A side plot during this is that of Aubrey Wanderman, a rating on his first cruise, who is brutally attacked by another rating, Randy Steilman. Terrified of Steilman's apparent untouchability, Wanderman refuses to report Steilman, and is taken under the wing of Horace Harkness, who trains Wanderman in the coup de vitesse, a form of martial arts. Later, after Steilman attempts to engineer the death of Ginger Lewis, Wanderman beats Steilman into a bloody mess, and Steilman's plot to desert is uncovered.