We Joined The Navy (12 page)

‘---Froud,--Froud,---Froud,’ he carolled.

Paul and Michael were both knocked aghast by this blasphemy. The rest of the chest flat, all now wide awake, wondered whether it was worth while getting up to look at the iconoclast George Dewberry before he was struck down by heavenly wrath.

They were given no more time to decide. As if he had materialised in answer to George Dewberry’s frenzied incantations, Mr Froud appeared at the door of the bathroom and shone a torch round inside.

Dewberry was transfixed in the beam, goggling like a rabbit in the headlights. Aladdin rousing the Genie for the first time, Semele confronted by Jupiter in radiance, could never have been so taken aback and utterly confounded as was George Dewberry by the appearance of Mr Froud.

Mr Froud looked coolly at the figures in front of him, George Dewberry in the centre and Paul and Michael with his eyes streaming standing beside him like heraldic supporters, and was conscious that he had made a dramatic entrance.

‘Get him to bed,’ Mr Froud said quietly and vanished as suddenly as he had come.

Afterwards, when he was a watchkeeping lieutenant at sea, Michael realised that he had witnessed that night only one of the many techniques for carrying out an important part of a naval officer’s profession.

The theory and practice of dealing with drunks was considered so important that it received a special mention in The Bodger’s lectures.

‘It all boils down to one thing,’ said The Bodger. ‘
Never
, on any account, put yourself in such a position that they can strike you or insult you in any way. If you see a boat-load of drunks coming off, don’t stick your head over the guardrail and shout down to them or as sure as fate some witty Jolly Jack will answer you. Make the boat lie off. They can lie off all night if necessary. They’ll calm down when they see they’re not going to get on board until they’ve quietened down. When they do come on board, get away out of it and let the Royal Marine fisting party take charge of them. You’ll hear dozens of stories, though most of them are apocryphal, of Officers of the Watch being chased round and round the quarterdeck by intoxicated matelots armed with razors, knives, stilettos, bill-hooks or pickaxes, depending on the locality. The object of the chase is not, as you might well suppose, to provide the Quartermaster and the Bosun’s Mate with a source of innocent merriment nor is it to give exercise to the constipated and enervated officers of H.M. Ships. The idea is simply to prevent the man increasing the seriousness of the charge against him from one of drunkenness to one of striking an officer. Coming off shore drunk is classed as a regrettable but human failing. The chap loses one day’s pay. But striking an officer is another thing altogether. It used to be punishable by what was called flogging round the fleet, so many lashes at the gangway of each ship. Even now it carries the heaviest penalties in the Naval Discipline Act, formulated and instrumented by the Articles of War. The chap is placed under Close Arrest at once and will be damn lucky to escape a court martial. So be warned. If you see a drunk coming, don’t stand in front of him flaunting your gold lace or you’ll get thumped and rightly so. I can guarantee that if you’re ever Officer of the Watch and you get clobbered by a libertyman
you’ll
see the Commander the next morning as well and he’ll give you the biggest bollocking you ever had in your life for being such a bloody fool as to let him do it. Who decides when a man is drunk? Dewberry?’

‘The Medical Officer, sir.’

‘Wrong. The
Officer of the Watch
decides whether a man is capable of carrying out his duty. He can consult the Medical Officer if he thinks the man’s ill or the man claims to be drugged, but the Officer of the Watch, and the Officer of the Watch only, decides whether a man is drunk. So remember that. If you are the Officer of the Watch at the time then you will be the man the Commander will ask. Not the Medical Officer.’

The cadets who remembered The Bodger’s advice found it sound when the time came to test it. They found this was true of all The Bodger’s advice. The Bodger had been a midshipman when war broke out and in the following six years he had learned more than he could have done in twenty years of peace time service. His acute observation and wry sense of humour had built up a fund of anecdotes and epigrams which the Beattys understood and remembered more easily than text-book diagrams. The Bodger had no patience with books and had the greatest difficulty in imparting information through a set series of lectures. But once The Bodger began to reminisce the Beattys were allowed a glimpse of their future lives and problems.

The Bodger taught the Beattys how to run a wardroom wine account at a profit and not be court martialled for securing the mess funds; how to maintain a tailor’s bill so that the tailors never threatened through their solicitors, although the bill was never actually cleared; how to appear to be drinking drink for drink with an official guest and remain sober; and how to play golf with Admirals and tennis with their daughters, without blighting their own careers or becoming engaged. The Bodger told the Beattys the classical opening conversational gambits for an official cocktail party in a foreign port; the proper facial expression and demeanour of an officer trying to reach a difficult decision in public watched by critical ratings; and the appropriate words of condolence, congratulation or enthusiasm when addressing a senior officer who has been passed over for promotion, become a father, or had an idea. The Bodger warned the Beattys of paper collars, of mixing the malt and the grape, of not drawing trumps, of backing ante-post, of marrying too early, and of drinking alone or when they had work to do. The Bodger gave freely of his own experience and the Beattys began to see him, not as a man disinterested in the service and in cadets, but as a man who had learned by bitter trial and error and who was interested in the cadets’ welfare and anxious that they should do well. The Bodger was perhaps the best sort of officer, one who served the Navy with no illusions but still with love.

The Beattys themselves were by now a recognised term of personalities instead of a list of names and an anonymous mass of faces. Although The Bodger was not a sporting man in any expert sense he knew the good effect on a divisional officer’s reputation of his term’s success at sport, and The Bodger realised that this present term of Beattys, although lazy, although unquestionably the worst term at drill in living memory, and although they had the longest defaulters’ list the College had known for twenty years, were exceptional at all games.

The progress of the summer term’s sporting events was a series of triumphs which provided The Bodger with a constant source of pride and gratification. There was the day when the Beattys beat the rest of the College by five runs. This was the match in which Paul opened the Beatty innings and carried his bat for an exquisite century. It was also the match in which the inimitable Maconochie, fielding very close to the bat, brought the Dartmouth innings to an end by catching the ball in his groin.

Another memorable day for The Bodger was the Sailing Regatta. The River Dart became for that day a scene of seething nautical activity, with much bending on of lines, hoisting of sails, dipping of lugs and casting off of painters to a running accompaniment of shouts of ‘Luff up!’ ‘Check that sheet!’, ‘Lee-oh!’ and even ‘Fore!’ David Bowie and Tom Bowles carried off the dinghy races between them, Peter Cleghorn showed an unsuspected--and unrepeated--talent for sailing in winning the whaler race, while Mr Froud won the Officers and Masters Race with a crew of Beattys.

Mr Froud’s crew included Michael and Paul who normally went to the river only when forced but who, finding themselves temporarily in the House of Rimmon, philosophically hauled on lines and shifted their weights forward or aft as directed by the Cadet Gunner. They found that Mr Froud, out of uniform and into a boat, suffered a sea-change and became one of the most kindly and charming of men.

Mr Froud was not a sailing enthusiast. He sailed a boat once a year, at the Regatta. His boat was always a cutter and his crew always six Beattys whom he had singled out as being unlikely to become Gunnery Officers. Mr Froud cared nothing for the subtleties of sailing. One starting gun was very like another and Mr Froud watched with almost oriental detachment whilst other boats, manned by officers, masters and cadets who were conscious that the eye of the world was upon them, made a sliding, drifting melee at the starting line. Meanwhile Mr Froud concentrated on the cold chicken and bottled beer which his wife had provided and ordered his crew to do likewise.

When his race started and Mr Froud looked about him at the blue water, the curve of the sail and the green combes of Devon on either side he said: ‘I wish my small daughter was here,’ and his crew understood him.

It was Mr Froud’s custom to sing as the end of the race came near, and when he crossed the finishing line with the tiller in one hand and a bottle of Pale Ale in the other, chanting the opening staves of ‘The Harlot of Jerusalem,’ the Beattys in his boat felt that for an afternoon they had shared the company of a great and good man.

The Beattys’ own private sporting events also made The Bodger hug his sides. There was the Obstacle Race in the gymnasium when Spink, who had never before mastered the science of climbing a rope, amazed the P.T.I, by swarming with galvanic speed using his hands only to the top of the rope and sticking there, petrified with fright. When the P.T.I, exhorted him to-- ‘Come
down
, lad. Come down ‘and over ‘and like I showed you’ Spink slid to the bottom and was led away to the Sick Bay with rope burns.

Spink was not the only casualty. The Beattys’ success had not been achieved without cost. In the Sick Bay Spink joined Maconochie who had lain spreadeagled in bed since the day of the cricket match; the india-rubber Cartwright whom Nemesis had overtaken and thrown from the high bar, with a broken collar-bone; and the Burmese Starboard Tak, who had nearly drowned at the Swimming Regatta. Starboard Tak had been carried to the Sick Bay after the P.T.I, had forced from his lungs a quantity of liquid which resembled muddy Irrawaddy river water.

The last landmarks of the summer term were the Passing Out Divisions and the Prizegiving after it. The Beattys were not eligible for most of the prizes and watched unmoved while diminutive cadets from other terms doubled up to receive prizes for the winning Prize Essay on ‘Nelson in Naples’ and the award for the Fastest-Tied Reef Knot of the term. The prizegiving Admiral’s speech afterwards, however, affected everybody.

The visiting Admiral was one of that handful of naval officers who have been in the public eye for as long as the public can remember. His exploits about Town as a young lieutenant, his Victoria Cross, his eye-patch and his aquiline shaving cream advertisement type of features had made for him a place in the public affection seldom equalled by any officer. At the time of speaking he was the nearest thing to Beatty since Beatty himself. Privately, inside the service, he was known as the man who was determined, when the time came, to shake the base of the old saw that First Sea Lords may come and First Sea Lords may go, but civil servants go on for ever.

This was the man who faced the cadets from his dais, looking quizzically at the rows of faces, as though he were already casting them for the film of his life story.

The cadets were just as interested in looking at the Admiral. They all knew that this man was above the common run of Admirals, an international celebrity whose personality commanded a place not only in the headlines of the
Daily Disaster
but also in the more exclusive captions of
The Tatler and Bystander
. The cadets were keen to hear what this magnificent man, who bore the palm before the majestic world, would have to say to such insignificant dross as themselves; they were curious to know upon what meat had this Caesar fed that he had grown so great.

The Admiral distributed the last prizes, shot his cuffs, glanced at the clock and prepared to speak.

‘Very soon, gentlemen,’ said the Admiral, ‘you will be serving as midshipmen in the fleet. I don’t think any of you realise at the moment just what an important part you have to play in the fleet. When I was Captain of my own ship I paid very close attention to my midshipmen, closer than they welcomed. When you’re a midshipman you’re nearer to the sailors than you will ever be again in your service career. If there’s any trouble in the ship, the midshipmen will know about it. If there is anything wrong in a ship which the officers don’t know about, then it’s the midshipmen’s fault for not knowing.

‘That position brings its responsibilities. Nobody expects a midshipman to know very much. I didn’t expect mine to know anything. I was very pleased when they showed that they did. They were young and they made plenty of mistakes. That didn’t matter. I’ve made plenty myself.’

The senior officers, masters and other important people who were seated behind the Admiral like subsidiary gods ranged behind Jove on Olympus, looked incredulous, as though they had just heard Jove admit that his thunderbolts sometimes missed.

‘I didn’t mind them making mistakes. But what I did mind and what did annoy me very much was them failing to try to do their duty as leaders. All of you are going to be leaders in the Navy. Your duty will be to lead men by your personal example and your own officer-like qualities. And don’t think you’re home and dry already and you know it all. You’ve only got the uniform so far and you’re only here through the efforts of your parents. From here on, it’s up to you and nobody else. Your men will never follow you if they don’t respect you. If my midshipmen had the courage to do their best all the time, to stick to their principles and to speak out when the time came, then I backed them up. I’ll give you an example of what I mean.’

The subsidiary gods showed interest. A ripple of preparation ran through them. As clearly as though the words had been spoken, the message ran--’Funny story coming up!’

‘Early in the war when we were at action stations in the Channel I wanted to speak to my ship’s company over the main broadcast. I began to speak and I was surprised that I couldn’t hear my voice coming over the bridge repeater. I tried again and still nothing happened. Just as I was giving up in disgust and deciding to send for my Electrical Officer, a young midshipman, I think he was Navigating Officer’s Tanky, stepped up and said: “If you took the microphone cover off, sir, and switched on the transmitter, I think it would work, sir.” And so it was. I’d forgotten in the heat of the moment. I didn’t say anything to that midshipman myself but afterwards I overheard my Navigating Officer take that midshipman aside and say: “I know you’re new to this and don’t know the form, old man, but let me tell you that it’s an old service custom that Captains are not given bottles by midshipmen!” ‘