Boy Entrant; The Recollections of a Royal Air Force Brat (22 page)

The watery winter sun had long since set by the time we arrived on foot at Princes Dock. A long queue of assorted travellers had formed, patiently suffering the steady rain that was falling unceasingly from the heavens, as they stood at the closed dock gate waiting to board the ship. Someone mentioned that we needed sailing tickets, although that’s the first that any of us had heard of it. I didn’t even know what a sailing ticket was. We’d been told that a return railway ticket was all that was needed for the passage between Liverpool and Belfast. So, we joined onto the end of the queue and thankfully lowered our kitbags to the ground, easing the ache in our arms that came from holding the bags up on our shoulders during the long walk from Lime Street station. The queue didn’t move forward a single inch for what seemed an eternity. Meanwhile, the relentless rain fell in a fine drizzle, hissing softly as it made contact with the wet road and the numerous puddles in my immediate surroundings. The tiny splashes made by the raindrops on the wet pavement momentarily reflected the harsh orange glare of the street lights, taking on the hypnotic appearance of a firefly swarm that dances continuously above the surface of a pond. Occasionally, the soft hiss of the rain was overpowered by much louder swishing noises, as cars and buses splashed by on the wet road, the imprint of their tyre tread pattern being quickly obliterated by the thin film of surface water that jealously reclaimed the territory from which it had been so rudely displaced.

A shipping company official eventually came along the queue, informing servicemen in uniform to make their way to the front. We immediately detached ourselves from the main queue and waited in a small separate line as our tickets were inspected before being allowed to go on board the ship. It was also explained to us that a sailing ticket was usually needed during busy times such as this. Talking amongst ourselves, we resolved to pass this nugget of information on to the travel warrant clerk back at Station Headquarters. Although being called forward turned out to be a stroke of good luck, we still had to deal with a severely crowded ship. Every seat in the passenger lounge had been filled by the time we got on board and the ship’s crew had gone to the unusual step of opening the cargo hold to accommodate the extra passengers. Having no other option, we clambered down into the hold and tried to make ourselves as comfortable as possible under an overhang. At least we were more or less out of the rain, but it was cold and miserable as we huddled down into our greatcoats and used our kitbags for makeshift pillows. I can remember looking across at Cassidy as he tried to get some sleep and seeing that he had the high collar of his coat pulled up around his neck and the peak of his hat pulled down over his eyes, so that barely anything of his face was visible. Some civilian wag nearby commented that Billy looked like a member of the Gestapo. And, just to add to our misery, the boat was late in sailing.

Finally we got under way and the first hour was relatively calm as the ship sailed within the shelter of the Mersey estuary. But as the estuary widened, the swell grew noticeably heavier until we were taking the full brunt of a gale force wind and the tempestuous waves it stirred up on the Irish Sea that dark December night. The ship continuously groaned and creaked as it pitched and wallowed in the roiling sea. Occasionally it would ride high on the crest of a wave before plunging steeply into its trough, accompanied by a screaming sound from ship’s propellers as they briefly emerged from the water and spun with little resistance in the air, before plunging back once again into their element and to their normal speed. At other times a large wave would collide head-on with the bow and break over it, creating a loud boom that resounded through the metal bulwarks of the vessel. The noise and motion made sleep utterly impossible, although I desperately tried. In the end I spent much of the night wandering around on the decks, watching and hearing the ship battle its way through the turbulent sea as its lights illuminated the spray flying from the crests of the waves. At all times I was hanging on to something solid so as not to be thrown off balance and fall. Many more people were suffering from sea-sickness than there had been on my first trip and although I wasn’t physically sick myself, there was an uncomfortable queasiness in the pit of my stomach.

It was a relief to everyone aboard when we finally entered the shelter of Belfast Lough in the early hours of the morning and even more so an hour later, when the ship docked at Donegal Quay just as a watery dawn lit up the morning sky and I was able to step onto solid, unmoving dry land once again. It had been a rough crossing for sure, but after experiencing many Irish Sea crossings during the next few years, I eventually came to know that a rough ride such as this was fairly common in the winter season.

After wishing the other lads a merry Christmas, I set off walking along Corporation Street in the damp early-morning Irish air, towards York Road railway station, carrying my kitbag over my right shoulder, then over my left shoulder and then back to the right shoulder again. By now, the glamour of carrying the kitbag had worn a bit thin. I cursed it for its awkward shape and for the fact that I’d filled it with more than just my kit. I could still feel the motion of the ship as I walked along, even though I was now firmly on dry land. The sensation stayed with me for the remainder of the day and was probably due to a lack of sleep as much as anything else. But in spite of the awkwardness of the kitbag and the queasy feeling that still grabbed at my stomach, I was happy and excited to be back in my homeland again.

My sense of excitement increased with the miles on the train journey from Belfast to Coleraine. My heartbeat sped up at seeing familiar names on the platform nameplates as the steam locomotive hissed into one station after another along the single gauge line: names like Ballymena and Ballymoney. Then finally, just over an hour after leaving Belfast, we pulled into Coleraine station. I had already left my seat several minutes before and was at the door, with the window pulled down to feel the hometown air on my face, whilst the train was still moving. Then it lumbered to a stop with a loud hiss of steam and squeal of its brakes. I reached outside for the large brass carriage door handle, turning it a full quarter turn until it clicked open, setting me free to walk on my home turf.

My old friend the station porter was there and he greeted me with a question. “Home for a wee bit of leave, son?”

I grinned and replied, “Yeah,” forgetfully using the English way of saying yes, instead of the local “aye”.

“When d’ye haff tae g’back?” It was question that was to become only too familiar in the following days. Everyone seemed to ask it, unintentionally of course, but just hearing it always reminded me that leave wouldn’t last forever. Right now, going back seemed a long way off and there would be time enough to think about it later. All I wanted to do at that moment was to enjoy the next two weeks. There was money in my pocket and a whole lot of plans in my head.

There were big grins all around when I walked in through the door of the pre-fab—the pre-fabricated house—that was home. I felt proud and embarrassed all at the same time, very conscious of my uniform which still looked relatively smart in spite of the rough journey it had just suffered.

Annie spoke first, “Huh! Wid ye luk at the Brylcreem boy,” she mocked, ending the sentence with a cackle that, in her mind, was intended to “cut me down to size”. It didn’t work. I was proud of my progress and allowing her mockery to get to me was a thing of the past as far as I was concerned.

My father studied my uniform, eying the eagle flashes on my shoulder. “I thought you had to
earn
your wings,” he said.

“These aren’t wings. It’s only pilots who have wings and they wear them here.” I pointed to the left side of my chest, just above the breast pocket. “Everybody has these,” I continued, gesturing with my head towards the eagle flash on my right shoulder.

“Aw,” he nodded, accepting the explanation without further comment.

I dropped my kitbag on the floor, happy that I could put it down at long last and then took off my hat and greatcoat. There wasn’t any locker here to hang my clothes up in, so I went out into the hallway and found a hook to hang them on with all the other coats. Then I came back, unbuttoned my tunic and sat down. Annie asked me if I wanted something to eat. The queasiness was still there, but I felt hungry too, so I nodded yes. Soon the appetizing aroma of eggs and bacon filled the kitchen and before long I was eating the most enjoyable meal I’d had in a long time. One thing I had to admit—her eggs and bacon were a lot more appetizing than those dished up in the Boy Entrants’ mess. Being fed like that also gave me the sense that I had “arrived”—eggs and bacon hadn’t come my way too many times from Annie’s frying pan in the years before I had left home to join the RAF. So it was with great relish that I polished the whole meal off and washed it down with a mug of her weak milky tea.

When I had finished and we were sitting around talking, Annie picked her moment and brought up the subject of money by remarking that I would be expensive to feed while I was home on leave. I reached in my pocket and gave her five Pounds, but she only looked at it disdainfully. “Surely they paid you more than that?” she protested.

I mumbled something about giving her some more and handed her another fiver, which seemed to satisfy her. The subject then changed to something else and for the next hour or so I answered questions about life as a Boy Entrant in the RAF. My father countered with some of his stories of life when he was in the Royal Navy during the war and we compared notes on the differences and similarities of the two services. I had always enjoyed his stories of the Navy and now felt that I had some of my own to bring to the table. Yes, it was good to feel that I was getting some respect, now that I was “making something of myself”.

Later on, my sisters Veronica and Pauline and brother Thomas arrived home from their last day at school before breaking up for Christmas. They were delighted to see me and plied me with questions about my experiences “across the water”. Being the big brother who was now such a man of the world, I’m afraid I laid it on a bit thick.

After the tea-time meal, I casually mentioned that I was going to see Maggie, our maternal great-aunt. This was greeted with an awkward silence that implied disapproval, but nothing was said, so I put on my tunic, greatcoat, hat and gloves and set off on the mile or so walk through the lamp-lighted streets to Maggie’s house. In Coleraine most people either walked or rode bicycles, because the town wasn’t large enough to have its own municipal bus service and most working people didn’t own cars in those days. The walk only took about twenty minutes and when I reached Maggie’s house in Bellhouse Lane I tapped on the lighted window as I’d always done in the past. Then I went to the front door of her two up—two down terraced house and heard her open the inner door.

“Who is it?” She called out.

“Brian,” I answered.

The door opened and her small frame stood there, a warm smile lighting up her face as her eyes began to fill up with tears. “Och, it’s you son,” she said, “I’m glad you could come and see me.” I stepped into the small hallway and she hugged me, which made me squirm uncomfortably like any 15-yearold boy. She laughed at this and then said, “Let me have a look at you.” I stood there as she weighed me up and down. “You look very smart in your uniform,” she said, “I just wish your mother could see you.” The thought made us both feel sad: she missed my mother probably as much as I did, having raised her from a child to an adult young woman. Then Maggie added, “But if she’d been here, you wouldn’t have had to go away and join up.” By which she meant enlist in the RAF. She then made some tea for us both and I sat and told her as much as I could about life at St. Athan.

“Are the higher-ups hard on you?” She asked, meaning my superiors. I immediately thought of Hillcrest.

“Naw,” I replied, shrugging off the question. How could I explain to Maggie—my grandmother in all but name—that I needed to tough it out without complaining? The officers and NCOs expected us to take the hard knocks of training like men. My fellow boy entrants were even more demanding, just as much as I expected the same of each and every one of them. There was no place in boy entrant training for cry-babies, and anyone who might have initially exhibited some weakness had either toughened up quickly or had already fallen by the wayside. The truthful answer would have been “Yes, it’s no picnic.” But I couldn’t say that.

Maggie dropped the subject, perhaps because she understood better than I did that it was a rite of passage that would help me to make the transition from childhood to adulthood, building my self-confidence and self-respect in the process.

“They seem to have got you to stand up straight and not slouch,” she remarked.

“It’s the marching,” I replied and then offered, by way of further explanation, “We have to swing our arms up as high as our shoulders and it makes us straighten up.”

“Aye, you look a lot better straightened up and very smart in your uniform,” she remarked. This observation made me feel pleased and proud.

I told her about the sea crossing and how rough it had been. Maggie had never been out of Ireland in her life, but had heard many similar stories from those who had crossed the Irish Sea. She was very interested to hear about Wales and the Welsh people and laughed when I mimicked their accent and the words they used. We talked for about two hours like this and then it was time for me to leave and make my way back home.

On returning back there, I discovered that I would be sharing a bed with my younger brother. It was just like old times in our little overcrowded house. Ever since I’d arrived home I’d been struck by how small and claustrophobic everything seemed after the large open space of the barrack room I’d become used to. Just finding space for my kit was a challenge. And everything seemed to be damp. The only source of heat in the house was a fireplace in the living room that also heated the water. Having become used to the central heating system that we had in the billets and just about everywhere else on camp, I had forgotten about the damp feel of the bedclothes that made them seem cold and damp until our body heat warmed them up. Going to bed in the dead of winter at our house was like taking the plunge into a cold icy pool. It was a case of just gritting your teeth and getting in there, braced for that first shock of coldness until the body got used to it. Getting dressed in the morning was a similar experience because the clothing accumulated moisture from the dank air during the night, but with clothing the shock passed sooner. Despite the initial damp chilliness of the bedding, I slept well, making up for lack of sleep during the previous night on the boat.