The conversation went around and around for ages, and eventually the fat one went and made a phone call. He came back looking very pleased with himself. He invited the lieutenant commander to step outside for a moment, then they both returned and sat down with a coffee. Lt Cdr Brown put his feet up and explained what he wanted to happen. I would be offered a chance to become an engineer and ship’s diver to get a trade and get me into the RN with no qualifications. They would prep me once I had passed basic, and get me educationally acceptable for possibly becoming a translator. Of course, I would have to pass the Russian exams after basic or I would remain in the service for two and a half years as an engineer. I wasn’t that keen, to be honest. Sounded like a big scam that was getting everyone off the hook except me.
Now, Mr Brown, or Lt Cdr Brown, seemed like the good cop in the ‘good cop bad cop’ game that was being played. I just warmed to the spell-like trance that he gently put over me. He was immaculate, not like the fat bastard who clearly was in the dead end of his career. Brown was well decorated, just back from the Falklands, seen some shit, I guess – perfect uniform, razor sharp creases, immaculate well-groomed naval officer side-parted haircut – looked like he’d got brown boot polish holding it in place – and deep brown eyes that sat under half-raised eyebrows. I think he had a motor tic – his eyebrows kept on raising up all the time. But he had one of those taut faces like stretched wet canvas over a rigid metal frame.
To give him his dues Lt Cdr Brown invited me for a walk. We went out onto the exercise ground where we walked around in zigzags like a pair of minesweepers whilst he explained further what he was trying to offer me. There were no guarantees, no certainties, but he did promise me it was a genuine offer and he would meet me at Raleigh to ensure that I got the next interview and the language tests done ASAP after arrival.
I signed up that afternoon. He was the first fucker ever to really live up to a promise; as for the fat fucker, who cares?
The Steering Group
Chapter 3
An Introduction
I had a weekend at home with my parents before I got the train to Plymouth. Phil had joined the army whilst I was at DECAF so I didn’t get to see him, which was unfortunate as I really wanted to get the inside track on what basic training was actually gonna throw at me. It was a real nice time at home I guess, and I enjoyed having some time with Mum and Dad but was so keen to just get started. I had a new life opening up ahead of me now and I was becoming impatient. The weekend passed okay, except my mother was fucking insisting I wore a suit to Plymouth. I eventually agreed and kept the peace for the sake of my dad. I think he was pleased that I was joining the navy – “sort you out,” I remember him saying – but secretly jealous as he had always wanted to go to sea in the merchant navy. We spent an afternoon in the shed together, smoking fags and dreaming of owning a boat. He was building me a model WW1 battlecruiser, HMS Scimitar. It was always fucking freezing in the shed so we ended up in the garage smoking Marlboro cigarettes and looking at porn mags in the car after Sunday lunch.
I enjoyed the privacy of a hot bath that evening and a shit without any interruptions, despite my mother insisting on the window being wide open; she always had the window open even in the very depths of winter. Privacy is a thing no one really appreciates if they’ve always enjoyed it. Nor do such people have the slightest understanding of those who demand it after being denied it for so long. It’s absolutely sacred, just to be alone now and again. You’ve seriously got to have been incarcerated or have been in the forces to understand what a privilege privacy really is.
The train journey took about 12 months… well, eight hours actually, as it was slow as fuck, stopping at what felt like every tree and station en route. I was excited. I had left DECAF and got a way forward, a job no less, and I was keen to experience being at sea again as soon as possible. I would write to all the crew on the Atlantic Star and let them know just as soon as I got my first pay packet. I had changed out of my suit in the carriage toilet shortly after boarding the train and sat down with a can of beer from the buffet car, one of those delightful warm Stellas, or wife-beater beers (they were known as wife-beaters due to the fact that if you drank too many you’d go home and beat up your wife, or something like that). Later in the journey I overheard a few others who were talking about joining HMS Raleigh. I went over to join them. They were my age. It was like talking to a bunch of kids; I’d grown up all too quickly for my own good, the precious gift of innocence and childhood already lost to time. These young things were in for a far bigger shock than me.
I think it is fair to say that after DECAF no one seemed to measure up to the lads I had known. All very immature, mummy’s boys and the like. I played along for a while but I think I was out of place right from the start. DECAF had changed me into a young man, my childhood had already passed, and I think looking back that that’s what really changed me, and I guess it’s a bit of a shame too, to lose all the freedom of childhood so early in life. All that time can never be recovered; no playing games or fucking around with girlfriends, no family holidays, just hard labour, beatings and living in endless fear of what might happen to you next. What a bummer.
Arrival in Plymouth was amazing. Sun was shining – it was June so the weather would be good for basic training. Finally got to dip in for a change. (Dip in – get lucky, dip out – be unlucky.) We all got off the train and there was a meeting place for new recruits out on the roadside where a very happy petty officer waited to greet us and tick our names off on his clipboard, then guided us to a 4.5t truck that was waiting to transport us over the River Tamar to HMS Raleigh. It was one of those typical 4.5-ton Bedfords, almost like the ones you’d see in Dad’s Army! All the other kids were excited. I thought it was all quite ridiculous, all the shouting and the giggling. As sure as eggs is eggs, all that shit stopped once we arrived at the main gate. Training started immediately. To me it was just like my first day at DECAF all over again and I didn’t bat an eyelid. All that confusion and shouting was just background noise to me now, all just normal. It fucking freaked the others out something terrible.
Unbelievably some guys quit that first day! They would PVR, which is premature voluntary release. What the fuck? RN (Royal Navy) basic training even back then wasn’t nails. But some kids couldn’t cope with the petty officers shouting orders, or the continual abuse and punishment of press-ups and the like. To me it was just funny. The first day passed quickly: haircut, kit issue, bunk allocation, etc., etc., just like DECAF – been there done that. Easy. It was soon noticed I had a lead on all the others and my leadership was being noticed. Ironing the uniform, polishing shoes and boots – I taught a few how to iron their boots to get that parade gloss look, and started a little cottage industry on my first day; old habits and tricks coming in handy already. All that domestic shit, including ironing and folding stuff the size of a book, was piss easy to me. I soon became platoon leader and everyone’s friend to help them through. I think I lied a little as to how exactly I had acquired all my skills but bluffed along with the bullshit that I’d learnt it all in the Sea Cadets. It was almost like being taught how to suck eggs in the beginning, but I played along quite happily, riding the wave while I could.
However, it does take years to get used to all the terminology and acronyms they use for everything in the MOB. There’s even a book that’s been published called Jack Speak, for those who need to translate how matelots actually speak. The first issue I faced was the ranking system, and it’s real hard not to call everyone sir. Call a chief sir and you’re in for some abuse; call a sir chief and you’re on extra duties and punishment – fucking headache – plus you have to remember all the uniforms: No. 1 uniform; No. 2 uniform, No. 8s; No. 4s; half blues; pirate rig; rig of the day; PT rig; mess undress; raincoat; windcheater; and many more I’ve simply forgotten.
Raleigh was a huge establishment, with all the classrooms and accommodations looking very new and almost space age. It hadn’t long taken over from H
MS Ganges. The buildings were made of new brick in the lower half and sort of white space-station type upper floors with big windows; there were no bars or cages over them which was secretly a nice change for me. Lots of roadways with signs like ‘Keep off the grass’ and ‘Men Marching’ all fascinated me. The only resemblance to DECAF was the perimeter which was well fenced with barbed wire, well patrolled and security cameras were evident everywhere. But this fence was to keep people out, not us in. Felt just like home again. I did enjoy looking out of the window from my barracks room as it looked out over the Tamar and open countryside. The accommodations were simply five-star compared with what I’d been used to. All the showers worked, ablutions block was fully tiled and in great condition, and the shithouses were immaculate with full-length doors. I thought it was fucking great. I guess the other kids had that struggle to deal with for the first time being away from home and there was some crying in the night that first few days; fucking weird after DECAF but I understood. I really understood. My locker was the same size as at DECAF but was fully functional and even had a lock. What was there to complain about?
I remember the first week or two, it was all cool and all a bit of a laugh, but I remember one lad saying it was all going to change as the pressure came on. Yeah, he was right. A lot of tension is created when you are with a group of lads; it gets competitive and rightfully so in my opinion. But if you were the slowest or someone with substandard kit you attracted punishment for the group. It was old news to me but these lads hadn’t had the BULs and Kilks experience so I guess they needed to be brought up to speed on how to keep up and look out for each other, not fuck each other over. Lucky for me, turns out that’s exactly what the navy wanted and I was already there and leading the pack. I fucking hated the log runs up to the fire school when some fuckwit or ‘gash hand’ messed up at kit inspection or some other easy as task they had been set. Then the whole squad had to do the run up to the fire school with the telegraph pole and get an ink stamp on their hand from the duty guy to prove they’d been all the way.
It was only eight weeks’ training. I won’t go through all the details because you can read about that shit just about anywhere, and it wasn’t too different to DECAF except that had been two years. It was simple RN basic training, nothing to get too excited about. They taught you how to have a shower, get a shave, wash and iron your clothes, turn up on time, fit everything you own into the smallest fucking locker ever and be transformed from a complete fuckwit into someone they could teach to be a sailor, learn a trade and above all take orders.
We were taught how to be robots (and it worked), how to get a very short haircut, how to be competitive, how to work as a team, how to march, march with a 303 rifle, march in step, about turn, left incline, right incline, salute, how to stand still, how to stand still for a long time, how to hold a rifle until you had gorilla-like arms, scraping your knuckles along the deck, how to hate the drill instructor, how to get along in a team and how to treasure any privacy you were ever afforded even if it meant five minutes in the shithouse reading a porn mag. Then you’d learn how to eat your scran like a fucking pig because they never gave you time to eat it – no time to sit and eat a meal properly and maybe have a chat. That shit is with me today; I always eat everything in two fucking minutes flat and I’m always half an hour early for everything. It annoys the shit out of everyone who crosses my path, including me. Of course, eventually we were taught how to drink as well. Alcohol was the reward from the gods to the ordinary ranks. Failure to be able to consume copious amounts of alcohol with the boys was seen as a weakness; it was like an entrance exam into the military family. No doubt that’s all changed now – for the worse, in my opinion.
The parade ground at Raleigh and all parade grounds in the navy, as I’m sure they are in the army and RAF too, are just a fucking nightmare – you’re not allowed to walk across it (you have to double – military term for run); in fact, as far as I remember you had to double everywhere as a new recruit. For some reason every man with small-person syndrome reaches the rank of parade commander and is transformed into the wanker who just loves to scream and shout at every motherfucker who walks across the most precious pieces of tarmac in the world. This tarmac is pristine in all military bases, immaculately swept and perfectly painted, allowing for perfect divisions of men to be aligned upon the painted markers and then be shouted at to the point of utter humiliation. I never understood how a man’s voice could change so much when he had to shout orders on a parade ground. Fucking amazing what can come out of your cakehole when you want it to. ‘Attention’ was verbally deformed by screaming – from Attention to Shun to simply Haggg! So, you’d get something like “Squad ha!” followed by “Stand still”; then on the march, left and right would become “Luf rah luf rah luf rah luf rah”: all very fucking comical.
There’s a sketch by Monty Python that sums it up, where John Cleese ends up shouting at himself as the sergeant major marching up and down the parade ground on his own. As a recruit you’d spend hours on this sacred ground being inspected and yelled at before marching round and round and round the fucking thing until you were all in step, all in a straight line and all totally fucked off with it! Often, you’d see lads running around the perimeter of the parade ground with their rifle above their head because they had fucked up royally, often shouting out something stupid like, “I must not smile at the drill instructor,” or some such bullshit.
Then there were the uniform inspections or kit musters. Now, at the time it all seemed very pointless but I guess I wasn’t to know then how important it is to keep your kit clean and in great condition. For example, there’s a need to keep all the sand out of your weapon in the desert and for it to be well cleaned & oiled for action; and dirt can damage clothing or equipment meant to protect you from chemical attack. I think, looking back, if they had explained the purpose of why they shouted or why they wanted everything immaculate we wouldn’t have complained so much, but I’m sure they were just working hard to get rid of the recruits you simply didn’t want by your side in such situations. White dubbing on your trousers from your gaiters seems innocent enough (although almost a cause for hanging on a parade ground) but is easily compared with breaching the guidelines from the IATG (International Ammunition Technical Guidelines) where such careless mixing of substances could lead to premature initiation of an explosive. When put like that it gets you thinking more.
Sure, there was lots of fitness, all done with those fuckwit PTIs (physical training instructors) who had basically failed at a trade earlier in their career and ended up in little white outfits and white pumps, pissed with power and ready to try and make you fail at any one of the assessed 5-, 10- and 15-mile runs, obstacle courses, log runs, fitness tests, rope climbs, grid workouts and BFTs (battle fitness tests). Lots of guys failed – they couldn’t do the runs or some other shit because they had spent their entire childhood indoors on a computer, and that was back in the ’80s. The trick was not to end up on a remedial of any description; if you had to go back in the evening for additional training, you’d get behind with your kit prep for the next day then you’d be in the shit again. Vicious circle, it always snowballed when you fucked up. Gradually the classes got smaller and you became good friends with those who remained as the weeks wore on. Basic training wasn’t too hard for me; what I was thinking more about what was on the other side of basic. I wanted to go see the world, have a girl in every port. I felt like a captive animal in a zoo.
Basic training did have some purposeful components to it, like basic firefighting, sea survival, damage control, seamanship skills, leadership training, problem-solving, learning the terminology, the firing range, learning about different weapons, lessons in ship and aircraft recognition, and naval history and traditions. All standard stuff I guess, nothing to get excited about, but it was better than being in detention. I think my only memory of the fireground at Raleigh was all us recruits standing outside in the pissing rain during a NAAFI break, or ‘s
tand easy’, getting a hot coffee and an oggie from the van that came around at lunchtimes. It was sort of built into your DNA that during coffee break, or your 15-minute stand easy as it was called, it was almost compulsory to have a smoke, a coffee and a Cornish pasty – that shit lasted for about 10 years of my time in the military. It wasn’t like smoking was expensive in any way, as you were given 600 cigarettes a month, affectionately known as Blue Liners. Pusser’s fags or Blue Liners came in silver foil wrapping and were definitely cancer sticks made up of all the trash other cigarette manufacturers would throw away after sweeping the floor. I still call coffee break ‘stand easy’ today.
Then there was the gas chamber.
The gas chamber was awesome. I think it’s banned now but back then it was a full day out, learning about chemical warfare, getting sized up for a respirator and then putting on a full NBCD (nuclear, biological & chemical defence) suit and going into the chamber itself. The gas chamber was a small building out in an open space away from the main accommodation blocks, dark, cold and empty, except for all the unsuspecting sailors who lined the walls in single file. About 15 recruits at a time all marched in after the instructors lit the CS gas (tear gas) tablets (probably half a dozen too many because they really did get a laugh out of gassing the recruits), then we were all ordered to take off our gas masks, take a deep breath then blow out hard three times with the mask back on and recite the rainbow poem. I think the poem was actually written by someone who must have worked in the gas chambers in WW2 or something. The idea was to try to teach everyone how to expel any gas and then seal the mask properly and clear it. If you didn’t then any little hole that might be in the mask would let the gas inside and you’d be brown bread within nine seconds, apparently. Then at the end you had to take your mask off again, say your name and number and tell a joke. Everyone nearly died! Except we had an Irish guy who had been hit so many times with CS gas in Northern Ireland he stood chatting away to the instructors for about 10 minutes with not so much as a cough! The rest of us lay outside on the grass dying of mad cow disease or some other similar-looking horrible death – well, that’s what it probably looked like. Makes all your wet parts itch like fuck, eyes puff up and produce so much snot you could drown in it – and for fuck’s sake don’t scratch your balls; it would be like rubbing chillies on your jap’s eye.
The Steering Group Page 8
