by John Winton
‘Read much?’
‘Not a lot, sir, but...’
‘See if you can find anything to interest you there.’
The Captain waved Tom Bowles towards the bookcase as though he were offering him the entire resources of the Reading Room at the British Museum.
There were four books on the shelf. They were: ‘The Care and Breeding of Setters and Spaniels,’ ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles,’ ‘Distemper, Rabies and Miscellaneous Canine Diseases,’ and ‘Every Boy’s Book of Dogs.’ There was also a small pamphlet issued by the National Trust.
Tom Bowles chose ‘Distemper, Rabies and Miscellaneous Canine Diseases,’ opened it at random, and began to read.
‘Whenever a dog pays particular attention to his anus’ Tom read, ‘impaction of the anal glands may be suspected. This is not always attributable to worms ...”
‘Captain, sir?’
The Captain looked up, keeping his finger in his page. The Senior Instructor Officer, who was the ship’s meteorological officer, stood in the doorway holding a chart.
‘Ah, Schoolie!’ cried the Captain. ‘What’s the trouble?’
‘The weather, sir.’
‘What’s the matter with it?’
‘Nothing’s the matter, sir. No change on the chart.’
‘Splendid! Let me know the minute you see a typhoon, Schoolie.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The Senior Instructor Officer retired. The Captain turned to Tom Bowles.
‘When you’re a Captain, Bowles,’ he said, ‘never take any notice of what the Met. boys say. The trouble with the Met. branch is they will not look out of the bloody scuttle and see what the weather’s actually doing. Barney Liverpool once altered course to avoid a typhoon the Met. chaps told him about and hit a reef instead.’
The Captain’s eyes sparkled at the memory.
‘. . . not always attributable to worms, but may be caused by the animal rubbing himself along the ...”
‘Captain, sir?’
‘Yes? Ah, yes, come in, Scratch.’
The Captain’s Secretary came in carrying a briefcase. The Captain took his Secretary’s pen, shook it vigorously over his Secretary’s white shoes, and prepared to sign papers.
‘You can carry on, Bowles. Come back here again after stand-easy.’
At half past ten, the Captain came out of his sea-cabin and said to the Gunnery Officer: ‘I’m going for a mooch round.’
Again in column of route, the Captain, Tom Bowles and Owen Glendower prowled along the upper deck. All about them the normal routine of a hot forenoon in Barsetshire was taking place. Cadets were putting paint on bulkheads and scraping paint off the deck, scrubbing out boats, polishing brasswork and wire-scrubbing chains and shackles. The voices of lecturers floated out through the open scuttles of the gunrooms.
‘The Admiralty Light List, this blue tome here’ said the voice of Pontius the Pilot, ‘tells you all you want to know about lights, always supposing you want to know anything about lights...”
The Captain stopped and crouched outside the scuttle. He looked round at Tom Bowles with his finger to his lips.
‘ ... it tells you what colour the light is, whether it’s flashing or occulting, how many flashes or occults, per minute, the intervals of flashes or occults, the height of the flashes or occults above sea-level, what colour polka-dot bow tie the lighthouse keeper wears and so on.’
Pontius the Pilot paused. Immediately the Captain popped his head in through the scuttle.
‘What’s the difference between flashing and occulting? You?’ he demanded of a cadet in the back row.
The class swung round and gaped at the silhouette of the Captain, framed in the round scuttle. The cadet whom the Captain had addressed was so startled that he could only open and close his mouth silently; no words came to him. Paul, in the front row, was the first to recover.
‘Flashing means that the dark is shorter than the light and occulting means that the light is shorter than the dark, sir,’ he said.
‘Wrong!’ said the Captain. ‘Other way round. Nincompoop!’
The Captain vanished from the class’s sight. He resumed his stroll, chuckling. Tom Bowles and Owen Glendower fell in behind.
The next scuttle was The Bodger’s. The well-known voice carried stridently and confidently with the cadences of an experienced speaker.
‘ . . . most books provided by a benevolent and all-seeing Admiralty are B.R.’s, B.R. as no doubt you will readily grasp, standing for Book of Reference. There are B.R.’s for every subject under the sun. There’s even a B.R., Guide to Heaven. All B.R.’s have a number, for the use of civil servants. If you ask a civil servant for a Ship’s Fire Fighting Manual he won’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but if you ask him for a B.R.1257 he’ll give you one in triplicate. B.R. 1066, the Advancement Regulations, is another example. B.R. 1066 gives you the regulations for the advancement of every type of rating except the one you’re interested in. You’ll find all the others. You can read how to go from Leading Airman to Chief Blacksmith without taking the Naval Storekeeping Course, and how to get from Ordinary Sick Berth Attendant to Admiral of the Fleet without marrying money, but you’ll never find anything in it about anyone in your own division. So I’ll give you a little bit of advice. Whenever you’re consulting B.R. 1066, always pretend you’re looking for a different sort of rating than the one you want. If you’re looking for the regulations for asdic operators, pick up the book and say aloud: “Now, I wonder how I would become a parachute packer in the R.N.Z.N.?” and sure as fate asdic operators will be on the first page you look at.’
The Bodger paused, but this time the Captain did not interrupt. He merely leaned against the bulkhead and listened. The Captain knew better than to interrupt an artist in the middle of a performance.
‘The next category of book is the C.B., C.B. as your quick and agile minds will again interpret, meaning Confidential Book. B.R.’s are normally classified as Restricted, which means that you can’t show them to the Press or to your old uncle who’s interested in the Navy, but CB.’s have to be kept locked up and mustered page by page by an officer. Every ship has a C.B. Officer. In this ship the CB.’s are mustered by the Chaplain’s Doggie, as no doubt you know. Anything confidential, as its name implies, will be found in a C.B. Such things as publications on signal codes, some types of machinery handbooks, things like that. Incidentally, what the Admiralty normally do about machinery handbooks is to pinch the manufacturers’ handbook word for word and make it a C.B. Then when the manufacturers find out and start beefing about copyrights the Admiralty merely say: “This book is a C.B. How did you get to hear about it?” and have one or all of the firm’s directors up under the Official Secrets Act. It’s just another case of what I’m always telling you blokes about. There’s always a simple way of doing things which puts the other feller in the wrong if you only take the trouble to sit down and think about it.’
The Captain shook his head and passed on to the next gunroom where the Communications Officer was lecturing.
‘... the normal methods of passing visual signals in the service are by flashing, using the Morse Code, or by flags, using Semaphore. We do not shoot arrows in the air, nor do we use smoke signals, carrier pigeons, Nigerian runners with cleft sticks, nor telepathy, though I have no doubt that we shall use television. Now, if you look at the sheets of flag hoist examples which I have provided and of which you should all by now have a copy, I will show you another method of passing signals visually. The examples are designed to be read from left to right and from top to bottom in the normal manner, negative Chinese. Will any cadet who has been accustomed to another convention please prove? No? Well then, when I direct your attentions to example one you should all by now be looking at the top left-hand diagram which consists of two flags and carries a message fraught with meaning to any sailor. This is a signal which a parsimonious country permits to be flown only on occasions of great national rejoicing. It is not “En
gland Expects” nor is it “Gentlemen will please adjust their dress before leaving.” It is “Splice the Main-brace.” Do not trouble to memorise it. The instances when it is flown are few and the knowledge that it will be flown will have been common for some months previously. The next hoist consists of one flag and it carries a cry from the heart. It is the ensign of the Ancient Mariner, the house flag of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is the Turn Pendant and flown singly in harbour it means “Waterboat Required.” This is one worth memorising.
In H.M. Ships it usually goes up as the anchor goes down. Now Rorari, moderating your voice to a dull roar, try to tell me what the third hoist means . . .’
Again the Captain made no comment, recognising once more the voice of a master. Tom Bowles had the shameful thought that perhaps the Captain was reluctant to burst in on either The Bodger or the Communications Officer because he was afraid he might get the worst of the encounter. But the next lecturer sounded more promising.
It was Chief Electrician Pocock, conducting a class with heavy tread and scrupulous attention to detail through the intricacies of lighting circuits. The Chief Electrician had been bequeathed a comprehensive set of notes by his predecessor and he never departed from them if he could avoid it. They were his rod and staff through a swamp of technicalities. Once Chief Electrician Pocock had been drawn from his notes he floundered like a heavily armoured legionary enticed off the Roman road down into oozing marshes.
‘Electrical Lecture Number Seven,’ intoned the Chief Electrician. ‘The Seventh Electrical Lecture. Lighting Circuits. The basis of all lighting circuits is Ohm’s Law. Ohm’s Law states that the current through a circuit is proportional to the voltage or, expressed another way, the voltage is equal to the current times a constant. This constant is the same for any given circuit and is termed the Resistance. I’ll give you a for instance...’
‘Excuse me, Chief, but did you say Ohm’s Law?’
The Chief Electrician consulted his notes.
‘I did.’
‘But, Chief, in Electrical Lecture Number Six last week you said it was Faraday.’
The Chief Electrician thumbed back several pages in his notes.
‘I did say nothing of the sort.. .’
‘Don’t believe a word he says, Chief. We all know it was Watt, don’t we, fellows?’
Several voices answered at once.
‘What what?’
‘It was Ohm sweet Ohm.’
‘It was Jan Faraday.’
‘Old Uncle Tom Oersted and all. . .’
‘Ah well, they also serve who only stand and watt.’
‘Who said that?’
‘John Milton, Chief.’
‘Come out the front of the class, Milton.’
The Captain strode in through the doorway.
‘Class!’ roared the Chief Electrician.
The class struggled to their feet, sheepishly trying to assume the position of attention in the limited leg space between bench and table. Some of them looked resentfully at Tom Bowles, as though they felt it was his fault.
‘Don’t mind me, Chief,’ the Captain said mildly. ‘You!’ The Captain turned suddenly on Spink, in the front row. ‘What’s the difference between a watt, a faraday and an oersted? Eh?’
‘I-I don’t know, sir,’ Spink stammered.
‘Well, listen to the Chief Electrician in future when he’s trying to teach you something!’
The last lecture was one on the causes of funnel smoke, by Ginger Piggant. The Captain was not interested in the causes of funnel smoke, only in the means of its swift removal from the funnel whenever he complained about it. The Captain snorted and passed on.
His peregrinations had brought the Captain back to the quarterdeck. He looked at his watch.
‘I usually have a small glass of something about this time, Bowles,’ he said. ‘I won’t ask you to join me because I’m sure the Cadet Training Officer would be most displeased. You can carry on, and thank you for your assistance, Bowles.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Tom Bowles saluted and doubled away. It was just after eleven-thirty in the forenoon and the rest of the day was his own. On his way forward he met Paul.
‘How did you get on?’
‘Fair enough. He’s not as dumb as he likes to appear. He’s much sharper than anyone would think.’
‘I imagine so, or he wouldn’t be a Captain.’
Barsetshire called for an afternoon at Point a Pierre, Trinidad, to refuel, during which Paul visited the refinery and George Dewberry discovered rum. Barsetshire then sailed for Grenada.
11
When Barsetshire visited a Mediterranean port, the local people were interested in her, undoubtedly they were interested in her, but then there had been a ship last week and most assuredly there would be another ship next week. One more ship was nothing to get excited about. But in the West Indies Barsetshire’s visit was a yearly event much looked forward to and enjoyed to the full while it lasted. The residents competed to invite parties of cadets to their houses. The girls packed their regular boy-friends off to the hills for the week or ten days while Barsetshire was in. And the distillers of rum and the weavers of straw hats rubbed their hands with glee and promised themselves a harvest of profit unequalled since the visits of Nelson’s fleets in search of those of the ruffianly Bonaparte.
On board, feelings were mixed. Those of the Ship’s Company who had not visited the West Indies before could not wait to go ashore and sample the legendary hospitality of West Indian women; they could not understand the caution which old hands to the station displayed before getting out of the boat. They could not know that this caution was well-founded. Old hands on the station, like the Chief G.I. and the Master at Arms, had no wish to repeat last year’s experience when they had each been greeted, on stepping ashore, with the joyous hail of ‘Daddy!’ bubbling from innocent piccaninny lips.
Feelings were also mixed in the Wardroom. The Communications Officer wondered whether that little octaroon girl was still there. Ginger Piggant was afraid that the little octaroon girl would still recognise him. The Commander (S) wondered whether he would have to pay more for grapefruit. While the P.M.O. retired to his cabin to read up his handbook on venereal disease.
The Captain’s calls on the dignitaries of the island were returned immediately. The Governor travelled from shore in a bright blue barge. The Colonel commanding the island garrison came off in a dull black barge. A large black gentleman in a bright red barge named Lullaby of Broadway followed to arrange for the sale of grapefruit and soft drinks on board and he himself was succeeded by his brother in a bright yellow barge named Red Hot Lips Baby to arrange for the removal of the rubbish and waste the ship would discard during her stay.
By lunch time the Cadets’ Notice Board was covered in invitations. They were all of a pattern. They were for ‘Swimming, Cocktails and Tennis--six cadets’; ‘Visit to a Nutmeg Plantation and Tennis--two cadets’; ‘Tour of a Rum Distillery and Tennis --eight cadets’; ‘Deep Sea Fishing Expedition and Tennis--two cadets’; and ‘Midnight Barbecue and Tennis--ten cadets.’
Every invitation, without exception, had this curious insistence on tennis. It seemed that whatever else a man might do in the island; he had at least to play tennis. The invitations gave the impression that the business administration of the island was done by people who broke off several times in the course of a working day to practise their backhand smashes and who formed a society which occupied itself, not in taking in each other’s washing, but in umpiring each other’s tennis matches.
There were more invitations than there were cadets prepared to accept them, but those cadets who did not wish to play tennis, or who hated tennis, or who had never learned how to play tennis, discovered that the word ‘invitation’ was meaningless. When The Bodger found several invitations not filled, his policy was quite definite. The Bodger had entertained the Governor’s Aide-de-Camp at lunch time and had disliked him on sight.
‘If th
e bastards want ten cadets to look round a straw hat factory and play tennis, they’re bloody well going to get ten cadets to look round a straw hat factory and play tennis. Mr Piles, detail off the watch ashore until those invitations are all filled. If that isn’t enough, detail off the non-duty part of the watch on board. If that isn’t enough, then go on detailing off cadets until every invitation is filled. Nobody’s going to tell me my cadets are not being sociable. They can all play tennis until their eyeballs drop out. If they don’t know how to play tennis, they’d better learn between now and going ashore.’
Mr Piles, the Chief G.I. and the Chief P.T.I, organised a witch-hunt. They scoured the cadets’ quarters and rounded up every cadet, duty or not duty, sick or well. Cadets who had not intended to go ashore, cadets who had intended to go ashore later, and cadets who were under stoppage of leave and not allowed to go ashore, were routed out of the hiding places about the ship where they had hoped to read, sleep or write letters. They were herded together and ordered ashore to play tennis.
Tennis racquets were at premium. The ship’s sports store was quickly exhausted and the supply of private racquets ran out soon after and it looked for a time as though The Bodger’s plans to launch his cadets in society were to be defeated for lack of tennis racquets. But The Bodger was indefatigable.
‘It doesn’t have to be a tennis racquet, godammit! Any racquet will do. All cadets proceeding ashore must have a sporting implement of some kind.’
The later boatloads of cadets were armed with tennis racquets which had strings broken, handles split and splices missing. The very latest departures carried badminton and squash racquets, cricket bats, hockey sticks and billiard cues. One cadet merely wore a fives glove.
The cadets were mustered by the Chief G.I. on the upper deck and detailed off in parties.
‘ . . . from ‘ere to the left--Museum and Tennis Party. Party, left turn, quick march, carry on to the museum. From ‘ere to the left, you as well--Botanical Gardens and Tennis Party. Party, left turn, quick march, carry on to the botanical gardens. From ‘ere to the left--Visit to Sugar Cane Plantation and Tennis Party. Got your sporting implement? Let’s see it. Right. Party, left turn, quick march, carry on to the sugar cane plantation. From ‘ere to the left--Scottish Country Dancing and Tennis Party. . . .’
