Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [246]
“Shortly after the Kwajalein invasion.”
“Why did you start it?”
“Well, I began to think the captain might be mentally ill.”
“Why?”
“His dropping of the yellow dye marker off Kwajalein, and then cutting off the water, and Stilwell’s court-martial.”
“Describe these three events in detail.”
Blakely interrupted the executive officer’s account of the Kwajalein incident to question him closely about bearings and distances, and the gap between the Caine and the landing boats. He made notes of the answers. “After these three episodes,” said Greenwald, “why didn’t you go directly to higher authority?”
“I wasn’t sure of my ground. That’s why I started the log. I figured if I ever saw I was wrong I’d burn the log. If I was right it would be necessary information.”
“When did you show it to Lieutenant Keefer?”
“After the strawberry business, months later.”
“Describe the strawberry business.”
Maryk told the story baldly.
“Now, Lieutenant. After the typhoon was over, did Captain Queeg make any effort to regain command?”
“Yes, on the morning of the nineteenth. We’d just sighted the fleet and were joining up to return to Ulithi.”
“Describe what happened.”
“Well, I was in the charthouse writing up a despatch to report the relief to the OTC. The captain came in and looked over my shoulder. He said ‘Do you mind coming to my cabin and having a talk before you send that? I said I didn’t mind. I went below and we talked. It was the same thing again at first, about how I’d be tried for mutiny. He said ‘You’ve applied for transfer to the regular Navy. You know this means the end of all that, don’t you?’ Then he went into a long thing about how he loved the Navy and had no other interest in life, and even if he was cleared this would ruin his record. I said I felt sorry for him, and I really did. And he pointed out that he was bound to get relieved in a few weeks anyway, so I wasn’t accomplishing anything. Finally he came out with his proposal. He said he’d forget the whole thing and never report me. He would resume command, and the whole matter would be forgotten and written off-just an incident of bad nerves during the typhoon.”
“What did you say to the proposal?”
“Well, I was amazed. I said, ‘Captain, the whole ship knows about it. It’s written up in the quartermaster’s log and the OOD’s log. I’ve already signed the OOD log as commanding officer.’ Well, he hemmed and hawed, and finally said those were penciled rough logs and it all probably just amounted to a few lines, and it wouldn’t be the first time rough logs had been corrected and fixed up after the fact.”
“Did you remind him of the rule against erasures?”
“Yes, and he kind of laughed and said there were rules and rules, including the rule of self-preservation. He said it was either that or a court-martial for mutiny for me, and a black mark on his record which he didn’t deserve, and he didn’t see that a few scribbled pencil lines were worth all that.”
“Did you persist in your refusal?”
“Yes.”
“What followed?”
“He began to plead and beg. It went on for quite some time, and was very unpleasant.”
“Did he act irrationally?”
“No. He-he cried at one point. But he was rational. But in the end he became terrifically angry and told me to go ahead and hang myself, and ordered me out of his cabin. So I sent the despatch.”
“Why didn’t you accept the captain’s offer?”
“I didn’t see how I could.”
“But the danger from the typhoon was over. Didn’t you think he could conn the ship back to Ulithi?”
“I’d already committed an official act and I didn’t’ believe making erasures in the logs would change it. Also I still believed he was mentally ill.”
“But you say he was rational.”
“Captain Queeg was usually okay except under great pressure, when he tended to become mentally disabled.”
“Then you had the chance, twenty-four hours later, of expunging the whole event from the official record with the captain’s knowledge and approval?”
“Yes.”
“Lieutenant Maryk, were you panicky at any time during the typhoon?”
“I was not.”
“How can you