aboard his ship.
Turning slightly, he waved Tombstone closer. “What do you say, CAG?
These are your people involved. Should we talk to them? Show them the
pictures?”
Tombstone caught his lower lip between his teeth, then shook his head.
“Hard call, Captain. But I think maybe not. It wouldn’t help anything,
and it might hurt morale if the women involved know about this.”
“They won’t feel like victims if they don’t know they’ve been
victimized, that it?”
“Something like that, Captain.”
Brandt sighed, then turned back to Margolis. He picked up the folder.
“Son, needless to say, I am confiscating these. MAA, you will see to it
personally that these are destroyed at once.”
Michener accepted the folder. “Aye, aye, sir.”
Brandt picked up the endoscope. “I am also impounding your toy here.
It will be locked up in the MAA’s office for the duration of the
cruise.”
He leaned forward over the podium, facing the kid square-on.
“Margolis, the men and women who serve together aboard the Jefferson
form a community far more closely knit than any similar community
ashore. Such a community works only through the establishment of
certain social customs, responsibilities, and most important of all,
through the mutual trust between the members of that community.
“By taking these photographs and by attempting to distribute them among
your shipmates, you have betrayed your responsibilities as a
photographer’s mate in Chief Warrant Officer Dupuy’s division, and you
have betrayed the trust of the people serving aboard this ship with you.
Let me ask you something, Margolis. You know it’s wrong to rob your
shipmates, don’t you?”
“Huh? I mean, yeah, sure!”
“Say ‘yes, sir,'” the MAA rumbled at his side.
“Yes, sir!”
“The women aboard the Jefferson are our shipmates, Margolis. They
deserve our respect and our consideration. By your actions, you have
robbed them of their dignity and their privacy. By passing those
pictures around, you make your friends thieves as well. What you have
done is reprehensible.
It is conduct that cannot and will not be tolerated aboard this vessel.”
He paused for a moment, watching Margolis. The kid’s face was pinched
and white, his eyes quite round behind his glasses. He was obviously
terrified.
Brandt took a deep breath. “Photographer’s Mate Second Class Margolis,
you are reduced in rate one pay grade, to Third Class. You will be
taken immediately to the ship’s brig, where you will be confined on
bread and water for two days. Since you seem to have an excess of time
on your hands, upon your return to duty you will report to your division
officer for two hours’ extra duty each day for the next forty-five days.
You will also, at the earliest time your duties allow, report to the
Chaplain’s Office, where you will enroll in Commander Ferris’s next
available sensitivity training session on sexual harassment. You will
attend all of those classes on pain of further and harsher punishment.
Do I make myself quite clear?”
“Uh, Y-yes, sir.” His voice was scarcely above a whisper. His eyes
looked haunted.
“I didn’t hear that, son. Sound off!”
“Yessir!”
“If there is a repeat of this incident, if I find out you’re holding out
on us regarding how many of these prints you made or distributed to your
friends, I swear by God that I willbounce you in front of a summary
court so fast you won’t know what hit you. You’ll find yourself in jail
back Stateside, and after that you’ll be out on the streets with a BCD.
Do you think the chance to play Peeping Tom in the girls’ shower is
worth a bad-conduct discharge?”
“No, sir!”
“I will not tolerate voyeurs, I will not tolerate harassment of the
women under my command, and I will not tolerate grown men acting like
giggling, sex-crazed adolescents instead of as professionals!
“Margolis, I am not assigning harsher punishment because your record has
been exemplary up until now. I also strongly suspect that some of your
shipmates put you up to this. I think you’ve just been listening to the
wrong people, and I hope this episode will teach you to be responsible
for your own actions.
“At the same time, I’m making your punishment as severe as I am because