Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [258]
“Has any officer of this court ever sailed with a captain who committed no errors of judgment? Has any officer who has been in the Navy more than a few years failed to find himself under a captain with marked personal and emotional eccentricities? Naval command is the greatest strain that can be brought to bear on a person. The captain is a god-in theory. Some lapse more, some less, from that ideal. But the procurement policies of the Navy are rigid. That is why the presumption is always overwhelmingly on the side of the commanding officer in any dispute. He’s a man who has been tried in the fire. Whatever his weaknesses-and they may even be grave weaknesses-he’s a man who can command a combatant ship.
“In proof of this I need only cite the recorded fact that this case is the first in thirty years impugning the captain of a Navy ship under those articles. And even in this case the scientific findings of psychiatrists are forcibly and unanimously on the side of the Navy’s system of command appointments. The doctors say that the Navy did know what it was doing in giving the Caine to Commander Queeg.
“With the leeway the court gave him, defense counsel brought out every single mistake, every single lapse of judgment that the captain of the Caine made or that some underling thought he made. The court knows that it all adds up to pulling complaints against strictness and meticulousness-all but one point. That point is the imputation that this officer of the Navy was a coward under fire. I shall not discuss that point. I leave it to this court to determine whether a coward could rise to command of a combatant ship and remain undetected by his superiors through fifteen months of battle service. I count on the court to see the difference between bad judgment and poltroonery. I leave it to the court to reject this smear on the Navy.
“Let’s look at the facts. Commander Queeg was given command of an obsolete, decaying, run-down ship. He brought it through fifteen months of combat unscathed, and carried out a multitude of assignments to the satisfaction of his superiors. There’s no complaint against him on the record by his superiors-only by his underlings. He achieved this record of satisfactory battle service despite the hostility and disloyalty of his officers. He achieved it despite personal inner tensions, which the doctors have described-and which the defense viciously hammered at in a vain attempt to exaggerate them into insanity. Commander Queeg’s achievement in the face of his own emotional difficulties and the disloyalty of his wardroom adds up, not to a bad record, but to a fine one, to an impressive one. He emerges as a loyal, hard-working, terribly conscientious officer who has been unjustly forced through a harrowing ordeal.
“The accused emerges without any justification. The defense counsel brought no psychiatrists to refute the findings of the medical board. He didn’t because he couldn’t have found any. Once the cloud of mudslinging settles down, the facts remain as they were at the outset. A commanding officer of a United States Navy ship was relieved of his command willfully and without authority. The claimed authority of Articles 184, 185, and 186 was voided by the medical board. No justifiable cause, either mental illness or any other, has been brought forward by the defense. It has been proved by expert testimony that Commander Queeg’s ship-handling decisions in the typhoon up to the moment he was relieved were not only sensible and sound, but the best possible in the circumstances.
“The accused stands convicted by the facts. In his defense not one mitigating fact has been established. The court will reject, I am certain, the cynical, insulting attempt of the defense counsel to sway its emotions. The court will find the specification proved by the facts.”
The contrast between Challee’s manner and Greenwald’s could not have been sharper. The pilot was soft, apologetic, hesitant after the judge advocate’s passionate shouting. He kept looking from Blakely to Challee. He started by mentioning that he had undertaken