Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [203]
Queeg stood in the doorway, face to face with the executive officer. “Well, Mr. Maryk, what are you waiting for? How about rigging your cargo net to starboard and having your deck force stand by with life buoys?”
“Thank you, sir. I was about to give those orders, if you’ll let me pass.”
Queeg stepped aside. The exec went into the pilothouse, and passed the instructions over the loudspeaker. He began to maneuver the lurching ship toward the object, which soon showed clear, a gray balsam raft, with three men on it and two more heads bobbing beside it in the water.
“You’ll be interested to know, gentlemen,” Queeg said to the officers while Maryk manipulated engines and rudder, “that I was about to issue orders to ballast and head into the wind when Mr. Maryk committed his panic-stricken criminal act. I had previously determined in my own mind that if the fleet guide had given no orders by 1000 I would act at my own discretion-”
Maryk said, “All right, Stilwell, head over to the right some more. Hard right-”
Queeg went on, “And I saw no reason for confiding my command decisions to Mr. Maryk, who seemed to be treating me like a feeble-minded idiot, and I’ll say as much over the green table, and there’ll be plenty of witnesses to-”
“Don’t run ’em down, Stilwell! Rudder amidships!” Maryk stopped the engines and went to the loudspeaker. “Now throw over your buoys!”
The survivors were pulled aboard. A white-faced, wild-eyed sailor, naked except for white drawers, streaked with broad smears of oil, with a bleeding gash in his cheek, was brought to the bridge by Bellison. The chief said, “It was the George Black, sir. This here is Morton, quartermaster third. The others are down in sick bay.”
Morton stammered a brief, horrid tale. The George Black had been thrown broadside to the wind and all combinations of engines and rudder had failed to bring it around. Ventilators, ammunition boxes, and davits were ripped off the decks by the seas; water began flooding the engine rooms; power failed; the lights went out. The helpless ship drifted for ten minutes, rolling further and further to starboard, with all hands screaming or praying, and finally took a tremendous roll to starboard and never stopped rolling. His next recollection was being under water in complete blackness, and after that he was at the surface, being dashed against the red bottom of his ship.
“We’ll keep circling,” said Maryk. He peered out at the streaked sea, visible now for several hundred yards. “I think it’s letting up some. Take him below, Bellison.”
“I am resuming the conn, Mr. Maryk,” said Queeg, “and we will drop the matter entirely until the storm has abated-”
Maryk turned wearily to the captain. “No, sir. I’ve got it. I respectfully ask you to lay below to your cabin. Contradictory orders will endanger the ship-”
“Are you putting me off my bridge, sir?”
“Yes, Captain.”
Queeg looked to the officers. Their faces were scared and somber. “Do all you gentlemen concur in this act? … Do you, Mr. Keefer?”
The novelist gnawed at his lips, and turned his glance to Maryk. “Nobody is concurring. Nobody has to concur,” the exec said quickly. “Please leave the bridge, Captain, or at least refrain from giving orders-”
“I shall remain on the bridge,” said Queeg. “The ship is still my responsibility. Mutiny doesn’t relieve me of it. I shall not speak unless your acts appear to me to be endangering my ship. In that case I shall speak even at pistol point-”
“Nobody’s pulling pistols on you, sir. What you say suits me.” The exec nodded to the officers. “Okay, no need for you to hang around. We’ll have a meeting as soon as weather permits.”
The officers