Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [151]
“Prove it, hell! Here’s his confession.” Queeg snatched a typewritten sheet from the wire basket and tossed it on the desk in front of Willie. “There’s a way of doing these things. The court-martial is a formality, that’s all. How the hell could four ignoramuses like you and Keefer and those two others try a not-guilty plea? You’d make a million mistakes. You take that confession now.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Willie folded the paper away carefully.
“Now if there are any questions, any points that you and Porteous can’t figure out between you, why, remember to bring the record up here to me. I don’t want the big boys to throw it out on some goddamn technical point. I want this thing to stick, do you understand?”
Willie took the confession to his room and read it. At first he was sure that Stilwell was lost. Then he opened Courts and Boards to the section on confessions, and studied it carefully, underlining several sentences. He sent for Stilwell. In a few minutes the sailor appeared in the doorway. He wore painfully clean dungarees, and wrung a new white hat in his hands. “You want me, Mr. Keith?”
“Come in. Draw the curtain. ... Sit down on that bunk.” The sailor closed the curtain, and stood with his back to it. “Pretty sad business, Stilwell.”
“I know, sir. I’ll take what’s coming to me. Whatever it is, it was worth it. If that’s all-”
“Why did you confess?”
“Hell, the captain had me cold, sir, with that Red Cross letter.”
“Oh, he showed that to you?”
“He says, ‘Take your choice. A clean breast of it, and a summary court on the ship, or try to bluff through, and get yourself a general court back in the States, and probably ten years.’ What would you do, sir?”
“Stilwell, what has the captain got against you?”
“Holy Christ! You tell me, sir.”
Lieutenant Keith pulled forward the open copy of Courts and Boards on the desk. He read the section on confessions aloud to the sailor. At first Stilwell’s face lit with desperate hope, but the liveliness quickly went out of his face. “What’s the use, sir? It’s too late now. I didn’t know about that book.”
Lighting a cigarette, Willie leaned back in his chair and stared at the overhead, smoking in silence for a minute. “Stilwell, if you quote me to the captain as saying this, I’ll call you a liar. But if you’ll call on me to bear you out from the book, I will. Do you see the difference? I want to tell you two things to think about overnight.”
“Yes, sir?”
“First, if you repudiate that confession it can’t possibly be used against you in court. That, I swear. Second-and don’t ever tell the captain I said this-if you plead not guilty I think it’s almost impossible for a summary court-martial on this ship to convict you.”
“Sir, that Red Cross letter-”
“It doesn’t prove anything. Your brother sent that wire. It’s up to the court to prove that you instigated him. Without your testimony-and they can’t make you testify against yourself-how can they possibly prove it? Where’s your brother? Where’s any record of a conversation between you?”
Stilwell looked at him suspiciously. “Why would you rather have me plead not guilty?”
“Look, I don’t give a damn what you plead! My duty as recorder is to point out to you in my dumb way what the best legal course for you seems to me to be. Don’t take my word. Go ask a chaplain, or the legal officer on the Pluto. Ask them about Courts and Boards yourself. Section 174.”
The sailor repeated mechanically, “Courts and Boards 174-174-174. Okay, sir. Thanks, sir.” He went out. Willie fought down his irritation. It was only natural, he reasoned, that in the nostrils of the crew all the officers were acquiring the odor of Queeg.
Stilwell was back next morning with a stiff new copy of Courts and Boards under his arm. “Mr. Keith, you’re right. I’m gonna plead not guilty.”
“Oh? Who convinced you?”
The sailor said eagerly, “Well, see, Engstrand, he’s got a cousin on the Bolger, second can outboard. This cousin, he’s big buddies with the first-class yeoman on the ship. Well, this yeoman,