We Joined The Navy

by John Winton

  ‘The Navy,’ said the Chief Bosun’s Mate, ‘runs on three things. Rum, Bum, and Baccy. You lot remember that and you’ll all be admirals. Now pay attention this way! The Reef Knot I If you don’t know how to tie a reef knot, you’ll never be an admiral. To make a reef knot you holds your length of line in your hands, holding the left end in your left hand and the right end in your right hand. Let’s see if you’ve got that.’

  The Chief Bosun’s Mate passed along the row of cadets.

  ‘Right. Now you passes the right over the left, and under, then left over right, and under. Pull it tight and what’ve you got? You’ve got a reef knot. Try it. Right over left and under, left over right and under. Right. Right over left and under, left over right and under. That’s right. Right over left and under, left over right and under. Then you pulls it taut and what’ve you got? You’ve got it all balled up! Let’s have a look ‘ere you!’

  ‘I can’t seem to do it your way, Chief,’ wailed Maconochie plaintively. ‘When Wise Owl taught us, he always told us to . . .’

  ‘I don’t care if it was Wise Owl, Blue Bird or ruddy Scarlet O’Hara ‘oo taught you,’ said the Chief Bosun’s Mate. ‘Now you’re ‘ere you’ll do it my way. Try it again. Right over left and under, left over right and under, and Christ. . . . Give it ‘ere! I don’t see as how you could get it wrong! A ruddy Boy Scout could do it better.’

  A wrongly-tied knot hurt the Chief Bosun’s Mate as keenly as though it had been tied with the strings of his heart. He lived for his knots and his splices. His proudest possession was a Double Matthew Walker Knot mounted on a varnished board which had attracted the commendation of King George V during an inspection of the old Royal Oak. It was the Chief Bosun’s Mate’s considered opinion that if They--meaning the mysterious and all-powerful Lords who administered the Navy from their fastnesses in Whitehall--paid more attention to knots and rigging and less to being nice to foreigners the Navy would not be in the state it was.

  ‘The Navy,’ said the Chief Yeoman of Signals, ‘is run by the Communications Branch. The Navy only works now because one admiral in ten knows what’s going on. If it weren’t for the signalmen, none of them would know what was going on.

  ‘The first thing about the Communications Branch is Accuracy. What’s fair enough for the Gunnery Branch, a near miss or a straddle, is not good enough for the Communications Branch. You’ve got to be accurate and say what you mean. I’ll tell you a little story. It’s in every book of memoirs about the Navy and it might as well be in your’n. An admiral on the China station used to send his dhobeying ashore to be done by a washer-woman. The washer-woman used to come off every Monday morning with the Admiral’s dhobeying. One Monday the boat didn’t turn up. So they sent a signal--’P.S.B. for admiral’s woman.’ When the Flag Jack saw it he didn’t half shave off. So they sent another signal. Reference my, then they give the date time group, please insert washer between admiral and woman.’

  The Chief Yeoman’s face gave no sign that he acknowledged or even noticed the laughter of the class. The Chief Yeoman had a complexion like shrivelled parchment. His nose was sharp and beaked and his eyes were narrow and keen. He looked like a disillusioned vulture. Long years of close contact with senior officers on the bridges of H.M. Ships and Vessels had embittered the Chief Yeoman to the point where, like Cassius, he mocked himself and scorned his spirit that he could be moved to laugh at anything. It was the Chief Yeoman’s considered opinion that if They paid more attention to signals and less to politicians the Navy would not be in the state it was.

  ‘The Navy!’ said the Chief Gunnery Instructor, in exclamation marks, ‘is not proud to have you! Don’t you go getting that idea in your little heads! You’re here under probation! You’re supposed to be the cream of England’s youth, and if you’re the cream all I say is God-Help-England! I do! Take-that-grin-off-of-your-silly-face! This morning, pay attention, we’re going to try and learn something which boy seamen learn with ease! So I expect it’ll take you lot a little time to get the hang of it! This morning we’re going to learn how to turn about! Detail for turning about! When turning about the cautionary order in your case ‘about’ and the hexecutive order in this case ‘turn’ are given on two right feet when you take a check pace to the old front with your left foot and turn round in three paces raising the knees and keeping your arms to your sides and stepping off with a full pace of your left foot and swinging the arms to the height of the shoulders! Watch me!’

  The Chief G.I. placed himself in front of the squad and gave himself the orders for turning about.

  ‘Squad! Squad ... by the right quick . . . march! Squad will turn aye-bout! Move to the right in threes squad aye-bout . . . turn-check-one-two-three-off with the left foot! Now let’s see how you do it!’

  The Chief G.I. was a huge man, in stature and in voice. He was a renowned beer-drinker; a notice still hangs in a Sliema bar testifying to his ability to drink thirty-eight Hopleaf beers and walk back to his ship unaided. He watched the Beattys’ attempts to turn about with a disdainful smile, as a Norse King in Valhalla might have watched the antics of mortals below him. When the Beattys finally halted in front of him, breathless but conscious that they had done as well as ordinary mortals could, the Chief G.I. was ready with comment.

  ‘All I hope is that the Captain wasn’t watching that! He’s not strong, you know! I wouldn’t like to be the cause of him having a stroke and being brought to a bed of pain through watching you! I seen some squads! I thought I’d seen ‘em all! But you lot are worse than a man deserves! They’ve given me the cream that’s paying you a compliment! They’ve given me the cream of of England all right! All the clots!’

  Spink, always nervous when close to the Chief G.I. or to any authority, let out a high hysterical laugh.

  ‘What’s your name? Up the hill and back! Double march, you human gash-shoot!’

  The lectures by the Chief Petty Officers were only a small part of the syllabus. The major part was taught by The Bodger, the three divisional lieutenants and the College Instructor Officers. The instruction covered seamanship, navigation, engineering, communications, torpedoes and gunnery and was supported by the latest information from the Fleet. Several of the Beattys discovered that their Dartmouth notebooks contained more detailed and complete information on some subjects than they received anywhere else, even in establishments specialising in those subjects.

  On the Beattys’ staff, The Bodger was the most competent lecturer.

  ‘The Beaufort Scale,’ he said one morning, ‘is a convenient method of expressing the forces of winds. Naval officers are supposed to be like fishermen. They exaggerate everything. What you and I would call a howling gale, having been through it, some civil servant sitting on his bottom in a safe office ashore will call a slight chop. But if they see a number, they might possibly believe you. It’s all done by numbers. Nought is defined as calm with a wind speed of less than one knot. Smoke rises vertically, branches of trees are motionless, whole day’s play at Old Trafford, farmers complain of drought, and so on. Six is a strong breeze. Wind twenty-two to twenty-seven knots. Smacks have double reefs, large branches in motion, telegraph wires whistle, you can’t put up an umbrella, farmers complain about the apple crop, and so on. Twelve is a hurricane and if you’re ever in one you won’t need a Beaufort or any other kind of scale to tell you about it. Defined as wind speeds above sixty-five knots, widespread damage inland, Air Ministry roof blown off, yacht crews take up dry-fly fishing, Wilfred Pickles organises Relief Fund, farmers complain of floods and so on. So much for the Beaufort Scale. Any questions? Maconochie?’

  ‘Have you ever been in one, sir?’

  ‘Hurricane? A couple. During the war.’

  ‘Which war was that, sir?’

  ‘Ha bloody ha ha,’ said The Bodger grimly.

  ‘But sir, I didn’t mean--!’

  ‘Never mind.’

  The Bodger knew some worth two of that. Later in the lecture he dealt with lights.
<
br />   ‘When you see a light at sea, the first thing you do is take a bearing of it. Don’t worry about whether it’s the Queen Mary on a collision course or a seagull all lit up. Take a bearing first, and then take action. Maconochie, what’s the first thing you do when you sight a light at sea?’

  ‘Take a bearing, sir.’

  ‘Correct. Now, the different types of light. Navigational lights can be red, white or green. No other lights are allowed. So if you see a ship exhibiting purple, blue or puce lights it’s probably the Dartmouth ferry or an American liner. Now open your Seamanship Manuals at the section devoted to lights and you will see some pages of beautifully coloured examples.’

  The Beattys opened their books and studied the examples.

  ‘You will see that they are all quite logical. Are they not, Maconochie?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Now, Maconochie, supposing you are in a ship and you wish to indicate that you are a vessel over a hundred and fifty feet in length aground on a reef at night having just previously been streaming seine nets to starboard and acting as plane-guard for Ark Royal, what lights would you, Maconochie, as Officer of the Watch, immediately and unhesitatingly order to be hoisted?’

  ‘Two black balls, sir?’

  ‘Two black balls, Maconochie, indicate that your ship is not under control, which would be a reasonable assumption, but there would hardly be much object in hoisting two black balls at night, would there? Now Maconochie, leaving your personal feelings aside, double round the parade ground repeating slowly and reverently the while--”I must exhibit two black balls when out of control in the daytime only”--until I tell you to come back.

  ‘And now, gentlemen, where were we? Lights, black balls, yes. Incidentally the sort of time you hoist black balls is when the steering gear breaks down or the quartermaster has a fit. You hoist them when you’re temporarily out of control . . . yes?’

  ‘Would you hoist them when you’re refuelling at sea, sir?’ asked Tom Bowles.

  ‘Yes, good question, you certainly would. You’re not a free agent and to a certain extent you’re not under control so while you’re actually connected by hose or line to another vessel you would hoist them. Right now.. ..’

  Maconochie had the unfortunate faculty of being, when out of sight, out of mind also. Half an hour later, the Matron of the College was surprised to see a cadet approaching a state of exhaustion staggering round the parade ground, muttering.

  ‘I’m sorry, Matron,’ panted Maconochie. ‘But I’ve got to exhibit two black balls when I’m out of control.’

  Lieutenant Mathewson was divisional officer for the Quarterdeck and responsible for the Beattys’ engineering instruction. He lectured on one morning a week to all the Beattys at once. The sight of eighty cadets gathered together in one room would have daunted most men. Lieutenant Mathewson was in the position of lecturing on subjects which he had never quite understood himself. He found the Beattys awkward. Nor was he such a facile speaker as The Bodger.

  ‘The Closed Feed System,’ he said, ‘is the main artery of the ship’s main engines. If anything happens to the Closed Feed System the ship immediately comes to a grinding halt, all the lights go out and there’s a great shouting and tumult.’

  Lieutenant Mathewson paused. It had been a good opening. He wondered how to go on.

  ‘In the old days ships had Open Feed Systems but they found that the stokers used to tip fag ends and whatnot into it so they scrubbed round and fitted a Closed Feed System. We’ll deal with the feed system in the Boiler Room first. You all know the difference between a Boiler Room and Engine Room, I suppose? I told you last week? Good. Now if you look at the drawing on the board you’ll see. . . . It’s no good asking me questions, you at the back, I haven’t told you anything to ask questions about yet. Where was I? Feed System in the Boiler Room. First of all, you’ve got a doofah thing, this valve which admits feed water to the boiler. . . . Yes, what is it? Do you want to go outside or something?’

  ‘Sir, that drawing on the board says Feed System in the Engine Room, sir.’

  ‘So it does. Sandy must have got the drawings mixed up. Sandy!’

  An elderly man wearing blue overalls looked through a small door at the side of the lecture room. Sandy was one of the battalion of pensioners, the hall-porters, gardeners, boilermen, storekeepers, boats’ crews, stewards and sweepers without whom the internal domestic workings of Dartmouth and of every other shore establishment in the Navy would quietly, but surely, have come to a halt. They were the men who knew the local tides and the local tradesmen. They remembered where the swings and slides had been put after last year’s children’s party. They also knew where the drawings for Lieutenant Mathewson’s lectures were kept.

  ‘Never mind, Sandy. I’ll make do with this one.’

  ‘No, I’ll get it, sir, I’ll get it,’

  Sandy ferreted about in a small cupboard behind his door. He took out a rolled drawing, carried it across to the blackboard, and hung it over the other drawing.

  ‘Sorry, Sandy.’

  ‘If yew doan’t tell me, sir, how kin I know? I say, if yew doan’t tell me nothin’, how’m I to know?’

  Sandy retreated behind the small door.

  ‘Well, we’re all set now. Feed system in the Boiler Room. You know, I’ve changed my mind. I think we’ll do the Engine Room first, after all. You at the end of the front row. Come up and take this drawing down. Don’t let Sandy hear you, for God’s sake.

  ‘That’s right. Engine Room. In the Engine Room you have a condenser, that’s this doofah here, a closed feed controller, that’s this little widger here, and an extraction pump. The condenser, as its name implies, condenses steam into water after it’s left the turbine. I forget now whether I told you about turbines? I did? Good. These whatsits here are tubes. The main circulators push sea water through the tubes to condense the steam. If you get a leak in one of those tubes there’s a real nausea. You get salt water in the closed feed system. Condenseritis, it’s called. Keeps Senior Engineers awake at night. . . .’

  The Beattys were as closely supervised out of their working hours as they were in the class-room. Each cadet had to take part in one of the College activities in the evenings. The cadets noted their activities in a log which The Bodger inspected once a week. Any cadet who had spent more than one day in the week skulking, by which The Bodger meant not playing cricket or sailing, was summoned to The Bodger’s office.

  Spink was the most frequent skulker.

  ‘Look here, Spink,’ said The Bodger. ‘On Monday last you went shooting and a week ago on Thursday you went on the river. That’s fair enough. I’m not complaining about that. But every other day for the last fortnight you’ve been bird-watching, butterfly-catching, or fossil-hunting. What’s all this about?’

  ‘There are some very interesting specimens in this part of the country, sir,’ said Spink.

  ‘Spink, my dear old chap. When I was at Dartmouth I was the best bird-watcher in my term. There wasn’t a bird for miles around I hadn’t watched. And as for butterfly-catching, no butterfly from here to Totnes was safe until I passed out of Dartmouth. I must admit I never thought of fossil-hunting, but what I’m getting at is this . . . there’s nothing anybody can teach me about bird-watching, butterfly-catching, fossil-hunting or any other kind of watching, catching or hunting. You people seem to think that I and all the staff came out of the egg the day before yesterday. Now listen, Spink. I’m not interested in your private hobbies. That’s not what you’re here for. You can do that during your leave. While you’re here you will join in the College activities as laid down by the College. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And you can tell Dewberry and the other nature boys what I’ve told you. Right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Carry on, Spink.’

  Spink was in the minority. Most of the Beattys needed no urging to take part in the sports provided by the College. It was, perhaps, the onl
y part of their training on which they and the College were completely in agreement. Most of them had played games at school and now played them at Dartmouth, if not with an excess of zeal at least out of a hope that some astonishing feat of athletics would lift them for a short time from the general ruck of the term. The Bodger was not so impressed by these feats as the Beattys imagined, but he recognised the part games could play in transforming the Beattys from a crowd of schoolboys of different schools into a composite term of cadets with a feeling of comradeship in their term and, eventually, in the Navy.

  Almost half the Beattys went regularly on the river and half normally played cricket. Tom Bowles was attracted to the river as soon as he came to Dartmouth. He had seldom sailed a boat before, but within a month on the River Dart he had learnt more about sailing small boats than most naval officers learn in a lifetime. Tom Bowles was able to sense the smallest quirk of wind and current and quickly became the best coxswain in the term except for David Bowie, a New Zealander, who had started with advantages, having been able to swim before he could walk and having spent a large part of his childhood sailing in Auckland harbour.

  Michael Hobbes and Paul Vincent played cricket, Paul for the reason he had given the Interview Board, that it was his only sport, and Michael because it was summer. Michael had played cricket in the summer at school and it would have seemed peculiar to him not to do so now that he was at Dartmouth.

  Maconochie also played cricket. He could not bat, neither could he bowl, but he could field. After some practice and the confidence of a few catches, Maconochie developed into a quite remarkable fielder close to the bat.

  Cleghorn and Stacforth played tennis and Dewberry, the College orchestra having no french horn, learnt to play the trumpet. He noted it in the log as ‘athletic training.’