Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [68]
“I’m sorry for your wife.”
“Well, she’s a pretty good sport.”
“They have to be.” After a moment of silent sipping De Vriess said, “You’re class of ’34?”
“Thirty-six,” said Queeg.
De Vriess knew this. He also knew Queeg’s precedence number, his class standing, and several other facts about him. But it was a nice point of etiquette to simulate ignorance. It was a courtesy, too, to place Queeg by mistake in an earlier class; it implied that Queeg was obtaining a command for which he was rather young. “They’re moving you fellows up now pretty fast.”
“I guess they want you somewhere in pretty much of a hurry, too. New construction, I suppose?”
“I don’t know. I hope they give me a supply depot in the middle of Utah. Some place with no water.”
“Not much chance of that.”
“Guess not.” De Vriess gave a false sigh of despair. Both men were stepping gingerly around the point uppermost in both their minds: namely, that De Vriess was getting off, and Queeg getting on, an obsolete ship. De Vriess said, “Had much to do with minesweeping?”
“Not a hell of a lot. Seems to me they might have sent me to Mine Warfare School. But I guess somebody in the Bureau had his pants on fire for some reason.”
“Well, hell, you know as much as I did when I came aboard. Not a whole lot to it- More coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
De Vriess took Queeg’s cup and set it on the desk. Queeg reached into his pocket. De Vriess, expecting him to pull out cigarettes, picked up a packet of matches. But Queeg brought out a couple of bright steel ball bearings the size of marbles, and began rolling them absently between the thumb and fingers of his left hand. “I imagine,” said Queeg casually, “that it’s mainly a matter of towing rigs of one sort and another.”
“That’s about all there is to it,” said De Vriess, even more casually. His question about minesweeping had not been random. In the back of his mind was the conjecture that Queeg was being groomed to command the squadron. But that possibility he now ruled out. He indicated a large battered blue book in the rack above his desk. “All the dope is in BuShips 270, the Minesweeping Manual. You might take a look at it one of these days.”
“I’ve read it. Seems simple enough.”
“Oh, it is. Pure routine. The boys back aft are pretty fair hands at it. And your first lieutenant, Maryk, is a crackerjack. You won’t have any trouble. We just ran off a very satisfactory exercise last week. Sorry you weren’t aboard.”
“Maryk,” said Queeg. “Regular?”
“No. There are only two regulars beside yourself. The way they’re hauling those boys off to radar schools and what not, you’ll probably have a solid reserve wardroom by January.”
“That’s one against how many-twelve?”
“Ten-theoretically. The complement is eleven. We’ve been down to seven and up again. There’ll be eleven now, counting yourself.”
Queeg stopped rolling the steel balls, and began rattling them slowly in his fist. “Good bunch?”
“Not bad. Some good, some so-so.”
“Made out their fitness reports?”
“Yes.”
“Might I have a look-see?”
De Vriess hesitated. He would have preferred simply to talk about the officers, touching briefly on their defects and high-lighting their good points. He cast about for a diplomatic way to refuse the request, but none occurred to him. He pulled open his desk drawer. “If you want to,” he said, and passed the bundle of long white sheets to his successor.
Queeg glanced at the first three in silence, rolling the balls ceaselessly between his fingers. “Pretty nice. This about Maryk, especially. For a reserve.”
“He’s one in a hundred. Used to be a fisherman. He knows more about seamanship than some chief boatswain’s mates.”
“Fine.” Queeg read on. He flipped quickly through the sheets, ignoring the elaborate mathematical scores, glancing at De Vriess’s general summary of each officer’s character. De Vriess felt more and more strongly that he was abetting a kind of peeking. He was relieved when Queeg handed the reports back to him, saying, “Seems like a good wardroom, all in all.”
“As good as you’ll find, I think.