Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [171]
“Operation Strawberries, phase two.”
“Stand by to make smoke.”
“How are your saddle sores, Steve?”
“If things get tough, throw over a dye marker.”
“Who’s your next of kin?”
Queeg was at his desk, dressed in fresh clothes, his puffy face shaved and powdered. This struck Maryk as ominous. He handed the captain the investigation report, headed: Strawberries, disappearance of-Report of board of investigation. Queeg, rolling the balls, read the two typewritten sheets carefully. He shoved them away with the back of his hand. “Unsatisfactory.”
“Sorry, Captain. The boys may be lying, but it’s a dead end. The story hangs together-”
“Did your board investigate the possibility that they might be telling the truth?”
Maryk scratched his head, and shuffled his feet, and said, “Sir, that would mean someone broke into the wardroom icebox. For one thing, Whittaker made no claim that the padlock had been tampered with-”
“Did it occur to you that someone on the ship might have a duplicate key to the icebox?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, why didn’t it?”
Maryk stammered, “Why-well, the thing is, sir, I bought that lock myself. There were only two keys. I have one, Whittaker has the other-”
“How about the possibility that someone once stole Whittaker’s key, when he was asleep, and made himself a duplicate-did you look into that?”
“Sir, I-Whittaker would have to be an exceptionally heavy sleeper for that, and I don’t think-”
“You don’t think, hey? Do you know that he’s not an exceptionally heavy sleeper? Did you ask him?”
“No, sir-”
“Well, why didn’t you?”
The executive officer looked out of the small porthole. He could see in a nearby anchor berth the bow of the light cruiser Kalamazoo, which had been hit by a suicide plane at Leyte. The bow was buckled and twisted to one side so that Maryk was looking at jagged blackened deck plates, from which a torn ventilator dangled crazily. “Sir, I guess there are an infinite number of remote possibilities, but there wasn’t time to go into all of them last night-”
“There wasn’t, hey? Did you sit in continuous session until just now?”
“I believe the report states that I adjourned the meeting at ten minutes past five, sir.”
“Well, you might have found out a hell of a lot in the three hours you spent in your sacks. And since nobody appears to have dreamed of any adequate solution, I shall take over the investigation, as I said I would. If I solve the mystery, and I’m pretty sure I will, the board will have to suffer the penalty for making the commanding officer do its work for them. ... Send Whittaker up to me.”
The steward’s mates followed each other into the captain’s cabin all morning, at intervals of about an hour. Willie, who had the deck, kept the mournful procession moving. At ten o’clock he was distracted from the strawberry crisis by the arrival of the two new ensigns, Farrington and Voles, in a landing craft from the beach. The OOD inspected the uneasy recruits as they stood on the quarterdeck, waiting for the sailors to pass up their gear from the boat, and decided he liked Farrington and didn’t like Voles. The latter was round-shouldered, and had a greenish complexion and a high voice. He seemed several years older than Farrington, who looked like an ensign in a cigarette advertisement, ruddy, handsome, and blue-eyed. The muss and fatigue of travel, and a certain mischievous humor with which he looked around at the dirty old ship, relieved his good looks. Willie liked him for his soiled gray shirt and his impish smile. Voles’s shirt was stiffly starched. “Wait here, gentlemen,” he said. He went forward and knocked at the captain’s door.
“What is it?” called Queeg irritably. The captain sat in his swivel chair, the balls rolling swiftly in one hand hung over the back. The Negro Rasselas stood against the bulkhead, his hands behind him, showing all his gums in a smile, sweat dripping off his nose.
“Pardon me, Captain,