Guam enters the narrative through Apra Harbor, where the Caine arrives in steady rain beneath the island’s misty, craggy hills. The harbor is a temporary anchorage rather than a place where the ship settles: the Caine secures to a mooring buoy beside the new 2,200-ton destroyer Harte, conducts a search connected to a missing key, and soon receives orders to get underway to avoid an approaching typhoon.

Arrival and the Key Search

The Caine’s arrival at Apra Harbor turns Captain Queeg’s suspicion over the missing key into an elaborate security operation. Once the lines are secured, he posts armed guards every twenty feet along the port side to prevent anyone from passing the key to an acquaintance aboard the Harte. He also sends Jorgensen to ask the destroyer’s chief censor to alert him if any keys appear in the Harte’s mail. The censor, visibly perplexed, makes Jorgensen repeat the request before reluctantly agreeing.

The search unfolds as Alfred Peter Ducely prepares to leave the Caine. Queeg has detached the ensign, who plans to go ashore in the Harte’s boat at ten o’clock. Willie Keith invites him to stay and watch the search, but Ducely laughs off the prospect: he insists that there is no key to find and is eager to get off a ship he has hated. His departure sharpens the contrast between the crew’s chance to leave and Queeg’s continuing effort to pursue a key whose existence Ducely denies.

Departure under Typhoon Orders

The ship’s stay is cut short by a dispatch ordering all vessels in Apra Harbor to get underway by 1700 and maneuver south to avoid Typhoon Charlie, which is approaching Guam. When the radioman cannot rouse Captain Queeg promptly, Steve Maryk takes the message, then reaches Queeg by telephone. Queeg finally answers and orders the Caine prepared for sea. Tom Keefer, interrupted while shining his shoes, calls the sudden sailing a reprieve from the search; Maryk answers that it will only postpone it until their return.

The Caine spends two days steaming through rain, gusting winds, and rough cross-swells among ships that have left Apra Harbor. The typhoon passes about 150 miles to the north, but even its wake batters the old minesweeper. On the third morning the sea subsides; the ships divide, with one group returning to Guam and another proceeding to Ulithi, and the Caine joins the latter. Guam thus marks a short interruption in the ship’s routines: an obsessive investigation is left unfinished as the weather forces the crew away, while the voyage itself brings substantial damage and hardship.