Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [166]
Engstrand flashed the Montauk as it turned into the anchorage. The signal light on the carrier’s buckled, blackened bridge gleamed in reply: Boat will come to Caine when we anchor. Keefer spelled the Morse aloud. He turned to Willie and said irritably, “What the hell kind of answer is that?”
“Tom, they’re all fouled up over there. Don’t worry-”
“I’m not worried. It’s just a damn lamebrained answer.” When they saw a motor whaleboat put out from the carrier and head toward their berth the officers went down to the main deck and stood by the sea ladder. “There he is, in the stern sheets,” said Keefer, looking at the boat through glasses. “Lost his admiral’s cap, that’s all.” He handed Willie the binoculars. “That’s him, isn’t it?”
Willie answered, “Sure looks like him, Tom.” The officer in the boat did not resemble Roland at all. He was slight and slope-shouldered, and Willie thought he had a mustache.
In a minute or so Keefer said, “That isn’t Roland.” Harding, the OOD, joined them. The three officers stood in silence as the Montauk’s boat drew alongside. A young, scared-looking ensign with a blond mustache and thin childish lips came up the ladder. His left hand was wrapped in a heavy bandage stained yellow. He introduced himself as Ensign Whitely. “What’s the story on my brother?” said the novelist.
“Oh. You’re Lieutenant Keefer?” said the ensign. “Well, sir.” He looked at the others, and back at Keefer. “Sir, I’m sorry to be the one who tells you. Your brother died of burns yesterday. We buried him at sea.”
Keefer nodded, his face calm and apparently half smiling. “Come on below, Mr. Whitely, and tell us about it. Keith here is an old friend of Rollo’s.”
In the wardroom he insisted on pouring the coffee for all three of them, though Willie tried to take the pot from him.
“Well, I’ll tell you this, Mr. Keefer, your brother saved the, Montauk,” Whitely began, after a nervous gulp of half the cup of coffee. “He’ll get the Navy Cross. His name’s already gone in. I realize that doesn’t mean much-I mean, to you and your family, compared to-but anyway, it’s a sure thing, and he deserved it-”
“It’ll mean a very great deal to my dad,” said Keefer in a tired tone. “What happened?”
Ensign Whitely began to tell of the surprise encounter of Admiral Sprague’s escort-carrier force with the main battle line of the Japanese Navy off Samar, in a chaos of rain squalls and smoke screens. His picture of the action was fragmentary and confused. He became more coherent in describing the damage to the Montauk.
“The shells started the fires aft. It was bad because secondary conn was knocked out and the exec got it, and ordinarily he took charge at the scene of a fire-at drills, you know. Damn good guy. Commander Greeves. Well, anyway, Roland was damage-control officer and he took over. A lot of av-gas went up on the hangar deck so it made things bad, but Roland got the torpedoes and ammo jettisoned. He kept his head real good and had the fire-fighting parties going strong, see. And it looked as though we were okay. He had the fire pretty well cornered on the port side amidships, mostly on the hangar deck. And then this goddamn suicide just came flying through the smoke screen and the rain and smashed into the bridge. Must have been carrying a torpedo because this time all hell really broke loose. Terrific explosion, fire everywhere you looked, big roaring red flame all over the flight deck, and the ship took a list to starboard. Nobody could raise the bridge on the phones and it was a cinch the old man had got it, and it was nothing but confusion and guys running every which way like ants and some of them jumping overboard. I had a damage-control party on the port side, that’s why I’m alive. Mostly the starboard side got it. Well, the loudspeaker system had failed, too, power connections all torn out around the bridge. The ship was steaming around in a crazy circle, making flank speed, and destroyers dodging out of our way-and all this goddamn fire and smoke, and the gas attack alarm started screaming,