Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [168]
Willie walked up to the forecastle and paced back and forth for an hour, glancing often across the water at the twisted, sooty hull of the Montauk. A tremendous red sunset flared and died, and a cool breeze flickered over the rippling lagoon. All the while he kept trying to fit the sly, profane, lazy, fat Roland Keefer into the heroic role he had played at Leyte. He could not do it. He noticed the evening star gleaming in the sky over the palm trees of Ulithi, and beside it the merest silver knife edge of a moon. The thought came on him that Roland Keefer wouldn’t see such sights any more, and he crouched down beside the ready ammunition box and cried a little.
Willie came off watch that night at twelve o’clock and tumbled heavily into bed. He was dozing amid brightening visions of May Wynn when a hand poked his ribs. He groaned, burying his face in the pillow, and said, “You want Ducely. Other bunk. I’ve just been on watch.”
“I want you,” said the voice of Queeg. “Wake up.”
Willie jumped out of bed naked, his nerves prickling. “Yes, Captain-”
Queeg, shadowy against the dim red light of the passageway, held a Fox sked in his hand. “There’s a BuPers despatch for us on this sked. It came in two minutes ago.” Mechanically Willie reached for his drawers. “Never mind putting anything on, it isn’t cold in the wardroom, let’s get this thing broken.”
The leather of the wardroom chair felt clammy on Willie’s naked thighs. Queeg stood over him, watching each letter as it emerged from the code machine. The despatch was short: Ensign Alfred Peter Ducely detached. Proceed best available air transportation to BuPers Washington for reassignment. Class four priority.
“That’s all of it?” said the captain in a choked tone.
“That’s it, sir.”
“How long has Ducely been aboard, anyway?”
“Since January, sir-nine, ten months.”
“Hell, that cuts us down to seven officers-the Bureau is crazy-”
“We have those two new ones on the way, sir. Farrington and Voles. If they ever catch up with us.”
“Mr. Ducely can damn well wait to be detached until they do. Guess I overdid his fitness report, or something.”
As the captain shuffled to the door, slouching in his ragged bathrobe, Willie said with sleepy malice, “His mother owns a shipyard, sir.”
“Shipyard, hey?” said Queeg, and slammed the door.
Nobody except the pharmacist’s mate saw the captain for a week after the arrival of the Ducely despatch; he was plagued with migraine headache, he informed Maryk by phone. The executive officer took over the ship completely.
CHAPTER 26
A Gallon of Strawberries
“I got the Yellowstain Blues,
Old Yellowstain Blues.
When someone fires a shot,
It’s always there that I’m not,
I got the Old Yellowstain Blues-”
Willie Keith, at the battered little piano of the officers’ bar on Mogmog Island, was reviving his rusty gift for improvising. He was quite drunk, and so were Keefer, Harding, and Paynter, who clustered around him, highballs in hand, half giggling and half singing. The gunnery officer exclaimed, “I’ll do the next stanza!
“I got the Yellowstain Blues.
Old Yellowstain Blues.
You should see strong men quail,
When he spies a shirttail
Oh, Yellowstain, Yellowstain Blues.”
Willie laughed so hard that he fell off the piano stool. When Paynter bent to pick him up, he spilled his highball all over Willie’s shirt in a ragged brown stain, and the guffaws of the Caine officers attracted stares from less hilarious groups in the bar.
Jorgensen came staggering toward them with his arm around . the neck of a tall, pudgy ensign, with protruding teeth, freckles, and the brash expression of a schoolboy. “Fellows, do any of you like strawberries with your ice cream?” Jorgensen said, leering. He was answered with drunken affirmative roars. “Well, that’s nice,” he said, “because this here is my old roommate from Abbot Hall, Bobby Pinckney, and what ship do you think he’s assistant first lieutenant on