The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk Read Free Book Online

given it up. Willie read the page over seventeen times, then twice more aloud, and was on the point of quitting when he noticed that whole sentences had become embedded in his memory. He worked another half hour and memorized the entire page, word for word. The chief essay question on the examination, as luck would have it, was Explain the Frictionless Bearing. Willie happily disgorged the words, which meant no more to him than a Hindu chant. When the results of the test were announced he stood first in the school. “Apprentice Seaman Keith,” shouted Ensign Acres, squinting in the sunlight at noon assembly, “is officially commended for a brilliant Ordnance paper. He was the only man in the school to give an intelligent explanation of the Frictionless Bearing.”
    With a reputation to uphold, and dozens of questions to answer in every study period, Willie thereafter drove himself to a meaningless verbal mastery of all the details of naval cannons.
    This lesson in Navy pedagogy was driven home shortly before Bilging Day. One night Willie came upon the following statement in his tattered green-bound manual, Submarine Doctrine, 1935: “Submarines, because of their small cruising range, are chiefly suitable for coastal defense.” At that time Nazis were torpedoing several American ships each week around Cape Hatteras, four thousand miles from Germany’s coast. Willie pointed this out with chuckles to his roommates. The sinking of a few dozen of our own ships seemed a small price for the pleasure of catching the Navy in an absurdity. Next day in Tactics class the instructor, one Ensign Brain, called on him.
    “Keith.”
    “Aye aye, sir.”
    “What is the submarine chiefly suitable for, and why?” The educator held an open copy of Submarine Doctrine, 1935 in his hand. Ensign Brain was a prematurely baldish, prematurely wrinkled, prematurely ferocious martinet of twenty-five. He was a drillmaster. About this subject he knew nothing. But he had once learned to read.
    Willie hesitated.
    “Well, Keith?”
    “Do you mean as of now, sir, or as of 1935?”
    “I asked the question now, not in 1935.”
    “The Germans are sinking a lot of ships off Hatteras,” said Willie tentatively.
    “I am aware of that. This is not a class in current events but in tactics. Have you prepared the lesson?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Answer the question.”
    Willie estimated the situation swiftly. This was his last chance to recite in Tactics before the bilge. “Submarines, because of their small cruising range,” he declared, “are chiefly suitable for coastal defense.”
    “Correct,” said Ensign Brain, writing down a perfect mark. “Why all the stalling?”

    So Willie gave himself over to the bondage of brute memory. Doomsday came; and none of the three in Room 1013 bilged. Kalten in Room 1012 and Koster in Room 1014 were delivered into the jaws of their draft boards. Kalten, the son of a powerful Washington attorney, had flouted rules and done no studying. Willie felt much sorrier for Koster, a good-humored, effete boy brought up by maiden aunts. That evening when Willie visited Room 1014, the sight of the empty cot upset him. Years later he learned that Koster had died in the first attack wave at Salerno.
    Now they were midshipmen, firmly rooted in the Navy, with blue dress uniforms, white officers’ caps, and most important, freedom on Saturdays from noon to midnight. This was Friday. They had been imprisoned incommunicado for three weeks. Willie telephoned May Wynn joyously and told her to meet him outside the school at one minute past twelve next day. She was there in a taxi; and she looked so beautiful stretching her arms eagerly to him that Willie momentarily pictured a wedding and all its consequences as he hugged her. He was still kissing her when he regretfully decided against it, for all the old reasons. They went to Luigi’s, and Willie was so stimulated by the beauty of his girl and the first taste of wine in three weeks