Mister Roberts by Thomas Heggen

Author:Thomas Heggen [Heggen, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-11-06T23:13:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

All of the officers, excepting the Doctor and Mr. Gonaud, the supply officer, had at one time or another submitted letters to the Bureau requesting a change of duty. This was their privilege, and presumably the Bureau gave just consideration to such letters. These officers, however, turned in their requests perfunctorily and without hope; for all of them were absolutely certain that there existed at the Bureau a yeoman, probably a Wave, whose sole duty it was to drop all such correspondence, unopened, into a roaring incinerator. As incontestable proof of this theory they cited that in fourteen months the only officer transferred had been an ensign named Soucek, who had been aboard only six months and who had never, submitted a letter. Naturally there was some ill-will toward Soucek, who was considered undeserving of such spectacular good fortune; but for the most part the officers accepted the stroke philosophically and even, their theory confirmed, with a certain satisfaction.

While the officers may or may not have been right in guessing the disposition of their requests, there can be no doubt at all that they correctly gauged the futility of them. As a matter of policy — a policy, clearly, of pure spite; since he had loudly and many times expressed his desire to be rid of his whole passel of officers — the Captain always forwarded these letters with the endorsement: "Not recommending approval." That way they were licked from the start.

The other officers were content to submit their one letter, make their one gesture, and let it go at that, but Lieutenant Roberts did not give up so easily. One month to the day after he had written his first request, he appeared in the yeoman's office and had the letter retyped verbatim and presented again to the Captain. The Captain muttered, then sputtered, then roared: but he had no choice other than to forward it; with, of course, the same negative endorsement. Every month after that — without fail, it was exactly a month — this procedure was repeated: Lieutenant Roberts would submit the same letter and the Captain with the same curses would apply the same endorsement. It might seem that this was a foolish and futile business and in the main Roberts would agree; but not entirely. As he explained to his friend Ensign Pulver, he felt it had a certain nuisance value. He reasoned that if anyone at the Bureau did indeed read these letters, sooner or later that person was going to get "so very angry that he would be transferred to the naval equivalent of Siberia — which, by comparison with the Reluctant, he did not consider at all undesirable. And he knew for an agreeable fact that every time the yeoman appeared bearing his letter, the Captain's digestion was effectively ruined for at least one meal.

Roberts submitted these letters so regularly on the fourteenth of each month that once, when he forgot, Steuben, the yeoman, came around and in some alarm reminded him that his letter was due.

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