Captain Queeg

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Philip Francis Queeg is a fictional character in Herman Wouk's 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny, in the 1954 film made from it, The Caine Mutiny, and in the Broadway play The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, which opened the same year as the film.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Queeg, a 1936 graduate of the United States Naval Academy and formerly an officer on a destroyer, is assigned as captain of the U.S.S. Caine, a minesweeper stationed in the Pacific during World War II. He is pulled from anti-submarine school to command the vessel. It is his first command. He is initially welcomed by the crew as a tough, no-nonsense veteran, who will shape up the ship after his slovenly predecessor's departure. Queeg is married, and lives in Phoenix, Arizona, but his wife is not a character in the novel.

After a honeymoon period, it becomes apparent that Queeg is prone to eccentric behavior. Queeg displays a micro-managing command style and (sometimes unprovoked) angry outbursts. As time passes, he begins to make mistakes that endanger his crew. He neglects to order the ship to stop turning while reprimanding a crew member for having his shirttail out, and so the ship steams over its own towline, parting it. When called on the carpet by a superior after this incident, he refuses to acknowledge it happened, or to admit blame in any way. His superiors are not satisfied, but allow him to retain command.

The Caine is sent to San Francisco for an overhaul. Queeg uses the opportunity to take home, against the letter of Naval Regulations, a case of alcohol. He orders the Caine across the Bay to Oakland to drop off the crate before going to San Francisco. Queeg's contradictory orders to the boat crew which he orders to take the crate ashore cause the loss of the crate. When a subordinate requests leave, Queeg brings up the boat incident and implies (falsely) that the officer was responsible. The officer can take a hint, and reimburses Queeg for the lost liquor.

After the overhaul, the Caine is ordered into combat. Queeg is observed to always frequent the sheltered side of the ship's bridge from the beach. When he orders the ship to withdraw before reaching the line of departure while escorting a Marine landing craft under hostile fire, his subordinates consider him either crazy or a coward.

Another episode which highlights Queeg's behaviors occurs when a quart of strawberries go missing from the wardroom icebox. Remembering how he helped solve a mystery involving a similar theft when he was an ensign earlier in his career, Queeg attempts to recreate his former accomplishment by insisting the strawberries were pilfered by a crewmember with a duplicate key. Queeg orders every key on the ship collected, and a thorough search made. During the search, the captain is confronted with evidence that the messboys ate the strawberries. Queeg loses all enthusiasm for the search, though he orders it to continue, and it is continued in a desultory way amid public mocking of the captain.

The first officer, Steve Maryk, remains loyal to the captain but is eventually goaded into believing that Queeg is unfit for command by Lieutenant Tom Keefer, an aspiring novelist pressed into wartime service who has a grudge against the captain. Keefer persuades Maryk that the captain may be mentally ill, causing the exec, who is a man of the sea but not particularly intelligent, to study medical books on mental illness. Soon after, the Caine is caught in a typhoon, and is in danger of sinking. Maryk believes Queeg unable to deal with the crisis and relieves Queeg of command on the grounds of mental illness.

During Maryk's court-martial, Queeg takes the stand, and eventually reveals his peculiar behaviors to the court. The question of his mental health is left undetermined, and the degree of justification of the officers for the reader to decide. The psychiatric evidence at the court-martial is inconclusive. This leaves the reader to ponder whether Maryk's actions had been justified as Maryk's defense attorney, Lieutenant Barney Greenwald, in a drunken speech at a party following Maryk's acquittal, praises Queeg for choosing a career defending the country, and condemns Keefer for inciting a mutiny and then running from the consequences. Had the officers been more supportive of the Captain, he maintains, it would not have been necessary for Maryk to relieve Queeg. Greenwald is convinced that the officers let Queeg down, rather than the other way around.

After the trial, Queeg is assigned to a naval depot in Iowa and is passed over for promotion, likely signalling the end of his naval career.

[edit] Pop culture references

  • In the novel Holding the Dream by Nora Roberts one of the main characters says "Captain Queeg is in the office, rolling marbles and talking about strawberries" to illustrate a character's craziness.
  • In the "Lambs to the Slaughter: Wolf In Sheep's Clothing" episode of Farscape, John Crichton tells his friends that, "Scorpius has gone into Captain Queeg mode," and, "someone has stolen his strawberries..."
  • In the TV series Red Dwarf, one of the episodes, entitled Queeg, features a backup computer called Queeg 500 which takes control of the ship when Holly puts it in danger.
  • In the TV series Space: Above and Beyond, the ship's CO Commodore Ross has a bowl of Strawberries stolen and tells the crew the ship will be searched and the guilty parties punished.
  • In the novel Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts refers to having a recollection of thoughts like the steel balls in Captain Queeg's hand.
  • An early episode of the TV series Sealab 2021 features Captain Murphy locking Sealab crew members in "battle stations" until his missing Happy Cake Oven (similar to an Easy-Bake Oven) is located. When Sparks invokes The Caine Mutiny as a cautionary tale, Murphy becomes distracted and starts reminiscing about Michael Caine.
  • In the King of the Hill episode "Hank's on Board" the characters charter a boat named the "Queeg".
  • In an August 28, 2006 issue of Newsweek, Vice President Dick Cheney is called "increasingly Queeg-like".
  • In his column for January 8, 2006, New York Times opinion writer Paul Krugman discusses the "president's Queeg-like inability to own up to mistakes."
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