by Jon Pertwee
A three-badge Able Seaman (always referred to as a ‘Stripey’, his stripes being a sign of long service) had advised me during the previous evening’s meal:- .
‘When joining the Andrew [Navy] mate, you must make up your mind what you are going to be. A bastard or a cunt.’
On reflection I chose to be the latter, and just for a lark, to set the seal on my decision, turned up for that inspection sporting a rimless monocle a la Erich Von Stroheim, as opposed to one of the Bertie Wooster gold-framed-on-a-string variety. The effect the appurtenance had on ‘Hooky’ Walker was startling, and for a moment no words issued from his mouth, only steam. Thrusting his quivering hook into my face he demanded, ‘What is that?’
‘A monocle, sir.’
‘Sailors don’t wear monocles. Take it out.’
‘But I need it, sir,’ I pleaded, ‘Without it I might fall down.’
‘You’ll fall down all right by the time I’ve finished with you,’ he said, and turning to my Divisional Officer, barked, ‘Put this man in my report.’
The report was somewhat muffled as far as the Commodore was concerned, for nothing could be found in the King’s Rules and Regulations that forbade sailors on the lower deck from wearing monocles. Before I was dismissed, with no stain upon my character, ‘Hooky’ Walker called me over to his table and whispered, ‘Pertwee, will you do me a personal favour?’
‘Of course, sir,’ I said. After all, I could afford to be magnanimous.
‘In future, when I am personally taking inspection, would you make a point of leaving your monocle in your ditty-box, and thereby save me the indignity of dying publicly from apoplexy?’
The whole of this confrontation had gone down a storm with the other matelots in my division, especially with a bunch of villainous Scots from Glasgow who promptly dubbed me ‘Marmaduke’. My connection with radio’s Marmaduke Brown, I suppose, adding grist to the mill.
So as ‘Old Marmy’ I became probably the first lower deck sailor in His Majesty’s Royal Navy ever to wear a monocle. The only trouble was that contrary to the reason of threatened instability offered up to the Commodore, due to the quite incorrect prescription of the eye-glass, I was more in peril of falling down from keeping it in, than taking it out.
So there I was in Portsmouth Naval Barracks, waiting for a draught and marching almost incessantly. Just how one learns to fight battles by marching round parade grounds I’ve never understood, but what-ever service you’re in, you march. We used to have to take it in turns to give the commands and, when my turn came, the CPO in charge, one Chief Petty Officer Branch said, ‘Rightho, Pestwee! March that column of men to the end of the parade ground, turn ’em about, and bring ’em back ’ere in front of me.’
‘Aye aye, Chief,’ I replied confidently and gave the order, ‘By the left, quick march!’ I waited until they’d gone some fifty yards and then shouted, ‘Squad, habout . . .’
‘Not yet, Pestwee,’ said CPO Branch, ‘I’ll tell you when.’ By this time they were getting out of earshot, so I shouted, with all my might, ‘Squad habout . . .’
‘Not yet, Pestwee,’ said CPO Branch. I was just recovering from my last effort which had turned my face purple and caused my eyeballs to protrude, when CPO Branch said, ‘Right lad, now!’ Rallying what little vocal resource I had left, I screamed, ‘Habout turn!’ A scream that was heard by all at the back, some in the middle, but none in the front, so that they all started to go in different directions.
‘Dearie me!’ said CPO Branch. ‘Oh dearie, dearie me. What a very nasty mess! Get ’em back together, lad.’ Fighting to clear the mists that had formed before my eyes I breathed in deeply, clenched my teeth and my gluteals, braced my feet and gave the piercing screech, ‘Haboouuuttt teherrrn!!!’
This time they all heard it and dutifully turned about. As you can imagine the result was chaotic. They all banged into each other, and several fell over . . . it was ghastly. There was a long pause then, in a voice broken with emotion, CPO Branch said, ‘Now I know what they mean when they say “Marines will advance in columns of fours and matelots in fuckin’ great heaps.”’
When watch ashore, to get away from the noise of the mess deck and the considerable chore of lashing and unlashing my hammock, I used to stay in the Sailors’ Rest, or Aggie Weston’s, the establishment of a long dead philanthropist whose generosity allowed a sailor to have a clean bed and a hearty breakfast for ninepence. It was in such hostelries that I was later to spend many nights of terror during the air-raids. It seemed ‘a better ’ole’ (as Bruce Bairnsfather would’ve called it) to die in. But for all the warmth and succour that these excellent hospices afforded us, I couldn’t have been happier to make the acquaintance of my cousin Guy and to enjoy all his subsequent hospitality.
I had been walking through the barracks, when I saw bouncing towards me a man of unseemly gait, a battered old felt hat on his head, a blue navy raincoat, shining resplendently with age, a cardboard dog collar and the most ill-assorted collection of teeth I’ve ever seen. It transpired he was the ex-Chaplain to the Royal Family and the present Senior Chaplain to the Royal Navy, and rejoiced under the strange nickname of ‘Reckless-Reggie’ Churchill, referred to by all as ‘Reckless’.
He was never without his gas-mask, which he would wield as a Biblical sling, and as we came abreast, true to form, he dealt me a stunning blow with it between the shoulder blades.
‘Ah-ha! and what have we here? A new boy methinks!’
Not particularly perspicacious of him as my uniform was so new, it could have stood up by itself
‘Yes, sir,’ I replied, unsure if a salute was in order.
‘Name?’
‘Pertwee, sir.’
‘Pertwee, eh? Follow me at once, Pertwee,’ and he was off, lolloping and bouncing his way across the parade ground his gas-mask swinging in great concentric circles.
Arriving at his office, he thumped me into a chair, picked up his telephone and asked the operator to connect him with ‘Paymaster Captain Guy Pertwee, the Admiral’s Secretary’. I froze.
‘He can’t . . . I mean, I can’t - a Captain? Oh God no!’
‘Hello Guy? Reggie here. I’ve got another Pertwee in my office. What? I’ll ask. Who’s your father?’
‘Roland, sir.’
‘Roland? The writer?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘He’s Roland Pertwee’s boy. He’s a cousin is he? Send him round for tea? Right, he’s on his way.’
Filled with fear and trepidation, I duly reported for tea at Cousin Guy’s beautiful Georgian house in the Dockyard. The door was opened by a three-badge Able Seaman called Dogges, who, eyeing me with considerable suspicion and distaste, ushered me into the presence.
Guy and his family looked upon me with much more approbation however, and I was very quickly put at my ease.
The Captain was a short, grey-haired, handsome man, with a chestful of decorations and a great capacity for kindness. He was a cousin of my father’s and he knew of every Pertwee living or dead: it was he who had assisted the Abbé jean de Perthuis de Laillavault to compile the extremely complex Pertwee family tree. His wife Carmen was an Officer in the WRNS, as was their very pretty daughter Jill. But there was going to be no ‘hanky-panky’ here. I knew which side my bread was best buttered on.
Guy immediately offered me a permanent room in his house, saying that I could come and go as I pleased, and just to let them know when I wanted to dine with them at night, for I was always welcome.
So I bade a fond farewell to the Sailors’ Rest and Aggie Weston’s and stayed with my cousins at every possible opportunity.
Unfortunately, my bed was so comfortable that on quite a few occasions I ignored the ringing of my small alarm clock and was ‘adrift’. These misdemeanours resulted in my receiving several days’ ‘jankers’ and confinement to barracks. The jealous Dogges was certainly not going to be of any help to me here, so I bought myself a large alarm clock that would’ve wakened Rip Van Winkle. T
he only trouble here was that Guy and his wife didn’t have to be up at five o’clock in the morning as well. So, the offending article went under my pillow, where its Big Ben tick-tocking, kept me awake until five o’clock in the morning, thus making the alarm section of the clock quite unnecessary.
Seated one night at dinner with Guy, his family and several married service friends, I was addressed by my cousin from his position at the head of the table.
‘Jon, dear boy, have you prepared your prick?’
I was more than a little startled by the directness of the question, and duly hedged, ‘In what way, sir?’ He must be drunk to bring up such a subject before ladies.
‘Good God, boy, don’t you know how to prepare a prick?’
Dreading his answer, I nonetheless admitted my ignorance of this unknown aberration, and replied with clever ambiguity, ‘Not exactly, sir, no.’
‘Very well then, I’ll tell you.’
A pregnant hush had fallen on the room.
‘First of all, you must soak it in rum for several days.’
Obviously a most difficult procedure to follow if you have other duties to perform at the same time.
‘Then you wrap it in a bit of canvas, and whip it with tarred twine.’
This was dreadful. In front of the fair sex he was actually encouraging masochism. The extraordinary thing about this mortifying dissertation was that I seemed to be the only one present to be in any way shocked by the frankness of his discourse. The rest of the guests were either eating like the good trenchermen they were or nodding sagely at each new instruction.
‘Then you leave it like that, soaked, wrapped and bound for several weeks.’
This was getting worse. Now he was advocating bondage! Still no-one challenged the good taste of his subject, and continued to partake of the excellent fare before them without pause.
‘Finally,’ said Guy, the bit now well between his teeth, ‘your prick is ready for use. All you have to do is undo the twine, roll back the protective canvas an inch, and holding your prick firmly on the table or a block of wood, cut thin slices off the end of it.’
At this final outrageous suggestion, goggle-eyed and scarlet, I almost slid under the table from the embarrassment of it all. Guy, seeming somewhat surprised at my startled reaction, said, ‘Of course, all that information is of no earthly use to you if you are not a pipe-smoker.’
Oh my God! To have gone through all that, only to find out that all he was doing was explaining how one should prepare a Naval issue of tobacco leaves for use in a pipe. Incidentally, the correct word and spelling of this prepared length of tobacco is p-r-i-q-u-e. Bearing in mind its idiomatic use, I wonder which came first, the chicken or the egg.
The dreaded Dogges always served at table, and when he got to me surreptitiously played little games, like taking the dish away before I had time to put the serving spoon back safely, hoping that it would fall to the floor, and, by splattering the carpet, so embarrass me that I wouldn’t come again and no longer put him, a ‘stripey’ of twenty years’ service, to the indignity of waiting on a three month, hostilities-only, Ordinary Seaman. The situation had to be rectified, for if Dogges’ dilemma continued, my life in the barracks, where he was a king, would become untenable.
One night some weeks later, while taking coffee in the lounge after dinner, Guy said to his wife, ‘Where the Hell is Jon? Everytime he gets up from the table he disappears, he can’t be in the loo all this time.’ A search was instituted and to my chagrin, I was soon discovered. Jacket off; I was at the sink washing up, with a beaming Dogges sitting on the kitchen table, finishing off a bottle of excellent claret while spurring me on to further effort. To the great credit of Guy and Carmen, they retired unseen, and it was only later that Guy opined that by virtue of my volunteering for such onerous duties, my life in the barracks was likely to become much more tenable.
*
For some reason, I decided that I should better benefit the ‘Andrew’ by becoming a Wireless Operator, and was duly transferred from Pompey Barracks to HMS St Vincent in Gosport, just across the harbour. Life was just as intolerable as in my previous barracks, but it had one great saving grace, its Chaplain, the Reverend Charles de Candole, who quickly became a close friend and has remained one ever since. Charles, with great perception, noted those men who found the transition from home life to barrack life to be beyond the limits of tolerance, piled us into an old ‘Swift’ open tourer, his dog-collar relegated to a dresser drawer, and took us on regular country pub-crawls. His friendship, remarkable outspokenness and permanent good nature almost turned me to religion – not quite, but almost – and when, years later, I was about to marry for the first time, there could be no other choice but him to perform the ceremony. I even went so far as to suggest that he performed the ceremony the second time I got married, but Ingeborg, quite rightly, objected on the grounds that it would not be in the best of taste.
There was a hundred-foot high masthead in the square of HMS St Vincent with all the ropes and rigging of an early sailing vessel. Up this mast and out on to the cross spars, all new recruits were sent, both for exercise and for development of the character-building quality required to perform such feats of derring-do.
Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, I suffer from acute vertigo, and when my turn came to scale the masthead’s dizzy heights, I baulked.
‘Come along lad,’ said my Divisional Officer with uncontrolled glee, ‘it’s only a little way up - off you go, or it’s ten days Number eleven for you!’ (‘Number eleven’ was a most arduous punishment.)
So up it I went, but coming down it was quite a different matter. On the way up, you look up (no trouble there), but to come down, one’s inclination is to look down (aye and there’s the rub). Where to put the feet was the question.
I had arrived at the top spar with little trouble, and was starting on my way down when I broke out into a cold sweat and froze to the mainmast. No amount of wheedling, cajoling, threats or intimidation from Officer, Petty Officer or friend could prise loose my iron grip on the mast. In the end a ‘Killick’ (leading seaman) had perforce to rig a bosun’s chair, and strapped in, I was ignominiously lowered to the ground, to accompanying jeers and cat-calls from the rest of the ship’s company. ‘Marmy’, it seemed, was not only a Cunt but a coward. (The first appellation was wholly acceptable, but in the ‘Andrew’ the second would never do.)
On my twenty-first birthday, 7th July 1940, feeling more than a little jaded that I would not be getting a traditional twenty-first party at home, I decided to invite Carlotta down from London, take a large hotel room for the weekend and invite all my friends to join us for a bit of a shindig. Carlotta agreed wholeheartedly, and arrived laden with dishes she had previously cooked in the flat. Filling the dingy room with flowers she soon had the whole place looking festive, and I was just beginning to cheer up and look forward to the occasion, when I was stricken with the most agonising tooth-ache. It was so bad, there was nothing else for it but an immediate visit to our infamous ‘Toothy’, Lieutenant Clarence Allworthy, RNVR, who by reputation was trained by Spanish Inquisitors. With me stretched out rigidly on his converted barber’s chair, the Lieutenant looked into my mouth and said, ‘Ah, yes, just as I thought, it’s the jolly old impacted wisdom, chaps. Not to worry, we’ll have the lot out quicker than a Stoker sups his rum. Nurse, gas please.
With that, she clapped the claustrophobic mask over my nose and mouth and let me have several deep whiffs. ‘There, that should do it lad! So away we go!’
It didn’t do it though, and although I felt like a giggling schoolgirl (the natural effect of laughing gas), there was absolutely nothing to laugh at at all. I had not inhaled anything approaching sufficient gas to deaden the pain of the extractions and was at last able to comprehend the agony my Granny must have suffered, when as a young girl she had had her tonsils hooked out by the roots, without the benefit of any anaesthetic. In all, my nautical torturer extracted four wisdom teeth, two of
which felt as if they had the roots of a 300-year-old oak tree. They were so long, that when the ‘Toothy’ started pulling, with his knee against my chest for better leverage, I imagined my toes were slowly curling upwards, and to set the seal on a good job badly done, he was unable to stop the bleeding. After studying an ancient tome, probably passed down to him by Merlin, he decided on a solution. Two large cotton wool and gauze wads were soaked in turpentine, and placed between the two bleeding sockets on both sides of my jaw. A tight bandage was then tied over my head and under my chin, making the opening of the mouth for either speech or the intake of food and drink an impossibility. Thus throughout my entire twenty-first birthday celebration I sat in a hospital bed with nothing to remember it by, except a mouthful of turpentine wads as a gift from His Majesty.
The Senior Nursing Sister, no doubt swayed by that ‘very present help in trouble’, the Reverend Charles de Candole, took compassion on me and allowed Carlotta and my friends to hold a party at my bedside. It was for me the most cheerless celebration of my life! I just sat there glowering and tasting turpentine, while they made merry by drinking my drink, eating my specially prepared food, and falling in love with Carlotta, who was looking at her most infuriatingly desirable.
*
Around this time HMS St Vincent was in the process of being turned over from wireless operator training to something else, so all ‘Sparkers’ were shifted to HMS Collingwood, a recently completed stone-frigate nearby. Living conditions were better, and there was even a car park, where, for a week or two, ratings’ cars, including a brace of Bentleys and a Rolls, were allowed to park. It wasn’t long, however, before the Staff Officers’ eyes began to turn green and the practice was told to cease forthwith. It was here in HMS Collingwood that war became for me a grim reality, no longer the cold war, so far removed as to seem almost non-existent, but a howling, screaming, death-dealing war that shattered the nerves and the ear-drums. It started with the first air-raid siren to be heard in our vicinity, and was quickly followed by the arrival of a swarm of Stuka dive-bombers, bent on destroying the Fleet Air Arm base at Lee-on-Solent, not two miles distant. They came in out of the sunlight and proceeded systematically to bring down every barrage balloon that surrounded the aerodrome, making nonsense of the claim that their presence would hinder all bombing attacks.
