Although I had sort of given up on the air
force, the air force hadn’t given up on me, well; they expected me to keep
performing right up until the last moment of service, I had lost all interest. I was told that I had to undergo my regular
training for NBC, Nuclear, Biological and Chemical warfare. This involved a day spent on the rifle range,
eating dried biscuits in a gas chamber and a multi choice exam. I couldn’t see the point in it and really couldn’t
find any enthusiasm whatsoever. A month
or two before this, during one station exercise, I found myself with about
thirty other fellows kipping down in the classroom where the NBC tests were
held. We were supposedly under a gas
attack so were all kitted up in our suits and gas masks. There was very little conversation going on
as talking with gas masks on is quite difficult. If you don’t believe me stick your head in a
bucket and ask your partner for a cup of tea
I was wandering about looking for something to
occupy myself with and found myself standing by the podium at the head of the
room. I looked inside and saw a perforated
card. I immediately knew what it was and
took it out. It was quite common to
write on your NBC suits. Mainly your
blood type plus your name, rank and number would be on the front of your
suit. So to see me sitting in a corner scribbling away on my NBC suit would
not have been considered to have been out of the ordinary. What I had found was the template used to
mark the multi choice tests given at the end of the NBC training day. If you didn’t pass this test you would have
to come back the following week and enjoy the whole process once again. Now of course I was guaranteed success as I
had the correct answers written down one leg of my NBC suit.
On the day of the NBC training we had an over excitable
Rock Ape Corporal run the show. He
really did give the impression that he spent far too much time watching American
war movies. I continued the age old tradition
of shooting at the stick that held the target up, rather than at the target,
which annoyed him greatly. The CS gas didn’t
really upset me as, like most people of my generation from Northern Ireland, we
were used to CS gas seeping under the front door, usually at tea time on a
Sunday evening for some reason, so eating biscuits in a room full of CS gas didn’t
present any problem. It was at the end
of the day, which I can assure you was a very long and boring day, that we
enjoyed a final burst of craziness.
The Rock Ape was one of those military
flavoured nut cases who thought that marching was fun. He lined us all up so that we could march
back to the armoury and hand in our weapons. Normally I might have broken into a marching
chant and livened things up a bit, but it wasn’t just me, we were all a bit
tired of his childish enthusiasm and just wanted to get the day over and done
with. Even though he was a Rock Ape, a
sub species of human not exactly renowned for their intelligence, he managed to
pick up on the vibe that we were not a bunch of happy bunnies. Someone like myself would have immediately
injected a bit of humour to lighten the mood of proceedings however the Rock
Ape had his own ideas, which veered more towards Rambo rather than rambunctious. There was a direct route to the armoury but
he took us off in another direction announcing that we should enjoy a little
bit of drill to end the day.
He then gave an instruction that we should all
hold our rifles above our head, in both hands, and rather than march along the
road, we would proceed in double time, a sort of coordinated running. It took most of us by surprise for I had
never seen anyone in the British forces do this before. I think I had seen it in a movie, and even
then it was probably a punishment. It made as much sense as carrying telegraph poles. You could tell from the faces of everyone
involved that no one was impressed and were probably wondering what to do about
it. I think most people on the training day
outranked the Rock Ape and were perhaps considering the most diplomatic way of how
to deal with the situation. I gave up thinking
about it and stopped. I stepped out of
line and stood at the side of the road.
The Rock Ape continued on for a few yards before he noticed that one of
his troops was standing by the side of the road.
He halted the main body of men and ran back to
me screaming and shouting. I didn’t want
to embarrass him in front of the others, plus I didn’t want any witnesses to
what I was about to say to him, so I kept my voice low. He stood in front of me and continued to
yell. This is where I got real medical evidence
to conclusively prove that smoking cigarettes is directly related to blood
pressure. And passive smoking at
that. Because it was me smoking the cigarette,
while it was quite obvious that it was his blood pressure going through the
roof. I very quietly told him he was an
idiot and I would be making my own way back to the armoury. I then slung my rifle over my shoulder jammed
my hands in my pockets and sauntered off in the general direction of the
armoury. One or two others took courage
from my actions and left the main body of men.
The Rock Ape reorganised the group and once again.
with rifles held above their heads, doubled off into the sunset. There was about five of us who had revolted
and each one of us knew that the situation could either be quietly forgotten about
or it could go mental. It all depended just how offended the Rock Ape felt. This was the armed forces and Wattisham had a
fine tradition of idiots getting punched in the face, regardless of the time or
place. The most famous, I am proud to
say, and you’ve probably guessed it already, involved Dave Magee. Dave and a group of friends were walking from
the mess to their squadron after lunch.
They were about to cross a ditch, which because it was so narrow would
only allow one person at a time to wobble across the couple of planks that crossed
the divide. A young Corporal policeman approached
from the other side and announced that as a Corporal he was crossing the bridge
and Dave’s party would wait.
All policemen or women started life as Corporals
but they were not real Corporals they were acting Corporals, very similar to
acting the eejit. Some of them had a
real mouthful to go through if they ever had to give their rank.
It may have been something like Acting Corporal, unpaid, senior
Aircraftmen John Smith. I don’t think
anyone actually cared about them, especially people like Dave Magee, who
patiently waited for the acting unpaid police Corporal to cross the bridge and
them punch him in the face which propelled him into the ditch and the stagnant
water therein. Most coppers would
explode with rage, begin to issue threats and give chase, but this copper stood
up and cried, which is why the incident was so fondly remember at
Wattisham. I’m not advocating violence but
most people in the forces tend to smile when they hear of a copper getting
their comeuppance. So the Rock Ape was
very nearly in the same category as the police Corporal, we all knew it and I
suppose we all hoped that he knew it.
We made sure we looked as close to smart military men as we
could as we came to the armoury, as in we had all stopped smoking, hands were
out of pockets, berets were on straight and we were holding our guns correctly,
which meant that the end the bullets come out of was pointing up. The Rock Ape had lined up the body of men and
was bringing them out one at a time to hand in their weapons. We, the revolters, ignored him and handed our
guns in then gave him a friendly wave goodbye.
Of course he was incapable of allowing the incident to die and came
after me. “Next time you’re on NBC training,”
he hissed. “I’m going to give you such a
hard time.” “Good luck with that.” I
said, adding. “I’m demob happy. I’ll never have to go through this shit again.”
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