We Joined The Navy

by John Winton

  Once a cruise, Barsetshire indulged in a colossal convulsion of Seamanship. Under the Commander’s direction, the cadets ran through the Seamanship Manual. They spread, furled and respread the quarterdeck, foc’s’le and waist awnings. They laid out the gear for fuelling at sea, abeam and astern; towing, forward and aft; and for transfer by jackstay, heavy and light. They struck and housed the top mast, hoisted and lowered accommodation ladders, and sent away kedge anchors, sea anchors and the Gunnery Officer’s motor-cycle in cutters. They rigged sheer legs. They practised securing to, and slipping from, a buoy, and they rehearsed mooring, cheering, and abandoning ship. They pulled boats away to retrieve buoys, torpedoes and men overboard. They put out fires, electrical and carbonaceous, rigged emergency lighting circuits, shored up bulkheads, and donned breathing sets. They weighed the anchor, moved the rudder, and trained the guns by hand.

  ‘All we’ve got to do now,’ Paul said at the end of a week, ‘is raise steam by hand.’

  ‘How do we do that?’ asked George Dewberry.

  ‘Haven’t you noticed those pulleys on the funnels?’

  ‘You’ve nothing to complain about,’ said Raymond Ball. ‘You haven’t got to pull a boat miles every day. I shall be damned glad when this bloody Regatta’s over. It’s so pointless. You sweat blood to get a piece of wood from one end of the harbour to the other and when you’ve got it there you sweat more blood to get it back. It’s not as though you were even going to fetch something.’

  To air such opinions aloud in Barsetshire on the eve of the Regatta was tantamount to questioning the validity of the Holy Sacrament in St. Peter’s on Easter Day. The rest of the gunroom looked cautiously at the scuttles and drew slightly away from Raymond Ball; cadets had been summoned before the Captain for less.

  ‘You’d better pipe down a bit if you want to pass out of this outfit,’ Tom Bowles said.

  ‘I still say it’s a waste of time.’

  ‘I know you do, dear boy,’ said Paul, ‘but if you want to live a bit longer, I should keep quiet about it.’

  ‘I hope it pours with rain.’

  Raymond Ball was disappointed. The first day of the Regatta dawned clear and bright. The sun shone and there was a slight breeze, enough to cool but not enough to disturb the surface of the sea. It was a perfect day for boat-pulling.

  No ship in the Fleet intended any of its crews to pull without audible support. Every ship lowered all its boats and filled them to the gunwhale with chucking-up crews carrying instruments for producing noise. Some ships had bands, but most were forced to improvise. There were trumpeters, drummers, guitarists, trombonists, men with triangles, hunting horns, washboards and horseshoes, a string quartet, and lines of men holding nothing but empty tins which they struck with mallets, or empty shell-cases which they struck with hammers. When the gun fired for the start of the first race, every band launched a different tune, every sailor with an instrument played, and those with empty tins or shell-cases beat them in time to the oar-strokes of their ship’s boats. Those without any instruments shouted through megaphones and cupped hands. All together, the chucking-up crews made a sound like a massacre.

  As the Regatta progressed, it was clear that though Barsetshire’s crews were good, they were not good enough. They were the most stylish crews in the Regatta, but they were not prepared for the sheer ferocity with which some of the other ship’s crews pulled. Barsetshire’s crews led in race after race but were finally beaten by some destroyer or frigate’s crew who were pulling on the last shreds of their energy before exhaustion overtook them.

  The Officers’ Race was typical. Barsetshire’s boat, the formidable combination stroked by The Bodger and coxed by Mr Piles, led to the finishing line when they were caught by the crew from a Tank Landing Ship, whose boat included their whole wardroom. Barsetshire were beaten into third place by the Fleet Tanker Wave Chiropodist.

  At the end of the second day, Barsetshire finished fifth in the final placing, which The Bodger thought was good considering that they had pulled in a standard boat.

  ‘I had a look at that L.S.T.’s boat this afternoon’ he said. ‘If I’d pulled in that I could have won that race single-handed. They had the hull sandpapered down and varnished. They’d taken the bottom boards out and planed down the seats. They all had specially fitted cushions. I suggested doing all that to our boat but everyone said it would be setting a bad example to the cadets. Can you beat it?’

  ‘Ah well, that’s life.’

  The sailing Regatta was held a week later. The Fleet raised steam and steamed round to a bay along the coast of Malta where the course was laid out.

  Barsetshire’s chief hope for the sailing Regatta was Tom Bowles. He had fufilled the promise he had shown at Dartmouth and had become the best coxswain in the ship. There are some who have an instinctive sympathy with any boat they sail, just as there are some men whom any horse will obey, and Tom Bowles had matured into such a coxswain. It was a compliment to be asked to crew for him and when Tom asked Michael and Paul if they would crew in his boat they were as flattered as though they had been asked by Drake to make up the numbers in the Golden Hind, particularly as neither of them sailed often and knew very little about racing. Maconochie was also asked and was as flattered.

  None of Tom’s crew knew that he had asked them because he liked to sail an important race with a crew who would do exactly as he told them without any notions of their own.

  The weather changed for the sailing races and as the time of the race came nearer, it was clear that all Tom Bowles’ skill would be needed. A lively north-east wind, whose local name is the gregale, the Euroclydon which wrecked St. Paul, freshened through the forenoon and showed signs of becoming a gale by the evening. White horses covered the bay and raced down past the ships. The boats at the booms rose and plunged with the send of the sea until it became difficult for the crews to man them. Most of the cadets looked hopefully at the quarterdeck, expecting the races to be cancelled, but the Regatta flags still flew. The races were still on.

  Two of Barsetshire’s dinghies, one sailed by David Bowie, capsized before they had sailed more than a hundred yards from the ship. They were caught by a sudden gust and their coxswains had no time to luff up, no time even to let go the sheets, before they were swimming in the sea. To the cadets watching from the quarterdeck, it was an omen.

  The first whaler away sheered from the boom on a reach, forced hard over by the wind. Her crew hung out over the weather gunwhale, their huddled figures disappearing in the sheets of spray which leapt as high as the mast. When the boat came round out of Barsetshire’s lee the main halliard parted with a crack and the mainsail smothered the crew and pulled the boat broadside on to the sea, almost capsizing her. The watchers on the quarterdeck could see the whaler’s coxswain trying to keep the boat head to the wind while his crew rigged a jury sail from the remains of the mainsail.

  Tom Bowles’ crew were not optimistic as they manned their own boat. Maconochie was openly pessimistic and ostentatiously counted the lifebelts. Michael and Paul felt no better even when they swore at Maconochie. Cartwright and the senior cadet, Denis Hubert, the remaining members of the crew, were resigned; they seemed anxious to get the race over quickly.

  Maconochie made the first mistake. Hardly hearing Tom Bowles’ orders over the sound of the wind, he slipped the boat while her bows were swinging in towards Barsetshire. In spite of Tom Bowles’ efforts to make the boat pay off and the crew’s efforts to bear the bows off with boathooks, the boat drifted inexorably along the ship’s side and fouled under the gangway.

  The heads of the spectators appeared over the guardrail. They saw the boat and began to curse Tom Bowles and all his crew.

  Tom Bowles and his crew were cursed by bell, book and candle; they were cursed waking and cursed sleeping, eating and drinking, living and dying. The Bodger and the Communications Officer, in particular, gave a recital of profanity, with recitative and aria, theme and variations, and obbligato for solo oa
th. When at last Tom Bowles extricated his boat, he and his crew had been cursed as comprehensively as the Jackdaw of Rheims.

  Paul decided afterwards, though he never mentioned it to anyone, that the incident at the gangway clouded Tom Bowles’ judgment.

  Half a mile away from the ship, when Tom Bowles was feeling the capabilities of the boat and establishing his command over her, Paul looked back. The recall flags were flying.

  ‘Tom, they’re flying the recall!’ he shouted.

  Tom glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘Oh hell. I suppose we’d better get back. Ready about!’

  Tom put the tiller over and the boat started its swing. But the boat was clumsy and turned too slowly. A gust caught her and she sagged away down wind, tilted on the very top of a wave, and heeled over.

  Caught unprepared, the crew slid down to the lee side and tried to climb back again, except Maconochie who was sitting high on the weather gunwhale staring at the water which was beginning to lap over on to his feet. When the water reached his feet he began to pay out the main sheet.

  He was still paying out when the water reached his waist and closed over his head. Paul heard him shout as he went down into the water.

  The crew swam round the boat and collected a lifebelt each and tied them on. By the time they had all found and put on a lifebelt, only the tip of the mast and the stern of the boat were showing above water. The weight of the sodden sail, still fully rigged, had dragged the bows down.

  Paul grasped the stern of the boat next to Tom Bowles. He glanced at Tom’s face.

  ‘Never mind, Tom. Don’t take it to heart, there’s a good chap. It happens to everyone. You saw them all today, going over like ninepins. It happens to everyone sooner or later, honestly?

  Michael swam next to them, pushing the hair from his eyes. His teeth were chattering.

  ‘God, it’s damn cold, isn’t it? It’s a good job old Ted counted those lifebelts after all. . . .’

  Michael stopped and looked round. He caught the horror stilled in Tom Bowles’ eyes. His voice rose shrill and high above the sound of the wind.

  ‘Ted! Where’s Maconochie?’

  They dived together. Their lifebelts buoyed them up. They tried to untie them but their fingers were wet and cold and shaking with haste and they could not unfasten the knots which were already swelling in the water.

  Tom Bowles succeeded in slipping out of his lifebelt and disappeared. When he came up and shook his head, Denis Hubert dived. They all tried, one after the other. Cartwright stayed under longest but when he too came up alone, they lost hope.

  Cartwright shook the water from his eyes.

  ‘He’s not there now, I’ll swear,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Must have got caught under the sail, poor joker.’

  10

  Commander Richard St. Clair Gilpin, D.S.C., Royal Navy, the Executive Officer of H.M.S. Barsetshire, strode up and down the quarterdeck, his telescope clasped behind his back.

  The Commander paced the quarterdeck alone. Cadets working nearby avoided his eye. The quartermaster, the bosun’s mate and the sideboys had vanished into the lobby. The Cadet of the Watch had taken the opportunity to go forward to look at the boats. Only Pontius the Pilot, the Officer of the Watch, stood waiting anxiously for the Commander to speak.

  It was half past six on a cold morning, the first morning of a new cruise. The Commander, who was an impatient man, had not yet had his breakfast and his temper had not been improved by the sight of the new cadets who had joined the day before.

  The Commander roused himself and glared about the quarterdeck. Pontius the Pilot tensed.

  ‘Officer of the Watch!’

  ‘Sir!’ Pontius the Pilot leapt forward, placed himself in front of the Commander, and saluted.

  ‘Why is that cadet,’ demanded the Commander, pointing at Paul who was lethargically cheesing down a rope by the after capstan, ‘not wearing a lanyard?’

  ‘Petty Officer Moody!’

  ‘Sir!’ Petty Officer Moody doubled out of the quarterdeck locker, where he too had hoped to remain unnoticed.

  ‘Why is that cadet not wearing a lanyard?’

  ‘Cadet Cleghorn!’

  ‘Yes, P.O.?’

  ‘Why is Cadet Vincent not wearing a lanyard?’

  Peter Cleghorn, who was a leading cadet for the week, crossed over to Paul who, now conscious that he was the centre of unwelcome interest, was coiling down the rope with energy and panache. ‘Paul, for Christ’s sake, where’s your lanyard?’

  ‘It says on Daily Orders negative lanyards until eight o’clock,’ Paul answered.

  ‘Does it really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Paul’s answer was transmitted up the chain of command as far as the Commander. When Paul heard the Commander’s voice he knew that it had not been a tactful answer to give the Commander at half past six in the morning.

  ‘Tell Cadet Vincent to go and get his lanyard and report to my cabin at eight o’clock with one lanyard round his waist, one round his neck and two more round his--and now what in the name of God Almighty do you think you’re doing?’

  A junior cadet holding a bucket of dirty water was standing uncertainly on the quarterdeck. The bucket was filled to overflowing and had already spilled on to the quarterdeck, the holy stretch of Borneo white wood valued at nearly £30,000 which Barsetshire’s Ship’s Company treated with a veneration only accorded in previously documented history to the Ark of the Covenant.

  The English Language, that splendid instrument of self-expression, forged and shaped through the centuries, had one of its finest exponents in the Commander. The Commander combined the Gunnery Officer’s metronome steadiness, the Communications Officer’s choice of simile and The Bodger’s readiness of resource. He lashed the junior cadet from head to toe, castigated him, scourged him and delivered him almost weeping into despair, while Pontius the Pilot, Petty Officer Moody, Peter Cleghorn and Paul stood by like men on a hillside watching a storm strike a helpless village below,

  Later, when the Commander had taken his wrath forward, Paul had fetched his lanyard and the water had been mopped up, Petty Officer Moody said: ‘He’ll learn. You all have to learn. When you’re as green as grass.’

  In some obscurely gratifying way Paul was pleased with the remark. It implied that, for the first time, Petty Officer Moody was crediting Paul with more knowledge and common sense than at least one other human being in Barsetshire. It was also the first time it had occurred to Paul that, low as he himself was in the scale of living organisms in the Cadet Training Ship, there was now on board a species still lower, namely, the junior cadets. Paul could now see that there might perhaps be compensations in being in Barsetshire as a senior cadet. It was true that the advantages were unequivocal; they were similar to those of an old lag returning for another long stretch. Life would still be hard but at least he knew what to expect and everyone knew him. There would be some satisfaction, Paul thought, in being given more responsible duties and in being able to overawe the juniors. Not that they would need much overaweing. Paul had watched them walk wonderingly up the gangway the previous day.

  ‘Pretty scabby-looking lot aren’t they?’ he said to Michael as he watched them.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Michael said. ‘I expect we looked exactly the same when we joined. It’s a hell of a business joining this old gash-barge for the first time.’

  ‘I suppose so. We at least knew what we were coming to this time. They don’t. Yet. Better bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.’

  ‘Oh for goodness sake don’t start quoting at this stage of the cruise.’

  The Bodger had also watched the new arrivals from the quarterdeck.

  ‘Here we go again,’ he said to the Communications Officer. ‘Here they come, like lambs to the slaughter. Look at them, coming up as though they were stepping into Hades. I wonder what they’ve been told about this ship?’

  ‘Probably not half of the whole.’

&
nbsp; ‘I shall have to get my notes out again tomorrow and go through my party piece. Do as I say, men, not as I do. Pretty shocking looking lot. Look at that character in uniform and brown shoes.’

  ‘It’s an Australian.’

  ‘Oh God, he’s kicked Owen Glendower.’

  ‘Shades of Maconochie. Incidentally, was there any kick-back about that?’

  ‘No. Lucky it was a cadet. If it had been anyone else there might have been some tumult and shouting back and forth.’

  ‘They are a terrible looking lot.’

  ‘Remember last cruise’s lot.’

  The Communications Officer remembered.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I suppose these aren’t all that bad.’

  Two days later, when Barsetshire was on her way to the West Indies, Paul was given the most dreaded special duty of all. When he saw the button by his name he knew without looking at the legend that he was Commander’s Doggie, better known to the cadets as Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

  The Commander was the most energetic officer in the ship and he directed all his energy towards one single, unshakeable object, which was to become an Admiral, preferably an Admiral of the Fleet. He committed himself to no private or professional action without first submitting it to the test of whether or not it helped him towards flag rank. He looked upon those above him as hand-holds to help him up and those below him as footholds to keep him up. He had won the Telescope at Dartmouth, the Sword in the Training Ship, First Class awards in all his courses as a Sub-Lieutenant, the D.S.C. as a Lieutenant, promotion to Commander at the first opportunity as a Lieutenant-Commander, and he confidently awaited early promotion to Captain. He had played rugby football and squash for the Navy and he still held the Navy javelin and discus records. He was a member of the R.N. Sailing Association, the R.N. Cricket Club and the Junior Army and Navy Club. Several articles written by him under the pseudonym of ‘Conrad’ on such widely separated subjects as ‘The Role of the Navy in a War Against the Mongols’ and ‘An Outline History of the Voice-pipe’ had appeared in the Naval Review. He bought his uniforms and caps from Gieves, his suits from Johnson Bros, of Savile Row, his hats from Locks, his shoes from Lobbs and his underwear, ready-made, from Harrods, where he had an account. He was unmarried. He was, in short, the Compleat Naval Officer.