it was ‘Mister Vice’s’ solemn duty to toast the Queen: ‘Mr Vice, the Loyal Toast!’ Mr Vice was a junior officer, seated at the opposite end of the President, selected for the role either as a tribute to his wit, as a punishment, or both.
‘Gentlemen, the Queen.’
‘The Queen.’
A clink of glasses, and the toast was made, but with a difference: the navy toasted the monarch while seated, a throwback to the cramped wardrooms of the wooden ships, their deck-heads too low for officers to stand upright properly. Then followed the traditional naval toast, one for each day of the week. The port would continue on another round of the table, and then another.
From the cumulative effect of pre-dinner drinks, with the toasts and other formalities over, the atmosphere would descend into general disorder and hilarity. Through Mister Vice, an officer could accuse a friend or colleague of a real or imagined transgression, who would then have to supply a suitable excuse. If the riposte was considered lame or un-amusing he would incur a fine from the Mess President, usually in the form of bottles or further ‘rounds’ of premium port, the cost placed on his Mess number by a grinning steward. Bow ties had to be hand-tied; a suspected ‘clip-on’ could be revealed by a tug on the suspect’s tie, leading to a round of port bought by the wearer if found false, but if found correct, the challenger would have to pay. Later the President would stand up, which would signal general adjournment to the wardroom’s bar.
The drinking and ribaldry would increase further if the Mess Dinner was not a mixed affair. In the tradition of the military’s ‘work hard, play hard’ way of thinking, an area would be cleared, and the Mess games would begin. One game was called Moriarty: two officers would be blindfolded and would lie on the floor gripping a rolled-up newspaper (preferably the Sunday edition) in one hand and the other officer’s arm in the other.
‘Are you there, Moriarty?’ one player would call.
His opponent would reply ‘Here’ then attempt to manoeuvre out of the way. Then wham! Down would come the first caller’s newspaper. Turns were taken until one of them gave up. In the game of St George and the Dragon, a ceiling fan would be turned on and the challenging officer would stand underneath it and follow its revolutions with the end of a broomstick until somebody called ‘Charge!’. The player then lowered his broomstick in the manner of a jousting knight’s lance and charging a target set up at the end of a line of chairs and spectators. However, the dizzying effect of following the fan blades would usually result in the player careering off to one side and ending up in a pile of furniture and people, to the multitude’s entertainment. Carrier landings, a game also played by the air force, involved the lining up of several tables, lubricating their surfaces with beer, and candidates launching themselves upon it to slide to the other end. ‘Night qualifications’ could be attained by candlelight.
The Mess Dinner would eventually end after childish games and excessive drinking in formal uniform, an outlet for young men who worked hard for long hours. But, in strict naval tradition, it was still expected for all officers to attend Colours the next morning at 0800.
For us midshipmen, Mess Dinners lay well into the future. On the BATC, every day commenced with the flicker of the dormitory’s neon lights at 0500. We immediately changed into sports gear and made the group run through the cold early dawn with masses of starlings twittering from the ancient palm trees lining the roads of the base. After dhobi and breakfast, we started the day’s program of lectures, drill, physical training and more lectures. Then, an early dinner in the wardroom, ravenous, but ever so careful to follow the required etiquette. After that, study, assignment work and then sleep. The BATC was a six-week mix of physical, academic and practical training. The practical training included drill, basic survival at sea, rifle and pistol firing, boat work and emergency training as applicable to ships.
Drill featured but not excessively so, nor to the detriment of other subjects. The course marched to each lecture or training event. The petty officer drill instructors bawled their commands and criticisms at us with the same fervour as they did at the junior sailor trainees: ‘Squad, ho! That was bloody woeful! No wonder we’ll have the bloody Russians loose in the Indian Ocean with you lot out there to defend it … sirs.’
‘You there! Midshipman! Where’s your fucking cap … sir?’
Fire fighting was realistic: at the training ground, metal structures were fed with fuel to replicate violent fuel fires, to be extinguished by the trainees. A low, rectangular steel building nearby represented the interior of a warship. The multiple compartments inside were accessed by ‘knee knocker’ hatchways through the bulkheads, and the whole structure was pumped full of real smoke. Masks and air cylinders were issued, and we were directed to enter this structure and make our way to the other end and exit. A fellow mid, his exercise complete, handed me his mask and cylinder, and into the building I went, and the door was shut behind me with a clang.
I proceeded in total blackness. Air flowed through the valve in my mask and I felt along with the back of my hand. Over a ‘knee knocker’ … the next compartment … another breath, then, the mask sucked against my face – the air had run out! No problem, there was a reserve, so I activated its switch.
Nothing.
Fighting panic, I shouted through the rubber of the mask. There was no air left. I stumbled forward, scrabbling for the exit. I heard noises behind me and, fortunately, a course-mate had heard my muffled calls. Grabbing his belt, I could only try to hold my breath while he led me through the steel maze and finally out into open air. It was a revelation of how dangerous the environment inside a ship could be under emergency or combat conditions and it was also one of the very few occasions where equipment let me down: the breathing device had not been refilled properly. It was also an important lesson in thoroughly checking survival gear.
After the final examinations and assessments, BATC was complete. However, over several days during the course, a sobering sight in the wardroom at mealtimes had been a solitary midshipman. He had failed the pilot’s course at Point Cook. Marking time back in Cerberus, he was waiting for allocation to an alternate naval career path, most likely that of Observer or Air Traffic Controller. For young Midshipman Carr, this was the first inkling that successful completion of the pilot’s course was not by any means guaranteed, and that an intense and difficult road lay ahead.
5
COURSE OF THE CENTURY
1976 – 1977
SANGaaarzz!’
The cry was taken up through the antique wooden building – the Course Orderly had brought the evening tray of sangers (sandwiches) from the Cadets’ Mess. Doors banged and running feet reverberated on grey linoleum floors, vibrating throughout the wood of the old structure. Block 46 was an ancient two-storey building at the Royal Australian Air Force’s basic flying training base, Point Cook. The base sat to the west of Melbourne on Port Phillip Bay, where the air alternately carried the tang of salt and seaweed, industrial smells from Melbourne’s factories, and the occasional whiff of a huge sewage farm to the west. Skies were often grey and overcast, and produced a stiff cold breeze blowing off the bay.
My fellow midshipmen and I had just arrived at Point Cook in mid-1976 to join our air force counterparts on Number 100 Pilot’s Course. Like my navy group, the air force ‘Cadets Aircrew’ were a mixed bunch: boys just out of school, an ex-Queensland policeman, an older fellow who described his occupation as an ‘artificial inseminator’ (his previous job had been at an animal breeding research station), and a lawyer. There were also several counterparts of our ex-enlisted navy sailors,
