 Why are many of the main characters so suspicious of each other?
SILENCE IS—DEADLY By Bertrand L. Shurtleff Radio is an absolute necessity in modern organization—and particularly in modern naval organization. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science-Fiction April 1942. Androka had arrived on board the Comerford the day before she sailed from Norfolk. With him came a boatload of scientific apparatus and equipment, including a number of things that looked like oxygen tanks, which were now stored in the forward hold. Androka had watched over his treasures with the jealous care of a mother hen, and spent hours daily in the room in the superstructure that had been assigned as his laboratory. Overhead, the sky was a storm-racked mass of clouds, broken in one spot by a tiny patch of starlit blue. He was overfriendly with a black-browed bos'n's mate named Joe Bradford—the worst trouble maker on board. Nevertheless, his taut face, restless, searching eyes, and eternally nervous manner got Curtis' goat. Nelson had no answering smile, although there had been a great deal of good-natured joking aboard the Comerford ever since the navy department had sent the scientist on board the cruiser to carry on his experiments. This storm—" Curtis threw his arm around Nelson's dripping shoulders. "But this storm, sir!" Nelson avoided Curtis' friendly eyes and slipped out from under his arm. "Not that I've lost confidence in you, Nels, but just because you asked for it!" Nelson's estimate, I'm checking back," he declared, frowning at the two papers and hastily rechecking his own figures. With all these rocks and islets—" "Radio?" repeated the little Czech, thrusting his face between the other two, in his independent fashion that ignored ship's discipline. It will be no more than Hitler can get when Zukor Androka decrees silence over the German airways! Then he hastened to the radio room, with Nelson at his heels, and the Czech trotting along behind. "Yet not dead, gentlemen! I have shattered them around your ship, just as I can eventually shatter them all over Central Europe! For the next two hours, no radio messages can enter or leave my zone of radio silence—of refracted radio waves, set up by my little station on one of the neighboring islets!" If you're not talking nonsense, call off your dogs till we learn just where we are!" The answer came back: "Bearings north east by a quarter east, U. S. Cruiser Comerford !"
 Because many of characters are of different nationalities in the midst of a World War.
 Because many of the characters are making ignorant mistakes.  Because many of the characters have reason from prior experiences to not trust each other.  Because many of characters are of different nationalities in the midst of a World War.  Because many of the characters are in a state of confusion and fear after the gas incident.