Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [39]
“The exec will think of something,” said Paynter.
“Okay, Keith, you’re logged aboard,” said Rabbitt. “ Paynt, will you take him down to the exec?”
“Sure. Follow me, Keith.”
Paynter led Willie down a ladder and through a dark stifling passageway. “This is the half deck.” He opened a door. “This is the wardroom.”
They passed through an untidy rectangular room as wide as the ship, mostly filled by a long table set with a stained cloth, silver, boxes of breakfast cereal, and pitchers of milk. Magazines and books were scattered on the lounging chairs and black leather couch. Willie noted with horror several secret publications among comic-strip books, leg-art magazines, and frayed Esquires. Leading forward from the middle of the wardroom was a passageway of staterooms. Paynter entered the first room on the right. “Here’s Keith, sir,” he said, pushing aside the curtain in the doorway. “Keith, this is the executive officer, Lieutenant Gorton.”
An enormously fat, husky young man, nude except for tiny drawers, sat up on a raised bunk, scratching his ribs and yawning. The green bulkheads of the room were decorated with colored cutout pictures of girls in flimsy underwear. “Greetings, Keith. Where the hell you been?” said Lieutenant Gorton in a high voice, and swung mammoth thighs out of the bed. He shook Willie’s hand.
Paynter said, “Where do we put him?”
“Jesus, I don’t know. I’m hungry. Are they bringing some fresh eggs off the beach? Those eggs we got in New Zealand will dissolve your fillings by now.”
“Oh, here’s the captain, maybe he has an idea,” said Paynter, looking off into the passageway. “Sir, Ensign Keith has reported aboard.”
“Collared him, did you? Nice work,” said a voice full of irony and authority, and the captain of the Caine came to the doorway. Willie was even more startled by him. The captain was absolutely naked. In one hand he carried a cake of Lifebuoy soap, in the other a lighted cigarette. He had a creased old-young face, blond hair, and a flabby white body. “Welcome aboard, Keith!”
“Thank you, sir.” Willie felt an urge to salute, to bow, in some way to express reverence for supreme authority. But he remembered a regulation about not saluting a superior when he was uncovered. And he had never seen a more uncovered superior than his commanding officer.
Captain de Vriess grinned at Willie’s discomfiture, and scratched his behind with the soap cake. “I hope you know something about communications, Keith.”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I’ve been doing for CincPac while-while waiting for the ship, sir.”
“Good. Paynter, you’re an assistant engineering officer again as of now.”
“Thanks, sir.” Paynter’s gloomy face was suffused with fleeting happiness. He sighed like a horse having a saddle taken off. “Got any idea, Captain, where we stash the new communicator?”
“Did Maryk put a bunk in the clipping shack?”
“Yes, sir. That’s where we’ve stuck this other new one, Harding.”
“Well, tell Maryk to hang another bunk in there.”
“Pretty damn crowded in that clip shack even for one, Captain,” said the exec.
“War is a terrible thing. I’ve got to shower, before I curdle.” Captain de Vriess puffed his cigarette, ground it’ out in an ashtray on the desk made of a three-inch shell, and walked off. The fat lieutenant shrugged, and drew on a pair of tent-like trousers.
“That’s it,” he said. “Take him to the clip shack, Paynt.”
“Sir,” said Willie, “I’m ready to get to work any time.”
Gorton yawned, and regarded Willie with amused eyes. “Don’t burn out any bearings. Just mosey around the ship for a couple of days. Get used to it. It’s going to be your home for a long, long time.”
“Suits me, sir,” said Willie. “I’m due for some sea duty.” He had resigned himself to a stay of six months to a year. It was his year in the wilderness, the ordeal of which his father had written, and he was ready to face it.
“Glad you feel that way,” said the exec. “Who knows, maybe you’ll beat my record. I got sixty-seven months on this bucket, myself.”
Willie divided by