Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [61]
“Excuse me, Willie-” Keggs frantically stowed the code machine in a safe, locked it, and seized a clipboard of decoded despatches hanging on a hook in the bulkhead. He stared at the wardroom door, gulping. Willie rose and stared, too, an uneasy fear possessing him despite himself.
The door opened and a straight thin man with scanty light hair, knitted brows, and a mouth like a puckered scar, stepped in.
“Captain Sammis, this-this-is an acquaintance of mine, sir, from the Caine, sir, Ensign Keith.”
“Keith,” said Sammis tonelessly, extending his hand. “My name is Sammis.”
Willie touched the cold hand, and it withdrew. Captain Sammis sat in the chair Keggs had been using.
“Coffee, sir?” quavered Keggs.
“Thank you, Keggs.”
“This morning’s traffic is ready, sir, if you wish to look at it.”
The captain nodded. Keggs scrambled to pour the coffee, then he drew despatches from the board and presented them for the Iron Duke’s view one by one, bowing slightly each time, and murmuring a comment. Sammis inspected each despatch and handed it back to Keggs without speaking. It was a picture of flunky and master such as Willie had never seen outside of costume movies.
“I don’t see number 367,” remarked Sammis.
“Sir, I was breaking that down when my friend came. It’s three quarters finished. I can complete it in two minutes, sir- right now if you desire-”
“What precedence is it?”
“Deferred, sir.”
Sammis cast a bleak look at Willie, showing awareness of his presence for the first and last time after the handshake. “You may wait,” he said, “until your visitor has gone.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
Iron Duke Sammis sipped the rest of his coffee at leisure, looking neither left nor right, while Keggs stood at his elbow in respectful silence, clutching the despatch board. Willie leaned against the bulkhead, marveling. The captain patted his mouth with a handkerchief, lit a cigarette with a flick of a gold-plated lighter, rose, and walked out.
“Banzai,” murmured Willie, as the door closed.
“Sh!” Keggs shot him an imploring look and fell into a chair. After a few moments he said hollowly, “He can hear through bulkheads.”
Willie put his arms compassionately around Keggs’s bowed shoulders. “Ye gods, man, how did you ever let him get you so buffaloed?”
Keggs looked at him in mournful surprise. “Isn’t your skipper like that?”
“Hell, no. I mean, he’s a low brute in his own way, but-good God, this one is comical-”
“Take it easy, Willie,” Keggs begged, glancing over his shoulder again. “Why, I imagined all captains were pretty much the same-”
“You’re crazy, boy. Haven’t you been on any other ship?” Keggs shook his head. “I picked up the Moulton at Guadalcanal and we’ve been operating ever since. I haven’t even been ashore in Pearl yet.”
“The captain doesn’t live,” said Willie through his teeth, “who can make me do monkey tricks like that.”
“He’s a pretty good skipper, Willie. You just have to understand him-”
“You just have to understand Hitler, for that matter,” said Willie.
“I’ll come over to your ship, Willie, as soon as I can. Maybe later today.” Keggs took the coding device out of the safe with unconcealed anxiety to get to work. Willie left him.
On the rusty littered quarterdeck of the Caine, by the DOD’s desk, stood a strange figure: a marine corporal in faultless dress uniform, straight as a tin soldier, his buttons glittering in the sun. “Here’s Ensign Keith now,” said the OOD, Carmody, to the marine. The stiff figure strode up to Willie and saluted. “With the compliments of Rear Admiral Reynolds, sir,” he said, presenting Willie with a sealed envelope.
Willie opened it and read a typewritten note:
Ensign Willis Keith is cordially invited to a reception for Rear Admiral Clough at the home of Rear Admiral Reynolds tonight at 2000. Transportation will be furnished by ComCarDiv Twenty barge which will arrive at the Caine at 1915.
Captain H. Matson,
by direction.
“Thank you,” said Willie. The marine saluted rigidly again, went through all the forms