Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [105]
Willie took several deep breaths of the medicinal wind, and went below to the captain’s cabin.
Queeg was lying on his bunk in his underwear, fiddling - with a wooden Chinese puzzle, a ball of interlocking pieces. The captain had confiscated it one day, upon poking his head into the radar shack and finding the watch-stander playing with it. He had been working at it ever since, and though he told Gorton he had solved it nobody had ever seen the pieces apart. “Yes, Willie, what can I do for you?” he said, jiggling the puzzle under his reading lamp.
Willie stated his errand, while the captain worked away at his puzzle. “... So, sir, I just thought I’d check and be sure. Did you mean Stilwell’s restriction to apply during the overhaul?”
“What do you think I meant?”
“Well, I didn’t think so, sir-”
“Why not? When a man’s in jail for a year they don’t let him out for two weeks at Christmas, do they? Restriction to the ship means restriction to the ship.”
The close air in the room, and the swaying deck, and the jiggling of the puzzle before his eyes began to trouble Willie. “But-but sir, isn’t this a little different? He’s not a criminal-and he’s been fighting a war for two years overseas-”
“Willie, if you start getting sentimental about naval discipline you’re licked. Every man in a brig or a guardhouse in the forward area has been fighting a war. When a war is on you’ve got to get tougher with enlisted men, not easier.” (Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle.) “They’re under a strain, and there’s a lot of damned unpleasant duty to do, and if you let up the pressure even once your whole goddamn organization’s apt to blow up in your face.” (Jiggle, jiggle.) “The sooner you learn that elementary fact, Willie, the better morale officer you’ll be.”
Willie’s stomach put in an appearance again, throbbing and heavy. He pulled his hypnotized glance away from the puzzle, and his eyes fell on the wooden crate under the captain’s washbasin. “Sir, there are offenses and offenses,” he said, his voice a little weaker. “Stilwell is a good sailor. Before you came aboard, nobody bore down on these men for peeking at a magazine during a watch. I know it was wrong but-”
“All the more reason for bearing down now, Willie. You tell me a better way to get my wishes obeyed on this ship and I’ll take it under consideration. Do you think all reading on watch would stop if I gave Stilwell a letter of commendation, hey?”
Willie’s dizziness got the better of his discretion and he blurted out, “Sir, I’m not sure that reading on watch is any greater violation than transporting whisky aboard ship.”
The captain laughed amiably. “You’ve got a point there. But rank hath its privileges, Willie. An admiral can wear a baseball cap on the bridge. That doesn’t mean the helmsmen can. No, Willie, our job is to make damn sure that the enlisted men do as we say, not as we do.” (Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle.) “And, as I say, the one way to make them do as we say is to get goddamn tough with them and make it stick.”
Willie felt himself breaking out in a sweat.
The captain droned on, “Now, if it was Stilwell’s tough luck to get caught first so that I had to make him the horrible example, well, as I say, reading on watch has got to be knocked off on this ship, and” (jiggle, jiggle) “it’s just too bad that he’s worried about his wife, but I’ve got the whole U.S.S. Caine to worry about, and” (jiggle) “sometimes one man has to suffer for-”
But he left the sentence unfinished, because at that point Willie Keith made a queer stifled noise and threw up violently. The ensign managed to turn his green face away from Queeg just in time. Gasping apologies, he seized a towel and began dabbing at the deck. Queeg was surprisingly genial about it. “Never mind, Willie. Send a steward’s mate in here and go topside for some fresh air. Lay off the pork till you get your sea legs.”
So ended Willie’s plea for Stilwell. He could hardly face the sailor, but Stilwell took the news with a stiff blank face. “Thanks for trying anyway, sir,” he said dryly.
Another day and another passed