Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [260]
A huge green-iced cake baked in the shape of a book was the most prominent decoration of the table.
MULTITUDES, MULTITUDES
A NOVEL BY
Thomas Keefer
Was written on it in flourishing letters of thick yellow sugar. It was surrounded by a bank of ferns and roses. The table was crowded with flowers, and candles, and silver, and bottles of champagne. Shreds of gold and silver foil from the wine bottles were scattered on the white cloth. It was seven o’clock, the chair at the head of the table was still vacant, and no food had yet been served. The officers were already boisterously drunk. Mr. and Mrs. Maryk smiled uncomfortably at the roistering jokes all around them, and laughed aloud whenever their son did. The exec sat at the right of Greenwald’s empty chair, with his parents beside him. Opposite them were Keefer and Keith, side by side, sparking the merriment with a running fire of shouted jokes about Old Yellowstain. It was an inexhaustible topic. Jorgensen, at the foot of the table, was dissolved in howling giggles; tears ran down from his squinting bloodshot eyes. Several new officers who had reported aboard since the ship’s return, and who had never seen Queeg, listened in wide-eyed wonder, and laughed uneasily at the jokes, and drank vast quantities of Keefer’s champagne.
Willie was having a wonderful time. Though he suspected that Keefer had not been especially manly in the court-martial, he had no way of knowing the truth of the matter. Witnesses were not permitted to hear each other testify; and Maryk had never spoken a word against Keefer throughout the affair. All qualms had been forgotten in the grand wonder of the exec’s acquittal, and Willie’s release from fear. He drank as much of the novelist’s champagne as anybody, excepting perhaps Harding. His old roommate of the clipping shack was in an alcoholic nirvana. From time to time Harding would get up and stagger to hug somebody, Keefer, or Maryk, or Paynter, it didn’t matter who. He kissed Willie, maundering, “He gave me his hat to puke in. One of nature’s noblemen, Willie Keith-”
Keefer said, “He’ll probably have to do it again before the night’s out.” Willie thereupon seized a silver bowl of celery and held it under Harding’s mouth, and Harding pretended to throw up, and it was a joke which made everybody roar except the two puzzled old folks. In this happy vein the party was proceeding when Keefer jumped up, yelling, “Here he comes! Fill your glasses! A toast to the conquering hero! Greenwald the Magnificent!”
The lawyer’s blues were rumpled and baggy, and his walk was not of the steadiest, but nobody at the table was in a condition to notice. He came to the head of the table and stood stupidly, resting a hand on the empty chair, looking around slack-mouthed. “Party’s pretty far along, hey?” he said, as wine splashed in a dozen glasses and all the officers shouted greetings. Keefer made his glass ring with a knife.
“All right, quiet, you drunken mutineers- A toast, I say!” He lifted his glass high. “To Lieutenant Barney Greenwald-a Cicero with two stripes-a Darrow with wings-the terror of judge advocates-the rescuer of the oppressed and the downtrodden-the forensic St. George who slew with his redoubtable tongue that most horrible of dragons-Old Yellowstain!”
They all cheered; they all drank; they sang For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow in bellowing discords. The lawyer stood, pallid and skinny, his mouth foolishly twitching in momentary grins. “Speech! Speech!” said Keefer, clapping his hands and dropping into his chair, and everybody took up the cry and the applause.
“No, no,” Greenwald mumbled, but in a moment he was standing alone, and all the faces at the table were turned to him. The party settled into expectant quiet. “I’m drunker’n any of you,” he said. “I’ve been out drinking with the judge advocate-trying to get him to take back some of the dirty names he called me-finally got him to shake hands on the ninth whisky sour-maybe the tenth-”
“That’s good,” Maryk said.