Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [81]
“Ah, good morning. Thank you, thank you, Willie.” Queeg leaned over the bulwark, taking a quick look at the mooring lines. The Caine was tied to the Moulton, which was secured fore and aft to buoys. The two ships lay in the far corner of West Loch, a narrow inlet of the harbor. Ahead, astern, and to starboard there were muddy shallows. The Caine had a few hundred yards of dredged channel in which to maneuver its way out of the corner.
“Tight squeeze, hey?” Queeg said jovially to Maryk and Gorton, who stood together on the port wing, awaiting with interest the new captain’s first demonstration of ship handling. The two officers nodded respectfully. Queeg called, “Take in all lines!”
The manila ropes came snaking aboard the Caine. “All lines taken in, sir!” said the telephone talker.
“Kay.” Queeg glanced around the wheelhouse, wetted his lips, dropped the book on the chair, and said, “Well, let’s go. All engines back one third!”
The ship vibrated, and things began to happen so fast that Willie couldn’t tell exactly what went wrong or why. As the Caine moved backward the sharp fluke of the decked anchor came ripping down along the forecastle of the other ship, bending several stanchions and ripping two out by the roots. It then gashed a jagged hole in the Moulton’s bridge with a ghastly metallic screech. At the same time a gun on the galley deckhouse went battering along the Moulton’s side, carrying away two ammunition boxes and an antenna, which squealed and crunched and then fell into the water. Captain Queeg shouted a tangle of wheel and engine orders; the stacks vomited billows of black smoke which poured down on the bridge; there ensued a few moments of wild yelling and running around in the smoky gloom. Then it was all over. The Caine was stuck fast by the stern in the mud on the other side of the loch, canted over about ten degrees.
In the shocked quiet that followed, Captain Queeg seemed the least disturbed person on the bridge. “Well, well, beginner’s luck, hey?” he said smiling, as he peered astern. “Mr. Gorton, lay aft and find out if there’s been any damage.” He sent a blinker message to Captain Sammis apologizing for the mishap. The executive officer returned in a few minutes, staggering on the slanted deck, and reported that there was no visible damage to the hull, and the propellers were buried in mud to their hubs.
“Kay, a little mud bath never hurt a propeller,” Queeg said. “Shine ’em up a little, maybe.” He was looking out toward the harbor.
“Guess we’ll have to send a grounding report despatch to ServPac, Captain,” Gorton said. “Shall I-”
“Maybe we will and then again maybe we won’t,” Queeg said. “See that tug? Over there by the point? Give him a call on your blinker light.”
The tug obligingly turned out of the main channel and came chugging into West Loch. A towline was soon rigged, and the Caine was easily pulled off the mud. Queeg shouted his thanks through a megaphone to the tug captain, a grizzled chief boatswain, who waved cordially and steamed off. “So much for that,” Queeg said affably to Gorton. “And so much for your grounding report, Burt. No sense getting old ServPac in an uproar over nothing, hey? All engines ahead one third.”
He conned the ship confidently across the harbor to the fueling dock where they were to spend the day taking on oil, food, and ammunition. He stood on the starboard wing, steadily rolling the two steel balls in the fingers of his right hand, his elbows hanging on the bulkhead. Coming alongside the fueling dock, he gave everybody on the bridge a bad scare. He tore in toward the dock at a sharp angle at fifteen knots. Gorton, Maryk, and Willie huddled together on the wing behind him, exchanging pallid looks. A crash with the stern of a tanker in the berth ahead of theirs seemed inevitable. But in the very last seconds Queeg backed down emergency full, and the Caine slowed, shuddering fearfully, and dropped