have done that I didn’t do? Any mistake you think I made?” Gorton was silent. “I’d appreciate your telling me if there was anything. I regard you as my friend.”
“Well, sir—” Gorton hesitated. He thought ComServPac might have heard about the cutting of the towline; such stories traveled fast in the Navy. But he was afraid to mention it, because Queeg had yet to acknowledge that it had happened.
“Speak up, Burt, you needn’t fear offending me.”
“The only thing is, sir,” said the exec, “you—I think maybe you overestimated the difficulty of recovering. I’ve seen it done. We were once out on a shooting exercise with the Moulton, back in ’40. The towline parted. They recovered it, no strain, in about half an hour.”
“I see.” Queeg compressed his mouth, staring at the balls, and was silent for a while. “Mr. Gorton, can you explain why this vital piece of information was not given to me at the time, when it would have decisively influenced my command decision?”
Gorton gaped at the captain.
“Maybe you think I’m pulling a fast one on you, Mr. Gorton. Maybe you think I was supposed to read your mind for any relevant information. Maybe you don’t think that the primary duty of a second-in-command is to give his superior informed advice when asked.”
“Sir—sir, if you recall, I recommended that you allow Mr. Maryk to recover—”
“Did you tell me why you recommended that, hey?”
“No, sir—”
“Well, why didn’t you?”
“Sir, I assumed that when you said—”
“You assumed. You assumed! Burt, you can’t assume a goddamn thing in the Navy. Not a goddamn thing. That’s why I have to submit a written report to ComServPac, because you assumed.” Queeg struck the desk with his fist, and glowered silently at the wall for perhaps a minute.
“I readily grant you,” he said, “that it called for a little intelligence on your part to understand your duty in this matter and give me all the dope. But it was definitely your responsibility. Hereafter, of course, if you want to be treated as if you don’t have the professional background which I respect in you, why, that can easily be arranged.”
Queeg sat, nodding to himself, for a long while. Gorton stood dumfounded, his heart pounding.
“Kay,” said the captain at last. “It’s probably not the first butch you’ve ever pulled, Burt, and it may not be your last, but I damn well hope it’s the last you pull as my executive officer. I like you personally, but I write fitness reports on the basis of professional performance only. That’s all, Burt.”