Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [224]
Challee estimated that the prosecution had a prima facie case. A charge of mutiny, he knew, would have been harder to prove. But Captain Breakstone’s mild specification, in his view, was a plain description of the plain facts. The defense could not possibly deny that the event had occurred; Maryk had signed logs describing it. The key words were without proper authority and without justifiable cause. To establish their truth, Challee simply had to prove that Queeg was not and had never been a madman. He had the deposition of Captain Weyland in Ulithi, who had interviewed the captain of the Caine right after the mutiny. Three Navy psychiatrists of the San Francisco hospital, who had examined Queeg for weeks, were ready to testify in court that he was a sane, normal, intelligent man. At the investigation twenty chiefs and enlisted men of the Caine had averred that they had never seen Queeg do anything crazy or questionable. Not one officer or man, except the two parties to the mutiny, Keith and Stilwell, had spoken unfavorably of the captain. Challee had arranged for the appearance of several presentable sailors and chiefs to repeat their testimony.
Against this array there was only Maryk’s so-called medical log. The board of investigation had dismissed it as “a whining collection of trivial gripes,” commenting that all it proved was Maryk’s latent and long-standing disloyalty. Challee was confident that the court would feel the same way. Every officer past the rank of junior-grade lieutenant had served, at one time or another, under an oppressive eccentric. It was simply a hazard of military life. Challee was fond of telling anecdotes which topped anything in Maryk’s log.
The judge advocate knew that Greenwald had only one good point of attack: the question of criminal intent. He anticipated an eloquent harping on the fact that Maryk had acted for the good of the service, however mistaken his diagnosis of Queeg had been. Challee was fully prepared to demolish the specious sophistry which would follow, that Maryk was innocent of any offense.
He reasoned that Maryk, by willfully ignoring the whole weight of military tradition, and summoning up the mutinous effrontery to depose his commanding officer on the basis of such a wild error of judgment, had ipso facto convicted himself of “conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline.” If this were not true, if the precedent set by Maryk were to go unpunished, the entire Navy chain of command was in jeopardy! Any commanding officer who seemed queer to his exec was in danger of being summarily relieved. Challee was certain that a court of officers, especially a court headed by the austere martinet, Captain Blakely, would see that point. He counted, therefore, on a quick, satisfying victory over Barney Greenwald.
His estimate of the case was a good one. He erred only in his guess of Greenwald’s probable strategy.
Willie Keith returned to the Chrysanthemum about eleven o’clock in the morning. He dropped his bags in his room and looked through the other rooms for Caine officers, but found only empty rumpled bunks. Then he heard faintly from the shower a bellowing of “Partez-moi d’amour Rrrrrredites-moi des choses tendres ...” and he knew that Keefer was back. He found the novelist drying himself before a mirror, standing on wooden clogs. “ ‘Ja vous aim-uh-’ Willie, you old Dickens lover! How are you, my lad?”
They shook hands. Keefer’s tanned body was scrawny, and his face was drawn as though he had not eaten in a week, but he was gay, and his large eyes gleamed oddly.
“Where’s everybody, Tom?”
“Hither and yon. Ship’s leaving drydock today so most of the boys are aboard. Steve’s out with his defense counsel