Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [52]
The light was still dim on the bridge when Maryk bawled into a greenish brass speaking tube, “Ready in all respects to get under way, Captain!” Willie, stationed on the bridge as Junior OOD, was utterly bewildered by the rapid reports and orders which went before this word. He stood out in the warm rain in his khakis, shielding his binoculars under his arm, denying himself the protection of the pilothouse in the vague intention of demonstrating that he was a real seaman.
Captain de Vriess came up the ladder. He paced the bridge slowly, leaning over the bulwarks to look at the lines, estimating the wind, peering astern at the channel, issuing brief orders in a dry pleasant tone. His bearing was very impressive, Willie admitted to himself, because it was natural, perhaps unconscious. It was not a matter of a stiff spine, squared shoulders, and a sucked-in stomach. Knowledge was in his eye, authority in his manner, decision in the sharp lines of his mouth.
“Well, hell,” Willie thought, “if a destroyer captain can’t get a ship away from alongside, what is he good for?” He had already adopted the Caine mode of shading the truth toward the glamorous side by regarding the ship as an honest-to-goodness destroyer.
His meditations were interrupted by a shocking blast on the ship’s steam whistle. The stern of the destroyer next to the Caine swung away sluggishly, pulled by a small tug, leaving a narrow triangle of open water bubbling under the rain.
“Take in all lines to port,” said the captain.
A goateed sailor named Grubnecker, who wore headphones, reported in a moment, “All lines taken in fore and aft, sir.”
“Port back one third,” said the captain.
The fat ship’s yeoman at the engine telegraph, Jellybelly, repeated the order and rang it up. The engine-room pointer answered. The ship began to vibrate, and slowly to move backward. Willie had an intuitive flash that this was a historic moment, his first time under way aboard the Caine. But he pushed it from his mind. This ship was not going to be important in his life-he was determined to see to that.
“Stand clear of the bulkhead, Mr. Keith,” said De Vriess sharply, leaning over the side.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Willie, leaping aside. He mopped the streaming rain from his face.
“All engines stop,” ordered De Vriess. He walked past Willie, remarking, “Don’t you know enough to get in out of the rain? Go in the pilothouse.”
“Thank you, sir.” He took shelter gladly. A stiff wind was slanting the rain across the channel. Drops drummed on the windows of the wheelhouse.
“Fantail reports channel buoy a hundred yards dead astern,” called Grubnecker.
“I see it,” said the captain.
Maryk, in a dripping mackintosh, peered down the channel through binoculars. “Submarine coming down the channel, Captain. Making ten knots. Distance one thousand.”
“Very well.”
“Fantail reports battle wagon and two tin cans coming up-channel past the gate, sir,” said the telephone talker. “Forty-second Street and Broadway out here today,” said De Vriess.
Willie looked out at the choppy channel, thinking that the Caine was in difficulties already. The wind was moving her swiftly down on the channel buoy. There was little space to maneuver between the bobbing buoy and the ships in the docks. The battleship and the submarine were rapidly closing from both sides.
De Vriess, unperturbed, issued a swift series of engine and rudder orders, the purpose of which escaped Willie. But the effect was to swing the minesweeper around in the backing arc, heading down-channel, well clear of the buoy, falling in line behind the departing submarine. Meantime the battleship and its escorts passed down the port side with plenty of room. Willie observed that none of the sailors commented or seemed impressed, so he assumed that what had appeared knotty to him was a matter of course to an experienced seaman.
Maryk stepped into the pilothouse and swabbed his face with a towel hung on the captain’s chair. “Damn! Puget Sound weather.” He noticed Willie standing around, looking