We Joined The Navy (8 page)

Raymond Ball was superficially the same as Maconochie but he differed in one important aspect. Maconochie’s self-confidence was easily shattered; Raymond Ball’s never would be. The Bodger thought him very promising material for that reason. Raymond Ball’s allegiance was, like Paul’s, to himself but unlike Paul’s it would never be to anything else. Raymond Ball would make a successful naval officer until the time came for him to make a choice between the Navy and himself.

Tom Bowles was in a class quite by himself. Once in twenty years there arrives at a gymnasium a boy whom the trainers and managers recognise immediately as a natural fighter and a probable champion. Similarly at Dartmouth, in about the same period of time, a boy joins the Navy whom the training staff know is the one they have been looking for. Such a boy is the final goal of the interviewing board and the consummation of their hopes, the boy cut out, marked and destined for the highest rewards the Royal Navy offered.

One last and very small category of Beattys, headed by Dewberry and Spink, allowed nothing to trouble them. They plunged from place to place as they were directed but they neither hurried nor did they fuss. They had already decided that joining the Navy had been a ghastly mistake and nothing now could make it any more so. The Bodger worried about these cadets but saw no solution except to ease them out of the Navy as soon as possible.

‘Some time next week you are all going to spend a day in an aircraft carrier. Those of you who want to be pilots, and there are bound to be some, I suppose, will have a chance to see the kind of thing a Fleet Air Arm pilot does. Those of you who don’t want to be pilots will see what you’re escaping. Now I’m not going to try to influence you one way or the other about flying. It’s quite immaterial to me how you end your miserable existences but speaking as a small ship man myself, I personally want to see my grandchildren running round my knees and piping in childish treble voices: “What did you do during the war, Grandaddy?” and I shall say: “Say thank you now to Grandaddy for not being a pilot during the war else you wouldn’t be here to ask that”.’

The Bodger paused and regarded his audience. The Beattys stared back solemnly. It was impossible to tell from their expressions whether they were contemplating the life of an aviator or merely imagining one of The Bodger’s grandchildren.

‘Whether you like the idea of flying or not,’ continued The Bodger, ‘there isn’t one of you here who won’t be directly concerned with the Fleet Air Arm some time during your service career. Some of you will actually be pilots or observers. Some of you will serve on air stations. Most of you will go to carriers when you go to sea. You will all be concerned in some way. Flying now is the main armament of the Navy. It’s here to stay in a big way and you’d better get used to it.’

The Bodger need not have used such emphasis. He was addressing members of a generation who had never known a world without aircraft, to whom the most refined techniques of aerial warfare, up to and including the nuclear bomb, were commonplace. They had been in their cradles when Kingsford-Smith flew the Pacific and Byrd flew over the South Pole, toddlers when Amy Johnson reached Australia, and they were starting kindergarten when the Luftwaffe were trying their wings over Spain. They had been the first generation in the history of the world to look out of a class-room window on a summer afternoon and see a fleet of heavy bombers in the sky. Their lessons were learnt to the running undertone, like distant gunfire, of the great deeds of Taranto,
Ark Royal
, the hunt for the
Bismarck
, the bursting of the dams, Midway and the Battle of the Coral Sea. They had collected pieces of shrapnel and the tailfins of incendiary bombs as assiduously as they had earlier collected sea-shells and pebbles and they had all wanted to be pilots when they grew up with as fierce a desire as they had previously wanted to be engine-drivers. The techniques of survival had become as familiar to them as the school time-table. They marched by classes down to the shelters, in dressing-gowns and carrying their cocoa-cups, as unconcernedly as though they were filing into morning prayers. They enjoyed air raids and a boy who was fortunate enough to have his home bombed became a school celebrity and was pointed out as such to visiting parents.

Although the Beattys had forgotten details, traces of their knowledge, like the last instinctive remnants of an ancient lore, still remained and taken as an average the Beattys knew more about aircraft than The Bodger--a small ship man on his own admission--knew himself.

The question of whether or not to be a pilot caused sharp differences of opinion amongst the Beattys. Although The Bodger’s speech could hardly qualify as a recruiting talk, it reminded the Beattys that sooner or later in the Navy they would be called upon to choose the particular specialisation, within their present branch, in which they wished to serve.

Tom Bowles was the leader of the faction who wanted to be pilots. He was supported by Isaiah Nine Smith.

‘What attracts you so much about it, Tom?’ asked Michael.

‘I don’t know. It’s exciting, and it needs a lot of skill. It gives you a chance to be independent and act on your own a bit. I just know I want to do it.’

‘You get paid more, too,’ said Isaiah Nine Smith.

‘Judging by what The Bodger said, I imagine they pay you more because they don’t have to pay you for so long,’ said Paul.

‘Oh, go and get knotted,’ said Tom.

The aircraft carrier anchored off Dartmouth in the early morning and the cadets were taken off to her by drifter. They were met on board by midshipmen who split the Beattys up into parties of ten and guided them up to the island to watch the flight deck being prepared for flying.

The midshipman looking after Paul and Michael was more friendly than they had expected. He was an ex-Beatty himself.

‘I’m Tim Castlewood,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to show you characters what gives in this mighty vessel. How’s Beatty these days? Is old Froud still spitting fire and brimstone?’

‘He is,’ said Paul.

‘He’s O.K. when you get to know him. You should hear him singing “The Harlot of Jerusalem”.’

Paul tried to imagine Mr Froud singing ‘The Harlot of Jerusalem,’ but his imagination jibbed. It was easier to imagine the Loch Ness Monster singing ‘Annie Laurie.’

Tim Castlewood led the way out on to a narrow platform jutting out from the island. He took off his cap.

‘Off caps, fellows. No caps allowed while flying is in progress.’

‘What’s the idea of that?’ asked Maconochie.

‘It might blow off and get in a pilot’s way or get caught in something. It’s safer to take them off and hold them in your hands while you’re goofing.’

‘Goofing?’

‘Watching the flying. Anyone who watches the flying is known as a goofer. Where you’re standing now is a goofing position.’

Down below, the flight deck was being made ready for flying. Men in coloured flight deck helmets were handling aircraft off the lifts and on to the flight deck. Small red trucks drove in and out, towing aircraft to be ranged aft where more men stood waiting with chocks. Other parties were preparing the catapult loaders, laying out bridles and hold-backs, trundling starting trolleys and tail-wheel forks, and unreeling fuelling hoses. Two men in heavy white suits and steel helmets with axes thrust in their belts stood by the large flight deck mobile crane at the after end of the island. The work was directed by unintelligible barks over the flight deck broadcast.

The aircraft were ranged in two lines down each side of the after end of the flight deck. The pilots walked out from a door in the island, carrying their helmets in their hands, and manned their aircraft. A pilot’s mate in overalls leant over each cockpit and strapped the pilot in.

The carrier had increased speed and turned into the wind. The wind buffeted the island with increasing strength. The ship’s wake curved in a long crescent of eddies fringed on its outside edge by small tumbling waves.

‘We’ve got to turn into the wind,’ said Tim Castlewood. ‘We need about thirty knots over the deck. There’s quite a lot of wind today. Sometimes we boil up and down the Channel for a whole day looking for wind.’

The flight deck was silent and ready. Everything now depended upon the wind. A meteorological rating stood by the catapults with an anemometer and signalled the wind speed to the bridge.

‘When Flyco gives them the tip they’ll taxi up one by one to the catapults and be boosted off. The catapults are those two tracks you can see running up to the forrard end of the flight deck.’ Tim Castlewood was watching the wind speed signals. ‘That’s it. They’ll start up any minute now. Of course, you’ve got to remember that we’re in no hurry today. If this was an operational strike this would all be done much faster.’

A voice counted out the last seconds over the broadcast.

‘Five. Four. Three. Two. One. . . Start!’

Puffs of smoke appeared at the cowlings. An engine fired and was joined by two or three more and finally by all. The sound expanded and beat against the island until the Beattys could feel it through their shoes and in their bones. The propeller blades swung slowly and idly, spun faster, until their individual profiles merged in a shimmering disc. The two rows of inanimate aircraft were alive and throbbing. The flight deck had come to life.

Yellow-jacketed directors signalled the chocks away and motioned the aircraft forward, round and up the flight deck towards the catapults. The directors stood at intervals to accept the aircraft from each other and pass it on to their successors.

The sound grew to an almost unbearable crescendo as the first aircraft came past the island and jolted on to the catapult. The bridle and hold-back were hooked on. The Flight Deck Officer held up a green flag. The aircraft flattened its wheels on the flight deck and strained against the hold-back while the pilot opened the throttle. At full throttle the aircraft crouched on the catapult with its engine screaming, quivering in an attitude of restrained power. The group of handlers squatting between the catapults put their hands to their ears. The Flight Deck Officer whirled the green flag.

The Flight Deck Officer glanced forward, then aft, and dropped the flag. The hold-back flew apart. The aircraft shot away, skimmed along the flight deck, out over the sea and climbed away from the ship. The Flight Deck Officer turned and held up the green flag again for the next aircraft already waiting on the other catapult.

One after the other the aircraft were secured on the catapult, worked up to full power and launched from the ship. The last aircraft dipped over the end of the flight deck, while the Beattys caught their breaths, and slowly climbed again, flying in a crab-like motion sideways and upwards. The flight deck was silent again.

‘Not good,’ murmured Tim Castlewood.

‘Does anyone ever get launched straight into the sea?’ asked Maconochie.

‘Occasionally someone gets a cold shot but it’s only very occasionally and even then nine times out of ten it’s something to do with the engine. It’s not normally the catapults. This ship has never yet given anyone a cold shot. Touch wood. Most of the cheap thrills come when they’re landing on. This particular lot are pretty good though. I don’t expect we’ll see any expensive sights today,’

The flying display continued. Aircraft took off and were put through their paces. They dropped bombs and fired rockets at a splash target. They power-dived and flattened out just over the ship. They flew past the ship in formation. Every hour a fresh detail took off and the previous detail landed on. The show was beautifully timed and carried out. The flight deck drill was impeccable.

‘It’s been a good day,’ said Tim Castlewood as they watched the last aircraft fly low over the ship and turn into the landing circuit.

The batsman stood out on his small platform, shaking his flags to stream them in the wind, and waited, arms stretched and feet straddled to receive the aircraft.

As the aircraft crossed the round-down the batsman’s flags cut sharply out of sight. The aircraft appeared to hang in the air, then dropped and a burst of vapour flew from each side of the wheels as they touched the deck. The aircraft bounced, struck the deck again, missed all the wires and in a slow lazy glide curved into the barrier.

After the first sound of tearing metal there was a moment of silence, a total suspension of movement like the sudden holding of a breath. Then simultaneously the shape of the aircraft dissolved in a gout of fire and the flight deck swarmed with running figures.

Hoses were run out by men who stumbled and scrambled in their haste. Two jets of foam soared out over the fire and were followed by two more and by two more until their streams merged and covered the aircraft in a blanket of foam. The heat of the fire was intense enough to touch the cheeks of the men watching from the island. A cap dropped from the island and floated downwards. It landed in front of one of the men in fireproof suits who trod on it, kicked it into the foam, and advanced onwards into the fire. The two men in the ponderous suits vanished into the smoke and re-emerged with the pilot between them. Standing dwarfed by the helmeted inhuman figures on either side of him, the pilot looked up into the island and smiled. Paul thought it a terrible smile, like Christian’s after the death of Apollyon.

‘Jesus!’ breathed Paul. ‘I thought he’d had it.’

Tim Castlewood nodded. ‘So did he, I guess. The Martians in the suits were pretty quick or he would have had his chips. Lucky it stayed the right way up. If it had turned upside down, I reckon that character would have had the chop.’

‘Bloody idiot,’ said a pilot wearing a beret who was standing near the Beattys.

‘Why, sir?’ asked Paul.

‘Playing to the gallery. Who does he think he is, a bloody gladiator? He’s damned lucky he didn’t bounce over the side, poling his stick about like a---.’

‘You there! You with that bloody idiotic grin on your face! That
trog
there!’

The Beattys and the other goofers turned to see who was shouting.