by Glenn Wood
Early warning was also required for protection against the Gumbies. There was an instant animosity between cadets and recruits. The recruits were older than us (normally in their mid-20s) and were at Trentham for a three month crash course. They looked on us as jumped-up kids with ideas above our station, which of course we were. We looked at them as wimpy losers who took the easy course because they weren’t good enough to get in as cadets. This was grossly unfair but right from the start we were a big-headed bunch of bastards. We had been told early in the course that we were seen as officer material and naturally, this went straight to our heads.
Thus began the ritual taunting of the Gumbies.
We took particular delight in ambushing new recruits and giving them a damn fine soaking. (Once the Gumbies had been at Trentham for a few weeks they sussed out our tactics, so the best time to hit them was when they were green.) The cadet armoury contained many and various water weapons that were kept in a state of constant readiness.
Our most spectacular success came in the second term when a group of new recruits arrived. Early in the morning of their second day these raw recruits were called out of their barracks by a barking senior sergeant who lined them up outside then abused the crap out of them. The ‘senior sergeant’ was in fact a very mature looking cadet who had ‘borrowed’ an officer’s uniform from the stores - a highly dangerous feat.
While they stood in nervous and confused rows on the parade ground we struck. A three-pronged attack had been conceived to achieve maximum soakage. Cadet force A appeared from the opposite barracks in front of the Gumbie ranks, all howling at the top of their lungs and armed with high-pressure fire hoses. A second group of cadets attacked from the sides with water balloons and various other watery projectiles. The third section attacked from above, tipping rubbish bins full of water over the recruits from the roofs of their own barracks. The Gumbies scattered in all directions yelling in ineffective anger. Their bellowed threats had little effect; it was hard to feel threatened by a group of soggy guys in wet pyjamas.
Our victory had been complete and devastating. We celebrated with a hearty chorus of “The Gumbie Song”, which went something like this:
(Sung to the tune of ‘Cindy’)
‘I wish I was a Gumbie,
A hanging on a tree,
And every time a Senior passed,
He’d take a kick at me.
Get along home Gumbie, Gumbie.
Get along home Gumbie, Gumbie.
Get along home Gumbie, Gumbie.
I’ll kick you up the arse.’
Well, we weren’t there for our lyrical abilities.
I think our instructors were secretly impressed by the audacity of our attack because our punishment was less severe than expected. We were made to run up to the water tower and back.
The water tower stood at the top of a very steep gravel hill and it really tested your fitness. On this particular occasion, we were still high on the adrenalin rush from the battle and conquered the tower with relative ease. We even had enough breath to belt out another verse of the Gumbie song from the top of the tower, which earned us another lap on our return. This time the only sound at the top was everyone gasping for breath.
The Gumbies had their revenge, however. It came late one night when we were fast asleep. We all slept with our feet facing our wardrobes (as per regulations) and our heads resting on one pillow against the corrugated iron sides of the barracks outer wall. On the night of the recruits revenge we were in for a rude awakening. We were jolted from deep sleep by what sounded like a large herd of horses, wearing tin horseshoes stampeding across an iron lake. It was one of those sounds that starts quietly in your subconscious and builds to a thundering crescendo that bursts into your frontal lobes, causing your brain to leak out your ears (a bit like a ‘Spice Girls’ song).
The horrendous noise was caused by Gumbies sprinting along the outside of our barracks running a broomstick along the corrugated iron wall, literally inches from our heads. We staggered out of our beds, completely disorientated, as the second wave of recruits ran through the inside of our barracks turning our own fire hoses on us and soaking our beds with water balloons. I’m sure revenge was sweet, especially as we had to explain the state of our rooms to a very unsympathetic group of instructors at inspection the next morning. Put your name in The Book, cadet.
Danger also lurked in our own corridors. A favourite late-night pastime of some cadets was a brutal ritual known as stacking. One moment you’d be lying on your bed, minding your own business, the next your door would burst open and 10 to 12 hulking cadets would leap on top of you, one after another, forming a vertical stack of bodies that weighed about two tons. One of two things happened at this stage, either your ribs or your bed broke.
If an injury happened or damage occurred you were left to explain it yourself. There was an unwritten rule that you never ratted on a fellow cadet (not for anything short of attempted homicide, anyway). A few cadets did complain about being picked on. From that moment their lives became hell as revenge stackings, with even more stackees crushing them, became an almost nightly occurrence.
I was on the receiving end of only one stacking and a most unpleasant experience it was. The breath was squashed out of my lungs and my eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets. Being a member of the stacking crew was almost as bad as being on the receiving end. I only took part in one. The target was Phil’s room-mate and the idea of squashing the annoying sod was too appealing to turn down. I was third in the stack and got caught in the ear by the elbow of the cadet on top of me. It was extremely uncomfortable. Still, we effectively squished the enemy so it wasn’t a complete loss. Felt a bit mean afterwards, though.
I was lined up for another stacking several weeks later but thanks to good intelligence from my room-mate I was able to rig up a dummy consisting of some 4x2s, a couple of blankets and a wig. When the stacking occurred I was hiding in my wardrobe and the unfortunate cadet at the bottom of the stack popped a rib on the 4x2. Served him right.
While stacking was undeniably brutal it was seldom malicious. Everyone got done once or twice and as I said earlier it was only ever nasty if you were foolish enough to complain about it.
In general the cadets got on pretty well, mainly because we were all in the same boat. Naturally there were a few personality clashes (some cadets didn’t have any) but no more than you’d expect from a large group of highly competitive young males. A certain amount of territory marking went on early in the piece but that soon settled down as we became too knackered to care about anything other than surviving the course.
The instructors fostered our competitive natures by splitting us into three sections according to our surnames. We had A Section (A through F), B Section (G through M) and C Section (N through Z).
A, B and C Sections: the New Zealand Police once again demonstrating all the imagination of boiled cabbage.
Inter-section rivalry was encouraged in almost every aspect of cadet life and a sort of alphabetical apartheid developed. We were constantly played off against one another with a disproportionate degree of importance attached to being in the ‘winning’ section. I understand why the Police encouraged this attitude. It was to instil in us a sense of loyalty and trust in “our” team, but it could also be destructive and dangerous.
A graphic example occured several months into the course when a friend of mine named Alex was selected as flag bearer for an forthcoming ceremony. I can’t remember what the event was but three cadets (one from each section) were chosen to represent the wing. It was quite an honour to have been selected and all three were very proud of their part in the event. Uniforms were pressed to an unprecedented degree, shoes were spit-polished till mouths ran dry, and you could have shaved on the single prominent creases running down the arms of their shirts. As it turned out getting their uniforms up to scratch was the easy bit.
The hard part was the almost endless drill the poor sods had to endure.
&n
bsp; I was secretly pleased at having been passed over for selection, even though, to be honest, I was never really in the hunt. My marching and drill abilities were regularly called into question. I tried, God knows I tried, but my innate clumsiness shone through and I often found myself being the only one who was marching in step.
Alex, on the other hand, had almost precognitive drill powers. He could sense an ‘eyes right’ coming seconds before it happened and he’d have his head whipped around while I was still trying to work out if I was supposed to turn to my right, or theirs. His ‘about turn’ was a blur and his ‘left wheel’ a joy to behold. He also worked out long before the rest of us that ‘stand at ease’ didn’t give you carte blanche to let rip with that fart you’d been holding in since the last march past.
Unfortunately it was his exceptional ability on the parade ground that cost him his career in the police.
It was a blisteringly hot day and as usual the three ‘chosen ones’ were engaged in drill practice. They were required to stand at full attention while a mock raising-of-the-flag ceremony occurred. As usual the police did nothing by halves and trotted out the ‘extended mix’ ceremony complete with boring, pointless speeches and a lot of strutting about by senior officers who should have known better.
While all this was going on Alex and his mates had to stand perfectly still, their legs unwavering, arms pinned by their sides, (thumbs along trouser creases, boys) backs straight and heads held high.
Staying in this position for any length of time is bloody difficult, but in 30 degree heat on a solid concrete parade ground, it was nigh on impossible. Alex lasted about twenty minutes before heat exhaustion set in and he collapsed in a dead faint, falling forward onto the parade ground. His head hit the concrete with a sickening crack. His concentration had been so great and the faint so sudden that he had no opportunity to put his arms out to stop his fall. He broke his nose and smashed his jaw in three places. He was hospitalised for three weeks with his jaw wired shut for two of those weeks. When he came back to Trentham he was under instructions to be careful about undertaking any physical activity which pretty much ruled out everything we were doing. He had also missed almost a month of classroom work.
This was his downfall. He was only an average student at the best of times and the backlog of work turned out to be too much for him. His marks fell below the required grade for the end-of-term exams and he was unable to pass a special catch-up exam he was given. This left the police no option but to dismiss him from training. I believe, in the end, the fall not only broke his nose and jaw but his spirit as well.
The Raft Of Death
The potential for injury during training at Trentham was high. We were regularly pushed to our physical and mental limits and something had to give. Normally it was an ankle or a knee, but sometimes it was much worse. I remember seeing one cadet in tears after being told he had torn the cartilages in his knee. An operation was required and he was afraid he would be thrown out of training. Heartless though our instructors were, they didn’t stoop so low as to throw out a cadet who’d been injured in the line of duty and he received the convalescence he required, with no threat of expulsion.
Obviously our instructors had an obligation to weed out those of us who might crack under stress and it was better to find out who couldn’t hack it at training stage, but I do question some of their methods. Especially their attempts to kill us at least once a term.
They were careful to disguise these attempts on our lives as ‘team building exercises’ but I wasn’t fooled. Whenever the phrase was mentioned a cold shiver would creep up my spine.
The first of many such exercises was given the seemingly harmless name of ‘the raft race’. The objective of the race was for each section to build a raft and float it down an 8km stretch of the Hutt River. Sounds innocent enough but there were several catches.
First of all, we were given no equipment to build our rafts. Our instructors allowed us one week to beg, steal or borrow the materials we needed to construct our floating masterpieces. This meant all sorts of odds and ends were gathered together as potential raft equipment - unfortunately much of it chosen because of its accessibility rather than its buoyancy.
We were also encouraged to race competitively.
It was to be our first inter-section challenge and our platoon leaders put a lot of pressure on us to not only win the race, but to destroy the other rafts in the process. It was made clear that the race would have no rules and almost anything was allowed. This included bombing and sabotage.
I had already gained a reputation as an agent of destruction (usually unintentionally) so I was put in charge of our raft’s armaments. It was a task I undertook with relish. I decided the most effective way to turn our floating death-trap into the Nimitz would be to mount a beer-can bazooka on the starboard bow.
I had never made a beer-can bazooka before (and wasn’t sure where starboard was), but this didn’t deter me in the least. You see, I had the knowledge. Recently, a mate from New Plymouth claimed to have constructed a mortar capable of firing a milk bottle over a barn. Naturally I pestered him for the plans and in the end he told all, though subsequent events suggest he left out a few pertinent details.
According to my mate, all I had to do was cut the top and bottom out of two beer cans and attach them to an empty third can, which was complete but with the tear tab removed. Glad wrap was placed over the open tear tab and the three cans were taped together. A small hole was then drilled in the side of the third can, into which lighter fluid was poured. When half full, a paper wick was stuffed into the hole and the bazooka was primed for firing. The intended projectile was then inserted into the barrel formed by the top two cans. The wick was lit and whammo, everything within an 80km radius was decimated. At least that was the theory.
It seemed perfectly logical to me, so I was quite surprised at the turn out for my test firing. Word of the impending explosion spread like wildfire and a sizeable audience gathered (at a respectable distance) to observe the proceedings.
I was reluctant to expose my section’s secret weapon to all and sundry so I decided to use a different accelerant for the trial run. My reasoning being if I used petrol instead of lighter fluid the weapon wouldn’t perform to its full potential but would still put on a good show. Besides lighter fluid was hard to come by and I figured one flammable liquid was pretty much like another. At this stage I should probably remind everyone I failed science at school.
To say the launch was a complete failure would be untrue, as many of the audience went away very pleased, especially those from other sections. I must admit that the beer can bazooka didn’t live up to the hype. The idea was to launch the assorted rocks and twigs I’d tipped down its barrel over the Gumbies barracks; instead it blew up in my hand. I sustained major damage to my credibility as an explosives expert and minor burns to my person. All the hair was burned off the back of my right hand and one of my eyebrows took a minor singeing.
Thinking back, I can’t figure out how I believed it would work in the first place.
Amazingly, I didn’t lose my position as armaments officer after the misfire but it was suggested that I concentrate on less ambitious forms of weaponry, such as flour-and-water bombs. These I could make, and by race day I had assembled an impressive array of surface-to-raft missiles, including a few eggs I’d nicked from the cookhouse.
Our raft looked magnificent. The lads had successfully scavenged several empty 44-gallon drums and lashed them to a couple of lengths of wood. We had high hopes for race day and approached the starting line with our victory speeches already prepared.
The race started well with the C section raft, more than holding its own in the opening flour-and-water barrage. Several of our eggs found their mark and even without our bazooka we were a raft to be feared.
Sadly our moments of glory were short-lived. After the first 100 metres things began to unravel or, more specifically, our raft began to unravel. Of all the damnable luck, we
’d constructed our raft before we learned how to tie knots properly and our sheep shanks turned out to be pig’s ears.
We tried to keep our rapidly disintegrating raft together but knew after half a kilometre that it was a lost cause. We floundered about in the shallows for several hours, clinging to a bit of sodden rope and our one remaining drum. By this time the other sections had finished the race and we still hadn’t made the halfway mark. In the end the instructors took pity on us and hauled our cold, bruised and bedraggled bodies out of the water.
Our humiliation was only made bearable when we heard that one other hapless crew had to be rescued as well, and their failure, though not as complete as ours, was possibly even more embarrassing. They had taken an early lead in their sleek inner tube and wood raft but soon discovered a major design fault. The six-inch nails they used to join the boards together had gone through the wood and when they hit the first set of rapids the nails punctured the inner tubes. They sank like a stone.
B section took out the race, followed closely by A section and, thanks to our abysmal effort, C section came last.
Aside from contusions and several doses of the flu no permanent injuries were sustained in the raft race.
Just when we thought the rigours of inter-section competition were behind us, we received a nasty surprise. No sooner had our bruises turned from black to yellow than the next team-building exercise was announced. It was time to start preparing for the trolley race - just like the raft race but on dry land, and much, much, more dangerous.