The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk Read Free Book Online Page A

that he ate a couple of pizzas. He slowed down, puffing, on the last bites, and glanced at his wrist watch.
    “May,” he said reluctantly, “I’ve got to leave you now.”
    “Oh? Aren’t you free till midnight?”
    “I ought to drop in on my family.”
    “Of course,” said May. The glad light began to die out of her eyes.
    “Just for a while-a half hour, maybe an hour. You take in a matinee. I can meet you again at”-he glanced at his watch-“half-past five.”
    May nodded.
    “Look,” he said, taking money out of his pocket and flourishing it, “a hundred and twenty dollars. We’ll do the town.”
    “Navy pay?”
    “Twenty of it, yes.”
    “Where’d you get the hundred?”
    Willie choked a little over the word, but brought it out. “Mother.”
    “I doubt she’d approve of your spending it on me.” May looked into his eyes. “Does she know I’m alive, Willie?”
    Willie shook his head.
    “You’re very wise. That innocent face hides plenty of cunning.” She reached across the table and touched his cheek affectionately.
    “Where will we meet?” said Willie, feeling, as he rose, heavily freighted with dough, cheese, tomatoes, and wine.
    “Anywhere.”
    “Stork Club?” he said. She gave him a wistful smile. They parted at the restaurant door. Willie slept, snoring, on the train to Manhasset. Commuter’s instinct woke him up just before his station.

CHAPTER 4

    Midshipman Keith in Trouble
    The Keith home in Manhasset was a twelve-room Dutch colonial house with heavy white pillars, high-arching black wood-shingled roof, and multitudes of large windows. It stood on a knoll in the middle of two acres of lawns set with soaring old beech, maple, and oak trees and bordered by flower beds and a thick high hedge. Mrs. Keith’s family had presented it to her. Her income from Rhode Island bank securities still went to keep it up. Willie believed such surroundings were normal.
    He walked up the avenue of maples to the front door and entered upon a prepared triumph. His mother hugged him. Relatives and neighbors, flourishing cocktails, greeted the war hero. The best china and the best silver were set out on the dining-room table, reflecting yellow beams from flaming logs in the marble-paneled fireplace. “All right, Martina,” cried Mrs. Keith, “put on the steaks! ... We have a feast for you, Willie. Everything you love-oysters, onion soup, steak-double sirloin for you, dear-with soufflé potatoes, and Bavarian cream. You’re starved, aren’t you?”
    “I could eat a horse, Mom,” said Willie. There are heroisms in small acts. Willie sat down to his dinner, and ate.
    “I thought you’d be hungrier,” said his mother, watching him poke without enthusiasm at the steak.
    “I’m enjoying it too much to rush it,” answered Willie. He downed the steak. But when the Bavarian cream was set before him, rich, brown, and trembling, nature rebelled. Willie grew pale, turned away, and quickly lit a cigarette. “Mom, I’m through.”
    “Come, you don’t have to be bashful, dear. We all know how sailors eat. Finish up.”
    Willie’s father had been watching him quietly. “Maybe you had a little something before coming home, Willie.”
    “Just a snack, Dad, to keep me going.”
    Mrs. Keith permitted him to stagger off to the living room, where another fire crackled. Here the midshipman wheezily held court, describing the secrets of the Navy and analyzing the conduct of the war in all theaters. He hadn’t read a newspaper in three weeks, so it was not easy to do; but he improvised, and his words were eagerly listened to.
    Willie noticed for the first time when the party went into the living room that his father limped and walked with a cane. After a while Dr. Keith interrupted the question session. “Time out,” he said, “while a man has a few words in private with his sailor son.” He took Willie by the arm and led him into the library, a mahogany-paneled room full of leather-bound collected