by John Winton
‘Do you have any hobbies, Dewberry?’ he asked.
‘Not hobbies exactly, sir.’
‘What do you do in your spare time then?’
‘I play the French horn, sir.’
‘Ah. Don’t you find it rather monotonous going oomphah, oomphah all the time?’
‘You’re thinking of the tuba, sir. There’s some lovely music for the French horn. Mozart wrote some beautiful concertos for it and you’ve only got to examine some of Beethoven’s scores to see how highly he thought of it. It can be a fascinating instrument, sir.’
The Civil Servant had struck fire from Dewberry. He was startled by the effect of his question.
‘Do you think you’ll get much chance to play the French horn in the Navy, Dewberry?’
‘I don’t see why not, sir. I think music and the Navy might possibly go together. After all, Rimsky-Korsakov was a serving naval officer at one time, wasn’t he, sir?’
‘Ah yes. Quite right. So he was.’
Part of the President’s duty was to keep the interview on a plane where the Board, as well as the candidate, could follow it.
‘Drop it, Pills,’ he said. ‘Now, Dewberry, I want you to look at that picture on the wall and tell us what you make of it.’
‘What I make of it, sir?’
‘Yes. Tell us anything you notice about it.’
Dewberry swallowed nervously. Soon it was plain that the picture meant nothing at all to him.
‘Come on, Dewberry. What’s the picture of?’
‘A boat, sir.’
‘What kind of boat?’
‘A sailing boat, sir.’
‘Any particular kind?’
Dewberry had an inspiration.
‘A yacht, sir.’
‘Right. What’s it doing?’
Dewberry’s inspiration failed him.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know, sir.’
‘Never mind, Dewberry.’
The Board asked Dewberry some more desultory questions but they were unable to rekindle the fire aroused by the French horn. The Board began to picture Dewberry in the Royal Philharmonic; they could not imagine him in the Royal Navy. The Admiral thought otherwise.
‘I may be mistaken,’ he said, ‘but I think there’s the right stuff in that boy. Provided he gets away from his mother and marries the right girl he’ll do well. The service will do the first part and I expect the girl will do the rest.’
The next candidate wore a tweed hacking jacket and grey flannel trousers which caught the Board’s attention immediately. He was the biggest young man the Board had ever seen, yet he gave the impression that he was still only half-grown. His bones were like scaffoldings, solid struts and bars, which supported his clothes. He was plainly a rugger player. His fair hair was tousled and fluffy from innumerable shower-baths after the game. His lips were purposefully pursed, as though he were just on the point of exhorting his forwards to use their feet and stop mucking about. The corners of his eyes were puckered, as though from long hours of chasing enemy fly-halves through driving rain. He was a plain, solid young man with a plain, solid name.
‘Thomas Bowles.’
Thomas Bowles. The Board were surprised to find how refreshing the name sounded in their ears after the exotic John Paul Henry Marchant Vincent and the enigmatic Horace George Dewberry. The Admiral warmed to Bowles.
‘Sit down now, Bowles,’ he said heartily.
Bowles sat down carefully, as though he had known chairs collapse under him.
‘Now Bowles, tell me why you want to become a naval officer.’
‘I just want to, sir.’
‘Just want to? But don’t you feel that sometime early in life you must choose the way in which you can best serve the community and though you’re not sure at first you choose something and persevere at it?’
‘That’s a very involved way of putting it, if you’ll pardon me saying so, sir. I hadn’t really thought about serving the community. It’s just what I want to do, that’s all.’
The Admiral was delighted. He felt like a man who, after floundering in quicksands, finds himself once more upon solid, dependable ground.
‘What do you particularly want to do in the Navy, Bowles?’
‘I want to be a pilot, sir.’
‘A pilot? Why?’
‘There again, sir, I’m afraid I can’t give you a definite plausible reason for it. It’s just what I want to do, sir.’
‘Do you think you’ll be able to get into a cockpit?’
‘Oh yes, sir. I’ve tried it.’
‘Where did you try it?’
‘Navy Days, sir.’
‘Do you go to many Navy Days?’
‘I go to a lot, sir. I find them very interesting. I usually go with my father. He knows a lot of people in the Navy.’
‘Was your father a naval officer?’
‘Yes, sir. He’s retired now.’
‘Oh yes, I remember now.’
The Admiral, seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. The Board wondered why.
‘Bowles,’ said the Civil Servant, ‘since you want to be a pilot, can you tell us why we have a Fleet Air Arm?’
‘We need aircraft to extend the offensive and defensive range of the fleet, sir. If we’d had a lot more fleet carriers earlier in the war a lot of things might have been different. There might have been no Dunkirk, at least not in the way it turned out, we might have held Singapore longer, we most certainly would not have lost the Prince of Wales and the Repulse in one day like that if they’d had air support, and the Atlantic convoy losses would have been lighter. A lot of things would have been different, sir.’
‘That’s a good answer, Bowles,’ said the Admiral. ‘You’ve obviously studied the question.’
‘I have, sir. It’s one of my father’s pet hobby horses.’
‘Did your father have any influence on your decision to join the Navy?’
‘Well, I suppose he must have done, sir. But only indirectly. He left the choice to me. Naturally he’s very pleased that I’m doing it.’
‘Of course.’
The Lieutenant-Colonel, Royal Marines, asked two leading questions at each interview board. One was to ask the candidate if he had ever heard of Florence Nightingale, and the other was one about which the Lieutenant-Colonel of Royal Marines had often wondered himself. He decided that Bowles was the most likely candidate he had seen for some time to be able to give him the answer.
‘If I said to you, Bowles, “the proper study of mankind is man,” what do I mean?’
‘It almost defines and describes what I imagine a naval officer does, sir.’
‘I think that’s as good an answer as any,’ said the Admiral. He was anxious to change the subject.
‘Will you look at that picture on the wall, Bowles, and tell us anything you notice about it?’
Bowles looked at the picture. The Board could almost see him absorbing the details, arranging them in his mind, and forming a conclusion.
‘It’s a picture of a ketch, coming out on the evening ebb tide. Two men on deck, which means two girls below cooking supper. The harbour is on the south coast, probably by the shape of the hills and the red soil, Devon or possibly Dorset. Racing pennant, dinghy lashed on deck, spinnaker boom lying up for’d, they’ve probably just finished a day’s racing and are on their way home to the next place round the point before closing time. They’re just passing a starboard hand buoy with what looks like a wreck buoy close inshore. Leading mark on the hill.’
The Board looked at Bowles with respect, almost with reverence. The Civil Servant examined the picture carefully. He had been looking absently at it for a number of years and had never realised what a lot was taking place in it. He had always thought it a peculiarly dull picture but Bowles had shown it to be a veritable hive of industry.
‘Do you do much sailing, Bowles?’ asked the Commander (E).
‘Not as much as I’d like to, sir. We don’t live anywhere near the sea.’
&n
bsp; The Admiral’s mind was already made up.
‘Well, Bowles,’ he said. ‘I think that will be enough. You can go now. Thank you very much.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
When Bowles had gone, the Admiral looked triumphantly round the Board.
‘Well, gentlemen, I don’t think there are any arguments about that. I think we’re all agreed, are we not?’
The Board nodded. The Psychiatrist wrote: ‘Bowles--recommended for aircrew. Hussar-type.’
‘Only one more before lunch,’ said the Commander (S). The Commander (S) found interviews fatiguing. The mental exertions of the candidates tried him almost as much as though he underwent them himself. He often sighed for his last appointment where he had signed papers between ten and eleven, lunched at one, and golfed in the afternoon. He had run the wardroom football pool syndicate once a week, dined with the Admiral’s secretary once a month, audited the wardroom wine fund once a quarter and advised the Captain on his income tax rebates once a year. It had been a gentlemanly existence. Now, he was condemned to watch future naval officers, some of them possibly future Commanders (S), writhing on the hook for eight hours a day. To a civilised man, it smacked of sadism. Even now, the next candidate was waiting.
He was a brown-haired boy of medium height with the type of frank, honest, untroubled features which suggest that their owner had been a beautiful baby, as middle-class babies go.
‘Michael John Hobbes.’
The Admiral was impressed. The boy looked normal enough.
‘Have you read a life of Nelson, Hobbes?’ asked the Headmaster.
‘I started one, sir, but I’m afraid I didn’t finish it.’
‘What sort of books do you read?’
‘Oh, novels and things. I read my mother’s library books occasionally, sir.’
‘Did you ever take part in any school plays?’
‘Only very small parts. When we did Shakespeare I used to be a courtier or a friend of the hero and stand around for a long time and then say “Here comes Northumberland, sire” or “Ha! God save you!” or something like that, sir.’
“That didn’t give you much scope, did it?’
‘No, sir.’
‘What else did you take part in?’ asked the Psychiatrist.
‘I sang in the choir once a year when we performed the “Messiah.” I was there for quantity rather than quality. I was a member of the debating society. And I was . . . well, that’s about all, sir.’
‘Did you play any games?’
‘Oh yes. I was in the second rugger fifteen and the second cricket eleven, sir. I used to play in the first if anyone got crocked.’
‘Were those your only games?’
‘Oh no, sir. I used to play almost everything we had at school at odd times. I was fairly good at them all but not very good at any one of them.’
‘Do you play golf?’
‘I’ve never actually tried it, sir. I’m willing to give it a shot.’
The Board beamed. Here was a broad-minded lad, free of prejudice, who was willing to try anything once.
‘Hobbes,’ said the Admiral, ‘why do you want to become a naval officer?’
‘I’ve always had it in mind, sir. I’ve never really thought about doing anything else.’
‘Do you come from a naval family?’
‘No, sir, this is all my idea.’
The Psychiatrist wrote: ‘Hobbes--no sense of humour.’
The Board were not getting any satisfaction from Hobbes. The Admiral tried a new tack.
‘If you were walking down a street, Hobbes, and you saw a taxi-driver knocked down and left lying by another man who ran off, what would you do? Would you leave the man where he was and drive the taxi to a hospital for an ambulance? Or put the man in the taxi and drive to a hospital? Or take the money from the meter and get another taxi to the hospital? Or leave the money ...’
The Admiral was suddenly conscious that somewhere the problem had gone astray. He wondered where he had made a mistake. Hobbes, however, solved the problem.
‘There’s no money in a taxi-meter, sir,’ he said.
‘Quite so. All right, Hobbes. That’s all. You can go now.’
‘Thank you very much, sir.’
‘A very diffident young man,’ said the Admiral. ‘Obviously has no idea of his own capabilities.’
The Board looked significantly at each other and wrote.
Another candidate followed Hobbes after lunch, and after him, still another. The next day another batch arrived and the Board began again. One by one, the faces sat down in the chair, answered questions, and left again. Day after day, the Board questioned, probed, selected, and discarded, until they had interviewed over 200 boys. Their only method was by patient and never-ending questioning and by careful appraisal of the candidate as he answered.
‘Edward Maconochie.’
‘Why do you want to join the Navy, Maconochie?’
‘It’s not me who’s all that keen, sir. I thought it was you. They told me you were short of recruits, sort of like the Salvation Army. . . .’
‘Peter Eric Cleghorn.’
‘Why do you want to join the Navy, Cleghorn?’
‘They told me at. Pangbourne I hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting in the P. & O. and I’d better try the R.N. . . ’
‘Colin Timothy Stacforth.’
‘No need to ask you why you want to join the Navy, eh Stacforth? How’s your father keeping? . . .’
‘Isaiah Nine Smith.’
‘Why do you want to join the Navy, Smith?’
‘It was either that or being a parson, sir.’
‘Frederick Augustus Spink.’
‘Why do you want to join the Navy, Spink?’
‘Do you know, sir, when I see you all up there and me down here, do you know it reminds me of that picture “When Did You Last See Your Father?” ‘
‘Raymond Ball.’
‘Why do you want to join the Navy, Ball?’
‘Got a bit fed up with the girls round our way. Thought I’d try pastures new, so to speak. Dad says blokes that drink rum live to a great age.’
When the last candidate had been interviewed, the Board checked and rechecked their opinions. When they had finally passed their verdict they sent the list to the Admiralty. Their job was now finished until the next entry but sometimes, when they thought over the events of the last weeks, they likened themselves to men who have made a huge snowball on a hilltop and who now set the snowball on its unpredictable path downwards. Where the snowball would land, and what the consequences of that landing would be, the Board had no means of knowing, but they believed that it was more blessed to give than to receive and were thankful for it.
The end of an Interview Board normally found the Admiral in a state of acute melancholia. When he thought of the personalities he had seen across the table and considered that he was launching some of them, of his own free will and while in his right mind, into the service he loved, he sometimes prayed for guidance other than that given by the Admiralty.
‘Must be something wrong with the recruiting these days. Or else there just isn’t any better material to be had. I’ve been in the game a long time now and never have I seen such a bloody awful shower as that last lot. I think I’d better write to Dartmouth and warn them or I’ll never be able to look Reggie in the face again.’
The Board nodded. The end of the Interview Board was proceeding as much according to precedent as the beginning. This was the Admiral’s usual verdict on every new term of Special Entry cadets.
2
It was not until Vincent, Dewberry, Bowles, Hobbes and the rest of the new term saw the uniforms on the platform at Paddington that they believed that they had really joined the Navy, with seniority in their rank of that day. The sight of each other convinced them far more than the arrival of the Admiralty letter announcing their success (which had convinced and delighted their fathers) or the arrival of their uniforms (which had convinced a
nd delighted their mothers and sisters). Neither of these two previous events, sensational though they had been, compared with this present sense of pride when they saw each other, this feeling that they were about to become part of a great fighting service with a mighty tradition. It was a feeling which would not wear off until they had been in the great fighting service with a mighty tradition for at least another twenty-four hours.
Paul Vincent was accompanied by his mother and Cedric. Mrs Vincent wore a close-fitting dark blue wool suit and a tiny black hat with a veil. She had the type of features most often seen at fashionable weddings--their natural habitat--and her poise and grooming suggested that she might be at that moment waiting for the photographers. But that was only a surface illusion. Mrs Vincent was afraid that she might break down at any-minute and present an appearance which would have shocked her friends in Lowndes Square, and for that reason she had asked Cedric to come with her.
Cedric was a tall, pale man in morning dress. He wore a carnation in his buttonhole and looked like an usher at a fashionable wedding. He was Mrs Vincent’s stockbroker but his attendance on the platform was not in a financial capacity but as moral support when Mrs Vincent’s composure showed signs of breaking down, as it did.
Mrs Vincent took out a small lace handkerchief and dabbed behind her veil. Cedric put his arm round her shoulders.
‘Steady, Louise, my dear,’ he said. ‘You mustn’t make an exhibition of yourself in front of these young devils.’
‘Oh Paul, darling, do look after yourself,’ sobbed Mrs Vincent.
‘Mother, don’t be so lachrymose,’ said Paul. ‘Anyone would think you had to commit suttee after I’ve gone. It’s me who’s joining the Navy. I should be in tears. I will look after myself and I’ll write every week and tell you how I’m getting on. Does that make you feel any better?’
‘Oh Paul, darling.’ Mrs Vincent sniffed and dabbed again.
George Dewberry was also accompanied by his mother. Dewberry’s mother was a large woman, deep-chested like the hunters she rode, with a voice which could start a fox from its sleep a mile away. She wore a tweed suit with a W.V.S. badge in the lapel and a beret with a ptarmigan feather in front. She also carried a shooting stick.
