HW-The Caine Mutiny (1952 Pulitzer Prize) by Herman Wouk

Author:Herman Wouk
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Romance, General, fiction
ISBN: 9780895774149
Publisher: Reader's Digest Association
Published: 1992-01-14T05:00:00+00:00

The following wind did not desert the Caine that night nor the next day. Below decks, the air that came through the ventilators was intolerable; most of it was stack gas. The sailors swarmed out of the compartments and slept in clusters on the after deckhouse or on the main deck, as far from the stacks as they could get. Some of them brought mattresses, but mostly they curled themselves on the rusted deck plates, with life jackets for pillows. On the bridge everyone breathed in gasps through the night. During certain legs of the zigzag the breeze blew at a slight angle, instead of from dead astern, and then it was possible, by stretching one’s neck far out over the bulwark, to catch a gulp or two of warm, fresh, unbelievably sweet air.

A hot sun rose out of the sea next morning and glared redly on a ship which appeared stricken by a plague. Dirty half-naked bodies sprawled all over the decks, apparently lifeless. The boatswain, piping reveille, wrought only a halfhearted resurrection. The bodies stirred, and rose, and began to move through chores with leaden limbs, like the crew of dead men in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The Caine was now fifty miles from the equator, sailing almost due south. With each hour that the sun rose in the sky the air grew hotter and more humid. And-still the ship wallowed over the glittering sea, trapped in its own stench of stack gas and cabbages.

Around noon, human nature revolted. The black gang began to bootleg water in the after engine room, where the evaporators were, so that no pressure would be found by Queeg in any pipes. The word passed through the ship like a telegram. The two narrow steel ladders descending to the broiling, clanking engine space became choked with sailors. Paynter quickly discovered what was happening, and reported it to Maryk in the charthouse. The executive officer shrugged. “Can’t hear a word you’re saying,” he said. “Stack gas has got my ears ringing.”

This blessed relief was available only to the crew. Word of it soon reached all the officers; but, unanimously disloyal though they were to Queeg, a vague yet pervasive sense of the symbolism of an officer’s cap kept them from descending the engine-room ladders.

Ducely, indeed, dropped his head on his arms beside the coding machine at three o’clock, and bleated to Willie that he could stand it no more; he was going aft to get a drink in the engine room. Willie glared at him. Ensign Keith bore small resemblance at this moment to the chubby, cheery-faced piano player who had walked into Furnald Hall fourteen months earlier. He had marked lines around mouth and nose; cheekbones and chin stood out from the round face. His eyes were sunk in smudged sockets. His face was grimy, and brown hairs bristled all over it. Trickles of sweat ran down his face into the neck of his open collar, staining the shirt dark brown.

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