Evening star., 1952-09-24
The Coine Mutiny
BY Herman Wouk
XIV.

by HeFn
XIV.
Any recent book of military
history is likely to contain the
remark that by the beginning OF
1914 World War II was really won
Quite rightly, too. The great turn
Ing points, Guadalcanal, Ell Ala
mein. Midway. and Stalingrad
were in the past. But Ensign Keith
had a worm's-eye view of the
war remarkably different from
that Of the postwar historians.
Standing in the black cold Wheel
house Of the Caine at midnight
on New Years Eve, as the ship
plowed its old snout through the
murky sea toward the west, he
took a very gloomy view of the
world situation.
He was on his way to fight
In battles as great as any in the
histories. But these would appear
to him mere welters of nasty,
complicated, tiresome activity.
Only in after years. reading books
describing the scenes in which he
had been engaged. would he begin
to think Of his battles as Battles.
For two days the Caine wal
lowed through gray cold rainy
weather. There was a general
feeling among the officers and
crew that they were all damned
forever to a floating wet hell. On
the third day they broke into the
sunny blue of the South Seas. and
on this day Willie took a mighty
leap upward in life. He stood the
noon-to-four watch as officer Of
the deck. Keefer was present to
correct any disastrous mistake,
and Captain Queog himself
perched in his chair throughout
the watch, alternately doing or
blinking placidly in the sunshine.
Willie conducted a faultleSs watch.
It was a simple matter Of stay
ing on station in the screen while
the convoy zig-zagged. Whatever
his inner shakiness, he kept bold
front. and maneuvered the ship
firmly.
In state Of quiet exaltation.
he went down the ladders to the
wardroom, and ripped merrily into
a stack of decoded messages. Later
he sat down to dinner in very high
spirits indeed. He felt a warm
bond with the other officers. made
stronger by the presence Of two
bashful newcomers. Jorgenson and
Ducely. He realized now how
green, how intrusive, he and Hard
ing must have seemed five months
ago to the vanished Gorton,
Adams, and Carmody.
Action Orders Received.
This force will assault and cap
ture Kwajalein Atoll and other
objectives in the Marshall Islands.
with the purpose of establishing
bases for further attacks to the
westward.
Willie stared at the blotchy
mimeographed words. He tossed
aside the thick operation order
and snatched war atlas from the
bookshelf. Turning to a map of
the Central Pacific, he saw that
Kwajalein was the largest of the
atolls, in the very heart of the
Marshalls. surrounded by Jap
strongholds. He whistled.
Throwing a blanket over the rest
of the secret mail he brought the
operation order up to the Cap
tain. Queeg paused in his shaw
ing to rifle through the sheets,
dripping soap on them. 'Kwaja-
lein, hey?" he said casually. Kay.
Leave this stuff here. You'll dis
cusS this with nobody, Of course,
not even Maryk."
AYE aye, sir"
When Willie began to log and
file the mail he made unpleasant
discoveries. Keefer had turned
over to him a set of dog-eared led
gers and the keys to the Hing
cabinet. and had offhandedly
added several handfuls of secret
mail which lay on the deck of his
closet under shoes and dirty laun-
dry. He assured Willie that the
correspondence was meaningless
garbage"
In the next weeks Willie over
hauled his entire department. HeI
installed standard Navy systems
Of filing and logging. Willie re-
membered searches for letters or
publications that had consumed
whole afternoons, searches pune
tuated with a fire of Keefer's sour
wit about the Navy's foul-ups.
He knew that above all things the
novelist priced time in which to]
write and read. He knew, too, that
Keefer had the cleverest mind on
the Caine. How, then. could this
man have failed to see that he was
defeating himself and blaming the
Navy for his own mistakes?
During the remaining time be-
fore the Kwajalein sortie Capt.
Queeg fell into furious lassitude.
The other officers imagined that
he was busy memorizing the docu-
ments of the operation. but Willie
knew better. When he brought
decodes to the captains cabin he
never found Queeg studying any
battle plans or books of tactics.
His occupation was either sleep
ing, or eating ice cream, or read
ing q magazine, or simply lying
on his back, staring with round
eyes at the overhead. He acted,
thought Willie. like a man trying
to forget a terrible sorrow. The
ensign guessed that perhaps
Queeg had had a quarrel with his
wife during the overhaul, or else
had received bad news of some
other kind in the flood of mail.
It never crossed the ensign's mind
that the bad news might have
been the operation order.
On a bright warm January day,