Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [14]
“See you in Tokyo, Doctor,” said Willie.
In his room he found Keggs and Keefer fussing with guns. A big battered rifle, with a custody card, lay on Willie’s cot. “Rifles in the Navy?” he said mildly.
“Bet your behind,” said Keefer. The pieces of his firing lock lay on the desk beside him. Keggs was clanking the rotating bolt back and forth with an air of futility. “We have to learn how to take one apart and assemble it in two minutes,” he moaned, “by tomorrow morning. I bilge, for sure.”
“Don’t strain your milk,” said Keefer. “Lemme get this baby together, and I’ll show you. Damn this mainspring.”
The Southerner gave his two roommates a patient thorough lesson in the mysteries of the Springfield rifle. Keggs got the hang of it quickly. His long bony fingers caught the critical trick, which was to force the tough mainspring back into the bolt on reassembly. He beamed at his weapon, and ran through the process several times. Willie wrestled vainly with the bolt for a while and panted, “They should have bilged me on lordosis. It would have been more dignified. I’ll be out of this Navy tomorrow- Get in there, lousy damn spring-” He had never touched a gun before. The potential deadliness of it meant nothing to him. It was simply a troublesome assignment: a knotty page of Beethoven, an overdue book report on Clarissa Harlowe.
“Jam the butt of that bolt in your stomach, see?” said Keefer. “Then press the spring down with both hands.”
Willie obeyed. The spring yielded slowly. The end of it sank at last into the rim. “It works! Thanks, Rollo-” At that moment the spring, still unsecured, escaped between his fingers and leaped from the bolt. It soared across the room. The window was conveniently open. The spring sailed out into the night.
His roommates stared at him in horror. “That’s bad, isn’t it?” quavered Willie.
“Anything happens to your rifle, boy-that does it,” said the Southerner, walking to the window.
“I’ll run downstairs,” Willie said.
“What, during study hour? Twelve demerits!” Keggs said.
“Come here, fella.” Keefer pointed out through the window. The spring lay in a rain gutter at the edge of a steeply slanting copper-covered roof projection beneath the window. The tenth floor was set slightly back from the rest of the building.
“I can’t get that,” said Willie.
“You better, fella.”
Keggs peered out. “You’d never make it. You’d fall off.”
“That’s what I think,” said Willie. He was not at all a daredevil. His mountain climbing had been done in plenty of stout company, and with much gulping horror. He hated high places and poor footing.
“Look, fella, you want to stay in the Navy? Climb out there. Or d’you want me to do it?”
Willie climbed out, clinging to the window frame. The wind moaned in the darkness. Broadway twinkled far, far below. The ledge seemed to drop away beneath his trembling legs. He stretched a hand vainly toward the spring, and gasped, “Need another couple of feet-”
“If we only had a rope,” said Keefer. “Look man. One of us gets out with you, see, and hangs onto the window. And you hang onto him. That does it.”
“Let’s get it over with,” said Keggs anxiously. “If he gets caught out there we all bilge.” He sprang through the window, stood beside Willie, and gripped his hand. “Now get it.” Willie let go of the window, and inched downward, clinging to Keggs’s powerful grip. He teetered at the edge of the roof, the wind whipping his clothes. The spring was in easy reach. He grasped it and thrust it into a pocket.
Ensign Acres might have picked a less awkward moment to make his study-hour round of the tenth floor, but he chose this one. He walked past the room, peeped in, stopped short, and roared, “Attention on deck! What the hell is going on here?”
Keggs neighed in terror and let go of Willie’s hand. Willie lunged and clutched him around the knees. The two midshipmen swayed back and forth on the ledge, not far from death. But Keggs’s urge to live was slightly stronger than his fear of ensigns. He reared