Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [108]
“Kay,” said Captain Queeg, posted on the port wing, squinting unhappily at the tide current swirling past the dock. “All engines slow to one third. Line-handling parties stand by the port side.”
Willie went to the starboard wing out of the captain’s sight, and began scanning the women on the wharf through binoculars. All over the ship sailors crowded the rails and life lines, trying to find familiar faces, shouting and waving.
The Caine, with its screws beating at five knots, drifted impotently sidewise, making no headway toward the dock against the current. “Kay,” said the captain, rolling the steel balls swiftly, “I can see this approach is going to be fun- Tell the line handlers to, stand by their line-throwing guns. All ahead two thirds! Right full rudder!”
The Caine churned forward against the brown tumbling tide, and swung in toward the pier. Gray gulls wheeled and darted between the ship and the dock, making raucous, jeering noises. In a few seconds the ship drew parallel to the dock-but yards and yards of open water lay between. “Kay, we’ll breast her in! All stop! Shoot those heaving lines over!”
The line-throwing guns cracked fore and aft, and the crowd cheered as two arcs of white cord came sailing across the water. The forward line reached the dock, but the after line splashed short. The Caine drifted away from the pier. “Christ, what’s the matter with that after line-handling party?” stormed Queeg. “Tell ’em to shoot over another line on the double!”
Gorton, standing at the captain’s elbow, said, “It’s not going to reach, sir. We’re drifting too fast-”
“Why are we drifting too fast? Because these goddamn line handlers are all goddamn zombies! Kay. Recover all lines! I’m going to make another approach.”
The Caine backed out into the main channel. Willie Keith’s heart gave a mighty throb, for he suddenly saw May Wynn at the far end of the pier, almost hidden by women in front of her. She wore a perky gray hat with a veil, a gray traveling suit, and a white fur shoulder piece. She looked as she had in Willie’s waking dreams, not a touch less beautiful or desirable. She was peering anxiously at the ship. Willie wanted to dance and scream, but he refrained, and merely took off the hat which made him a nameless naval officer. In a moment May’s eyes turned to him, and her face became brilliant with joy. She raised one white-gloved hand and waved. Willie returned the wave with a careless, masculine dip of the binoculars, but he became weak in the knees all the same, and prickles of pleasure ran along his skin.
“All right, we’ll try again,” he heard the captain shout, “and if there’s any more doping-off by the line-handling parties it’ll be too goddamn bad for a lot of people!”
Queeg tore in toward the dock at fifteen knots, swung the ship hard right, and backed the engines, in an apparent attempt to duplicate his historic red-hot landing alongside the fuel dock in Hawaii. But luck or skill did not favor him with the same hair-raising success this time. He backed down too late. The Caine came crashing into the wharf at an angle of about twenty degrees, still going fast. A hideous splintering din arose, mingled with shrieks of the lady spectators scurrying to the other side of the wharf.
“Back down emergency full! Emergency full!” squeaked the captain, as the destroyer, its bow imbedded in the dock, quivered like an arrow shot into a tree trunk. The Caine pulled clear in a moment, with more tearing and banging, leaving a monstrous shaving several feet thick and twenty yards long gouged out of the pier.
“God damn this current, why don’t they have a goddamn tug standing by when a ship has to go alongside?”
Willie shrank out of the captain’s sight, and flattened against the charthouse bulkhead, as he had often seen the signalmen do. With his girl almost within his grasp, and an infuriated captain loose, it was time