Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [282]
“Tom, I sure thought you’d want to take her into the boneyard,” Willie said. “A ride through the Panama Canal and all-you could have stayed on-it would just have been another couple of months, after all-”
“You talk that way because your escape date is November 1. You’ve forgotten what freedom smells like in the nostrils, Willie. It’s like the smell of all the beautiful women and all the good liquor in the world distilled into one essence. It makes you crazy for it. These minutes waiting for the gig seem longer to me than a month under Queeg, which was longer than ten years of normal living. You’ll know what I mean on the last night of October.”
Willie said, “No sentimental ties to the good old Caine?”
The novelist’s face wrinkled. He looked around at the rusty deck, at the peeling stacks. The smell of stack gas was strong. Two half-naked sailors were skinning potatoes by the clip shack, cursing each other with monotonous obscenities.
“I’ve hated this ship for thirty-five months, and I feel now as though I’m just beginning to hate it. If I were to stay aboard, it would only be to see how much deeper hate could get for an inanimate object. Not that I really think the Caine is inanimate. It’s an iron poltergeist sent into the world by God to ruin my life. And it hasn’t done a bad job. You can lay my ghost, Willie. I’m tired of it- Thank Christ, there’s the gig.”
“Well, Tom, this is it.” They shook hands, and watched silently as the boat drew near. The OOD and the new exec, a lieutenant junior grade who had previously commanded a yard minesweeper, stood at a respectful distance from the two commanding officers.
Willie said, “I guess this is a real parting of the ways. You’re going on to a brilliant career, I know you are. You’re a fine novelist, Tom. I’m going to bury myself at some poky college and that’ll be the end of me. I’m not good for much else.”
Keefer bent to pick up his handbag, then looked Willie straight in the eyes. His face was distorted as though by a spasm of pain. “Don’t envy me my happiness too much, Willie,” he said. “Don’t forget one thing. I jumped.”
The bell clanged. Keefer saluted, and went down the ladder.
CHAPTER 40
The Last Captain of the Caine
Willie moved his belongings into Queeg’s room (he could think of it by no other name) and lay down on the bunk. It was an immensely queer sensation. Once, when he was sixteen, his mother had taken him to Europe; during a guided tour of the palace at Versailles, he had lingered behind the crowd of tourists in the imperial bedroom, and had leaped over the velvet rope and lain on Napoleon’s bed. He was reminded of that now as he stretched out on the bunk of Captain Queeg. He smiled at the association, but he understood it. Queeg was once for all the grand historical figure in his life. Not Hitler, not Tojo, but Queeg.
His mind was painfully divided between the thrill of command and the misery of May’s lengthening silence. He wanted so much to share this great news with her! He well knew that the Caine was a dirty old broken-down hulk-and that only because it was such a pitiful caricature of a ship had he been entrusted with it-and yet his blood ran quick with pride. He had risen from his fumbling, incompetent beginnings as Midshipman Keith to the command of a United States warship. Nothing could erase that fact. Luck and merit were mingled in the event, but the event stood. It would be on the records of the Navy so long as the Navy existed.
After a while he went to the desk and wrote this note to May:
MY DARLING:
Three months ago I wrote you a very long letter, and I have received no answer. I feel impossibly sheepish about repeating what I said, because I can hardly believe you didn’t receive it. If by some wild chance you didn’t please let me know quickly-you can send a wire to me now, I think-and I will write it again with extra flourishes. But if you got it-and I must believe you probably did-then your silence