Life Without Armour

by Alan Sillitoe

  Out of bed at six, I took a bus to the town centre, bought the Daily Herald, and caught an aircraft workers’ special to the aerodrome twelve miles away, arriving just before eight. Our boss was an amiable grey-haired squadron-leader referred to as ‘Pop’, who spent his nights on a camp bed downstairs next to the radio installation room because the accommodation price at the local pub was so ruinous. On entering the control tower, by an outside staircase, I put a kettle on the hotplate to make a pot of tea, taking a mug for Pop to drink between getting up and shaving.

  Only two of the three assistants needed to be on duty at a time, with the squadron-leader either present or available. One of us stayed in the tower, while the other was taken by a van, which also towed the chequerboard caravan, to the runway of the day according to the direction of the wind. Once there, his first task, after the caravan was parked and the telephone cable plugged into the terminal point, was to place white planks on the grass outside in the form of a large letter T to indicate to any pilot wanting to land which of the three runways he was to use.

  All the air-traffic controller had to do for the next four hours was sit in the turret of the caravan, much like being in the mid-upper turret of a bomber, and be on the lookout for aircraft approaching the circuit to land, in which case he cranked the handle of the field telephone to warn those in the tower to have a fire tender and a ‘blood wagon’ standing by, then signalled a green go-ahead on the Aldis lamp to the plane, by which time someone in the tower might be speaking to the pilot by radio.

  At the end of the stint the other assistant would take over for the latter part of the day, and whoever was in the caravan would walk back to replace him in the tower. The only aircraft movements were four-engined York airliners towed across the road from the construction hangars and taken on test flights, or twin-engined Ansons landing now and again to bring spares and technical personnel from other A. V. Roe factories.

  The tower man on duty in the morning would sit at the radio and take down details of the weather, spoken in a beautiful voice by a WAAF, at a score of airfields throughout the United Kingdom, and plot them on a chart. Another occasional job was to go on to the perimeter track with a pair of large tennis-like bats and guide an aircraft just landed into the correct dispersal point. Sometimes it would be necessary to climb on to the wing of an Anson with a handle and crank the number one engine into life, before the pilot in the cockpit, now able to start the other, could taxi out and take off.

  The aerodrome had been used by the Royal Canadian Air Force, and another assistant and myself got into the large hut once used for briefing sessions to find one wall covered by a vast map of Europe on the one-million scale, and another of Eurasia at one to four million. Spinning pennies to decide who should have what, we dismantled them in sections and carried our loot home on the bus.

  On dim winter afternoons, when Pop was out, we fired red and green Very cartridges for amusement, and sent rockets streaking in fiery tangents at the sky from a launcher in front of the tower. Flicking a switch at a control panel, the runway and perimeter lighting system could be flashed on and off like Morse code, goading the squadron-leader to telephone from the village one blackening afternoon and shout: ‘Stop playing the bloody fools with those lights! We can see ’em for miles!’

  Using the telephone, and having to make myself clear over the radio, changed my accent towards a more neutral English. During the winter, with little air traffic and, on days of nil visibility, no flying at all, the three of us stayed in the tower. I read Pop’s Daily Telegraph and tackled the crossword, or played darts; or we would gaze outside in case the aeronautical equivalent of the Flying Dutchman should suddenly glide by our observation greenhouse in an enormous but ragged amphibian and request permission to land.

  Time passed doing interception exercises on an assortment of exotic plotting charts, practising the kind of navigation useful for flying off aircraft-carriers. Every third day was free, and when two coincided with a weekend there was always some flying to be had at RAF Syerston. From Langar the A. V. Roe test pilot took me up in a York for a view of the devastating floods which had spread far and wide over the Trent Valley.

  With my girlfriend we either made the most of it in her house or, when the weather was fine, went into a wood and unloosed our passions there. At the weekend, after her mother had gone to bed, we practised the necessary deceit of the ‘Nottingham good-night’, whereby loud farewells were called and the door decisively banged shut, but with me still inside the kitchen, so that I often stayed till nearly morning. It’s doubtful whether any parents were ever taken in by this form of good-night, since they must have used it when young. In fact it had probably been going for generations, and not only in Nottingham.

  Anxieties, if there were any, must have been so deeply built into my co-ordinates as to be unnoticed. The machine of body and spirit ran in a perfect equilibrium of optimism, generating self-satisfaction in everything except to do with work, and knowledge of the world beyond. At last I had a decent three-piece navy-blue suit and, what gave great comfort, a smart grey Raglan overcoat – the result of my cousins’ earlier night-time depredations. Such a garment cosseted me from the elements, and held in those intimations of deeper love suggested by the poetic lines from Hugo’s novel which was not so much for children as was at one time thought.

  Cleaned by the hot scald of the public baths, and walking on a frosty evening with my girlfriend to the cinema, always to find a seat on the back row, hair Brylcreemed into a quiff, a Senior Service burning even more tastily when blended with a subtle odour of domestic coal smoke feathering from every chimney, sufficient money in my wallet to last till the next monthly cheque, as well as the knowledge that we would be making delicious love in her house a few hours later, confirmed in all ways that life, being as full as we could make it, could hardly get better, while the possibility that it might ever become worse was unthinkable.

  My cousin Jack came on leave in his khaki from Trieste, and thought we should see the film Henry V. The sound from the past filters through a sort of waking dream, out of visual effects that gave astonishment and pleasure. The milky malice of much of the idiom, except for the robust earthiness of the king who made at any rate as if to love his soldiers, put everything else out of existence for a few hours, a lot of time in those days, and soaked me in language that for the most part sounded English through a distant muffle.

  The wonder of the king’s speech, a spectacular high-octane rant before the battle, was at that time eclipsed by the noise – music in advance of its time – of that massive flight of arrows between the woods of Agincourt which annihilated, with the cheapest weapon in the world handled by the commonest of men, the caparisoned chivalry of a nation. I had no thought of reading the book of the film, but the memory of that cloud of arrows going up to the sky and down again stayed till a properly equipped emotional expedition was mounted through that and the rest of Shakespeare’s plays.

  Grit in my system chafed in the months before joining up and, impatient to receive my ‘papers’, on the approach of my one and only eighteenth birthday, I wrote asking the Royal Navy when I would be called up to begin flying training. Anyone who wanted to become a pilot, they replied, and possibly go on to get a commission, would have to sign on for seven years full time, plus five on reserve; otherwise, to take such care over their welfare would not be worthwhile. This was reasonable, but such length of service had not been my idea at all, and it was only possible to imagine seven years by thinking backwards, which made the age of eleven seem a hundred years ago, indicating in no uncertain terms that there was a future after all, and little sense in bespeaking so large a part of it.

  The war was over by almost a year, but I wanted to use the experience of serving as an excuse to put off making any other decisions. I therefore arranged to be ‘discharged at my own request’ from the Fleet Air Arm on 28 March 1946, and immediately enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve for ‘the duration of the present
emergency’, which was assumed to be for three or four years, to be trained as a ground wireless operator.

  I was young enough to believe that all change was good, though there was some regret at leaving my job of airfield controller. Arthur Denny, another youth from the ATC, who later made his career in the RAF and became a wing-commander, stepped into my place.

  Details of cadet qualifications went to the RAF Enlistment Board in the form of a Leaving Certificate, and I was able to read the general remarks on my character: ‘This man has been outstanding. As an NCO, and particularly as a Flight-Sergeant, he has evinced those qualities so essential to those who control. He is, in my opinion, a worthy representative of the ATC and what it is trying to do.’

  In my working life I had learned the A to Z of plywood and jacquard making, gathered some experience of mechanical engineering, and in eight months had become competent as an airfield controller. My cadet training had been a sort of secondary education, giving the equivalent of ‘O’-levels in English, air navigation, mathematics, meteorology, and the theory of flight, as well as the ability to take and receive Morse code at wireless operating speed.

  My route into the future was hard to see with any fixity, in spite of my determination to join up. To make the horizon more distinct did not seem necessary: the future would take care of itself and therefore of me. Either that, or I did not consider that any amount of thought could alter what might turn out to be good or bad in it. In any case I shied off thought, instinct telling me that it could too easily lapse into worry, which could give way to uncertainty, and even degenerate into fear. And I wasn’t having any of that. Such feelings were either a compound of self-indulgence and wisdom, or a shameful supineness in someone who by now ought to have known better, though I would not have cared to have anyone tell me which it was, wanting only the maximum amount of freedom within which Fate could have free play.

  When my girlfriend’s sister was married, and we went to the reception at the local Methodist hall, she may have hoped that the cloying spectacle would persuade me to propose to her and become engaged. In spite of the love I felt, the idea never entered my thoughts, or if so made the kind of impression that was overthrown in a moment and forgotten.

  After a tearful and passionate goodbye, and promises to write letters, I left on 8th May for RAF Padgate in Lancashire, to begin eight weeks of basic training, happy to put Nottingham and everything else behind me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Some time passed before learning anything in the air force not already known, all of it being familiar except the experience of practising for sixteen hours a day what was previously done part-time. Those who had not been in the ATC, perhaps as many as half, started their drill from nothing, therefore training could only go at the rate of the slowest, though in the midst of so many who knew it even they became quick on the uptake.

  On enlistment I swore an oath of loyalty to King George VI, and when asked my religion replied that I did not have one. The sergeant, a grin of annoyance across his putty-shaded face, put Church of England on the paper, and had the initials C of E stamped with my name and number on a bakelite ‘dog tag’ to be strung around my neck until demobilization.

  I received my first underwear at the kitting out, and two uniforms which fitted neatly, plus a set of khaki and a pair of gaiters for rougher work. An overcoat was put into my arms, as well as woollen gloves, scarf and mittens, shirts and a tie, shoes, boots and socks. I had never been so well protected against the worst of the weather. Soon after arrival I was singled out to take a special hearing test, to make sure I had the highest aural standards necessary for wireless operating.

  Alertness spanned every split-second when part of a swiftly moving block of men across the parade ground, or during drill in the great hangar when it rained, always relating to the slightest change of position in the man to your right. I wasn’t bored: the piously self-centred never can be. Part of my faculties relished the physical cohesion of belonging to an intelligent and responsive mass, while the other half enjoyed the over-view of such wheeling and about-turning from the cockpit of an imaginary autogyro suspended a hundred feet above.

  The drill sergeants came from the RAF Regiment, some of them, as were the officers, redundant aircrew. Teasing took place in the billet, but no bullying, and the parade ground exhortations of the NCOs were now and again accompanied by earthy humour. Physical training alternated with rifle drill, runs over the assault course burdened with small arms and kit, bayonet fighting and grenade throwing turned us into soldiers though not hard infantry. Such an extension to ordinary life might some time be useful, I thought, especially the enhanced awareness of the body and an instinctive but careful use of firearms.

  For all our marching and counter-marching as Aircraftsmen Second Class Recruits we were paid three shillings a day, one of which was allotted to my mother, who every two weeks took her allowance book to the post office, received fourteen shillings, then crossed the road to the Co-op and came out with almost more groceries than she could carry. The fortnightly pay parade left me with sufficient for tobacco, an occasional foray to the NAAFI, shoe polish, toothpaste and stamps. A pound or two was even put by for my first leave.

  We were forbidden to go out during basic training, but Jack Mercer and I found a way through the back fence and went ten miles by tram to his home place of Atherton, where his mother welcomed us with a tin of sweet pears for tea. Few moaned about the food at camp, because the diet was good, and we were easy to satisfy after six years of rationing.

  Mixing with people of all families and backgrounds was an interesting diversion. Docherty and a couple of cronies, hard men from Glasgow, kept together in mess and billet, distrusting everyone else for a while due to being in a strange element which they could not control and so felt threatened by. Perhaps because of my name they showed some interest in me, but I preferred arguing the Labour point of view with Ashley Bell, the solicitor’s son from Northumberland. As well as sharp lads who had grown up in London there was a tall, good-looking songster from Ireland, and he entertained us with militant or melancholy ditties out of an endless store of songs and verses. Because he could barely read and write we coached him with letters home, and helped to fasten on his complicated webbing equipment.

  As the weeks went by one sensed the 120 of our flight becoming more and more cohesive as a unit on the drill ground. The idea was to make us as smart as the Guards and, eventually, marching twenty abreast, the line was so meticulously straight that whoever shouted the orders saw only one man go by at the point of the line passing, as if we were rehearsing for a military tattoo.

  My immersion into the land of the all-fed and all-found was agreeable, no decisions to make as long as one did as one was told, which was never onerous or unreasonable. On the other hand, volunteer status was important to me, knowing that I had accepted the life of my own free will, and that call-up could have been avoided on taking Bert Firman’s offer of a reserved occupation by training to be a mechanic.

  The final parade and march past in July was celebrated with a group photograph, and then a fortnight’s leave. In Nottingham most of my friends were also absent in the services, but my girlfriend and I, when not in the cinema, or holding hands in a pub over our beer, fucked the two weeks away with passion and abandon. She didn’t seem to enjoy being seen on the street with a smart airman as much as I had hoped, but my mother had either given my civilian clothes to the ragman, or put what fitted on to Brian. My bicycle had also gone, as had most of my books, but having cast myself loose in the big ship of the air force, possessions meant little beyond what could be stuffed into a kitbag.

  At the beginning of August, candidates for wireless school were posted to Compton Bassett in Wiltshire to begin twenty-eight weeks’ training. Parades were few and, in order that the maximum time be given to learning, there was little or no bullshit, although billet floors had to be kept polished and kit displayed in regulation style at the bed-end.

  Schoo
l started at half past seven, and went on, with a meal break, until six. In a more relaxed pre-war era the length of the course would have been eighteen months, and instruction more thorough, but the times and the human material had changed. My Morse was already up to standard, while others could take at least some words per minute, so that with the initial barrier broken it was only a matter of practice to qualify.

  Classes in wireless telegraphy procedure, and the technical aspects of radio, were later followed by the practical side of managing individual radio stations, our receivers and transmitters in Morse contact with each other. Touch-typing was also taught, and we were soon rattling out the loosening up exercise for morning fingers: ‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party’, a skill also used for operating teleprinters, as well as taking Morse more neatly than by handwriting.

  The place resembled an adult technical college, many of the teachers being civilians or retired RAF signals types, one of the latter entertaining us with an account of plodding around the mountains of the Indian North West Frontier in the ’20s with a wireless installation on the back of a mule. To encourage us he sent the complete seduction scene from Forever Amber in Morse, adding at the end something not put in by the author: ‘He had shot his bolt!’ – then nervously telling us to rub that bit out in case an inspecting officer came in. Another tall, ruddy-faced old man had been a telegraphist for ten years at a place on the southern tip of New Zealand, which experience had left a glint of icy humour in his bright blue eyes.

  Two trainee wireless operators of about twenty had seen war service as Marconi officers in the Merchant Navy from the age of sixteen, and came on the course with a row of medal ribbons longer than those on the tunics of most old sweats. Another young man, little older than myself, had spent the latter part of the war in the Far East as second officer on merchant ships, and he also had his decorations. I went on weekend pass with him, to a village near Weston-super-Mare, calling on his etiolated parents, who had been prisoners of the Japanese in China.