Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [173]
“Kay,” said Queeg. “All departments prepare to get under way. We ought to have some fun on this trip for a change, what with our little detective work to do.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Maryk said.
“At this point, Tom, we can use a little of your silver tongue,” said the captain. He was at his desk, the crew’s statements spread out in disorderly heaps before him. Keefer was leaning with his back to the door. It was nine o’clock of the following morning, and the Caine was steaming smoothly through an oily doldrums calm in the screen of the damaged ships. “Sit down, Tom, sit down. Park yourself on my bunk. Yes, it’s breaking wide open, just as I figured,” the captain went on. “I’m practically certain I’ve got my bird. It all adds up. Just the man who’d pull such a stunt, too. Motive, opportunity, method-everything clicks.”
“Who is it, sir?” Keefer perched himself gingerly on the edge of the bunk.
“Ah hah. That’s my little secret, for a while. I want you to make a little announcement. Get on the p.a. system, will you, Tom, and say-putting this in your own words, you know, which is a hell of a lot better than I can do-tell ’em the captain knows who’s got a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox. The guilty party gave himself away by his own statement, which is the only one in the whole ship that doesn’t check and-well, then say he’s got till 1200 to turn himself in to the captain. If he does it’ll be a lot easier for him than if I have to make the arrest. ... Think you can get all that across?”
Keefer said dubiously, “I think so, sir. Here’s about what I’ll say.” He repeated the substance of the captain’s threatening offer. “Is that it, sir?”
“That’s fine. Use exactly those words, if you can. Hurry up.” The captain was in a glow of smiling excitement.
Willie Keith, with the OOD’s binoculars around his neck, was prowling the starboard wing, squinting up at the sky. The smell of stack gas was strong on the bridge. The novelist approached him and said, “Request permission to make an announcement, by order of the captain-”
“Sure,” said Willie. “Come here a minute, though.” He led Keefer to the aneroid barometer affixed to the rear of the pilothouse. The needle on the gray dial inclined far to the left at 29.55. “How about that,” said Willie, “on a nice quiet sunny blue day?”
Keefer pushed out his lips judiciously. “Any typhoon warnings?”
“Steve’s got ’em all plotted in the charthouse. Come take a look.”
The two officers unfolded and scanned a large blue-and-yellow chart of the Central Pacific. There were three storm tracks dotted in red on the chart, none of them within hundreds of miles of their position. “Well, I don’t know,” said Keefer, “maybe a new one cooking up around here. They’re in season. Did you tell the captain?” Willie nodded. “What did he say?”
“He didn’t say. He went ‘ugh’ at me, the way he does nowadays.”
Keefer went into the pilothouse, pressed the talk lever of the p.a. box, and paused a moment. He said, “Now hear this. The following announcement is made by order of the captain.” Slowly and distinctly he repeated Queeg’s message. The sailors in the pilothouse exchanged narrowed glances, and resumed their vacant stares.
Queeg waited in his cabin all morning. Nobody came. At a quarter past twelve the captain began sending for various members of the crew, sometimes singly, sometimes by twos and threes. A new summons boomed over the loudspeakers every fifteen or twenty minutes. The procession of cross-examinations went on until four o’clock; then Queeg called for Maryk and Keefer. When the officers came into the cabin they found Jellybelly undergoing questioning. The yeoman’s fat white face was expressionless. “I’d tell you if I knew, sir,” he was saying. “I just don’t know. I slept all through it-”
“My observation,” said Queeg, hunched in the back-tilted swivel chair, rolling balls in both hands, “is that the ship’s yeoman generally can find out everything there is to know on a ship. Now I’m not saying you know anything. I’m not telling you to squeal on anybody.