The Caine and Moulton Set Course for the United States

The Caine and Moulton Set Course for the United States marks the end of the ships’ wartime service and a test of Willie Keith’s authority as captain. After surviving a typhoon near Okinawa, Willie argues that keeping the damaged USS Caine in the storm zone risks both ship and crew. He wins permission to take the USS Caine and USS Moulton home for decommissioning, but the departure also brings a less triumphant reckoning: the war, and the sea-bound world that has shaped him, are ending.

The danger behind the request

Willie’s appeal comes just after the USS Caine has weathered a typhoon near Okinawa. During his first week as captain, he spent thirty continuous hours on the bridge, working the engines and rudder to keep the anchor from dragging. At dawn, the harbor revealed ships stranded on beaches and reefs, including a destroyer minesweeper lying on its side. The sight made the USS Caine’s crew feel fortunate by comparison, and established Willie as a captain who had brought his ship through a dangerous night.

That survival does not settle the danger. Further storm warnings arrive, and the paths of two more typhoons suggest that Okinawa may be hit again. Once the harbor waves subside, Willie goes by gig to the USS Moulton, where the minesweeping squadron lies in the south anchorage, and finds Keggs in his cabin. Keggs needs fuel and provisions, but is ready to put to sea. He explains that MinePac is reluctant to send him out because of his earlier breakdown. Willie proposes that they approach the authorities together: the two ships could sail, and the USS Caine could escort the USS Moulton.

Keggs hesitates over the chain of command. His objection is procedural, not a refusal to go: sailing orders are not originated by the captains in their outfit. Willie, by contrast, sees the postwar moment as a breakdown of ordinary certainty. With the war over and senior officers struggling to respond from day to day, he believes delay itself may be dangerous. The disagreement gives the scene its central tension: Willie must press beyond the usual limits of his authority to make the case that responsible command requires action.

Making the case

The captains find the operations officer aboard the Terror, where he greets Willie warmly and praises him for keeping the old USS Caine afloat in the storm. Willie does not linger over the compliment. He asks to take the USS Caine back to the United States immediately, explaining that he does not want to face more typhoons with the ship’s engine plant. When the officer points out that no one asked for his views on sailing orders, Willie answers that he is acting for his ship’s safety.

Willie’s argument is practical as well as urgent. The USS Caine, he says, may still be brought home, while scuttling her in place would destroy whatever scrap value she retains. More importantly, leaving her in the typhoon area risks another major vessel being wrecked, an outcome that would reflect badly on MinePac. He invokes the USS Giles, stranded on her side at Tsuken Shima, as a visible warning of what another storm could do. He also insists that he has a crew to consider: the ship’s condition makes the safe course a departure from the region, not continued exposure to storms.

The operations officer raises the counter-risk: the USS Caine might break down in mid-ocean. Willie proposes sending Keggs along and accepts the possibility that the ships may have to hold together through makeshift repairs. The high-speed sweeps are finished, he argues, and both crews are due for decommissioning; the USS Caine can still make the journey so long as she is pointed toward the United States. His confidence does not erase the ship’s mechanical weakness. Instead, it turns that weakness into part of his case: remaining in the storm zone is not a safer alternative to attempting the voyage.

Orders and departure

Ramsbeck listens, stirs his coffee, and acknowledges that Willie has made a persuasive case. The authorities are overwhelmed and cannot anticipate every need, he concedes, and he agrees to speak with the admiral. Two days later, the USS Caine and USS Moulton receive orders to proceed to the Naval Supply Depot at Bayonne, New Jersey, by way of Pearl Harbor and the Panama Canal, for decommissioning. The crews greet the decision with tremendous relief. Willie’s appeal has converted an unauthorized request into an official order, giving both ships a route out of the threatened waters and a destination at the end of their service.

The departure is not simply a relief. As the USS Caine steams away, Willie watches Okinawa until its last green rise disappears below the horizon. Only then does he fully sense the war’s end. He had left home three years earlier, travelled halfway around the globe, and reached a place that had once seemed strange and remote; now he is turning back. The voyage home thus reverses the outward movement of his wartime life, but it does not immediately make him feel at home in peace.

Leaving the wartime sea

The voyage exposes how completely wartime habits have entered Willie’s body. He is startled to see the USS Moulton’s portholes glowing yellow, its red and green running lights showing, and its masthead light blazing. Though blackout regulations are no longer required, he continues to crush his cigarette before leaving his cabin, move through the chart-house curtains to prevent light from escaping, and cover his flashlight lens with his fingers. The habits persist even when the conditions that demanded them have changed.

Other absences unsettle him as well. There are no gurgling pings from the sound search, and the USS Caine’s guns are unattended, trained in, and covered with canvas. Willie has learned to associate the open sea with the Japanese as a single threat; he must remind himself that the ocean does not generate submarines simply because it is there. The ship is travelling home, but his attention still follows the patterns of a war that has ended.

He spends long hours on the bridge even when his presence is unnecessary. The stars, sea, and ship that have organized his daily life are slipping away, along with the embodied knowledge acquired at sea: reading the Big Dipper to tell time, judging the offset that keeps the USS Caine on course in a cross sea, and finding the speed controls in darkness. The familiar wheelhouse will soon cease to be part of his life. The return voyage therefore carries two endings at once: the formal withdrawal of the USS Caine and USS Moulton from service, and Willie’s gradual separation from the wartime identity through which he learned to command.