Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [222]
His Uncle Lloyd joined them for dinner at Twenty-one. A banker in civilian life, he was now a colonel in Army public information, and he liked to talk about his experiences in the artillery in World War I. He was very grave about the mutiny. He told Willie long stories to prove how in the artillery he had had much worse commanding officers than Queeg, and. had always conducted himself with true martial forbearance and loyalty. It was clear that he disapproved of Willie and thought he was in serious trouble. Mrs. Keith pressed him for a promise to help her son, but Uncle Lloyd only said he would talk to some of his Navy friends and see what the best procedure would be.
“Maybe they won’t court-martial you after all, Willie,” he said. “If this other fellow, this Maryk fellow, gets himself acquitted I guess that’ll be the end of it. I hope you’ve learned your lesson by this time. War isn’t a pink tea. Unless you can learn to take the rough with the smooth, why, you’re just not worth a damn to your country in an emergency.” So saying he departed for Washington, where he maintained a suite at the Shoreham.
Saturday night Willie was in his room, dressing to go to the opera. His eye fell on his wrist watch, and he realized that in twelve hours he would be on an airplane, returning to the Caine and the court-martial. His arm reached around stiffly, like a lever in an automatic phonograph, and picked up the telephone. He called the Woodley.
“May? How are you? It’s Willie.”
“Hello, dear! I’d given you up-”
“Is your cold better?”
“All gone. I’m in fine shape.”
“I’m going back tomorrow morning. I’d like to talk to you.”
“I’m working tonight, Willie-”
“May I come to the club?”
“Sure.”
“It’ll be around midnight.”
“All right.”
It had never seemed possible to Willie that Don Giovanni could be tedious. The opera had always been a wonderland of sound in which time stopped and the world dissolved in pure beauty. On this night he thought Leporello was a coarse clown, the baritone a scratchy-throated old man, Zerlina a screechy amateur, and the whole plot a bore. He strained his eyes at his watch in the middle of his favorite arias. At last it was done. “Mother,” he said as they came out of the lobby to the slushy street, “do you mind if I go on the town by myself for a while? I’ll see you back home.”
Her face showed how well she understood, and how worried she was. “Willie-our last night?”
“I won’t be late, Mother.” He felt able to stuff her bodily into a taxicab if she argued. She must have known, because she signaled for a cab herself.
“Have a wonderful time, dear.”
May was singing when he came into the crowded Grotto. He stood at the bar, looking around at the admiring male faces turned at the singer, his soul full of bitterness. There was no place to sit when the show was over. She took him by the hand and led him to her dressing room. The glare of light in the hot, closet-like room made him blink. He leaned against the make-up table. May sat in the chair and looked up at him, glowing with an unfathomable sweet inner attraction, all different from her outside of rouge and white shoulders and round bosom half exposed by her tight singer’s dress.
“I didn’t tell you about something last time,” Willie said. “I want to know what you think.” He described the mutiny and the investigation to her in long detail. It felt like confessing; his spirit brightened as he talked. May listened calmly. “What do you want me to say, Willie?” she