Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [195]
“Say, Willie!” The captain’s voice was angry and shrill through the speaking tube. “Get your goddamn radio technician up here, will you? I can’t see anything on this goddamn radar.”
Willie roared, “Aye aye, sir,” into the speaking tube and passed a call for the technician over the p.a. He was beginning to feel nauseous from the dizzy sidewise slipping of the Caine and the queerrise and fall of the slanted deck.
“Mr. Maryk,” the helmsman said in a changed tone, “she’s stopped coming around-”
“What’s your head?”
“Zero nine three.”
“We’re broadside to. Wind’s got her. She’ll come slow.”
“Still 093, sir,” said Stilwell, after a minute of bad wallowing-heavy slow rolls upright and swift sickening drops to starboard. It was hard to tell whether the Caine was moving through the water at all, or simply being flung sidewise and forward. The sense of motion came entirely from the sea and the wind; yet the engines were making twenty knots.
“Bring your rudder hard right,” said Maryk.
“Hard right, sir- Christ, sir, this goddamn wheel feels like the wheel ropes are broken! Just sloppy-” The hair of Willie’s head prickled to see the looks of fright on the sailors. He felt the same expression forming on his own face.
“Shut your yap, Stilwell, the wheel ropes are okay,” said Maryk. “Don’t be such a baby. Haven’t you ever had the wheel in a sea before-”
“Now God damn it, Steve,” came the squeak of Queeg, “what the hell’s going on out there? Why aren’t we coming around?”
Maryk yelled into the speaking tube, “Wind and sea taking charge, sir. I’ve got the rudder at hard right-”
“Well, use the engines. Get her around. Christ on a crutch, do I have to do everything here? Where’s that technician? There’s nothing but grass on this radar-”
Maryk began to manipulate the engines. A combination of standard speed on the port screw and slow backing on the starboard started swinging the ship’s head slowly to the south. “Steady on 180, sir,” Stilwell said at last, turning his face to Maryk, his eyes glinting with relief.
The ship was tossing and heeling from side to side. But there was no alarm in the steepest rolls any more, so long as they were even dips both ways. Willie was getting used to the sight of the three rusty stacks lying apparently parallel to the sea, so that between them he saw nothing but foaming water. The whipping of the stacks back and forth like gigantic windshield wipers was no longer a frightening but a pleasant thing. It was the slow, slow dangling rolls to one side that he dreaded.
Queeg came in, mopping at his eyes with a handkerchief. “Damn spray stings. Well, you finally got her around, hey? Guess we’re okay now.”
“Are we on station, sir?”
“Well, pretty near, I guess. I can’t tell. Technician says the spray is giving us this sea return that’s fogging up the scope. I guess if we’re too far out of line Sunshine will give us a growl-”
“Sir, I think maybe we ought to ballast,” said the exec. “We’re pretty light, sir. Thirty-five per cent on fuel. One reason we don’t come around good is that we’re riding so high-”
“Well, don’t worry, we’re not capsizing yet.”
“It’ll just give us that much more maneuverability, sir-”
“Yes, and contaminate our tanks with a lot of salt water, so we lose suction every fifteen minutes once we refuel. Sunshine has our fuel report. If he thought there was any danger he’d issue ballasting orders.”
“I also think we ought to set the depth charges on safe, sir.”
“What’s the matter, Steve, are you panicky on account of a little bad weather?”
“I’m not panicky, sir-”
“We’re still supposed to be an anti-submarine vessel, you know. What the hell good are depth charges set on safe if we pick up a sub in the next five minutes?”
Maryk glanced out of the blurred window at the colossal boiling waves. “Sir,