Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [148]
Funafuti Atoll was a necklace of low islands richly green, flung on the empty sea. The Caine entered it shortly after sunrise, steaming slowly through a gap of blue water in the long white line of breakers on the reef. Half an hour later the minesweeper was secured to the port side of the destroyer tender Pluto, outboard of two other ships. Lines for steam, water, and electric power were hurriedly run across; the fires were allowed to die on the Caine; and the ship commenced to nurse itself at the generous dugs of the Pluto. The tender with its litter swung to a heavy anchor chain, fifteen hundred yards from the beach of Funafuti Island.
Willie was one of the first over the gangplank. A visit to a destroyer tender’s communication office saved him whole days of decoding. It was part of the tender’s service to decode and mimeograph fleet messages. These AlPacs, AlComs, AlFleets, GenPacs, PacFleets, AlNavs, NavGens, SoPacGens, and CentPacGens were what broke the backs of overburdened destroyer communicators.
There was a choppy swell in the lagoon. Willie airily crossed the unsteady planks over the sucking, churning, murderous little spaces between the ships. From the destroyer next to the Pluto a broad, stout gangplank on rollers slanted upward. Willie mounted it and found himself in a roaring machine shop. He groped around the cavernous tender, through zigzagging passageways and up and down ladders, passing in and out of a blacksmith shop, a barbershop, a carpenter shop, a laundry, a stainless-steel kitchen where hundreds of chickens were frying, a bakery, and twenty other such civilized enterprises. Throngs of sailors moved sedately through these clean, fresh-painted spaces, most of them eating ice cream out of paper cups. They looked different from his own crew; generally older, fatter, and more peaceful; a species of herbivorous sailor, one might say, as contrasted to the coyotes of the Caine.
He stumbled at last upon the immense wardroom. Brown leather couches stretched along the bulkheads, and officers in khaki stretched upon the couches. There were perhaps fifteen of these prostrate figures. Willie walked up to a bulky body and touched the shoulder. The officer grunted, rolled over, and sat up, blinking. He stared at Willie a moment, and said, “I’ll be goddamned-the demerit king, Midshipman Keith.”
The jowly face had familiar, half-obliterated features. Willie studied the officer with some embarrassment and put out his hand. “That’s right,” he said, and added, with a sudden jolt of recognition, “Aren’t you Ensign Acres?”
“Good for you. Only it’s Lieutenant jg.” Acres uttered a wheezy laugh. “They don’t always recognize me. Coffee?”
“Yes,” he said, a few minutes later, stirring his cup, “I’ve put on at least forty pounds, I know. You do, on these damn tenders. There’s so much of everything-You look pretty good. Skinnier. Sort of older, somehow. You got a good deal?”
“It’s all right,” Willie said. He was trying to keep himself from staring in wonder at Acres. The once stern, handsome drill officer was a fat wreck.
“Can’t beat this deal,” said Acres. “Oh, you see these guys?” He swept a scornful thumb around at the sleepers. “Ask them, and half of them will cry that they hate this dull noncombatant life, being stuck forever in a godforsaken atoll. All they want is action, action, they say. They want to be part of this great battle, they say. When, oh when, will orders ever come, taking them to a fighting ship? ... Horse feathers. I handle the ship’s correspondence. I know who puts in transfer requests and who doesn’t. I know who kicks and screams when the possibility arises of giving ’em some temporary staff duty with a commodore on a tin can. They all love this deal. I do, and I admit it. Want a cheese sandwich? We have some terrific Roquefort.”
“Sure.”
The Roquefort was exquisite, and so was the fresh white bread.
“The thing is, Keith, that all of us supine bastards are actually doing a damn good and damn necessary