Caine Mutiny, The - Herman Wouk [84]
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” Grace growled. He was sipping coffee from a paper cup. He looked as though he had been at his desk since dawn.
“Sir, I’m here with regard to your despatch 260040 to the Caine.”
The operations officer picked up a loose-leaf file of despatches on green tissue paper and flipped through them. “What about it?”
“Well, sir-I-I wonder if you can tell me why our orders were changed.”
Captain Grace wrinkled his nose at Gorton. “You’re the commanding officer?”
“No, sir. Exec.”
“What!” The operations officer banged the despatch file to his desk. “What in blazes does your skipper mean, sending you over to question orders? You go back and tell your captain-what’s-his-name-”
“Queeg, sir-Lieutenant Commander Queeg-”
“You go tell Queeg that if he has any inquiries about operations he’s to come here in person, and not send subordinates. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s all.” Captain Grace picked up a letter and made a show of contracting his heavy white eyebrows over it. Gorton, bearing in mind Queeg’s injunction not to come back without “the dope,” nerved himself for one more try.
“Sir-pardon me-did the change have anything to do with our grounding in West Loch yesterday?”
Captain Grace looked as startled at the sound of Gorton’s voice, speaking after being dismissed, as though he had heard an ass bray in his office. He turned and stared at Gorton’s face for perhaps thirty very long seconds. Then his eyes shifted to Gorton’s Annapolis ring, and he stared at that for a good long while. Then he stared at Gorton’s face again, shook his head incredulously, and turned to the letter. Gorton slunk out.
At the gangplank of the Caine the OOD, Carmody, saluted the exec and said, “The captain wants to see you in his cabin the minute you return aboard, sir.”
Gorton went below and knocked at the captain’s door. There was no answer. He knocked louder, then cautiously turned the knob and peeked into a black room. “Captain? Captain?”
“Oh. Come in, Burt.” Queeg switched on his bed light and sat up, scratching his stubbly face. He reached to the shelf over the bunk and took down the two steel balls. “Well? What’s the dope?”
“I don’t know, sir. The operations officer wouldn’t tell me.”
“What!”
Gorton, perspiring, described the interview with Captain Grace. Queeg glowered at the rolling balls.
“And you let it go at that, hey?”
“I didn’t see what more I could do, sir. I was practically thrown out-”
“Did you think of snooping around among some of the ensigns on the staff?”
“No, sir.”
Queeg turned his head to glare briefly, then resumed looking at the balls. “Well, why didn’t you?”
“I-” Gorton was baffled by the question. “Well-I-”
“I’m not delighted,” said the captain after a silence. “When I send an officer out for the dope, I expect him to return with the dope, and to use whatever ingenuity is called for to get it- That’s all.”
He lay back on his pillow. Gorton said diffidently, “Will you be going down there, sir? I’ll arrange transportation-”
“Maybe I will and then again maybe I won’t,” said Queeg. “I don’t appreciate being placed in the position where I might get read off like a midshipman for the stupidity of the Caine’s engine-room personnel-” There was a knock at the door. “Come in!”
Signalman Third Class Urban entered, carrying a despatch board in one hand and his frayed hat in the other. His dungarees were faded and streaky, and his shirt hung outside his trousers. He was an undersize roly-poly sailor with a round, red, perpetually puzzled face. “Visual from ComServPac, Cap’n.”
Captain Queeg took the board and read: Caine under way 29 September 0600. Pick up target and operation order at target repair