Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [102]
“Sir, we ain’t got no thin stuff for partitions, no plywood nor nothin’-”
“Well, hell, get some sheet tin from the metalsmith’s shop.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll fix it up nice, sir.”
Late that afternoon Langhorne came staggering into the wardroom, his face pouring sweat, bearing on his back a box made of fresh-sawed white boards. He stumbled into Queeg’s cabin and let the crate down to the deck with fearsome grunts and grimaces, as though it were a piano. Mopping his streaming face with a red bandanna, he said, “Jesus, sir, them sheet-lead partitions are heavy-”
“Sheet lead?”
“Metalsmiths were fresh out of sheet tin, sir-”
“But Christ, lead. Good stiff cardboard would have done just as well-”
“I can rip them lead sheets out, sir, and make it over-”
“No, leave it as it is,” grumbled Queeg. “It just means some seamen are going to be getting some healthy exercise in a few days, which is just as well- Probably I can use a supply of sheet lead back home, at that,” he muttered.
“Pardon me, sir?”
“Never mind. Get some excelsior and pack away those bottles.” He pointed to the treasure, ranged on the deck under the washbowl.
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Now hear this. General drills will commence at 1400.”
The Caine was steaming in her position at the right end of the semicircular screen of escorts, which plowed in the van of the convoy of four fleet oilers, two transports, and three merchant ships. They were far out of sight of land, rocking over calm blue water. The ships were disposed in a neat pattern on the sunlit sea.
Ensign Keith, junior officer of the deck, was greatly enjoying this voyage. No submarines had been reported east of Hawaii for a year, but still, there was no doubt at all that Willie Keith was JOOD on a ship which was sniffing for Jap submersibles. If the OOD should drop dead or fall over the side it was conceivable that he, Ensign Keith, might take the conn, sink a submarine, and win great glory. It was not likely-but it was possible, whereas it was not possible, for example, that his mother might do it. The OOD, Keefer, added to his exaltation by putting him in charge of the zigzag plan, allowing him to give the orders to the helm. Willie tried to snap the orders out at the instant when the second hand of the bridge chronometer was cleaving the dot over twelve o’clock. The war had at last begun for him.
Captain Queeg came on the bridge at two minutes before two, squinting around in an irritated way, followed by Gorton, who had a whipped-dog look. The exec had, in fact, just received a raking for his failure to conduct general drills more often, and was mentally composing the opening paragraphs of a written report explaining why he hadn’t held them. Queeg had come across a CincPac letter in his correspondence that morning, desiring written reports from all ships on the number of drills conducted each month. “Kay,” said the captain to Engstrand. “Hoist ‘I am conducting general drills.’ ”
The signalman ran up a halyard display of colored flags. Willie, at a nod from the captain, walked to the red-painted general alarm handle in the wheelhouse, and yanked it. Then, while the whang-whang-whang shook the air, he inspected with satisfaction his image in one of the bridge windowpanes. Confronting him was the shadowy figure of a World War II sea warrior, complete with bulbous helmet, bulky gray kapok life jacket and attached flashlight, and gray flash-burn paint on his face and hands. Everybody on the bridge was similarly dressed
Elsewhere on the ship things were different. The Caine crew, after more than a year of general quarters under Japanese air attacks, followed by a couple of months of Pearl Harbor indolence, were not inclined to take pains with a mock general alarm in the peaceful waters between Honolulu and San Francisco. Half of them appeared at their battle stations minus either helmet or life jacket, or both. Queeg peered here and there, frowning horribly.
“Mr. Keefer!”
“Yes, sir?”
“I want you to make the following announcement over the loudspeaker: ‘Every man