Vincent paused. He did not answer for some time. The Admiral was jubilant.
‘Come, come, Vincent, there is a difference, you know.’
‘I know there is, sir, but I can’t think of it for the moment. I’m afraid I’m no watcher of the skies and the question is a new planet in my ken.’
The Headmaster applauded.
‘Very neatly turned, Vincent.’
The Psychiatrist wrote on his little pad: ‘Vincent--shifty.’
‘All right then,’ said the Admiral. ‘That will be all, Vincent.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
As soon as the door had closed behind Vincent, the Admiral breathed a great sigh of relief.
‘That boy should have been a politician,’ he said. ‘Living in a wardroom with him would be like living at the feet of Plato. Crafty question of yours that about the planets, Scratch.’
It was significant that the Admiral had used the word ‘wardroom.’ The Board adjusted their assessments accordingly.
Outside in the corridor, Vincent was speaking to the next candidate.
‘All yours, old man. Watch out for the Headmaster. He’s a bastard.’
‘Thanks,’ said the next candidate.
‘What’s your Christian name, by the way?’
‘Horace George.’
Vincent went off down the corridor, chuckling.
‘Horace George Dewberry.’
Dewberry could not have provided a greater contrast to Vincent. He was small and rather tubby with bristly brown hair cropped close to his head. His expression was secretive, though not furtive, as though he was constantly on his guard against aggressors. He gave the Admiral the impression that he had been bullied at his preparatory school. He was plainly suffering under a severe strain to keep his nervousness from gaining complete control of him and reducing him to fluttering silence. He perched on the edge of his chair, twisting his fingers and looking anxiously at the Board as though he were wondering which of them would first lean out and assault him. The Admiral regarded Dewberry sardonically; the nation which had produced Horatio Nelson had also produced Horace George Dewberry.
‘All right, Dewberry,’ said the Admiral in his most reassuring manner. ‘We’re not going to eat you. We’re only going to ask you some questions.’
Dewberry jerked in his chair.
‘Tell us first of all, why do you want to join the Navy?’
‘Oh dear,’ said Dewberry. ‘I knew you were going to ask me that, sir. It’s rather difficult to say exactly. My mother has always told the family and friends that I was going in the Navy. There’s never been any thought of anything else, sir.’
‘And how do you feel about it?’
‘Well sir, my mother has always--’
‘We don’t want to know what your mother thinks, Dewberry. We want to know what
you
think.’
‘I’m quite keen, sir. I
think
I might do quite well at it.’
‘Splendid.’
‘I hope so anyway, sir.’
‘Good.’
‘I’ll
try
, anyway, sir.’
‘All right.’
‘I
think
I might do quite well, sir.’
‘All right, Dewberry, all right. Now why do you think we have a Navy at all?’
Dewberry could not at first call to mind a single reason why there should be a Navy. Only that morning he had read a leader in the
Daily Disaster
proving that the country did not need a Navy. Then a memory came to him of a remark made long ago by one of his old-fashioned uncles, who never read the
Daily Disaster
.
‘Horace boy, when you grow up and take over yer father’s seat always remember this. Never footle with treaties and agreements. Just send the Navy or the Army. Show the flag. That’s the only way to deal with wogs. Show the flag, Horace.’
‘Show the flag, sir,’ said Dewberry.
‘We can’t live merely by showing the flag.’
That was true, Dewberry reflected. Another memory came to him, of one of his aunts showing him a map of the world. Most of the map had been coloured red and the red patches had been connected by blue lines across the sea.
‘The red parts are the British Empire, Horace dear. The blue lines are the trade routes. Without the trade routes you and all the family, even your uncle, would starve.’
‘Protect trade routes, sir,’ said Dewberry.
‘Good. Quite right.’
Dewberry had another memory of his uncle.
‘And to provide an education for the male members of the Royal Family and husbands for the females, sir,’ said Dewberry.
The Board came to life. They looked searchingly at Dewberry. For the first time they began to wonder whether the boy was as harmless as he looked. The Civil Servant thought it time to change the subject again.
‘Do you have any hobbies, Dewberry?’ he asked.
‘Not hobbies exactly, sir.’
‘What do you do in your spare time then?’
‘I play the French horn, sir.’
‘Ah. Don’t you find it rather monotonous going oomphah, oomphah all the time?’
‘You’re thinking of the tuba, sir. There’s some lovely music for the French horn. Mozart wrote some beautiful concertos for it and you’ve only got to examine some of Beethoven’s scores to see how highly he thought of it. It can be a fascinating instrument, sir.’
The Civil Servant had struck fire from Dewberry. He was startled by the effect of his question.
‘Do you think you’ll get much chance to play the French horn in the Navy, Dewberry?’
‘I don’t see why not, sir. I think music and the Navy might possibly go together. After all, Rimsky-Korsakov was a serving naval officer at one time, wasn’t he, sir?’
‘Ah yes. Quite right. So he was.’
Part of the President’s duty was to keep the interview on a plane where the Board, as well as the candidate, could follow it.
‘Drop it, Pills,’ he said. ‘Now, Dewberry, I want you to look at that picture on the wall and tell us what you make of it.’
‘What I make of it, sir?’
‘Yes. Tell us anything you notice about it.’
Dewberry swallowed nervously. Soon it was plain that the picture meant nothing at all to him.
‘Come on, Dewberry. What’s the picture of?’
‘A boat, sir.’
‘What kind of boat?’
‘A sailing boat, sir.’
‘Any particular kind?’
Dewberry had an inspiration.
‘A
yacht
, sir.’
‘Right. What’s it doing?’
Dewberry’s inspiration failed him.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know, sir.’
‘Never mind, Dewberry.’
The Board asked Dewberry some more desultory questions but they were unable to rekindle the fire aroused by the French horn. The Board began to picture Dewberry in the Royal Philharmonic; they could not imagine him in the Royal Navy. The Admiral thought otherwise.
‘I may be mistaken,’ he said, ‘but I think there’s the right stuff in that boy. Provided he gets away from his mother and marries the right girl he’ll do well. The service will do the first part and I expect the girl will do the rest.’
The next candidate wore a tweed hacking jacket and grey flannel trousers which caught the Board’s attention immediately. He was the biggest young man the Board had ever seen, yet he gave the impression that he was still only half-grown. His bones were like scaffoldings, solid struts and bars, which supported his clothes. He was plainly a rugger player. His fair hair was tousled and fluffy from innumerable shower-baths after the game. His lips were purposefully pursed, as though he were just on the point of exhorting his forwards to use their feet and stop mucking about. The corners of his eyes were puckered, as though from long hours of chasing enemy fly-halves through driving rain. He was a plain, solid young man with a plain, solid name.
‘Thomas Bowles.’
Thomas Bowles. The Board were surprised to find how refreshing the name sounded in their ears after the exotic John Paul Henry Marchant Vincent and the enigmatic Horace George Dewberry. The Admiral warmed to Bowles.
‘Sit down now, Bowles,’ he said heartily.
Bowles sat down carefully, as though he had known chairs collapse under him.
‘Now Bowles, tell me why you want to become a naval officer.’
‘I just want to, sir.’
‘Just want to? But don’t you feel that sometime early in life you must choose the way in which you can best serve the community and though you’re not sure at first you choose something and persevere at it?’
‘That’s a very involved way of putting it, if you’ll pardon me saying so, sir. I hadn’t really thought about serving the community. It’s just what I want to do, that’s all.’
The Admiral was delighted. He felt like a man who, after floundering in quicksands, finds himself once more upon solid, dependable ground.
‘What do you particularly want to do in the Navy, Bowles?’
‘I want to be a pilot, sir.’
‘A
pilot
? Why?’
‘There again, sir, I’m afraid I can’t give you a definite plausible reason for it. It’s just what I want to do, sir.’
‘Do you think you’ll be able to get into a cockpit?’
‘Oh yes, sir. I’ve tried it.’
‘Where did you try it?’
‘Navy Days, sir.’
‘Do you go to many Navy Days?’
‘I go to a lot, sir. I find them very interesting. I usually go with my father. He knows a lot of people in the Navy.’
‘Was your father a naval officer?’
‘Yes, sir. He’s retired now.’
‘Oh yes, I remember now.’
The Admiral, seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. The Board wondered why.
‘Bowles,’ said the Civil Servant, ‘since you want to be a pilot, can you tell us why we have a Fleet Air Arm?’
‘We need aircraft to extend the offensive and defensive range of the fleet, sir. If we’d had a lot more fleet carriers earlier in the war a lot of things might have been different. There might have been no Dunkirk, at least not in the way it turned out, we might have held Singapore longer, we most certainly would not have lost the
Prince of Wales
and the
Repulse
in one day like that if they’d had air support, and the Atlantic convoy losses would have been lighter. A lot of things would have been different, sir.’
‘That’s a good answer, Bowles,’ said the Admiral. ‘You’ve obviously studied the question.’
‘I have, sir. It’s one of my father’s pet hobby horses.’
‘Did your father have any influence on your decision to join the Navy?’
‘Well, I suppose he must have done, sir. But only indirectly. He left the choice to me. Naturally he’s very pleased that I’m doing it.’
‘Of course.’
The Lieutenant-Colonel, Royal Marines, asked two leading questions at each interview board. One was to ask the candidate if he had ever heard of Florence Nightingale, and the other was one about which the Lieutenant-Colonel of Royal Marines had often wondered himself. He decided that Bowles was the most likely candidate he had seen for some time to be able to give him the answer.
‘If I said to you, Bowles, “the proper study of mankind is man,” what do I mean?’
‘It almost defines and describes what I imagine a naval officer does, sir.’
‘I think that’s as good an answer as any,’ said the Admiral. He was anxious to change the subject.
‘Will you look at that picture on the wall, Bowles, and tell us anything you notice about it?’
Bowles looked at the picture. The Board could almost see him absorbing the details, arranging them in his mind, and forming a conclusion.
‘It’s a picture of a ketch, coming out on the evening ebb tide. Two men on deck, which means two girls below cooking supper. The harbour is on the south coast, probably by the shape of the hills and the red soil, Devon or possibly Dorset. Racing pennant, dinghy lashed on deck, spinnaker boom lying up for’d, they’ve probably just finished a day’s racing and are on their way home to the next place round the point before closing time. They’re just passing a starboard hand buoy with what looks like a wreck buoy close inshore. Leading mark on the hill.’
The Board looked at Bowles with respect, almost with reverence. The Civil Servant examined the picture carefully. He had been looking absently at it for a number of years and had never realised what a lot was taking place in it. He had always thought it a peculiarly dull picture but Bowles had shown it to be a veritable hive of industry.
‘Do you do much sailing, Bowles?’ asked the Commander (E).
‘Not as much as I’d like to, sir. We don’t live anywhere near the sea.’
The Admiral’s mind was already made up.
‘Well, Bowles,’ he said. ‘I think that will be enough. You can go now. Thank you very much.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
When Bowles had gone, the Admiral looked triumphantly round the Board.
‘Well, gentlemen, I don’t think there are any arguments about that. I think we’re all agreed, are we not?’
The Board nodded. The Psychiatrist wrote: ‘Bowles--recommended for aircrew. Hussar-type.’
‘Only one more before lunch,’ said the Commander (S). The Commander (S) found interviews fatiguing. The mental exertions of the candidates tried him almost as much as though he underwent them himself. He often sighed for his last appointment where he had signed papers between ten and eleven, lunched at one, and golfed in the afternoon. He had run the wardroom football pool syndicate once a week, dined with the Admiral’s secretary once a month, audited the wardroom wine fund once a quarter and advised the Captain on his income tax rebates once a year. It had been a gentlemanly existence. Now, he was condemned to watch future naval officers, some of them possibly future Commanders (S), writhing on the hook for eight hours a day. To a civilised man, it smacked of sadism. Even now, the next candidate was waiting.
He was a brown-haired boy of medium height with the type of frank, honest, untroubled features which suggest that their owner had been a beautiful baby, as middle-class babies go.
‘Michael John Hobbes.’
The Admiral was impressed. The boy looked normal enough.
‘Have you read a life of Nelson, Hobbes?’ asked the Headmaster.
‘I started one, sir, but I’m afraid I didn’t finish it.’
‘What sort of books do you read?’
‘Oh, novels and things. I read my mother’s library books occasionally, sir.’
‘Did you ever take part in any school plays?’