Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [170]
“Very well. That’s three more. And I had four.” The captain murmured to himself, adding the total. “Whittaker, bring a soup tureen, here, and the spoon with which you ladled out the strawberries.”
“Aye aye, sub.” The Negro went into the pantry and returned in a moment with the implements.
“Now-dole into that tureen an amount of sand equal to the amount of strawberries you put on one dish of ice cream.”
Whittaker stared at the can of sand, and spoon, and tureen, as though they were elements of a bomb which, brought together, might blow him up. “Suh, I dunno exactly-”
“Be as generous as you please.”
Reluctantly the Negro dumped a high-heaped spoonful of sand from the can into the tureen. “Pass the tureen around the table. Inspect it, gentlemen. ... Now then. Do you gentlemen agree that that is approximately the amount of strawberries you had on each dish of ice cream? Very well. Whittaker, do that again, twenty-four times.” Sand diminished in the can and piled in the tureen. Willie tried to rub the blinking sleepiness out of his eyes. “Kay. Now, for good measure, do it three more times. ... Kay. Mr. Maryk, take that gallon can and tell me how much sand is left.”
Maryk looked into the can and said, “Maybe a quart, or a little less, sir.”
“Kay.” The captain deliberately lit a cigarette. “Gentlemen, ten minutes before I called this meeting, I sent down for some ice cream and strawberries. Whittaker brought me the ice cream and said ‘They ain’t no mo’ strawberries,’ Has any of you gentlemen an explanation of the missing quart of strawberries?” The officers glanced covertly at each other; none spoke. “Kay.” The captain rose. “I have a pretty good idea of what happened to them. However, you gentlemen are supposed to keep order on this ship and prevent such crimes as robbing of wardroom stores. You are all appointed a board of investigation as of now, with Maryk as chairman, to find out what happened to the strawberries.”
“You mean in the morning, sir?” said Maryk.
“I said now, Mr. Maryk. Now, according to my watch, is not the morning, but forty-seven minutes past three. If you get no results by eight o’clock this morning I shall solve the mystery myself-noting duly for future fitness reports the failure of the board to carry out its assignment.”
When the captain was gone Maryk began a weary cross-examination of Whittaker. After a while he sent for the other steward’s mates. The three Negro boys stood side by side, respectfully answering questions shot at them by different officers. The story, painfully extracted from them, was that the container, when locked away for the night at eleven-thirty-they didn’t remember who had placed it in the icebox-had contained some strawberries-they didn’t know how many. Whittaker had been called by the OOD at three in the morning to bring the captain another sundae, and had found the container empty except for a scraping of red juice at the bottom. The officers badgered the Negroes until dawn without upsetting this account. Maryk wearily dismissed the stewards at last.
“It’s a dead end,” said the exec. “Maybe they ate the stuff up. We’ll never know.”
“I wouldn’t blame them if they did. There wasn’t enough for another meal,” said Harding.
“Thou shalt not muzzle thy mess boy,” yawned Willie, “when he treadeth out the strawberries.”
“Steve and I have no worries about fitness reports,” said Keefer, laying his head on his arms. “Just you small fry. Either one of us could be Queeg’s relief. We’re outstanding officers, no matter what. I could call him a dirty name to his face-I practically have. I still drew a 4.0 on the last report.”
Ducely, his head slumped on his chest, emitted a blubbering snore. With a disgusted glance at him Maryk said, “Tom, suppose you bat out a report before you turn in, and I’ll adjourn the meeting now.”
“It will be on your desk,” murmured the novelist, “in about a hundred twenty seconds.” He staggered to his room, and the typewriter began clacking.
The wardroom telephone buzzer rang promptly at eight o’clock; it was Queeg, summoning the executive