Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [226]
One regular lieutenant commander and five lieutenants made up the rest of the board. They had the look of any six naval officers passing at random in a BOQ lobby. Two of the lieutenants were reserve doctors; two of them were regulars of the line; one was a reserve of the line.
The large wall clock over Challee’s desk ticked around from ten o’clock to quarter of eleven while various legal ceremonies, incomprehensible to Maryk, were performed. For his first witness, Challee called Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg.
The orderly went out. Everyone in the room watched the door. The ex-captain of the Caine entered, tanned, clear-eyed, in a new blue uniform, the sleeve stripes bright gold. Maryk had not seen him for almost two months. The change was startling. His last vivid recollection was of a little stooped potbellied figure in a gray life jacket and wet khakis, clinging to the engine telegraph, the bristly face green and twisted with fear. The man before him was erect, confident, and good-looking-and youthful, despite the few blond strands over a pink scalp. Maryk’s nerves were jolted.
Queeg took his seat on a raised platform in the center of the room. His manner during the opening questions was courteous and firm. Never once did he glance in Maryk’s direction, though the exec sat to the right of him, only a few feet away, behind the defense desk.
Challee went quickly to the morning of the typhoon, and asked the ex-captain to narrate the events in his own words. The reply of Queeg was a coherent, rapid sketch, in formal language, of the mutiny. Maryk admitted to himself that the facts were presented correctly; the external facts. Slight shadings of what had been said and done, and, of course, a complete omission of any details of how the captain had looked and behaved, sufficed to turn the whole picture inside out. As Queeg told the story, he had simply made every effort to hold fleet course and speed, and in face of worsening weather had managed to do so right up to the moment when his executive officer had unexpectedly run amuck and seized command. Thereafter, by staying on the bridge and judiciously suggesting necessary maneuvers to the frenzied exec, he had brought the ship safely through the storm.
The court members followed the account with sympathetic interest. Once Captain Blakely transferred a long ominous stare to the defendant. Before Queeg was finished Maryk had totally despaired. He looked to his counsel with frightened eyes. Greenwald doodled with a red crayon on a pad, drawing multitudes of little fat pink pigs.
“Commander,” said Challee, “can you account in any way for your executive officer’s act?”
“Well,” said Queeg calmly, “it was a rather serious situation. The wind was force 10 to 12, the waves were mountainous, and the ship naturally was laboring very badly. Mr. Maryk had shown evidences of growing nervousness and instability all morning. I think when we took that last bad roll he simply went into panic and proceeded to act irrationally. He acted under the delusion that he and he alone could save the ship. His worst weakness was conceit about his seamanship.”
“Was the Caine in grave danger at that moment?”
“I wouldn’t say so, no sir. Of course a typhoon is an extreme hazard at all times, but the ship had ridden well up to that moment and continued to ride well afterward.”
“Have you ever been mentally ill, sir?”
“No, sir.”
“Were you ill in any way when Mr. Maryk relieved