Growing into War

by Michael Gill

  ‘Hey, you don’t want that any more.’ I rushed forwards and grabbed the barrel; it didn’t seem a time to delay. In fact, he merely dropped the gun and squeezed into the back of the sentry box. He stayed like that all night. In the morning two burly Military Policemen took him away. We never saw him again, though we heard he had gone into an asylum.

  Less dramatic, but much more tiring, was another regular night chore that came our way every three weeks. This was to ‘guard’ Stormont. ‘Guard’ was a misnomer. Built as a parliamentary building, it housed some forty offices, each with a parquet floor that had to be polished and buffed. Each office was covered wall-to-wall in maps with flags and multi-coloured pins that had to be carefully dusted. I expect it must have been from here that one of the most vital strategies of the war, the Battle of the North Atlantic, was planned. Taking a breather from the hard labour on the floor, you could regale yourself on the secret statistics of U-boat losses and the thousands of tons of merchant ships sunk. Later, my curiosity was to have an unexpected reward.

  III

  A number of what seemed at the time to be quite minor events had long reverberations in my future life. My letters home showed how little anticipation I had of this. I suppose it was in part because all our mail had to be censored – and by the very officers we worked elbow to elbow with around the Filter Room table. Censorship was pretty strict. In an early letter home I referred to Dublin and Belfast: they were surely large enough cities for any snooping German to know that he was stealing a look at them from my account of going to a main street with an excellent bookshop and several cinemas on it. However, all names of towns were carefully cut out. As I wrote on both sides of the paper, my account on the reverse side of a game of golf, which I played with a South American volunteer, consisted of more holes than bunkers. (We quickly learned to write on only one side of the page.)

  Our letters were made lengthier at this time than at any other period of the war because my parents were worried about my state of health. In 1943 I had three spells in the military hospital with bronchial fever. They were made memorable for me because as soon as my temperature began to go down I would be put on what were optimistically called ‘light duties’ in the cook house. This invariably included scraping out the half-dozen enormous pans that had contained the breakfast porridge for some fifty or sixty hospital inmates. Now if I see any other guest in a hotel slurping up that glutinous, adhesive, vomitous-looking substance, I can barely repress a shudder. If the Highlander can be considered somewhat phlegmatic at the start of the day, some of the blame must stick to this joyless cereal.

  The Medical Officer was also a Scotsman, so I could hardly complain to him about this essential part of the hospital diet. Especially because he also put me on ultra-violet ray treatment. Sitting in underpants and dark glasses for five or six minutes at a time, three times a week, seemed a funny way to help win the war, but it was quite enjoyable. It was also bi-sexual and most of the patients were officers. I did not expand on this aspect to my father, but simply pointed out how well I was being looked after. After all I would need to be accustomed to tropic sunlight when I was posted overseas.

  That particular fate seemed to have temporarily receded. A week or so before Christmas the draft notice which I was on was abruptly cancelled – not postponed, but cancelled. At the time, there was no obvious cause. Now I think it must have been the Allied victories in North Africa, which led later in the year to the invasion of Italy and the setting-up of a whole new theatre of war. There was no further overseas posting for us till July and then it was to Sicily.

  In the meantime, various things had happened to me. In February we all sat a trade test – an examination on the various aspects of radar. I got 95 per cent; not only the top mark but, I was told, the highest figure ever awarded in Northern Ireland. The result was that I did not have to wrestle with my conscience about the ethics of applying for a commission (as my father wanted me to do; whereas I pompously thought it would be more self-sacrificing and heroic to serve in the ranks). Now I was simply informed by the Education Officer that he had put me up for a commission. This led to an interview with the station commanding officer. He was an old regular airman who had risen through the ranks to be a Group Captain. He was keen on discipline and hadn’t much to say to a young squirt like me. But he supported my application once we discovered that we both played golf.

  I also had to have a medical check-up. As I got on well with the Scots Medical Officer I thought this would be a mere formality. To my surprise, he delayed my application by three months. When I asked him why, he explained that he wanted the ultra-violet treatment to have time to take effect. I considered that as soon as I was no longer living in an Irish bog my bronchial tubes would clear themselves. Now I can see that the ultra-violet set up was a new toy for the Medical Officer to play with and I was one of his star pupils. Most of his patients were officers and it looked better on paper that they should come from all ranks.

  The very day after my interview with the CO I was put under open arrest. It happened like this. Most of our hut was on the same watch and on this particular morning we were off duty after an all-night shift. Most of us were putting our beds together, getting into our pyjamas (if we had any of our own, it was not an item of clothing that the RAF admitted existed), debating whether it was worth going across to the canteen to scrounge an extra cup of tea or having one of the apples with which my parents constantly kept me supplied. My bed was the nearest to the door and I was just about to get into it when the door was flung open. In came a couple of Military Police corporals with a great stamping of boots and bawling in unison: ‘By Your Beds: At Attention Now: Orderly Officer.’ And in between them came a little figure with a bristling moustache and a high-pitched grating voice. No doubt he didn’t like the look of us either. And the first person to cross his sights was me – half-in and halfout of my brightly checked Chilprufe pyjamas.

  ‘Airman! Stand to attention now. What’s all this filth you’re wearing?’

  I thought it best to be as truthful as possible. ‘They’re a present from my mother, sir.’

  ‘And what are you doing wearing them at 10 o’clock in the morning? You know I could have you on a charge for this?’

  At this point I made a crucial mistake: never tell a person senior to yourself in the forces that you know his business better than he does.

  ‘We’ve been on night duty, sir. We’re entitled to sleep during the day. We work on shifts and we’re off duty now.’

  ‘Entitled to sleep, are you? Off duty are you? Don’t you know there’s a war on! Shift duty, eh. I’ll have you shifting, Airman. Sergeant, put this filthy fellow under open arrest. Insubordination, laziness and keeping a filthy billet.’

  ‘I say, sir . . .’

  ‘No you won’t say anything, Airman. Another word and I’ll have you in the glass-house. Sergeant, see that he tidies up when he appears before the CO tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, Quartermaster. Airman Gill, report to the Orderly Room in ten minutes. Full parade kit. Subsequently report to the Orderly Sergeant every two hours for the full twenty-four. Until you’ve appeared before the CO.’

  Being under open arrest was no joke. Every two hours throughout the twenty-four you had to dress in full parade gear – all buttons polished, webbing scrubbed, boots shiny – march up to the guard room, shout your name and that you had the honour to appear before the Orderly Sergeant under open arrest and on what charges. If he was an officious type he could look you over, tell you your brass buttons were not shiny enough, and to report again once they were polished enough for him to see his reflection in them.

  The next morning was a double exposure: first before the Military Police, then the Quartermaster in charge of camp discipline (the Orderly Officer of the previous day). Finally, I was marched into the Orderly Room where the CO was dispensing justice. A military policeman on either side and a sergeant right behind me giving the time: Leading Aircraftman Gill: Quick march, lef
t right, left right, left right, Aircraftman Gill, halt. On the last word, the Sergeant came to attention behind me and knocked my hat off. (This was officially to ensure that you did not throw it at the CO. It also made you feel curiously impotent, which it was undoubtedly meant to do.)

  The Quartermaster gave his account of my ‘crime’ in surprisingly clumsy sentences. The Commanding Officer did not wait for him to finish, but, turning to me, asked if I had not been on night duty immediately before. When I said yes his brow puckered. ‘Case dismissed,’ he snapped. ‘Quartermaster, I would advise you to check your facts more carefully in the future.’

  That was the nearest thing to a reprimand that a senior officer could deliver to a senior NCO within the hierarchy-bound confines of RAF discipline. I had the common sense to maintain a totally inscrutable expression. We had no more trouble from the Quartermaster.

  A minor irritation followed from my twenty-four hours of house arrest. I became known to the Military Police as a potential troublemaker – a totally fictional position. No more careful follower of the King’s Regulations existed, so I gave the police no opportunity to lock me up. They responded in various niggling ways. For instance, on a windy late March day with bright patches of sunshine, you might not want to go down to the big city in your heavy blue overcoat. But you would wish to wear your warm woollen gloves. Ah, but strictly speaking you were not allowed to wear gloves except with your overcoat. Don’t ask me why. It was such a ridiculous rule that many police turned a blind eye to it. Everyone leaving the camp had to be inspected by the guard room for shiny buttons, neatly brushed hair, etc. Gloves and no overcoat would be passed a dozen times. I would be going out through the main gate when I was called back.

  ‘Airman, don’t you know the rule – no gloves except with overcoat.’

  I would have to decide whether to have cold hands or over-heated arms and chest. In any event I would have to go back to Hut 50 to make the change.

  IV

  An observant reader of the last sentence will have noticed that I was no longer living in Hut 64. This could have been due to my well-timed bronchitis, or to the fact that whenever an orderly officer called, causing all the inmates to leap to their feet, the said officer would get a splash of water right up his leg from our stamping dutifully to attention. In any event the rain got no less in springtime, though it could be expected that the in-house torrents would not be quite so chilling as they were in midwinter. But who can read the administrative mind? One morning in March we were abruptly told that Hut 64 had been categorised as unfit for human occupation. The very next day we were to move down the valley to Hut 50. Same basic construction, but newly painted, only seventy-five yards through the wood to the ablutions, still only cold water, but no Niagara on the back doorstep; best of all, a weekly allocation of coal so that we could actually light our stove. We imagined sitting round it, smoking our pipes, competing to see whose spit would sizzle longest on the hob.

  We fancied ourselves as devilish sharp: there was Frisco, the Latin-American volunteer from Rio; and Jack Torgelsen, the Norwegian tailor from Hull; and Barry Shepherd from neutral Dublin; and Corporal Esmond, just down from Balliol; and Too Too, who had been a name at Lloyds and had the longest dong any of us had ever seen; and Dick Homewood, who was also in the City and frightfully debonair and called everyone Darling and was going out with our Flight Sergeant Marjorie, whose father was the General in charge of Britain’s barrage balloon defences; and Bruce, who permed his ash-blond hair and had a thing for Too Too, so we put their beds at the opposite ends of the hut. And then there were the three babies: Peter Williams from Sheffield, Jimmy Blair from Liverpool, and me from Canterbury.

  We knew we were the tops, but a close second were our next-door neighbours in Hut 51. They were another of the Filter Room watches. We played golf and cricket tournaments against each other and just occasionally perpetrated elaborate japes that called forth immediate punitive reaction. Mostly this consisted of sending in a commando party of four of the youngest and most active: two at each end of the rival hut. Their aim was to flip over as many of the metal frame beds, depositing their sleeping occupants on the floor, as they could before bedlam broke out. The raiding party then had to escape, hopefully leaving the assaulted hut in a state of confusion. If captured, punishment was immediate. It usually consisted of white-washing an appropriate part of the anatomy.

  Often a longer retaliation would follow in a few days. These responses rapidly escalated into such spectacular and dangerous raids that armistice terms had to be drawn up and signed by all concerned before elbows and collar bones got broken. Months of calm ensued. Then, inexplicably, two or three bouts of action would occur. The unadmitted cause was that tossing some innocent sleeping person out of bed is an immensely enjoyable exercise. Skilfully done, the victim feels no pain. The sharp upward jerk of the bed frame lifts him above the corners of the bed legs and should deposit him on his own mattress.

  We were living in a backwater of war. Later, passing in the street, we would exchange glances, half acknowledge each other. ‘You know him?’ my partner would ask. ‘Yes, I think so. We were in the RAF together . . . a long time ago, during the war . . . perhaps it was only a momentary likeness.’ We were going to meet every year . . . a Hut 50 reunion. We never did, of course.

  We had a number of guests we would not have asked back. When, in the evening, we went out to pee, they were sitting just beyond the range of direct light. Their eyes followed us through the wood. When the lights were out they grew bolder. We were kept awake by their gnawing at the concrete floor, pattering along the shelf that ran just above our heads.

  The climax came when Peter Williams was sent a home-made cake for his birthday. He locked it up in a leather-bound suitcase and put it on the shelf above him. The rats sent in a platoon. They tore the suitcase to shreds and ate the entire contents in a single night. Peter’s bed looked as if it had been in a snowstorm, the tiny particles being all that was left of a man-sized suitcase. He had heard them at it, but was afraid they would have turned on him if he had interfered.

  Corporal Esmond called in the station rat-catcher. He put the fragments of the suitcase in quite a large cage. It had a guillotine door poised to fall behind the rat as it followed its nose to the back of the cage.

  Early the next morning we were all awakened by a furious squealing and rattling. Torch-light revealed a large and very angry rat trying to chew through the metal bars of the cage.

  No one had told us what to do once the guillotine fell. Corporal Esmond produced the only rifle we had, an old-fashioned 303. We agreed we were far more likely to blow one of us away than damage this pocket of whirlwind energy. Then the Oxford-trained mind of the corporal came up with an ingenious solution. Close by the back entrance was a bucket of sand and a bucket of water in case the IRA came in the night and set us alight. But water could also kill. If we dunked the cage in the bucket and held it under the rat would be done for.

  But how were we to get the cage into the bucket? The rat looked quite capable of chewing us up if we got near it.

  ‘That’s easy,’ said John Esmond briskly. He hooked the barrel of the 303 through the cage and swung it round and down towards the bucket. The rat went into a frenzy of screaming and leaping. Did it open the cage door or did John bang it against the edge of the bucket and inadvertently release the catch? Nobody could remember, for as the cage swung open, the rat leaped out and we jumped in all directions. Who jumped furthest and fastest was another subject of scholarly debate.

  The rat never came back; and we never caught another.

  V

  The summer of 1943, which saw me heading towards a commission interview, also saw Too Too and me on a junior NCOs course. Another two weeks of square-bashing. Not quite as bad as Skegness, but on the same lines. We both got passes and remained Leading Aircraftmen. I had not the vocal cords for bellowing at a platoon, and Too Too was preoccupied with his personal equipment.

  Much more engagin
g was the week’s attachment to the Radio Direction Finding Station at Kilkeel. Only twenty-five people tended the two giant radar masts that dominated the remote inlet of Carlingford Lough in the extreme south of County Down. As I wrote at the time: ‘Life in such a small camp has a charm of its own. The only officer, commonly referred to as the Old Man, could usually be found pottering around the kitchen, doing odd jobs to help the cook. Although so small and fairly isolated, the camp food was excellent, and the wooden huts had lino on the floor and a shaded electric light over each bed . . .’.

  The June weather brought a glitter to ‘the rolling green countryside, dotted with little white cottages and small fishing villages’. Here was the very place where the purple mountains of Mourne swept down to the sea. I went on several long hill walks with Kay Cassidy, the Irish WAAF who shared the attachment with me. We were on a different watch at the Filter Room, so I had not met her before. She was attractive in a characteristically Irish way: tall and well-built with curly dark hair and freckles and a twinkle in the eye. She was a cheery companion; but even in this remote beauty spot the war dominated.

  The most modern radar equipment, the Chain Home Low (CHL), had just been installed at Kilkeel. It allowed the operator to pick up a low-flying enemy at a range of sixty to eighty miles. This was a great advance on the Static Chain Home, which could operate against high-flying enemy at ranges up to 180 miles but was unable to give a warning of anything at seagull height.

  This was not the only message that Kay was involved in seeking. Her father was dead and her mother’s only son was captured in Singapore early in 1942 in what was said to be the worst disaster the British Army had ever suffered. For a long time there was no news of him. His bereaved mother started to consult psychical researchers in the hope of establishing contact. After several abortive attempts, she believed she had found a medium in Belfast who purported to have received messages from her son. They were not reassuring. The young man was grieving to return to his family. He was not well and in a dark place.