Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [76]
“Not at all, Tom,” said Queeg, taking a faded blue bathrobe out of his narrow closet. “An outside interest of an intellectual kind is recommended for all officers, as a stimulant to clear thinking and alertness.”
“Fine,” said Keefer.
“So long as your department is in every respect up to the mark, of course,” said Queeg. “I mean all reports up to date, all changes entered, all correspondence cleared, all enlisted training at the maximum, your own training accomplished, and, in general, everything so perfectly in hand that nothing remains to be done in your spare hours. Until such time, I think the Navy has first call on you.”
“I don’t suppose there are many officers in the Navy who can say their departments are in such shape-”
“Not one in a hundred, maybe. The average officer nowadays is lucky if he can keep abreast of his work and get six hours’ sleep a night. I guess that’s why we don’t have many novelists in the Navy,” said Queeg with a giggle. “But Captain de Vriess described you as a man of exceptional ability and I have every reason to hope that his judgment was sound.”
Keefer put his hand on the doorknob. “Don’t rush off,” said the captain, unwrapping a soap cake. “Like to talk a bit more.”
“I thought you were going to take a shower, sir.”
“Well, we can still talk. Come along.
“Now, Tom, what kind of radio guard are we standing at the moment?” he shouted over the drumming of the water on the metal deck of the shower room.
A conference during a shower was new to Keefer. He pretended not to hear Queeg. After a moment the captain turned around, glowering from under his eyebrows as he soaped his groin. “Well?”
“I can’t hear you very well over that water, Captain.”
“I said what kind of radio guard are we standing?”
Two hours earlier, Keefer’s chief radioman had reported to the communications officer that Queeg had been in the shack, minutely cross-examining him about the radio guard. The new captain had been violently displeased to learn that they were merely copying local harbor broadcasts. So Keefer phrased his answer carefully. “Well, sir, we’re following standard Pearl Harbor procedure. We copy the harbor circuit.”
“What!” Captain Queeg looked amazed. “How about the Fox schedule? Aren’t we guarding that?” He lifted his leg and soaped underneath it.
“We pick up the skeds from the Betelgeuse. They guard for all destroyers in port. It’s standard procedure,” shouted Keefer.
“You needn’t scream. I hear you. Standard procedure for whom? For destroyers in the same nest as the Betelgeuse? We’re an hour away by motor whaleboat. What happens if an urgent despatch comes through for us?”
“They’re supposed to give it to us at once over the harbor circuit.”
“Supposed to. And suppose they don’t?”
“Look, Captain, suppose the Betelgeuse blows up? Suppose we do? You have to assume certain normal conditions-”
“You can’t assume a goddamned thing in this Navy,” said Queeg. “Get that idea out of your head. Nothing will be assumed on this ship from now on, not a goddamned thing.” He rinsed the soap from his body and shut off the water. “Hand me that towel, please.” Keefer complied.
“Now listen, Tom,” said the captain, in pleasanter tones, rubbing himself with the towel, “in this Navy a commanding officer gets a chance to make one mistake-just one mistake, that’s all. They’re just waiting for me to make that one mistake. I’m not going to make that mistake, and nobody on this ship is going to make it for me. I can keep my own radio gang from doping off, if it takes six months’ restriction apiece, and breaking them all to seamen second class, to wake them up. But I can’t do anything about some silly ape who dopes off on the Betelgeuse. Therefore I won’t have the Betelgeuse standing guard for me. We’ll stand our own guard, and we’ll stand it around the clock, and we’ll stand it beginning as of now. Is that clear?”
“That’s clear, sir.”
Queeg looked at him amiably. “Say, how about coming to the club with me and having a few?”
“Sorry, sir. Under the new watch orders I have to stay aboard.”
“Oh, damn,” said the