As soon as they got back to Pearl, the captain called Devereaux into his wardroom. He told Devereaux all about David’s misbehavior and explained that the Hanley had been anticipating a command from the cruiser and that a range and bearing on the guide ship had been essential at that moment, and that had the Hanley failed to execute the turn command promptly and properly and be in position on schedule, he, the captain of the Hanley, would have appeared singularly foolish and incompetent in the eyes of the admiral who was aboard the cruiser. In view of this, he was making mention of Devereaux’s behavior on his next fitness report, and would Devereaux please tell Regan the captain wanted to see him in the wardroom immediately?
David came into the wardroom and stood before the long mess-table. The captain sat at the far end, scowling. The captain informed David that his commands and his requests took precedence over any other commands, requests, or reports aboard this vessel and David had better understand this at once. In order to help his understanding, the captain was restricting David to the ship for a month and he was asking the senior communications officer to make certain that David stood only midwatches when the ship was under way. In port, in addition to standing his usual voice radio-watch, David would relieve whatever seaman was standing the gangway midwatch. He would resume the duties of his usual battle station under surveillance and would promptly be relieved of such responsible duties the next time any such laxity was evident. And, the captain told David, he was lucky his behavior hadn’t resulted in a captain’s mast, which, as David knew, would have gone into his service record. David thanked the captain for his kindness and left the wardroom.
And the very next day, a gunnery officer discovered the missing .45.
The gun locker was directly across the passageway from the pharmacy amidships. No one would have thought of taking an inventory of small arms if the ship had been out there fighting real battles. But fresh from dry dock as she was, time on everybody’s hands, the senior gunnery officer decided it was time to do a little premature spring cleaning. So he assigned an ensign and two gunner’s mates to put the gun locker in order, and that was when the ensign discovered the number of actual guns did not tally with the number of guns listed on his clip board. Actually, Arbuster, a gunner’s mate second class, discovered the discrepancy long before the ensign did, but he casually and patriotically decided not to mention it. The ensign, on the other hand, was somewhat eagerly bucking for his lieutenant’s bar, and he reported the missing gun to the senior gunnery officer, who in turn reported it to the executive officer, who in turn reported it to the captain.
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.