by John Winton
‘Oh, I don’t know, Prof. One gets to hear these things in the course of a long philistine life, Prof.’
Not for the first or the last time, the Prof. left The Bodger’s office thinking that maybe there was more to the man than met the eye. The reference to philistinism had been a particularly shrewd thrust. The Prof. thought especially of his own son, with a fine scholar’s brain, who had joined a Service which was becoming an intellectual desert. But because the boy also had an athlete’s body, he was doing well in the Navy. Nevertheless, the Prof. considered it a shocking waste.
CHAPTER X
‘I hate socialists,’ said Shiner Wright, stirring his stand-easy coffee.
‘They put your pay up,’ said the Hon. John.
‘I know, and that makes me hate them all the more. I hate to have to be grateful. Anyway, I’m not grateful.’
‘And they make you think about defence generally. All these defence cuts concentrate the mind wonderfully.’
‘I don’t want to have my mind concentrated, especially by socialists. Naval officers never used to have their minds concentrated, on defence or anything else. All I can concentrate on at the moment is the fact that we’re having to clean up our part of ship as never before and all because we’ve got this bloody Minister of State for the Navy coming and he’s a socialist and I hate him.’
‘Are we getting Pinky or Perky?’
‘Good God, are there two of them?’
‘Pinky is the tall skinny gloomy one with the Geordie accent and Perky is the short fat cheeky one with the Scouse accent.
If it’s Perky, then it’s something to do with the College future. He’s been making disapproving noises about us lately.’
‘I expect it’s all in aid of his nasty little socialist ego.’
In a sense, Shiner Wright was quite right. Although none of them would ever have admitted it, even the most insignificant, talentless, joyless Labour politician enjoyed visiting ships and shore establishments. No matter who he was, whether he was some over-promoted union official, failed journalist or disillusioned lawyer, once he set foot in a naval establishment he was accorded a respect normally reserved for the memory of Lord Nelson. No matter how often he was buffeted in the House, slighted by opponents and cold-shouldered by colleagues, a Minister was always a hero on board ship.
The Bodger himself noticed the extra activity, the paint pots, the lawnmowers, the ladders and the air of preparation as he walked along the parapet with Jerry one morning after Colours.
‘What’s all this in aid of, Jerry?’
‘Visit of the Minister of State for the Navy next Tuesday, sir.’
The Bodger thought for a moment, and then shook his head. ‘It won’t do, you know. This is not the way we should be going about it, Jerry.’
‘But we normally give everything an extra chamfer-up for this sort of visit, sir.’
‘I know we do. And I think it is quite the wrong approach to take. This man and his political party have presided over the greatest decline in the Navy’s prestige and material strength since the days of Charles II. From whatever angle you look at it, we’ve now got less of it. You name it, we haven’t got it. As far as the Navy’s concerned we’re now in a period of the weakest political leadership since the seventeenth century. It would be easier to bear if these men knew how bad they were. All their defence cuts have affected us badly, affected our careers, giving us less men, less equipment, less hardware to do our jobs with. Meanwhile the politicians who make the cuts are absolutely unaffected themselves. We suffer, while they pontificate in soapy speeches about defence in the House. To them it’s just a speech. It’s our life. Not only that, but we try and pretend that everything is still all right. We cover up with extra coats of paint. Instead of showing them that the cuts are having an effect, we try and pretend they’re not. Here we have a man who has publicly announced he is going to try and close us down, and we get ready as though he were somebody. I think it’s high time we changed all that and this pointed-headed little nonentity we’ve got coming on Tuesday will do to start with. Pass the word around, I want to see all heads of departments, anybody who is any way concerned with this visit on Tuesday, to be here, in front of the main entrance, after tea this evening. I’m going to have a tour round this College and there’s going to be some changes for this visit.’
As the day came nearer, changes were indeed visible. Normally, for such an occasion the College would have presented the appearance of an already taut organisation wound up a few notches more tightly. But this time the College had a curiously ungirt look, as though planning had been deliberately left unplanned, as though in fact the College had been preparing through a kind of calculated unpreparedness.
Buster brought his helicopter once more thrashing over the College roofs to the cleared car park. The waiting welcoming party saw, without visible excitement, that it was Perky, not Pinky, disembarking. No sooner had he stepped out on to the College tarmac than he was unceremoniously bustled aside and very nearly jostled off his feet by a rush of wardroom stewards who ran forward and began to unload the sacks of potatoes which had been stowed, to Perky’s considerable amazement, round his feet during the flight. Still puzzled, Perky stood for a moment, watching the stewards tossing out the sacks, one after the other.
The Bodger stood, grinning, at the salute. ‘Good morning, Minister,’ he shouted, at the top of his voice. ‘Welcome to the Britannia Royal Naval College!’
‘Good morning, Captain,’ said Perky, still staring bemusedly over his shoulder at the potatoes, as he shook hands.
‘Knew you wouldn’t mind sharing your cab with our spuds,’ boomed The Bodger hospitably. He cleared his throat. Bellowing at this pitch was already taking its toll. ‘It’s a question of expense, Minister. Can’t afford all the chopper runs we used to have. In the old days, before the defence cuts of ’64, you would have had a special chopper all to yourself. Now we have to double up and make do as best we can. We were sure you wouldn’t mind, Minister. All in the good cause of cutting defence expenditure.’
‘No, no, not at all,’ said Perky, in an unconvinced tone of voice.
‘One moment, Minister.’ The Bodger took a couple of sacks from one steward and hurled them to another. ‘From me ... to you,’ he carolled, deafeningly. Catching Perky’s astounded eye, The Bodger shrugged, and wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘All have to muck in these days, Minister. Short of hands, you know. These defence cuts are really getting home to us now, you’ll be happy to hear. Can I introduce my heads of departments, Minister?’
The Bodger led the way along the short receiving line, of the Prof., Jerry and Isaiah Nine Smith. They were introduced and shook hands in turn.
‘Would have been many more in the old days, Minister,’ The Bodger bellowed. ‘But the cuts of ’56 put paid to them all. You know all about that, though. ’Nough said.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Perky.
‘Shall I lead the way?’ The Bodger led Perky to the parade ground by a most involved route, which would have puzzled the College architect. It was a tour past the maximum number of doors badly needing fresh coats of paint and windows either boarded up or temporarily repaired with strips of sticky brown paper. There were holes in the pathway underfoot, and missing paving stones, and piles of rubble which looked as if they had been there since the last war. One especially large hole had water lying in its bottom, and it was fenced off with a warning board and a red road-mender’s lantern.
‘Mind how you go, Minister,’ warned The Bodger solicitously. ‘We’ve not had the money to look after this properly since April ’69, you know. Of course, we all know what happened then, don’t we, eh, Minister?’
‘Oh yes,’ Perky said, bewilderedly.
They could only walk down one side of the main corridor, for the other was barricaded off by a line of broom-handles, mops, water cans and floor-polishers, linked together with rough twine.
‘Use half at a time,’ The Bodger explained. ‘Saves expenditu
re on cleaning. It’s extraordinary how you can save money if you put your mind to it.’
‘Oh yes indeed,’ said Perky warmly.
The corridor was strangely dark and, to anyone who knew it, had an unusually down-at-heel appearance. Half the electric bulbs had been removed or, as The Bodger explained to Perky, had not been replaced when they expired. Most of the term photographs had been taken down, leaving unsightly raw patches on the walls.
The Bodger waved a hand at the remaining photographs. ‘Used to have everybody photographed. Can’t afford that any more.’
Perky frowned. It could not be, it could not possibly be, that he was being made fun of? At the Britannia Royal Naval College?
The doors to several gun-rooms and lecture-rooms they passed had been left open. The curtains had been drawn, but in the dim light chairs could be seen piled up on desks, and other furniture lay under dust sheets. The Bodger simply pointed an apologetic finger, and said nothing. He had been trying to remember where and when he had last seen Perky. Now he had it. Perky had been an ordinary seaman in the old Superb. The Bodger could see him now, clearly, cleaning the bright-work in the cabin flat outside The Badger’s cabin. He had been, The Bodger recalled, an unremarkable rating in every way, of average intelligence, appearance and performance. Now, he was the Minister of State for the Navy. Truly, the wheel of life came full circle and there was nothing immutable under the moon. Doubtless the Prof. would have some classical quotation which covered it.
Bright-work obviously aroused memories for Perky, because he commented on the shining brass barrel of one of the guns as they passed.
‘Yes, it is a bit scruffy, I’m afraid,’ The Bodger said, deliberately misunderstanding. ‘We simply don’t have the metal polish allocation these days to do them more than once a week. That’s all come about because of the cuts of ’59, of course.’
The Bodger was wondering how an ex-ordinary seaman would react when they emerged on the saluting parapet and saw the College divisions drawn up in their full pomp and majesty.
Or rather, not quite, not nearly, in their full pomp and majesty. Perky noticed nothing amiss, but everybody else, including the reporters and photographers from the local South Devon press, reeled back in amazement.
Clearly, some disastrous purge, like one of the plagues of Egypt, had swept through the College overnight. These were a travesty, a shadow, of normal divisions. They were not nearly full strength, they were not half, they were a tenth of their usual numbers. Literally, they had been decimated. A few pitiful squads of OUTs clustered forlornly here and there about the parade ground. Across a great yawning emptiness stood the band, reduced to a small disconsolate party huddled as though for mutual protection around the drummer.
For a few moments, as they began to walk round and inspect the scattered legions, The Bodger wondered whether he might not have overdone the poverty. But he was quickly reassured by Perky’s manner. The man was at once overawed, and excited, and impressed by the College’s remaining splendour. At the same time, he was utterly sure of his own place. It was inconceivable that anyone of his exalted status could be mocked or manipulated. I am a Minister of the Crown, his demeanour said, and what I say and see must be. I am Sir Oracle, thought the Prof., watching him from above, and when I ope my lips let no dog bark.
Emaciated though the divisions were, Perky thoroughly enjoyed himself. None of the midshipmen he stopped to address talked back at him with that far-back Dartmouth accent he had expected. They all seemed ordinary young men with ordinary accents. But, Perky had to admit, there did seem an awful lot of coloureds. One platoon had over eighty per cent of black faces.
‘We need their money,’ said The Bodger, after Perky’s comment. ‘It’s all good foreign exchange, Minister.’ Inwardly, The Bodger wondered whether Jerry had perhaps left too high a proportion of Gromboolians on divisions. Charlie Charleshaughton, for instance, had been shouting ‘Bags of go, Jellicoe’ at a front row as black as a Zulu impi. But Perky did not, and could not, press the point further. As a Labour politician he could not appear to be concerned over an unduly high proportion of black officers. In a fit of shuddering premonition, Perky visualised the head-lines, ‘Navy Minister Alarmed At Dartmouth Immigrants!’, ‘Race Relations Probe Naval College!’.
Perky’s visit continued to follow the same carefully judged path of probability, poised above an abyss of incredulity. From time to time, The Bodger was sure they had gone too far. Surely they would be exposed by the empty shelves in the library (‘cut back in book allocations, Minister’), or the lifeless, dark planetarium (‘bulbs come specially from Japan, Minister, six months delivery time’), or the shortage of beds in the sick bay (‘allowance of beds per thousand of naval personnel reduced in ’67, you’ll remember, Minister’). Even when Persimmons came doubling past on bare feet (‘next consignment of Service issue gym shoes has to wait for the April Estimates, as you know, Minister’), Perky only clucked sympathetically.
But after a time, Perky did get out a little black notebook and began to write things down in it. When he saw the folded newspapers in the heads (‘Service restriction on toilet paper issues since last year, Minister’), Perky said ‘I’m sure we can do something about that, at least’ with the air of a man bravely about to try and salvage at least something from the wreck of the civilised world.
‘Be glad if you could, Minister,’ somebody murmured, gratefully.
The Bodger had a pang of conscience. This, he foresaw, meant years of correspondence, probably for himself, and certainly for his successors. There would be whole departments of civil servants boiling over like ant-hills about this. Serve them bloody well right, thought The Bodger defiantly.
Perky himself seemed in a turmoil of conflicting opinions and emotions. He had come to the College prepared to exclaim about extravagance and class difference. He had been ready to complain about over-lavish arrangements provided for the sons of the gentry. But all he could see were nice, ordinary young lads, with nice ordinary accents, being deprived of their proper amount of toilet paper.
The most dangerous moment arrived when Perky looked out of a first floor window and said ‘That ensign is only half there!’ He turned to The Bodger. ‘You’ve only got half your ensign, Captain!’ He was plainly overjoyed to have been the first to notice such a thing, without any prompting, and before any of these naval officers.
The Bodger, the Prof., Jerry, Isaiah Nine Smith, the Hon. John, Shiner Wright, and the whole party accompanying Perky’s tour, stopped and peered out of the window. It was true enough. The great White Ensign at the flagstaff had been chopped off beside the edge of the Union Jack, so that the whole of the fly, including the two cantons of white and one arm of the red St George’s cross, was missing. The Bodger and Jerry exchanged meaning glances. This was unauthorised. This was not on the programme. This was not an official ‘economy’. Some person or persons unknown had done this thing.
It would have been better to have said nothing and sent someone to investigate, but Jerry had become so immersed in his programme of deception that he unthinkingly said the first thing that came into his head. ‘The other half’s away being cleaned, Minister.’
‘Ah, I see,’ said Perky, while everybody around him blew out in relief.
It was preposterous that any sensible man, and least of all a former naval rating, should accept such an explanation. But Perky had become sealed in a state of acceptance, like a kind of psychological aspic, in which he believed all he was told. Even had he guessed at the truth, he would have shied away from it. To challenge the credibility of any of the events presented to him would mean that he would have then to create a world of his own, of which he would be, literally, the only inhabitant. Because he could see that everybody else around him clearly believed in what was happening, in what he was being told and shown. There was only one other possible explanation: an entire naval college was conspiring to make fun of a Minister of the Crown, and for this particular Minister, that solution was
simply unthinkable.
After the ensign, anything was believable, even the spectacle of Tremendous Mackenzie riding one of the College horses carrying a mail-bag slung over his shoulder (‘saves petrol, you know, Minister’). But shortly afterwards, there was another anxious moment and once again it took place at the flagstaff where, as the inspecting party watched, a colour party of three OUTs were bending on a string of flags. As they rose up and fluttered clear, The Bodger recognised with a sick feeling the Colonel’s Own Bloody Flag, and his Other Bloody Flag followed by a hoist of another twelve flags.
‘What’s that?’ Perky asked, jovially, ‘England Expects?’
The Bodger read the flags. Flag Peter, Flag Echo, Flag Roger, Flag King... soon the message flew clear against the blue summer sky... PERK... ‘Perk Off Perky’, it read, but there seemed no advantage in communicating the gist of it to the Minister of State for the Navy. Once more, The Bodger and Jerry exchanged glances: this, too, was an unauthorised addition to the programme.
‘Daily flag hoisting practice, Minister,’ said The Bodger.
‘We used to have flashing exercises, too,’ said Jerry, ‘to help them learn the Morse Code. But we can’t afford the power these days.’
Perky’s little notebook came out again. His hosts’ minds boggled at what could now be in it. ‘Sure we can do something about that, at least.’
‘Glad if you would, Minister,’ someone murmured.
Although the incident was safely shuffled off, it left The Bodger with a feeling of growing unease. It was one thing to mobilise the College’s energies in an elaborate programme of deception. It might be quite another to control the anarchic forces which had been stimulated into action. It could well be that the OUTs might take Perky’s visit to lengths the staff neither intended nor welcomed.
Perky was staying the night at the Captain’s House, and that evening The Bodger and Julia gave a carefully-staged dinner party in his honour.