Other things seemed equally petty. Walking by the parade ground, a sergeant shouted from fifty yards away: ‘Take that pipe out of your mouth, airman!’ which I hadn’t realized was against the rules. I came back to the billet one evening to see that the half-dozen books usually on a shelf behind my bed had been strewn across the floor by an inspecting officer on his rounds, signifying that only official kit was to be exposed, and all personal material stowed out of sight in your kitbag. I wasn’t a smart bullshit airman after all, though such incidents were only part of the game while being trained.
Halfway through the course we were given fourteen days’ leave, and in our first bout of lovemaking I tried to introduce my girlfriend to something apart from the usual ‘missionary’ position. She told me angrily that such a trick could only have been picked up from another woman, an unwarrantable assumption, because hard work had been taking up all my time. Whether she was tired of waiting, or wanted to be free of the affair anyway and used this attempt at a bit of fancy fucking as an excuse, was hard to say, but it struck me as so remarkably easy to break up a long association that it didn’t much bother me when it happened. What else did you think about when taking Morse? The procedure was as automatic as working at a lathe.
A favourite excursion from the radio school was to shin up 500 feet to Oldbury Castle, by the White Horse that had been carved out of the chalk downs. The westerly view from a spot nearby revealed the beautiful green declivity of Ranscombe Bottom and, not having lived for such an uninterrupted length of time in the countryside, I would sit on the turf thoughtlessly gazing, finding a kind of peace not known to be necessary until then.
As if to console myself for the loss of my girlfriend, though not alas in the same way, I got to know charming, dark-haired Jean Simons. She took me home to meet her father, who clearly did not approve of such a friendship, but the platonic association made me happy for a while.
Progress on the course was carefully measured, and at the halfway point a few who failed the tests were sent to learn another trade. A Nigerian in the class must have been a telegraphist in his native country, for he took the fastest Morse of all. One afternoon the instructor started the sending machine at the normal speed of eighteen, putting up the rate little by little. By twenty-eight words a minute most had stopped taking it, but the ex-Merchant Navy operators, the Nigerian and myself stayed in the race. Morse was easy enough to read at such speeds but difficult to write legibly, and at thirty-six words a minute the field was left to the Nigerian, who continued a few moments longer. Two days later he fell into a kind of fit and had to be taken off the course, but he must have been the greatest Morse-artist of all time.
In the post-war austerity period a typewriter could be sold for today’s equivalent of two or three hundred pounds, if you could get one. Thirty vanished from our classroom one dark night, which meant that an airman on the camp must have organized the theft. No one knew who had done it, and the machines were quickly replaced. We spoke few words of condemnation against the thieves, though gave no praise either. One’s sense of justice was defined only in so far as knowing that sooner or later those responsible would be caught, since every bag of loot carried a built-in risk deep inside.
On being asked whether or not we would be willing to serve overseas my name immediately went on the list. The only person to sign on with more alacrity than most was the airman in our class who had organized the Great Typewriter Robbery. Unluckily for him, he was plucked from the troopship just before it set off down the Solent, and hauled away to do a couple of years in gaol.
At Christmas we went on leave, our journey delayed by a go-slow on the railways. The train was so crowded that some of us lay half frozen on mail sacks for the five hours it took to reach London. Hundreds got off at Paddington, cursing the engine crew who, it was thought, had made them late for their connections, some airmen hovering by the cab as if intending to lynch them, which sentiment seemed reasonable. I didn’t reach Nottingham till midnight, and walked home through the silent town with my kit.
In the New Year ice and snow cut off the camp from all supplies. Fuel was scarce and we were cold. When the NAAFI ran out of stock we cut a way through the wire fence to reduce the distance to a small pub in the village, where we sat by the fire and drank pints of rough, intoxicating cider.
Rations became more meagre, and at one time we went into the mess for little more than a dab of reconstituted potato and a slice of bread, which spartan victuals continued for some time. Nevertheless, instruction was carried on and, though grumbling occasionally, we stayed healthy, except for one man who coughed up a pint of blood one morning, and was removed to the sick quarters, never to be seen again. The wing-commander received a decoration for having kept the school going.
My final assessment on passing the course, on 28 February 1946, was fifty-seven per cent, somewhat low but it did not surprise me, never having been fully at ease with the theory of wireless. The pristine cloth badge sewn on to the arm of my tunic, of a clenched fist emitting six vivid sparks, signified that the wearer was no longer an ordinary inconspicuous erk, but a man with a trade, my first and last certificate of competence. Another shilling a day brought twenty a week into my pocket alone, so that we were now rich, someone quipped, beyond the dreams of average.
The usual embarkation leave often days passed without note, as did my nineteenth birthday. From then on it was a matter of waiting for a troopship to take us to no one knew where, first being shunted with kitbag and all accoutrements by train to the transit camp of Burtonwood in Lancashire. Nothing better to do but roam the lanes, and the streets of St Helens, we talked and walked with whatever girls would, for a little blameless amusement, talk and walk with us. Frank Pardy and I found a girl called Cynthia who, with a friend, kept us company for a few days — difficult to say why her name floated back after so long.
We were without duties or purpose for six weeks, the longest period for me since being at school. Spiritual or inner life was non-existent, no thoughts in those days of God, or philosophizing as to the reason for being on earth, or where one would go to after death (if one went anywhere at all, and if Hell had been signified it would not have mattered), certainly not the anguish to ask: ‘Why am I where I am?’ Questions were a luxury, and even less likely to come if nothing could be foreseen, except perhaps mundane speculations as to where on the oblate spheroid we would be going, at which my map of the world was frequently unfolded to make guesses.
We passed the time talking, joking, aimlessly rambling, drinking and sing-songing in the canteen, and sleeping. We got up at six-thirty so as to be in the mess hall with the first rush for breakfast, in case quantity diminished and quality deteriorated. My language was a mixture of economical English, air force slang, and fancy phrases from Nottingham dialect, to be used as verbal trade beads in exchange for whatever rarities my friends could dredge up from their regional speech.
The Americans had been at Burtonwood for much of the war, and an easy-going air lingered after them. Soft spring-like breezes wafted over the camp and surrounding fields, an atmosphere in which to recuperate from hard work on the course, and our privations of the winter. A ‘full house’ of inoculations was given against smallpox, typhoid, para-typhoid and many other strange diseases. A sort of convalescence was suggested by the constant ache and irritation in our arms, and the whiff of ether, which did little to check our ebullience at the prospect of leaving the country for the first time.