The Good Shepherd
Sunday, January 18th, 2009Here is the section on The Good Shepherd in my biography of CSF. Copyright
1998, John Forester.
After finishing the last revisions to The Nightmare in January, 1954,
Cecil made a lengthy trip to England, where he attended a cocktail party at
the American embassy and was also entertained in the office of the First
Lord of the Admirality. On his return to Berkeley in July, he started work
on the convoy novel, The Good Shepherd. This is the story of Commander
Krause, USN, captain of a destroyer escorting a convoy to Britain at the
height of the U-Boat battle. Because Cecil was not sure of American naval
phrasing and proceedures, he arranged, for a fee of $1,000, that the
retired American submarine admiral, Ralph Christie, who lived in San
Francisco, would advise him and correct his errors. Christie was “really
patient Â… [with] trifling details Â… like the actual wording of a report or
an order; heÂ’s a bit puzzled that I can deal with strategy and tactics
without any help from him.” “The admiral approvesÂheÂ’s quite interested and
each morning over the telephone we fight terrific battles, destroyer versus
submarine.” “He’s as interested in watching a novel being composed as I am
watching a destroyer being handled.” As the book progressed, Christie
brought Cecil genuine plotting sheets with the destroyerÂ’s tracks all
plotted out as the battle progressed. “His heart just bleeds for KrauseÂhe
shook his head sadly over him yesterday and said ‘That poor guy’s in a
mess.”
However, Cecil had returned to his standard complaining mode that had left
him as he was writing The Nightmare. “Sixty more days.” “Fifty two more
working days. They go on and on. Â… The damn thing may run as high as
100,000 words. ItÂ’s all right from one point of view; if the action
compells that length well and good Â… I believe a longer book sells better
than a shorter bookÂand similarly if all the action can be crammed into a
shorter length well and good too. But damn me if I like the idea of three
more working weeks, which it would look like. Hell.” “Forty four more
damned dreary days of work.”
Shortly after Cecil started The Good Shepherd, it became more likely that
The Gun would be filmed, offering Cecil release from his misery. “It will
be just too bad if I finish work on the Good Shepherd and find that I
neednÂ’t have done it after all because these film rights have made me rich
for life. I’m tempted to tear up what I’ve done and wait and see.” When the
film contract was signed in September, “If I hadn’t signed that damned
contract for 1812 [a history of the War of 1812] I could retire this minute
and leave the Good Shepherd unfinished which would intrigue my biographers.
A great temptation.” “I’m really thoroughly tired. Me and Krause. I don’t
think anyone who hasnÂ’t endured it can appreciate the particular kind of
flatnes and fatigueÂthereÂ’s nothing else like it. Late nights spent playing
bridge or sitting up with a sick child don’t compare with it.”
Commander Krause of The Good Shepherd was an ingenious mixture of CecilÂ’s
previous military characters, a blend which could have resulted in his
finest characterization, but which, to my mind, did not. Krause had the
single-minded devotion to his service of Rifleman Dodd and Leading Seaman
Brown, the professional doubts of the early Hornblower, the conquered but
well-remembered temper of Captain the Honorable Miles Ernest
Troughton-Harrington-Yorke, and he had survived a passionate awakening like
Rose SayersÂ’s with more than a trace of General CurzonÂ’s prudery and
Hornblower’s detachment. To this was added one great advantage — he started
this mixture as the son of a loving, compassionate, religious and respected
father, an entirely new figure in CecilÂ’s works (but who appears only in
KrauseÂ’s memories). Instead of the complex, fascinating character that
could be made from these materials, Krause is a dull man who finds his
competence in the self-limiting, unlimited agony of war, and his peace in
utter weariness, face down, spread-armed, only half undressed and half in
bed, at the close of his duty. The creative talent that started these
half-men fifteen and twenty years before was now only strong enough to mix
their parts without synthesizing a whole man.
Cecil and the admiral finished revising The Good Shepherd in the second
week of October. Commander John Dale Hodapp, whom Cecil had met as first
lieutenant in the destroyer Abner Reed in 1943, had recently retired to be
the financial officer of the San Francisco Episcopal diocese; he took one
carbon copy of the completed manuscript home to read. He telephoned Cecil
to say that the book used submarine language rather than surface ship
language and required several hundred changes. “All the technical orders
and bearings and ranges have to be changed.” Finally, Cecil had to transfer
HodappÂ’s corrections to the publisherÂ’s typescripts while between planes in
New York. There were still further corrections to be made in January,
despite Little, Brown’s hurry to skip proof reading. “We’ll all look like
fools if [the changes] don’t [go in]. I’d rather cancel the contracts.”
Part of the reason for hurry was that Life paid $20,000 for a 30,000 word
condensation for their WashingtonÂ’s Birthday issue. In August, 1955,
Columbia Pictures bought the film rights for $75,000, with the intention of
starring Humphrey Bogart as Commander Krause. Harry Cohn, of Columbia, used
the promise of that role, when he recovered from cancer, to comfort Bogart
in his last year of life. In May, 1956, Admiral Christie threatened to sue
Cecil for $20,000, on the argument that he had contributed far more to the
story than had originally been planned. Hodapp offered to testify that
Christie had not done a good job, describing the number of ChristieÂ’s
errors he had had to correct. Contractually, Cecil was correct; Christie
had agreed to a fee of $1,000 for vetting the orders and procedures, and he
had vetted the orders badly. Equitably, CecilÂ’s own letters demonstrate
that Christie had contributed far more to the story, and had probably
provided a realistic battle sequence and avoided the errors and
contradictions that would otherwise have existed in CecilÂ’s account. Eight
years after assisting with The Good Shepherd, Hodapp became CecilÂ’s
secretary, calling himself literary assistant.
John Forester 408-734-9426
forester@johnforester.com 726 Madrone Ave
http://www.johnforester.com Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3041