Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [140]
“Brilliant administrator, our captain,” Keefer said as he went out.
Harding and Keith looked at each other with identical expressions of wry, worried amusement. Harding scratched his head. “Willie,” he said softly, “did the captain keep dodging to the covered side of the bridge?” His tone appealed to the brotherhood of three months in the clip shack, of two green ensigns sick together at the top of a mast.
“Harding, I’m not sure,” answered Willie, in a tone involuntarily hushed. “It seems to me I saw a lot less of him than usual. But-hell, you know how Keefer hates the captain.” He dropped his eyes to the code machine.
Harding stood. “That’s great-great.”
“Maybe he’s all wrong.”
“What happens if this ship gets in a jam?” Harding’s lips were tight in vexation and fear. “The purpose of a captain is to get us out of jams, Willie, not to check off due dates on reports and assignments. Christ, this ship’s service audit is ludicrous! I’m a graduate CPA. I’ve done audits for Onondaga Carbide. Christ knows what my boss would say if he saw me in that canteen, counting Oh Henry bars and tubes of toothpaste! ... Well, all that doesn’t matter, see? I volunteered for the Navy, and I’m on the Caine, and if it helps the Caine for a professional CPA to audit the nickel-and-dime ship’s service, why, I’ll audit it. But in return the Navy’s supposed to give me a ship that goes, and a captain that fights- That’s what all this muck is for, isn’t it?”
“Look, it’s an old story by now. We’re stuck with a lemon. Misfortune of war. We could be in a Jap prison camp. We’ve got to see it through, that’s all-”
“Willie, you’re a good guy,” Harding said, getting up, “but you’re not a married man. We’re different animals. I’m scared for five people, me, my wife, and three kids. One kid in particular. A six-year-old boy with a very nice smile. Remind me to show you his picture sometime.”
Harding hurried up the passageway and disappeared behind the green curtains of his stateroom.
CHAPTER 21
Death and Ice Cream
At dawn next day another entertainment was staged for Ensign Keith by the Northern Attack Force.
The whining bangs of the general alarm brought him, half dressed, scampering up to the bridge, in a misty blue twilight torn by zigzags and parabolas and bursts of red-and-orange fire. The crash of big guns made his ears ring. He hastily chewed up two of the sheets of toilet paper he kept tucked in his life jacket for this purpose, and thrust the wet wads in his ears. At once the explosions dimmed to comfortable thuds. This was his own invention, devised when cotton had once run short during a gunnery exercise.
The Caine’s three-inch pop guns had no part to play in the barrage. Queeg kept the crew at battle stations until the sun rose, and then dismissed them. Willie remained on the bridge to enjoy the thumping, blazing show. At half-past eight a long arc of assault boats crept across the quiet waters toward Roi-Namur, main northern fortress of the atoll. The islands were no longer green at all, but sandy gray, spotted here and there with black. Little fires flickered on them, pale in the white sunlight. The foliage had all burned or withered away, leaving splintered, crisscrossed tangles of tree trunks, through which could be seen ruins of squat buildings, and some empty broken walls. Willie watched through binoculars the arrival of the assault boats on the beaches, the swarming forward of the tanks and the marines, the unexpected puffs of white and orange from the inner gray wastes of the islands. He saw some marines fall. The sight was thrilling and a little saddening, like seeing a fighter knocked out.
He turned on the special short-wave radio, the JBD 640, and eavesdropped eagerly on the talk of the embattled men in the tanks ashore. He was surprised to notice that they had dropped the phrases of Navy communications. They spoke to each other, and to the ships trying to protect them with gunfire, in