Chapter 9, "First Day at Sea" Summary

The Caine practices minesweeping near Oahu. Roland Keefer returns for dinner with a load of mail. Willie opens May's letter. She has returned to Hunter College. Roland announces his transfer to the aircraft carrier Yorktown. Tom Keefer discourses on how the war is the duel of the flying machines and they are stuck on the wretched Caine. "This ship is an outcast, manned by outcasts, and named for the great outcast of mankind. My destiny is the Caine. It's the purgatory for my sins." Captain De Vriess admits he has never thought of Caine being a symbolic name. Tom adds the extra "e" threw him off. Harding has a friend sent to the destroyer Abel. Tom comments that at least there he would be sacrificing his youth and writing efforts on an acceptably...