“That’s a fine spirit, but if you get away with it you’ll be a wonder,” said White. “I’m afraid, though, you’ll be out of luck.”
It was not long before Evans found the chance he wanted, when the chief of staff came into the radio room for an inspection. Evans approached and, ignoring his terrible frown, with a calmness of voice which Captain Brigham had never heard in a subordinate since attaining his present rank, explained his mission, and said in conclusion—“I’m afraid the apparatus in its present condition won’t give you the service it is meant to.”
The tirade from Captain Brigham which this remark called forth would have done credit to a ward politician on the stump. The floodgates of his wrath were opened. The apparatus was as he wanted it and was not to be changed; he was sick and tired of the Bureau of Engineering with its meddlesome nonsense. Evans listened patiently till he had finished, then put to him some searching and practical questions about the proposed handling of communications. He sketched certain tactical situations which might well occur and asked how the complex task of communicating simultaneously with all parts of the fleet would be handled without the apparatus designed for this purpose. This display in a warrant officer of that function which Captain Brigham had never exercised—imagination in picturing the tactical situations he might have to meet and preparing his mind for them—touched him on a sensitive spot; his wrath knew no bounds. Yet his pride forbade his dismissing the offender at once from his presence, and compelled him instead to talk more volubly than ever, completely evading the issue, and taking refuge in a magnificent invective against modern methods.
“You radio fans and cranks are cluttering up the ships with new-fangled gadgets and good-for-nothing specialists to play with them; soon there won’t be room for the deck force. The ships are on their way to becoming scientific toy shops, and it’s got to be stopped; the ships are meant for fighting. In the days when all the signaling was done from the bridge we had the quartermasters under our eyes where we could watch ’em and keep them up to the mark. Now your big radio force of specialized men can hide behind all this mess of stuff down here, and lounge around doing nothing, and if you try to keep them on the job there’s always some alibi about something no one else knows how to do. In the old days, before we had any radio or listening gear or other playthings, every man on the ship had to be a sailor and a fighting man, and every one of them was worth ten of your damned specialists.”
“I don’t just see, though, how this apparatus is going to cope with the fleet requirements in action,” said Evans quietly when Brigham had finished.
“It will cope with my requirements,” said Captain Brigham savagely, “and you’ll cope with my requirements if you leave it alone.” And with that he left the radio room in high dudgeon.
Commander White had entered during the conversation and heard most of the Captain’s tirade.
“Why doesn’t he chuck all the radio gear overboard, while he is about it?” said Evans, half to himself and half to Commander White. “He might rig the ship with sails and smoothbore guns, and then engage the enemy at close range with the valor of our fathers. That would breed fine sailors while they lasted.”
“Well,” said White, “I should say you’d done your duty by the Bureau; and you drew a good salvo doing it. I didn’t expect you’d make much progress with the old man.”
When next Captain Brigham saw Commander White, they were alone together.