Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [256]
“Please state your version, or any factual comments on the episodes in the log, sir.”
“Well, now, starting right with that strawberry business the real truth is that I was betrayed and thrown and double-crossed by my executive officer and this precious gentleman Mr. Keith who between them corrupted my wardroom so that I was one man against a whole ship without any support from my officers- Now, you take that strawberry business-why, if that wasn’t a case of outright conspiracy to protect a malefactor from justice-Maryk carefully leaves out the little fact that I had conclusively proved by a process of elimination that someone had a key to the icebox. He says it was the steward’s mates who ate the strawberries but if I wanted to take the trouble I could prove to this court geometrically that they couldn’t have. It’s the water business all over again, like when the crew was taking baths seven times a day and our evaps were definitely on the fritz half the time and I was trying to inculcate the simplest principles of water conservation, but no, Mr. Maryk the hero of the crew wanted to go right on mollycoddling them and-or you take the coffee business-no, well, the strawberry thing first-it all hinged on a thorough search for the key and that was where Mr. Maryk as usual with the help of Mr. Keith fudged it. Just went through a lot of phony motions that proved nothing and-like thinking the incessant burning out of Silexes which were government property was a joke, which was the attitude of everybody from Maryk down, no sense of responsibility though I emphasized over and over that the war wouldn’t last forever, that all these things would have to be accounted for. It was a constant battle, always the same thing, Maryk and Keith undermining my authority, always arguments, though I personally liked Keith and kept trying to train him up only to get stabbed in the back when- I think I’ve covered the strawberry business and-oh, yes, Stilwell’s court-martial. That was a disgraceful business, quite typical-”
Commander Queeg passed to a review of the court-martial, which was also, he said, a conspiracy of Keith and Maryk to discredit him. Then he discussed the failures of the laundry, the sloppiness of the mess statements and ship’s service inventories, and went on from subject to subject in this way, cataloguing his grievances against his officers, mainly Maryk and Keith. He hardly paused for breath. He seemed unable to pause. His narrative became less distinct as he talked, his jumps in time and place more sudden and harder to follow. He talked on and on, rolling the balls, his face glowing with satisfaction as he scored all these successive points in his vindication. Greenwald strolled to his desk and leaned against it, listening respectfully. The court members stared at the witness. Challee slouched, biting his nails. The sentences became longer and more meandering. Blakely began to glance at the clock.
Queeg went on for eight or nine minutes in this way, and ended up, “Well, naturally, I can only cover these things roughly from memory but if I’ve left anything out why you just ask me specific questions and I’ll tackle them one by one, but I believe I’ve hit the main points.”
“It was a very thorough and complete answer, thank you,” Greenwald said. He drew two glossy black photostats from a folder on his desk. “Commander, I show you authenticated copies of two fitness reports you wrote on Lieutenant Maryk. Do you recognize them as such?”
Queeg took the papers and said grumpily, glancing at them, “Yes, I do.”
“Please read to the court your comment on Maryk of January 1944.”
“I’ve already stated,” Queeg said, “that at first he put on the act of a red-hot but cooled off in time-”
“We have that testimony, Commander. Please read the comment.”
Queeg read in a choked voice a highly laudatory description of Maryk.
“Thank you, Commander. That was January. Now by July, six months later, had the Caine already been through the Kwajalein and Saipan invasions?”
“Yes.”
“Had the following incidents already