Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [186]
“Okay, Tom. Let it go at that.”
“We started out to do a rash and disastrous thing. We backed off in time. There’s nothing wrong with that. We should be glad of it-”
“Don’t say ‘we.’ I’m still ready to go through with it-”
“Well, Christ,” Keefer said angrily, “go ahead and hang yourself, then.”
“I can’t do the thing alone.”
“That’s a stall. You’ve been pulling it right along. I’m frank enough to admit I’m scared, that’s the difference between us-”
Maryk stopped walking. He said mildly, “Listen, Tom. All this was your idea from the start. I never knew the word ‘paranoia’ until you pulled it on me. I’m still not sure what the hell it means. But I think now you’re probably right about the skipper going sick in the head. I think it’s wrong for us to keep quiet about it. Your trouble is, you want to back down when the going looks tough, and you also want me to congratulate you for doing it. You can’t have it both ways, Tom. That’s like Queeg.”
Keefer bit his lower lip and said with a twisted smile, “Them’s harsh words-”
“I see the gig,” said Maryk, going to the rail and semaphoring with both arms. “Let’s get back to the Caine.”
CHAPTER 29
The Typhoon
Giant after giant after giant, the new battleships and carriers were ranked in Ulithi Lagoon, an orderly multitude of floating iron skyscrapers, incongruously bordered by a delicate ring of palm trees. The Navy had gathered its main striking power in the atoll for the assault on Luzon; and it was the most formidable sea force that the planet has ever borne. Willie Keith sat for hours on the forecastle of the runty, rusty Caine, printing the marvel of this task force on his memory. The array thrilled him, dulled as he was by now to the sights of the war. All the brute energy of human history seemed to him to be concentrated and made visible in Ulithi. He remembered walking along Riverside Drive in peacetime when the fleet was in, and philosophizing-it was during his sophomore year-to the effect that warships were merely big toys, and that national minds were child’s minds, so that nations judged each other by the number and size of each other’s toys. Since then he had seen the toys in action, settling the issues of life and death, and freedom and slavery, for his time; and he had swung so far away from his undergraduate wisdom that he now regarded the Navy’s big ships with reverent awe.
And in so regarding them, he was still only an older sort of sophomore; because what was Ulithi, after all? A tiny enclosure of coral in the empty, empty ocean. A ship sailing within ten miles of it wouldn’t even have seen it; and all the great Third Fleet, sinking at once, would not have raised the level of the sea by a thousandth of the breadth of a hair. The world’s arena remains, to this hour, somewhat too big for the most ambitious human contrivances. The fact is, a typhoon, just one little racing whirlpool of air in one insignificant corner of the ocean, can be too big.
Maryk was in the charthouse, plotting typhoon warnings on the large Pacific chart from a file of despatches giving latitudes and longitudes of storm centers. Willie wandered in and stood looking over his shoulder. “Steve, d’you suppose I could sort of assistant-navigate one of these days?”
“Hell, yes.” Maryk at once -handed over the dividers and parallel rulers. “You can start right now plotting these storm positions.”
“Thanks.” Willie began pricking in the locations neatly, marking them with little red squares.
“When we go out this morning you shoot the sun lines,” said the exec. “Engstrand will punch the stop watch. If we don’t make it back by nightfall you can work out star sights and check your posit against mine.”
“Okay. I’ve shot a few sun lines, last couple of weeks, just for the fun of it.”
“Willie, you’re asking for trouble.” The exec grinned. “Don’t you have enough collateral duties?”
“Oh, sure. But the old man will just keep me decoding till I rot. Laundry and morale and ship’s service are all very well, but-ocean’s crawling with