Good Enough For Nelson

by John Winton

  The Bodger had qualities of native resourcefulness, not to say deviousness. He knew his Navy, its works and its quirks. Like one of Napoleon’s favourite generals, The Bodger was lucky, and like Brer Rabbit’s Tar Baby, he knew when to lay low and say nothing. Now, he was older, a little more battered, perhaps a little less resilient. Like Odysseus, he was one who had in the past suffered much in the wars and from the waves. But, above all, The Bodger was a survivor and his very presence, there on the parade ground at Dartmouth, was living proof that it always pays to persevere. In himself, The Bodger felt that he was coming home, and, at the same time, that he was faced by the most exacting challenge of his whole career.

  The Bodger drove slowly up and round the ramp, following in the wake of McAllester’s second circuit. On his way, he noticed once again the several small cannon, some wheeled and rather elegant, others dumpy and ballistically improbable, but all captured by Victorian junior naval officers and brought home from some far-flung foreign field that was for ever Henty. Now, they were visible relics of an old Navy way of doing things, employing labour traditionally rather than productively. Every morning, the colour parties burnished the already shining barrels and chasings of these guns, consuming prodigious amounts of metal polish and elbow grease in this ritual, as though to propitiate some vengeful maritime god who would devastate the College with his lightnings if his phallic bright- work were not sacrificially massaged every morning early.

  Driving past the main entrance, The Bodger looked momentarily across and caught a glimpse of the faces there, all awakening to the knowledge of his arrival. Heads turned to follow his progress, and he knew that his motor-car’s make, age, colour, and registration numbers were now immortal, inscribed for ever on the College memory as though graven on tablets of stone, to be passed on from hall porter to hall porter, sentry to sentry, duty officer to duty officer, and from watch to relieving watch.

  The Captain’s House was another projecting wing at the opposite end of the parade ground to the wardroom. Jimmy Forster-Jones, the outgoing Captain, was already waiting at the door to welcome his successor. Jimmy was one of The Bodger’s oldest friends (and his appointment, too, as Captain of the College had been taken by the pundits as further conclusive evidence that the training of young naval officers had been turned into a circus). The Bodger had relieved Jimmy in more than one appointment, and Jimmy had been The Bodger’s best man. He was taller than The Bodger but stood with a perpetual stoop as though trying to shrug a constantly irksome weight from his shoulders. His face was large and fleshy, and dropped in folds rather like a bloodhound’s. His eyes were deepset and somewhat mournful. But now he wore that singular expression which The Bodger knew so very well from his own experience, in which relief was tinged with regret, and anticipation of the future was shaded by memories of the past. They shook hands together in a moment which was both a beginning and an end, typical of a naval life which had always been made up of new faces and old ships, hoisting up and hauling down, fresh starts and ancient customs.

  ‘I can’t tell you how good it is to see you again, Bodger!’

  ‘And good to see you, too, James.’

  ‘I heard you’d arrived...’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I just...’ Jimmy looked genuinely puzzled. ‘I got a message from the main entrance. But I knew anyway. It was sort of in the air. I heard your car coming over that bump in the driveway and I thought, that’s him! And then I saw you standing down by the flagstaff.’

  ‘I must say, it’s reassuring to see that nothing has changed, Jimmy.’

  ‘Nothing has changed?’ Jimmy stopped and blinked. ‘Why Bodger, everything’s changed! It always was a bit of a madhouse, but it’s got really serious now. We go in for training now, Bodger. We always used to leave that to places like Whale Island. Kept them from going broody. We only used to bother about Officer-Like Qualities. I never knew what they were, exactly, but I used to mark people for them. But you know all this, Bodger; you were here, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes I was, and I suppose training was a rather over-heated word to use for what went on at Dartmouth, now you mention it, Jimmy.’

  ‘Anyway, come in, come in; welcome to the mad-house. This probably hasn’t changed much. If it weren’t for the draughts, it would be the best married quarters in the whole Andrew.’ Even with the draughts, the Captain’s House at Dartmouth was still one of the nearest approaches to true gracious living of any of the Navy’s official residences. It was comfortable, although it looked as though it needed at least twelve more servants than any man could reasonably afford to keep it running properly. It had an hospitable atmosphere, although some of its rooms were just too big for their purpose and others just too small. Successive Captain’s wives had done their best, the Ministry of Works had consistently done its worst, but the house had kept its air of unshakable Edwardian authority. It all smelled of polish and a faded pot-pourri of roses, and the rooms retained a faint, lingering resonance of bygone royalty, as though Edward VII had only just taken away the massive silver-crested humidor he left behind in ‘07 or ‘08; and the shade of George V, the Sailor King, still sat pensively at the escritoire in the corner, still sticking British Empire postage stamps into a heavy brown leather album, with gilt lettering and the royal coat of arms embossed on the spine.

  A steward in a white coat brought in a coffee jug, milk and two cups on a silver tray.

  ‘Just a minute,’ said The Bodger. ‘Chief Petty Officer Purvis, isn’t it?’

  ‘It is sir!’ said Purvis, beaming all over his large red face. ‘We served on the old Superb together, sir. And great days they were, sir. It’s a pleasure to see you here, sir.’

  ‘And a pleasure to see you, too, Purvis.’

  ‘I hope to have a yarn with you about the old Superb, sir.’

  ‘I hope we shall, Purvis.’

  ‘If you’ll excuse me, sir,’ said Purvis, nodding to Jimmy, ‘I’ll get on with me knives and forks now.’ With which professional nunc dimittis, and still beaming widely, Purvis took his departure.

  Jimmy sipped his coffee reflectively. ‘I should watch those yarns of Purvis’s about the old Superb, or anything else. Once you get Purvis started, it’s like activating Niagara Falls. Now tell me, Bodger, how the hell did you get this job?’

  ‘You know me, Jimmy. That’s the story of my life. Every time I get a new job people come rushing up to me saying how did you do it? All I can say is, I got it because of my superior diligence, attention to detail, absolute command of every situation in my last appointment, a brilliant intellect, superb professional expertise, combined with a willingness at all times to give and not to count the cost, to labour and not to seek for rest, and all the rest of that ullage.’

  ‘What you’re saying, Bodger, is that Their Lordships are at last beginning to appreciate your capabilities.’

  ‘Exactly so, Jimmy.’

  ‘And how do you feel about it, now that you’re here?’

  ‘It’s hard to say,’ said The Bodger. ‘Seriously, I feel excited, and nervous and scared. I want to rush in and get involved, change things, and at the same time I’m terrified of making an ass of myself. As I remember it, Dartmouth is a merciless sort of place. You can come a bigger cropper here than anywhere. I feel I’m the guardian of a whole new future of young people who are starting off. In some sense I’m also the custodian of the past. This is where it all begins and ends ...’

  ‘I say, Bodger,’ said Jimmy, looking really alarmed. ‘I shouldn’t go on like that if I were you, you’ll frighten everybody into fits, all that about guardians and custodians and all that …’

  ‘I just feel a tremendous responsibility, that’s all...’

  ‘Of course you do, Bodger, but don’t go on about it, you’ll give everybody heart attacks. It’s enough of a mad-house as it is, without the Captain of the College going on like an Old Testament prophet!’

  The window panes rattled tinnily. The GI was still in action. ‘That rathe
r fierce GI down there, Jimmy, what’s his name?’

  ‘Him? That’s Petty Officer Pounter.’

  ‘I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Quite a naval family. His father was a GI, too. Got two brothers, one a master-at-arms, the other a sergeant in the Marines. Makes you wonder what the hell their mother fed them on, doesn’t it? Shall we have a wander round, Bodger, and I’ll show you some of the menagerie?’

  The Bodger was still marvelling at the revelation of Pounter’s identity. ‘It’s nice to know such families still exist,’ he said. But for a moment of uncharacteristic weakness, The Bodger suddenly felt stout, and slow, and old. Like Sassoon’s scarlet major at the base, he could now say of a young man, ‘used to know his father well’.

  Petty Officer Pounter’s assistant of the moment was an officer from a foreign navy. The Bodger had looked at the lists before he came and he knew that there were normally officers of some sixteen or seventeen different nationalities under training at Dartmouth at any given time. They did broadly the same course, with allowances made for language difficulties and special national requirements.

  This young man was short and swarthy and looked rather overweight. He marched with an ungainly, unmilitary waddling gait which the pastel-blue, lightweight cloth of his baggy uniform accentuated. The Bodger could not recognise the uniform or the cap badge.

  Jimmy had followed The Bodger’s gaze. ‘He’s one of the Internationals. What the Chief’s Mess call “our tinted friends”. Normally known here collectively and botanically as the Royal Gromboolian Navies.’

  ‘Mr Syllabub, sir!

  Petty Officer Pounter’s exquisite diction and carefully enunciated consonants rolled across the parade ground like heavy rocks plunging into a lily pool.

  ‘Mr Syllabub, sir!’ Like many of the British petty officers, Pounter could not get his tongue round some of the foreign names and had to arrive at his own phonetic approximation. ‘There may be a word for you in your language, Mr Syllabub, sir, but shall I tell what you look like from where I’m standing ‘ere? Yore marching like you had two hairs in your arse tied together, sir!’

  The phrase’s perfect description of Syllabub’s action distracted The Bodger for some time from the enormity of the insult.

  ‘Don’t they mind that sort of thing?’

  ‘No,’ said Jimmy, ‘not a bit. They love it. Lap it up, dear boy, positively lap it up. They think it’s all part of our system, and that’s what they’re paying for. They’d be disappointed if they didn’t get the whole works. Rather like the graduate officers from university when they first came here. Because they were a bit older and a damned sight better educated than the College was used to, there was a tendency rather to fight shy of them and treat them with kid gloves. Never had so many brains in the College before, and there was a feeling they shouldn’t run about so much. Might be bad for them or something. But they were vaguely disappointed. Felt they were missing something, in some way. So now we treat everybody in the same appalling way. Of course, you’ve got to remember that Pounter’s a bit of a character, and he knows it, and he knows you’re watching. He has a reputation to live up to. You should have seen him last term when he had a squad of padres here. My goodness he used to chase them up and down that parade ground, shrieking “Onward Christian sailors, sir!”.’

  ‘Well,’ said The Bodger. ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’

  ‘Actually, we’ve got three new Gromboolian Navies here this term. It’s a bit of an experiment for them. Very sensitive politically. At least, how to pull off a military coup and take over the government isn’t on the syllabus here, as it seems to be at Sandhurst. But seriously, everybody on our side is anxious that they are happy. Don’t want them to go behind the Iron Curtain. If they do, if they’re unhappy, then certain heads will roll. It may have a bearing on the future of this College, too. Perhaps if we can prove our usefulness at training foreign officers, they’ll let us carry on training our own.’

  Jimmy looked at his watch. The Bodger recognised it.

  ‘Didn’t your Mama give you that for giving up smoking when we were mids together?’

  ‘That’s the one. And I’m still smoking like a chimney. More so since I got here.’

  ‘Is it that bad?’

  ‘Bodger, it’s a battlefield. You wait and see. Now what shall we rush at first? What would you like to see?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘Make it so. Everything it is.’

  CHAPTER II

  The Bodger and Jimmy Forster-Jones stood for a moment on the parapet in the sunshine. The Bodger’s eye was caught, as it had been so many times in the past, by the view from the College, looking out over the river Dart, the town and harbour, out to the far blue sea.

  ‘Lord,’ he said, admiringly, ‘you can see just why they put the College here. It’s an absolutely marvellous place for it. Hills, fields, woods, harbour, boats, river, headland, then the sea, it makes you actually want to get out there. Must be something to do with the perspective. Everything so clear close by, so hazy and mysterious out there. When I was here before, it never failed me. Whenever I was feeling a bit down, or fed up, or getting the feeling that it wasn’t worth it, all I had to do was look out there, and I could see what it was all about, what the end result was going to be. Think of all the blokes who’ve gone out of this harbour. They served all over the world. A hell of a lot of them died. They all started here.’

  Jimmy had been listening to The Bodger with mounting consternation. ‘I say, Bodger, do watch it. There’s not a dry eye in the house. You’re going to have to be careful about this romantic touch. It doesn’t suit the young men of today, you know. They’re looking for a steady administrative job with an index-linked pension when they retire. Sea-borne bank managers, that’s what they are, and not so sea-borne, either. Anyway, all I know about this harbour is that a bloody cold wind comes whipping up it in the winter, I can tell you.’

  The College, as always, looked as though it was posing for a picture postcard photograph, but beneath that scenic serenity The Bodger found the old fevers still raging. Under the surface, Dartmouth was always in a frantic state of tension compounded by competition and contest. There was no way to stop people competing against each other at Dartmouth - indeed competition was in the air they breathed, injected into their syllabus, encouraged by words, deeds and example. Wherever two or more officers under training were gathered together, they at once divided into divisions and began to play, run, swim, jump, climb, pull or sail against each other. Their competitive spirits were stoked to ever higher degree by their own desire to do well at the College in the face of an uncertain future, and by their divisional officers’ own professional ambitions and the vicarious successes they derived from their divisions’ feats.

  Everywhere The Bodger went, he saw signs of this manic urge to compete, so that afterwards he wondered whether his tour of that day had not all been part of some frantic dream. It was not just the activity on the playing fields, and in the gymnasium and on the river. The College birds sang as though against the stop-watch. The College grasshoppers whirred as though Pounter’s eye was upon them. The College horses looked fit enough to jump out of their skins, and even the Britannia beagles, though it was summer, looked trained to the inch. The motor-mower driver on the golf course, The Bodger saw, was wearing huge leather gauntlets, goggles, and a large round bright red crash helmet. As The Bodger passed, the mower came round one comer of the fairway almost on two rollers. The driver swayed outwards as he steered his machine madly off in another direction, with a grinding clashing of gears and a rising roar from the engine.

  ‘What’s he up to?’

  The mower skidded sideways on to another green. The driver was hunched grimly over the steering handles.

  ‘He’s trying to mow the whole course in two hours, twenty minutes.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘Because the present record is two and a half hours.’

  I
n the wardroom galley, the staff of cooks were opening cans of soup like men demented, their heads nodding together rhythmically, their hands a blur of rapid movement. Empty cans were rattling like spent cartridge-cases in a pile in a large bin. The number ‘29’ was chalked on a board beside the door. The chief cook was adding chalk marks to a row, one every few seconds. Jimmy exchanged a knowing nod with him.

  ‘That’s ‘how many cans six men managed to open in a minute yesterday,’ he told The Bodger. ‘They’re trying to go one better today.’

  Outside the wardroom, The Bodger paused to look at an ornamental column, which stood as tall as man’s eye, with a dramatic arrangement of various flowers, leaves, grasses and creepers sprouting or hanging from it. Somebody had clearly been to a deal of trouble. Jimmy took out a card which had been hidden somewhere under the jungle of foliage. He showed The Bodger the number written on it, ‘42’.