The Caine Mutiny (9 page)

“Keith, sir.”

“Keith. Good name. Not a Keith from Indiana?”

“No, sir. Long Island.”

“Good name anyway. Now, let’s have some more music. Let’s see. Do you know
Who Hit Annie in the Fanny with a Flounder
?”

“No, sir.”

“Hell, I thought everyone knew that.”

“If you’ll sing it, sir,” said Keefer eagerly, “Willie can pick it up in a second.”

“By God I will,” said the admiral, glancing around at the captain beside him, “if Matson here will pitch in.”

“Certainly, Admiral.”

Willie-easily picked up the refrain of
Who Hit Annie in the Fanny with a Flounder
, and the house rocked with the chorus sung twice by all hands, male and female. The nurses giggled, cooed, and twittered. “This is the best damn party,” cried the admiral, “we’ve ever had. Somebody give me a cigarette. Where are you stationed, boy? I want you to come again, often.”

“I’m trying to catch up with the U.S.S.
Caine
, sir.”

“
Caine
?
Caine
? Christ, is she still in commission?”

Captain Matson leaned over and said, “Converted DMS, sir.”

“Oh, one of those. Where is she?”

“Just left today, sir.” He dropped his voice. “ ‘Ashtray.’ ”

“Hm.” The admiral regarded Willie keenly. “Matson, can you take care of this lad?”

“I think so, Admiral.”

“Well, more music, Keith!”

When the party broke up at midnight, the captain slipped Willie his card. “Come and see me at 0900, Keith.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Next morning Willie presented himself at the captain’s office in the CincPac Building. The captain rose and shook hands pleasantly.

“Sure enjoyed your music, Keith. Never saw the admiral have a better time. By God, he needs it-does him good.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Well,” said the captain, “if you want I can put you on a plane for Australia. Maybe you’ll catch the
Caine
down there, maybe you won’t. She’s running convoy. Those escorts get shoved here and there by every port director who gets his hands on them-”

“Whatever you say, sir-”

“
Or
,” said the captain, “we can put you on temporary duty here in the officer pool till she gets back to Pearl. Might be a few weeks, might be a few months. Depends on whether you’re in a hurry for combat duty or- They can use you out there, sure enough. The admiral wouldn’t interfere with your going out, in any way.” Captain Matson grinned.

Willie glanced through the broad picture window which faced the sea and the hills. A rainbow was drifting down a palm-covered misty mountainside far away. Outside on the lawn crimson hibiscus blossoms stirred in the warm breeze, and a sprinkler twirled a sparkling spiral of water over the close-clipped grass.

“Officer pool sounds swell to me, sir.”

“Fine. The admiral will be pleased. Bring your orders around to my yeoman any time today.”

Willie was officially transferred to the officer pool, and took up quarters with Keefer in the BOQ. The Southerner, who had already been assigned to Third Fleet Communications, exulted as Willie unpacked his bags.

“Boy, you catching on to the military life.”

“I don’t know. Maybe they needed me on the
Caine
-”

“Shinola on that. You gonna get all the war you want, boy. You keep little old Keefer and the admiral happy a few weeks, that’s all.” He rose and swiftly knotted a black tie. “Got the duty. See you tonight.”

Unpacking, Willie came upon his father’s letter. He took it up uncertainly. Months might pass now, before he reached his ship. Dr. Keith had told him to open it upon reporting for duty. He was on duty-temporary duty, to be sure, but it might last a long time. He lit a cigarette, tore open the letter, and sat down to read it. At the first words he started up. He read on, sitting on the edge of the chair, the letter trembling in his hands, the cigarette burning down between his fingers, and ashes dropping off unnoticed.

DEAR WILLIE:

By the time you read this letter, I think I will be dead. I’m sorry to startle you but I suppose there’s no pleasant way to break such news. The trouble I’ve been having with my toe is due to a rather vicious disorder, malignant melanoma. The prognosis is one hundred per cent bad. I’ve known about my condition for a long time, and figured that I would probably die this summer. But the toe began to go a bit sooner. I suppose I should be in a hospital at this moment (two nights before you leave) but I hate to spoil your departure, and since there’s no hope anyway, I’ve postponed it. I’m going to try to stall until I know you’ve left San Francisco. Your mother doesn’t know anything yet. My guess is that I won’t last more than three or four weeks, now.

I’m a little young to go, according to the insurance tables, and i must say I don’t feel ready, but I daresay that’s because I’ve accomplished so little. I look back on my life, Willie, and there’s not much there. Your mother has been a fine wife, and I have no regrets on that score. But I seem to have led such a thoroughly second-rate life-not only compared to my father, but in view of my own capabilities. I had quite a feeling for research. When I fell in love with your mother I thought I couldn’t marry her without undertaking general practice in a high-income community. It was my plan to make a pile in ten or fifteen years of such work, and then return to research. I really think I might have done something in cancer. I had a theory-a notion, you might say-nothing I could have put on paper. It needed three years of systematic investigation. Nobody has touched it to this day. I’ve kept up with the literature. My name might have meant as much as my father’s. But now there’s no time even to outline the procedure. The worst of it is, I now feel your mother would have stood by me and lived modestly if I’d really insisted.

But I’ve had a pleasant time, I can truly say that. I’ve loved reading and golf, and I’ve had all of that I wanted. The days have gone by all too fast.

I wish I might have met this girl of yours. It seems to me that she, or the Navy, or both, are having quite a good effect on you. And believe me, Willie, that is by far the brightest thought I take with me into the hospital. I’ve let slide my relationship with you as I have so many other things, through plain sloth; particularly since your mother seemed anxious to take charge of you. It’s too bad we had no more children. Just bad luck. Your mother had three miscarriages, which you may not know.

I’ll tell you a curious thing. It seems to me that I have a higher opinion of you than your mother has. She regards you as a hopeless baby who will have to be coddled through life. But I am coming to believe that though you are pretty spoiled and soft at the surface, you are tough enough at the core. After all, I see, you have always done pretty much as you pleased with your mother, while giving her the sense of ruling you. I’m sure this was no plan on your part, but you’ve done it anyway.

You’ve never had a serious problem in your life, up to this Navy experience. I watched you in the forty-eight demerits business very closely. It had its comical side, but really it was a challenge. You rose to it in an encouraging way.

Perhaps because I know I’ll never see you again I find myself sentimentalizing over you, Willie. It seems to me that you’re very much like our whole country-young, naïve, spoiled and softened by abundance and good luck, but with an interior hardness that comes from your sound stock. This country of ours consists of pioneers, after all, these new Poles and Italians and Jews as well as the older stock, people who had the gumption to get up and go and make themselves better lives in a new world. You’re going to run into a lot of strange young men in the Navy, most of them pretty low by your standards, I daresay, but I’ll bet-though I won’t live to see it-that they are going to make the greatest Navy the world has ever seen. And I think you’re going to make a good naval officer-after a while. After a great while, perhaps.

This is not criticism, Willie, God knows I am pretty soft myself. Perhaps I’m wrong. You may never make a naval officer at all. Perhaps we’re going to lose the war. I just don’t believe it. I think we’re going to win, and I think you’re going to come back with more honor than you believed possible.

I know you’re disappointed at having been sent to a ship like the
Caine
. Now, having seen it, you’re probably disgusted. Well, remember this, you’ve had things your own way too long, and all your immaturity is due to that. You need some stone walls to batter yourself against. I strongly suspect you’ll find plenty of them there on the
Caine
. I don’t envy you the experience itself, but I do envy you the strengthening you’re going to derive from it. Had I had one such experience in my younger years, I might not be dying a failure.

Those are strong words, but I won’t cross them out. They don’t hurt too much and, furthermore, my hand isn’t the one to cross them out any more. I’m finished now, but the last word on my life rests with you. If you turn out well, I can still claim some kind of success in the afterworld, if there is one.

About your singing versus comparative literature-you may have a different outlook when the war is over. Don’t waste brain power over the far future. Concentrate on doing well now. Whatever assignment they give you on the
Caine
, remember that it’s worthy of your best efforts. It’s your way of fighting the war.

It’s surprising, how little I have to say to you in these last words. I ought to fill up a dozen more sheets, and yet I feel you are pretty good at getting your way-and in other matters any words I might write would make little sense, without your own experience to fill the words with meaning. Remember this, if you can-there is nothing, nothing more precious than time. You probably feel you have a measureless supply of it, but you haven’t. Wasted hours destroy your life just as surely at the beginning as at the end-only at the end it becomes more obvious. Use your time while you have it, Willie, in making something of yourself.

Religion. I’m afraid we haven’t given you much, not having had much ourselves. But I think, after all, I will mail you a Bible before I go into the hospital. There is a lot of dry stuff in the Bible about Jewish wars and rituals that may put you off-but don’t make the mistake of skipping the Old Testament. It’s the core of all religion, I think, and there is a lot of everyday wisdom in it. You have to be able to recognize it. That takes time. Meantime get familiar with the words. You’ll never regret it. I came to the Bible as I did to everything in life, too late.

About money matters. I’m leaving all my property to your mother. Uncle Lloyd is the executor. There is a ten-thousand-dollar policy of which you’re the beneficiary. If you want to get married, or go back to school, that should be enough to enable you to carry out your plans. Money is a very pleasant thing, Willie, and I think you can trade almost anything for it wisely except the work you really want to do. If you sell out your time for a comfortable life, and give up your natural work, I think you lose the exchange. There remains an inner uneasiness that spoils the comforts.

Well, Willie, it’s 3 A.M. by my old leather-covered desk clock. A waning moon is shining through the library window, and my fingers are stiff from writing. My toe is giving me the devil, too. Sleeping pills and bed for me. Thank God for barbiturate.

Take care of your mother if she lives to be very old, and be kind to her if you come back from the war with enough strength to break away from her. She has many faults, but she’s good, and she has loved you and me very truly.

Willie began to sob. He read the last paragraphs through a blur of tears.

Think of me and of what I might have been, Willie, at the times in your life when you come to crossroads. For my sake, for the sake of the father who took the wrong turns, take the right ones, and carry my blessing and my justification with you.

I stretch out my hand to you. We haven’t kissed in many, many years. I liked to kiss you when you were a baby. You were a very sweet and good-natured child, with wonderful large eyes. God! Long ago.

Good-by, my son. Be a man.

DAD

The ensign rose, wiping his eyes, and hurried downstairs to the telephone booth. He dropped a coin into the box. “I want to call the United States-”

“Sorry. Private calls only at Central Building with censor’s permission. One week delay on them,” said the operator with a Hawaiian accent.

Willie ran out into the naval base and went from building to building until he found the telegraph office.
How is Dad
? he cabled, and paid the urgent rate, giving the office as his return address. Next morning at eight when the office opened Willie was waiting outside. He sat on the steps smoking until eleven-thirty, when the answer was brought to him.
Dad died three days ago. Sent you his love in last words. Please write. Mother.

Willie went straight to the office of Captain Matson, who greeted him cordially.

“Have they put you to work yet, Keith?”