Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

The squawk box erupted at 1400, directly after the midday mess. “Now hear this!” it said. “All hands muster on the portside amidships! All hands muster on the portside amidships!”

The men of the Hanley , accustomed to peculiar requests and commands, nonetheless considered this one to be peculiar indeed. They dropped their paint buckets and their scraping tools and their steel wool and reported amidships, where they waited in an uneasy knot for whatever was coming. Most of them suspected they’d be pulling out for the islands again. None of them, with the possible exception of Arbuster the gunner’s mate, ever once suspected what actually came.

The captain appeared at 1405. Dramatically, he stood on the boat deck before the torpedo tubes and looked down at the men who clustered on the main deck. As was usual with the captain of the Hanley , he delivered a little preamble before he got down to what was really troubling him.

“As you know,” he said, and the men still didn’t know anything, “the effectiveness of a fighting ship depends on a great deal more than the skill of the men aboard her. It depends, too, on spirit and trust and respect. Each man aboard this ship is a vital member of a team, and we’ve got to respect each other and the job each of us does, or this ship will cease being an effective fighting machine. Respect is the key word. Respect for a seaman second class as well as respect for the captain of this vessel. Respect.”

The captain paused and leaned over the boat-deck rail in a confidential way. He was wearing suntans, the scrambled eggs of his rank gleaming on the peak of his hat, the silver maple leaf glistening on the collar of his shirt.

“A forty-five is missing from the gun locker,” he said abruptly.

He paused.

“I know why that forty-five was stolen,” he said in a whisper, and he paused again.

The men of the Hanley looked up at him and began to wonder what he meant. The captain kept nodding his head sagely on the boat deck, and the men, none of whom would have interpreted the theft in such a manner had the captain not planted the idea, suddenly got the gist of his whispered words. Someone had stolen the gun so he could put a bullet in the old bastard’s head. The idea, now that they thought of it, seemed like a good one, perfectly reasonable and sound. They began wishing that whoever had the gun would carry out his plan. They began visualizing the captain being carried ashore in a basket. The captain kept nodding, and now the men were nodding, too, fantasizing the entire crew in dress uniforms, the big guns going off in salute as they carried the captain into the waiting motor launch, dead. Captain and crew kept nodding at each other, fantasy in total empathy with delusion. The captain broke the stalemate.

“I have asked the officers in each division to conduct a search of every foot locker aboard this vessel. You will report to your sleeping compartments at once, and open your lockers, and stand by for inspection. That is all.”

The men dispersed silently. There wasn’t much to say. Many members of the crew began thinking of the various weapons stashed in their lockers, the Japanese pistols they had bought in Honolulu or from the Marines in the Santa Cruz Islands, the Lugers they had picked up, the Italian Barrettas. They began thinking of these and wondering how they could dump them over the side before that locker inspection, but the prospects looked pretty dim. The prospects looked especially dim for David Regan.

He had recognized instantly that the gun the captain was talking about was the gun that he had inadvertently taken with him to the mess hall after small-arms instruction that day so long ago. And that gun was now buried underneath his handkerchiefs in his foot locker in the forward sleeping compartment. He tried to get there before any of the officers arrived, but by the time he reached his locker, two officers from the communications division were already there. One of them was George Devereaux.

“Okay, men, let’s get this over with,” Devereaux said.

The men fell in grumblingly before their lockers and stooped down and pulled out their dog-tag chains from beneath their undershirts, the keys to their lockers dangling with their identification plates. They opened the locks and flipped up the tops of their lockers and then waited while Devereaux and an ensign named Phelps conducted the search. David opened his locker and shoved the automatic clear to the rear, heaping a pile of T shirts onto it. The officers seemed somewhat embarrassed by their task. David, standing by his locker, began wishing that Devereaux rather than Phelps would search through his gear.

“All right, Savarino, you want to move those cigarettes?” Phelps said.

“What’s under that mattress cover?” Devereaux asked.

The officers were moving down the line methodically, ill at ease, conducting the search in a studiously casual but nonetheless thorough manner, Phelps on one side, Devereaux on the other, alternating. David was suddenly sweating. He wiped his lip.

“Where’d you get this bayonet, Stein?” Phelps asked.

“On the Canal, sir.”

“Get rid of it right after inspection, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, Regan, step aside,” Phelps said.

“I’ve got it, Phelps,” Devereaux put in.

“I thought—”

“I’ve got it,” Devereaux repeated.

He knelt before David’s locker and began moving the clothing around carefully, committing his invasion of privacy like a gentleman. His hands stopped on a cigar box. He opened it, saw a pile of photographs, and — even though he’d never seen her in his life — instantly recognized the top photo as the girl in Talmadge, Ardis Fletcher. He suddenly bit his lower lip, shoved the box to one side, and thrust his hands to the back of the locker. His hands met resistance and stopped. He glanced up at David. David wiped sweat from his lip again.

“All right, how’s it going down here?” a voice asked from the ladder.

The sailor closest to the ladder shouted, “Atten- shun! ”

Devereaux got to his feet, his hands empty, and turned to face the captain as he came down the ladder.

“At ease, at ease,” the captain said. “Have you turned up that piece?”

“No, sir,” Phelps said.

“Mr. Devereaux? You giving these lockers a thorough check?”

“Yes, sir, we are.”

The captain walked to where Devereaux and David were standing side by side. He glanced into David’s open locker. “Where’d you learn to square your gear, Regan?” he asked.

“Great Lakes, sir.”

“That’s a pretty sloppy job, isn’t it? Irish pennants all over the place.”

“Sir, I’m afraid I made a mess of that locker,” Devereaux said.

“Nobody asked you, Mr. Devereaux.” The captain squinted his eyes, studying first Devereaux, and then David. “Step aside,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

The captain knelt before the locker. He picked up a pair of socks, threw them back into the locker, and then saw David’s cigar box. “What’s in there, Regan?”

“Some... some pictures, sir.”

“Open it.”

“Yes, sir.”

David knelt and opened the box. His hand was trembling.

“You nervous, Regan?” the captain asked.

“A little, sir.”

“Why?”

“I... I don’t know, sir.”

The captain glanced at the contents of the box, nodded, and said, “Very well, move those jumpers for me.” David picked up the jumpers and put them onto the pile of T shirts which were covering the .45.

“What’s behind those shoes, Regan?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“I saw something back there, Regan.”

“No, sir, I—”

“I saw something, Regan.”