Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [133]
It was well known among the crew that Stilwell was the particular object of Queeg’s dislike. The gunner’s mate was suspended in an agony of worry about the letter that Maryk had sent to the Red Cross regarding his mother’s illness. No answer had come yet. The sailor was growing gaunt as the weeks slipped by and he waited for the ax to fall. Every watch he stood at the helm within range of Queeg was torture for him. The sailors who were against Queeg went out of their way to be friendly with the gunner’s mate, and tried to cheer him up; and so the opposition came to center around him. The rest of the crew avoided Stilwell. They feared that the captain’s hatred might spread out to include his cronies.
In the wardroom there were three distinct parties. One was Queeg himself, daily more frosty and secluded. One was Maryk, retreated into a stolid, humorless silence, maintaining whatever contact existed between the captain and his ship. The executive officer saw what the crew was doing. He was aware that it was his responsibility to enforce the captain’s rules; he was also aware that most of the rules were either impossible of enforcement on the overworked, overcrowded, rough-minded crew, or enforceable only at an unacceptable cost to the ship’s narrow margin of seaworthiness. He winked at the circle of compliance, and set himself the task of keeping the ship functioning adequately outside that circle.
A third party included all the other officers, with Keefer as ringleader. A strong open detestation of Queeg began to serve as a bond of affection among them, and they passed hours in sarcastic joking about him. The new officers, Jorgensen and Ducely, quickly absorbed the air of the wardroom and were soon in full cry after Queeg with the rest. Willie Keith was regarded as the captain’s pet, and was the target of much joking for it; and, in point of fact, Queeg was warmer and pleasanter in manner to Willie than to any of the others. But he joined vigorously in satirizing the captain. Maryk alone took no part in the ribaldry. He either kept silence or tried to defend Queeg, and if the jokes became too prolonged he would leave the wardroom.
This was the condition of the U.S.S. Caine when it crossed the mythical line on the broad sea, five days out of Pearl Harbor, and steamed into Japanese waters.
CHAPTER 20
The Yellow Stain
The evening before the fleet was due to arrive at Kwajalein, Willie had the eight-to-midnight watch. He observed an increased tension among the sailors on the bridge. Silence, even in the captain’s absence, hung heavily in the wheelhouse. The perpetual discussion of sex in the black radar shack, among ghostly faces lit by the dim green glow of the scopes, had not ceased; but it was sluggish, and dwelt mainly on venereal disease. The signal gang crouched on the flagbags over cups of rancid coffee, muttering.
There had been no official word passed that the ship would be at Kwajalein in the morning, but the crew had its intelligence agent in the quartermaster who solved the star sights each night with Maryk. They knew the distance from the objective as well as the captain.
Willie did not share the general gloom. His mood was buoyant and devilish. Within twelve hours he would be in battle; within twenty-four hours he would be a man who had risked his life for his country. He felt invulnerable. He was rolling toward an edge of danger, he knew, but it seemed an entertaining kind of danger, like a jump over a high hurdle on horseback. He was proud of his lack of fear, and this buoyed him yet more.
He alone, beside the captain, knew that the Caine was going to perform a hazardous mission at dawn. One of the top-secret guard-mail letters had contained new orders. The minesweeper was to shepherd a wave of attack boats from their transport to a line of departure only a thousand yards from the beach, fairly into the muzzles of the shore batteries; the reason being that correct navigation would be hard for