Mister Roberts Read online

  The officers, who lived with Roberts as equals and could therefore judge him less emotionally, felt much the same way. Being less interdependent than the crew, the officers were correspondingly less unified, and were split into at least four definite and mutually exclusive groups. Roberts, although he allied himself with none of these cliques, was ex officio a member of all, and was sought by all. It way unthinkable that Ed Pauley enter the stateroom of Carney and Lieutenant (jg) Billings, and vice versa. The Doctor's room was forever closed to Ensign Moulton, and vice versa. Langston could sooner pass through a needle's eye than the doorway to the room of Lieutenant (jg) Gonaud, the supply officer. All of these doors were enthusiastically open to Roberts, and to no other officer. His special friends were Ed Pauley, who had to offer an easy sociability; the Doc, who offered that plus intellectual comradeship; and Ensign Pulver, whose contribution was hard to define. Ensign Pulver thought that Roberts was approximately God, and admired equally and uncritically everything that he did. He was almost shameless in the way, literally and figuratively, that he dogged Roberts's footsteps. Without ever inviting one or desiring one, Roberts had acquired a disciple.

  The only enemy Roberts had was the Captain, who hated his guts. Ed Pauley kept in his room a small chart that listed all of the officers and after their names varying numbers of blue and red crosses. A blue cross represented a direct threat or insult from the Captain, and counted two red crosses. A red cross stood for an insult or slander from the Captain delivered secondhand to someone else. And on this chart Roberts's name led all the rest, even though his record consisted almost entirely of the red crosses representing hand-me-down calumny. The Captain had a noticeable reticence about upbraiding Roberts to his face.

  That would be one obvious reason for the Captain's hostility toward Roberts; he was afraid of him. He had no hold over Roberts and he knew it. If Roberts had asked once for a transfer, he had asked twenty times, and every time the Captain had turned him down. The Captain had done that out of spite, of course, but also from a sensible awareness of Roberts's value to the ship. Roberts was irrefutably competent and the Captain hated him for that, too; for Captain Morton was irrefutably and unbelievably incompetent. On two different occasions Lieutenant Roberts had saved the ship in convoy from fairly imminent collisions invited by the Captain's inept conning. The Captain felt no demonstrable gratitude. He repaid Roberts in the only coin he knew: by haranguing him over trifling details, by calling him names in absentia, and by keeping him aboard the ship. The petty and sneaking abuse merely amused Roberts, but the prison of the ship was an endless torture to him and mounting despair beyond which, finally, lie couldn't see.

  He had been aboard the Reluctant two and one- half years, longer than any other officer. He alone on the ship sincerely wanted to fight the war, and he worked cargo and kept the ship painted and stood watches. He alone sincerely hated the ship, and it lay unbidden in the palm of his hand. He had to get into the war, but in a chaos that blandly reduced imperative to impossible he ran up and down the dreary islands of the back areas. He tried very hard not to let himself get disorganized, and for the most part he succeeded simply by reading a great deal, by talking with his friends, and by working until sleep was unavoidable. Sometimes, though, the pressure inside him became too strong, and then he prowled the ship with an uncontrollable restlessness.

  On one such evening Lieutenant Roberts left the movie early. The movies were the great opiate of the ship. They were held every night in port, and everyone attended except the men on watch, and many of them attended too. The screen was rigged on the mast-table forward of number three hatch and the crew sat on the hatch cover and on boxes and a few chairs on the deck. The officers sat regally in chairs on the quarterdeck, the Captain in the center. There was only one projector so that at the end of every reel there was a pause while the new reel was wound on. This was always a noisy period, with much shouting back and forth, much speculation on the heroine's chastity, and many offers to share her bed. The movies were the one great social function of the ship. No matter how bad they were— arid they were consistently bad and always ancient— everyone but Roberts stayed grimly to the end. Roberts could seldom stomach them beyond the fourth reel.

  Tonight, because he was restless and because the movie was a surpassingly stupid Western, he quit after the first reel. For a while he walked up and down in the area just abaft the house. Then he went up to the flying bridge and stood for a while looking out over the bay. Then he went down to the wardroom. Out of old habit he looked into the refrigerator in the pantry, found a few olives and ate them. He poured a cup of coffee and drank it. Then he drifted along the passageway looking into each stateroom for someone to talk with. There was no one. Finally he went into Ensign Pulver's room.

  Pulver lived alone in a double room. He slept in the bottom bunk and used the top one as a general file for everything that couldn't decently be strewn on the deck. It now contained a soiled sciwy shirt, a pair of soiled khaki trousers, an orange, half a dozen books, a thick pile of old magazines, and the harmonica with which Pulver achieved an eerie caterwauling effect on the only two tunes that he knew. Roberts looked now at the books. One of them was Nana which Pulver was currently reading in an English translation. Then he examined the magazine file. Pulver had a well-known faculty for attracting all the loose magazines on the ship. Roberts found a year-old Cosmopolitan that he hadn't seen, and he stretched out in Pulver's bunk and started looking through it.

  He hadn't been there long when there were shuffling footsteps and Ensign Pulver came in. Roberts looked up, surprised. He didn't know anything short of leg chains that could keep Pulver from a movie.

  "What's the matter with you?" he said. "You sick?"

  Pulver flopped dejectedly in the chair and locked his hands behind his head. "Hell," he said, "what a stinking movie!"

  "Since when did you object to stinking movies?" Roberts asked.

  Pulver looked faintly hurt. "Hell," he said, "I like a good picture all right, but not one like this. Besides," he added, "that miserable bastard had a chance to get a really good movie tonight and he took this one instead."

  "Who's that?"

  "The old man. This ship astern of us wanted to trade us Since You Went Away—that's almost brand-new— and he took this damn shoot-em-up!"

  Roberts folded the magazine acrtfss his stomach. "Well," he said "that's not surprising."

  Pulver said disgustedly: "And he's sitting up there now chortling and having a big time!"

  "That's to be expected," Roberts said. "He's found his own level of entertainment."

  Ensign Pulver shook his head gloomily. "Did you hear what he did today?" he asked suddenly.

  "Probably," Roberts said. "What did he do?"

  "He was prowling around the rooms this afternoon and he caught five officers in their sacks. Now—"

  Roberts interrupted: "Needless to say you were one of them."

  "Yeah," said Pulver, "I was one. Now he's putting out a new order that says all officers will stay out of their sacks during working hours. He told the exec that if they don't he's going to have all the mattresses removed during the day and he's going to take down all the doors so he can walk around and see who's in bed. Jesus," said Pulver, "did you ever hear of such a simple bastard?"

  Roberts smiled. "He's certainly simple if he thinks he's going to keep you out of your sack."

  He had touched upon a sore spot. Although he conscientiously spent better than two-thirds of each day in his bunk, Ensign Pulver always got aggrieved when charged with this. His argument was that he actually slept very little, and that most of his time in bed he was thinking. He answered now' a little stiffly, "I'm not in there as much as you think. I'm not in there half as much as Billings!"

  Roberts was not disposed to be charitable. "Maybe not"—he conceded nothing. "It's true that you do get up for meals once in a while!"

  "Hell," said Pulver defensively. He sniffed, rubbed his nose, and minutely examined hi
s fingernails. Then he thought to change the subject.

  "What the hell's the matter with that stupid bastard anyhow?" he asked.

  "Which one is that?"

  "The Old Man. What's really the matter with him anyhow?"

  Roberts doubled his legs and pushed restlessly against the top bunk. "What's the matter with Stupid?" he mused. "Oh, mostly that—that he is stupid. Downright low intelligence—that, coupled with a great deal of vanity. Also he suffers from infantilism."

  "What's that?" Pulver asked immediately, and when Roberts told him he wanted to know: "Is that what makes him buy a commander's cap and keep it up there?"

  "Maybe," Roberts said disinterestedly.

  "Do you think he'll ever make commander?"

  Roberts kicked the top bunk sharply. "Absolutely not!"

  Ensign Pulver rubbed his nose again. "Say," he said with sudden excitement, "now's the time to throw that commander hat over the side! While the Old Man's at the movies!"

  Roberts shook his head.

  "Hey, sure," Pulver insisted. "Now's a wonderful time! Come on! How about it!"

  Roberts shook his head again. "You do it," he said flatly. "I'm comfortable here. Besides/' he added, "I've got a better idea."

  "What's that?" Pulver asked quickly.

  Roberts turned and smiled benignly at him. "Let's have one of your beers."

  Ensign Pulver shook his head disappointedly. "Can't," he said. "I only got six bottles left and I'm saving them."

  "What do you think you're saving them for?"

  A look of cunning came into Pulver's face. "Special occasions," he grinned.

  "I see," said Roberts. "And when do you expect the next special occasion?"

  Pulver thought this over. "Mothers' Day," he announced. "Come around Mothers' Day and we'll have a special occasion."

  "Do you know," Roberts said sternly, "what the government does with hoarders?"

  Pulver grinned hugely and nodded.

  "Do you know," Roberts pursued, "that if you covet material goods you can never enter the Kingdom of Heaven?"

  Pulver grinned even more.

  "Besides," Roberts pointed out warningly, "one of these days while you're hoarding beer this ship is going to take a bomb or a torpedo. Then nobody'11 get any good out of your lousy beer!"

  Ensign Pulver shook his head and grinned craftily. "No, it ain't," he said happily. "The Japs won't bother this bucket. They know an ally when they see one."

  Roberts shook his head sadly and rolled over on his side. "That's disgusting treasonous talk," he said. "Throw me that tinfoil over there." He pointed at a large ball on the desk.

  Pulver got up obediently. "That's not tinfoil," he said. "That's leadfoil." He handed the ball to Roberts.

  "Whatever it is, it's heavy," Roberts said. "Now give me a thick rubber band."

  Pulver did that too, unquestioningly. Roberts picked off a small lump of leadfoil and kneaded it. "Now turn around," he ordered.

  Pulver did that, too, and Roberts made a V of the rubber band, inserted the ball of leadfoil, and shot Pulver in the left buttock. Ensign Pulver jumped well clear of the deck. "Ouch!" he yelled. "Jesus Christ!" He rubbed fiercely at his pants.

  "That hurt?" Roberts asked kindly. Ensign Pulver said that it did. "Say," said Roberts, twirling the rubber band, "there's something for you to do. Why don't you take some of this leadfoil and go shoot the Old Man in the buttocks now while he's watching the movie?"

  Pulver sat down in the chair again, and now he looked up quickly, interested but skeptical. His voice was carefully determined not to show enthusiasm. "You come along," he said, "and I will."

  "No, no," said Roberts solemnly, "that's ridiculous. I won't be a party to anything like that. I think the Old Man is a lovable old gent. Beneath that rough exterior" — Roberts rapped on the bunk for emphasis — "beats a heart of gold. Remember that."

  Ensign Pulver was not impressed. "Come on," he said earnestly, "let's go do that. Come on," he said, "that's a good idea. Let's go do it!" He was getting a little excited.

  Roberts turned over and laughed. "No, no, no," he said. "Don't be silly. A man in my position."

  Pulver was pleading now. "Come on, Doug," he urged. "Come on. Let's go do that. That'll be wonderful! Come on!"

  Roberts shook his head adamantly and smiled. "Out of the question," he said flatly. He threw his leg over the side of the bunk and sat up. "Okay," he said, "get the leadfoil and let's go."

  The snipers chose as their place of concealment the port wing of the boat deck. Ensign Pulver was giggling excitedly as they crowded in close against the bulkhead of the house. It was an ideal place: it was dark on the wing and there was no one about. The officers sat directly below on the quarterdeck, and the Captain, seated prominently in the center, was about twenty feet to the right. Roberts leaned over the rail and looked at the crowd. Everyone was intently watching the movie. It was evidently a thrilling moment, for a furious chase by horseback was in progress and the sound track was thunderous with horses' hooves and shouts and gunshots. The Captain was leaning avidly forward and his mouth was open with excitement. Leaning forward like that, Roberts noted, away from the back of the chair, the Captain presented a considerable expanse of buttock.

  "All right," Roberts said quietly to Pulver. "You can have the first shot."

  Ensign Pulver, although not normally so, was brave enough with Roberts behind him. "Okay," he whispered tensely. "Here I go!" He pulled back the rubber band and held it for a long moment, aiming. His hands were a little unsteady with excitement. Then he sucked in his breath and let fire. Immediately he ducked his head below the level of the rail and crouched there, waiting. When, after a moment, there were no sounds from below, he peered furtively over. The big pursuit was still going on, and none of the audience had so much as moved an eye.

  "Let me try it," Roberts said. He moved in close to the bulkhead. In naval gunfire, the term "ballistic" is used to designate the completed computation — with corrections for wind, pitch and roll, gun-barrel thread, etc. — of the target range and bearing. Roberts figured his ballistic now. He made a small correction to the right for a very slight movement of air. He made a small correction upward on the theory that the lead- foil pellet would travel in a downward parabola. Then he took quick aim and fired. It was immediately apparent that he had figured the ballistic correctly.

  The men at the movie thought the Captain had finally gone off his nut. (Indeed, until the explanation was thoroughly disseminated, this impression persisted for several days.) The Captain jumped up out of his chair just as though he'd been shot. At first he just cursed incoherently and then he started running around his chair and shouting, "Stop the picture! God-damit, stop the picture, I say!" Then all of a sudden he ran like a streak to the port side of the quarterdeck and peered aft. Then he ran over to the starboard side and did the same thing. And then, most inexplicably of all, he grabbed the handle of the general alarm at the starboard gangway and sounded General Quarters.

  The crew never did understand it that night. They went bewilderedly but excitedly to their battle stations and as soon as they got there they heard the Captain's raging voice on the P.A. system.

  "All right, now by God, we'll just stay right here at G.Q. until the smart son-of-a-bitch who did that comes up here and owns up! We'll stay right here, by God!"

  The crew standing at their stations on the guns and in the engine room and on the bridge couldn't figure what had happened. Either somebody had done something to the Old Man, or he had completely lost his marbles: and in either case it was all right with the crew. They stood at their stations mystified, but gratified and excited, and considering the two probabilities they would willingly have stayed there all night. The movie had been lousy anyhow. The Captain got on the P.A. system twice more and said substantially what he had said before; and then, after forty-five minutes and still without explanation, the ship secured from General Quarters.

  Ensign Pulver's battle station was in th
e engine room, and when he came up he found Roberts in the passageway outside the wardroom. Roberts was in a group with Langston and Billings, and Ensign Pulver heard him asking earnestly: "What the hell happened anyway?"

  Pulver waited until the group dispersed and then, grinning like an arch-conspirator, he grabbed Roberts's arm.

  "Nice going!" he said impulsively. "Man, oh man, that was nice going!"

  Roberts disengaged himself coolly from Pulver's clutch. He eyed Pulver as though he were a total stranger. Then a swift glitter of something like cognizance came into his eyes. "Say," he said decisively, "What do you say we have a beer now? This ought to be a special occasion."

  Ensign Pulver hesitated for just the barest instant, then he said warmly: "Sure, come on! This is a special occasion!" He grinned at Roberts and his eyes were wide with helpless admiration.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Nothing in Ensign Keith’s background and early training had adequately conditioned him for duty aboard the Reluctant. He was not a prude, but, coming from a middle-class family of a Boston suburb, he had deeply acquired a certain correctness of outlook which resembled prudishness, and which, for a time, warred vigorously with his new milieu. From early Bostonian childhood he had been taught that certain truths were self-evident: that the Democratic Party was incorrigibly evil; that a long engagement was essential to a happy marriage; that solitary drinking makes a drunkard; and that breeding and character were what counted in life. When he had finished two years at Bowdoin, the Navy came along, made him an officer and issued him a few more Truths: that an officer was, ipso facto, a gentleman; that a commission in the Navy was a sacred trust; that an officer must not fraternize with enlisted men; and the one to the effect that an officer enjoys special privileges by virtue of his added responsibilities. Young Keith came aboard equipped with a full set of these excellent, if sometimes impractical Truths, and it took Dowdy and the boys the better part of a month to get, as Dowdy put it, "Mr. Keith squared away."