We Joined The Navy (3 page)

‘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.

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 and 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.

‘Pity your father couldn’t see you now, George,’ boomed George’s mother. ‘He’d have had a stroke.’

‘Why, mater?’

‘He told me a thousand times before he died that any son of his would join the Navy over his dead body. You have, so buck up and look cheerful about it, my lad.’

‘I’ll try, mater.’

‘Looking at some of these little tykes you shouldn’t do too badly.’

‘Yes, mater.’

George Dewberry put a finger in the rim of his cap and lifted it from the position of equilibrium it had assumed over his ears. The naval outfitters had given him a cap many sizes too large.

George Dewberry was philosophical about it; it was only one and a minor one of the inconveniences of joining the Navy.

Tom Bowles was alone and walked up the platform and straight into a carriage.

Michael Hobbes was seen off by his mother and father and his eldest sister Susan. Michael was the first of his family to join the Navy and the news that he was about to do so had sent an electric tremor along the family grapevine only equalled by a birth or a marriage. His immediate family were delighted and particularly Susan who was captivated by the uniform. When Susan had first seen Michael in his uniform she had been struck dumb by his transformation from the chrysalis of a rather odious elder brother into the glorious butterfly of a Cadet, Royal Navy. She had regarded him with almost worshipping eyes but now that she saw so many other young men, all in the same magical dress, she was more critical of her brother.

‘They’re quite a lot of them taller than you, aren’t there?’ she said to Michael when they arrived on the platform.

‘Oh shut up. You’re supposed to be seeing me off, not making funny remarks.’

Michael tried to conceal his nervousness.

‘It’s almost like going back to school again isn’t it Michael?’ said his mother.

His mother knew more certainly than any other person in the family that they were about to lose him. She sensed that the break which was just approaching would be far more permanent than a return to school. She also sensed her son’s fear of the future.

‘Don’t you think it’s like going back to school, Michael?’

‘Almost.’

‘Remember to write now, won’t you, and let us know if you’re doing all right.’

‘Yes, mum.’

‘Got your ticket?’

‘Yes, mum.’

‘Handkerchief?’

‘Yes, mum.’

‘Michael, don’t be such a drip,’ said Susan. ‘You’ll be back in three months. Which are the boys who are going to be captains?’

‘How on earth should I know? I’ve never seen them before in my life.’

As the time of departure came nearer, each cadet and his attendant circle tended to draw away from the rest. The families’ reactions varied from the stoical to the wildly tearful. Some families regarded their sons coldly and unemotionally, like Red Indian families sending their young braves out to fight against the white man. Others nearby wept and embraced each other, as though they were saying farewell to their boys before they disappeared into the gas-chamber.

A whistle blew. Mrs Vincent was almost extinguished behind her lace handkerchief and her veil. She could find no words to say to her son at this moment but hugged him tight.

‘Here,’ said Cedric, taking a five pound note from his wallet. ‘Don’t spend it all on one woman.’

The whistle blew twice.

George Dewberry’s mother opened her handbag, which appeared to have been hacked from the carcass of an otter.

‘Here is your ticket, George,’ she said. ‘I’ve kept it as long as I can. You’ll have to look after it yourself now.’

George and his mother kissed briefly, like horses recognising each other.

A third time the whistle blew. Michael Hobbes hurriedly kissed his mother and his sister. He shook hands with his father.

‘I suppose I really ought to have given you some advice,’ said Mr Hobbes. He held out a pound note. ‘Don’t take up smoking too early.’

The whistle blew again, in exasperation. There was a rush to the carriage doors. Michael Hobbes got in with Paul Vincent and George Dewberry. There was another cadet already sitting in the fourth corner.

The train began to move out of the platform. Michael Hobbes leant out and waved and afterwards remembered nothing more of the final parting from his old life than faces sliding by, handkerchiefs waving and a shrouding blast of steam and smoke as they left the platform behind.

The four cadets, in their four corners, surveyed each other.

The fourth cadet in the compartment was a red-faced, belligerent-looking boy with sandy hair and pouting lips. His tie drooped down his collar, exposing his front stud, as though it had been tied by hands unaccustomed to stiff collars. A copy of
Life’s Snags
, by Baden-Powell, lay on the seat beside him. Paul looked the red-faced cadet up and down and addressed himself to Michael.

‘Michael Hobbes, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Weren’t we at the interview together?’

‘That’s right,’ said Michael. ‘You’re Paul Vincent.’

‘How right,’ said Paul. He turned to George Dewberry. ‘You’re Horace, aren’t you?’

George Dewberry winced.

‘That’s one of my names, but everybody calls me George,’ he said.

‘My name is Edward Maconochie,’ announced the red-faced cadet, suddenly.

‘Splendid fellow,’ murmured Paul. He took up a copy of
The Connoisseur
and began to read it. He had summed Maconochie up already and his manner clearly showed that his conversation with Maconochie had been an ideal one. It had been short, concise, to the point, and was now closed. But Edward Maconochie was not so easily put off.

‘The Troop called me Ted,’ he said.

‘You mustn’t believe everything people say,’ remarked Paul. He turned back to
The Connoisseur
again. But still Maconochie was not discouraged.