"A Sailor's Tale" is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2005 by John Ellison
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
WARNING: This story contains graphic depictions of sex between consenting adult males and/or teenage males. Please do not continue reading if you are offended by this genre of erotic literature, if you are underage or if this type of story is illegal where you live.
I enjoy hearing from readers and try to answer all e-mails. If you have a comment or a question please contact me at paradegi@rogers.com
Thanks to Peter, my sterling editor. Sometimes without him I would merely be sending along pap!
A Sailor's Tale
Chapter Two
From time to time during my tour of duty in Esquimalt, usually when the ship was in refit, I was seconded to another unit. I had to be kept busy, you see, at least according to the staff wallahs of the Manning Office. As a trained and efficient Boatswain, my expertise could be put to good use, usually in the Seamanship School, but sometimes in Albert Head, where the Junior and Senior Leadership Courses were held.
Albert Head was a former coastal artillery emplacement, situated on a small peninsula directly across the sparkling blue waters of Royal Roads from CFB Esquimalt, between Colwood and Metchosin. It was five sea miles as the crow flew from Victoria and surrounded by deep woods and very quiet.
From the look of the place nothing had been done to the buildings or grounds since the last artillery pieces were removed back in 1946 or 1947. The base consisted of rows of wooden barracks, a Combined Mess and Recreation Hall - a misnomer if ever there was one as it was just one big room in a large, drafty old shack of a place. There was a building that combined classrooms and a small MIR, or Medical Inspection Room (which we called Sick Bay), and a small, very small, gravel parade square, and a Headquarters Building that looked like someone's summer cottage, located just inside the rickety old gate that couldn't keep deer out, let alone marauders. Everything was painted a sickening, dark green.
The barracks, for the most part, housed the trainees, Able and Leading Seamen, and Petty Officers 2nd Class, working on their Leadership qualifications.
Set apart, however, was another set of barracks. Built exactly the same as the barracks that housed the trainees, these long, one-story structures, housed Naval Cadets. They were all attending their Basic Officers Course (BOC) and were bussed to Esquimalt every morning after breakfast and back again before supper. The number in residence varied, although there were usually about thirty of the young men living in the barracks blocks at any given time.
Albert Head and its minimal facilities and accommodations were hardly Officers' Country. Built to house the Seven Mile Snipers who manned the guns in the now derelict battery emplacements (the place had originally been called "Fort Albert Head"), it was bare bones in the extreme. Everybody from the instructors to the officer cadets ate cafeteria style on one side of the Combined Mess and socialized on the other, which everybody referred to as the "canteen", although there was hardly a whit of difference, except that a bar was installed on that side of the room.
There were no stewards, just a couple of grumpy cooks and whoever was on Defaulters to man the steam tables. The Bar Manager, a crusty old retired Chief, hated officers of any rank, and dismissed the young gentlemen, when he was in a good mood, which wasn't often, as "Canada's Last Fuckin' Hope". When he was in a bad mood the officer cadets were "Fuckin' little bastards!"
Nobody liked the living arrangements, least of all the officer cadets. Back home, in their Reserve units they had access to the Wardroom, to stewards, to linen and china and decent silver tableware. They were somebody back home. Here, they were a barely tolerated nuisance.
The presence of these young Naval Cadets was quite simple: there was no room at the CFB Esquimalt Inn.
As a training base, and the main fleet anchorage for the Pacific coast, Esquimalt had a wide range of accommodations available. If you were single, divorced, or your dolly had finally figured out that you were putting it to the skank next door and turfed you into the night, you lived on board ship. You could live ashore, but only after obtaining permission at Captain's Requestmen, and only after a lecture to the effect that you weren't entitled to a housing allowance, and the Supply Officer would still grab off the $50.00 we all paid each month for lounge and scrounge.
Living on board was not all that bad, if you liked crowds. Master Seamen and below lived in one of several messes - the engineers had their mess, the cooks and stewards theirs, the gunnery types theirs, and the seamen theirs. Any number from 15 to 30 lived in a mess. Petty Officers - the number of men accommodated varying from ship to ship - lived in their own mess. The Chief Petty Officers, the Coxswain and the "Chief", the senior engineer, rated their own cabins. Everybody shared a heads and washplace, once again a separate washplace for each division.
Ashore, the pecking order again prevailed. If you were Lower Deck, and assigned to one of the offices, or were on a trade course, or were an instructor, you lived either in Nelles Block or The Barracks, four to a room. The rooms were large, airy, and quite comfortable. You were still subject to Gate and Gaiters though, and every Friday had to endure Captain's Rounds. Everybody in the room scrubbed out on Thursday night, and the Captain, or his designate, would wander by sometime during the day - we were never actually in the room during Rounds. You always knew that the room, and your locker, had been inspected by the shitty chitty the Inspecting Officer left behind. I was once picked up for not having my sea boots spit shined!
As the CFB Esquimalt Petty Officers Mess was always one step this side of being condemned, no one lived in it. The Chiefs and Petty Officers lived in the CPOs Mess, two to a room, except for Chiefs, who had singles. They also had their own bar in the building, and a dining room with table service. Not surprisingly all of the serving staff were young females.
As there was a pecking order for the Lower Deck, so too was there a pecking order for the officers. Not very many senior officers lived aboard. When they did, they occupied the Wardroom. This was a large, comfortable building located on Signal Hill, at the end of Esquimalt Road. The single rooms housed Lieutenants and above. This was the venue of class, with stewards in starched jackets, good china, so-so silver, a lounge, a library, and a huge bar. It was all very posh.
Sub-Lieutenants and Midshipmen (with unification now called "Acting Sub-Lieutenants") were housed in the old Gunroom, renamed the Wardroom Annex. The Annex was not as posh as the Wardroom, residents shared a room, and there were common washroom facilities. As the residents had Wardroom privileges, there was no dining room or bar.
All in all a very orderly way of doing things - except in the summer. The Navy trained in the summer and from April onward the base was inundated with Naval Cadets and Lower Deck Naval Reservists all looking for training and beds. They were all, for the most part, young, single, and either in the last year of high school or university students. The numbers could be, at times, staggering.
There were 18 Reserve Divisions, plus cadets and midshipmen participating in the several officer training schemes, and everybody wanted a sandbox and a blanket, and at times the base was bursting at the seams, with ratings accommodated at CFB Colwood, or Work Point Barracks, and officers, notably the cadets, stuffed in wherever room could be found for them, usually on board HMCS Cape Scott, a former Fleet Maintenance Vessel, which had been refitted as a depot ship and floating barracks. She resembled the US Navy's Liberty ship and was about as comfortable. For reasons I have never been able to determine she was known far and wide as "The Fred". When The Fred was filled, the overflow was accommodated in the leafy and dusty shacks of the Leadership School at Albert Head.
It was at Albert Head, on a stormy morning, in the middle of a thunderstorm, I had my eyes opened and learned that the arrogant, barely sufferable young men who would one day command the Naval reserve, and in wartime man the ever dwindling fleet, were studying more than shipboard navigation.
Don't get me wrong - I didn't hate officers. I didn't like most of them, and there was never one that I trusted. I tolerated them as they tolerated me: a necessary nuisance, to be ignored whenever possible. My father, who had served in the war in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps (RCAMC), never rising above the rank of corporal, had always claimed that the only things officers were good for were signing the supply requisitions and running up a bar bill in the Mess. I agreed with him.
Those were the days when the Navy actively fostered the class system. The officers lived in the Wardroom, or the Gunroom. The crew, the "Lower Deck" as they were generally referred to, lived literally in the lower deck, in "messes", and never the twain did meet. At one time, in the Royal Navy, the mess deck used by the Royal Marine Detachment was always between the officers' quarters and the lower deck messes. We never went quite that far in the RCN, although in light of three mutinies (or more) it might have been a wise idea, although we never had Marines of any description.
Officers were a special breed, and hardly expected to muck in with the Lower Deck trash. They had china; we had tin plates and cups, later Melmac. They ate dinner, we had supper. Before the days of general messing, they had stewards and table service. We had messmen who at every meal gathered the metal cans, called fannies, full of food from the galley, and carried them below where the rations were doled out. We had individual mess kits and washed the forks, knives and spoons in a bucket of soapy water. They had bunks, and stewards to make them in the morning. We had hammocks, which we rolled up and threw in a pile in the morning, and slung at night.
Hardly the atmosphere of Nelson's "Band of Brothers".
Anyway, one fine, sunny morning, around 0530, I was lying in my bunk on board, trying to think of what I would find to fill in my morning - I planned on driving off island, taking the ferry over to Vancouver and spending the afternoon at Wreck Beach, checking out the studs, when there was a hell of a bang and the ship rocked from side to side. I naturally forgot all the basics of Shipboard Emergency Drill and clambered up the ladder to the well deck, wearing only my boxers underwear. I was not alone.
"Spud" Murphy and "Dusty" Rhodes were wearing white briefs and no T-shirts (well, the night had been warm and the air was very muggy below decks). Taylor Brown, a nice kid, but hung like a stud budgie, with just a little pink knob peeking out from the biggest forest of black, curly pubic hair in the fleet, was naked. He always slept naked, the better to facilitate his nightly masturbation. He used a crusty sock, which he kept not so hidden under his pillow. The Chief was ashore, as was the second engineer. The Coxswain, a tall, gangly native Victorian, was wearing a pair of natty, ratty sweats.
We heard a door bang and the Commanding Officer, an elderly old duffer who was just filling in his time until he could retire to his cottage out near Shawnigan Lake and fish, leaned over the bridge wing. He was wearing flannel pyjamas!
"What the fuck was that?" the Old Man demanded of the Coxswain.
"Buggered if I know," the Coxswain answered truthfully.
At that moment the door in the breezeway that led down to the engine room slammed open, the cleat scoring the bulkhead, and the Duty Stoker staggered out and flopped onto the iron deck. He was covered in diesel fuel, and shaking like a leaf. In one hand he was clutching a skin book, one of the many the engineers kept for educational purposes behind the starboard condenser.
Mushy, the Duty Stoker was a mess, as was the engine room because Mushy, as he'd been trained to do, had activated the FSS, the Fire Suppression System, which was original fittings to the ship and surprised everyone by actually working, flooding the space with fire-retardant foam. Later investigation would show that the auxiliary engine had finally succumbed to age and blown up, sending shards of metal flying through the air.
One of the cylinders, it was also determined, had come within inches of Mushy's head and slammed into the starboard side, sheared in half. Later, the cylinder head was cleaned and mounted on a varnished shield by the Chippies and ceremoniously presented to Mushy as the "Almost Mushy Memorial Shield." Mushy was suitably impressed and nobody was cad enough to mention that Mushy had forgotten to oil the damned engine and was in fact spanking the monkey while drooling over his stroke book.
The explosion, which was the most exciting thing that had happened in the Dockyard in months, attracted quite a crowd. First there were the two Military Policemen (MPs) who had radioed in the alarm. The Red Caps claimed that they had been passing by, on patrol, and heard the explosion. This was total bullshit. They had been skiving down at the end of the jetty, sleeping off the last hour or so of their shift. The Base Fire Department showed up, as did a meat wagon from the base hospital, complete with two serious Tiffys who were disappointed that the deck and jetty were not littered with broken bodies. To make up for it they strapped Mushy to a stretcher and hauled him off to the hospital where he met a nurse who soothed his shattered nerves.
The entire Fleet Diving Unit showed up, in wet suits, flippers and hauling oxygen tanks, insisting that they needed to do a hull survey!
Two Jenny Wrens strolled by, gave the eye to Dusty and Spud, nodded approvingly at their well-packed tightys, and giggled at poor Taylor. Eventually the Commander, Small Boat Unit (Pacific) showed up with his Staff Engineer to inspect the damage. The Staff engineer stuck his head down the stairs leading to the engine room, shook it sadly, and announced to the Old Man: "You're fucked!" The Captain of the fire truck, who had been down below making sure that nothing was burning, came on deck and announced to the Commanding Officer, "You're fucked!"
Three dockyard wallahs, wearing white coveralls and hard hats, came on board and went below. The senior came up, and of course announced to the Old Man, "You're fucked!"
It was nice that for once everybody was in agreement, but we were fucked. The engine was a mess, there was no power, no fire main, and in addition to the auxiliary, both condensers were damaged, and the electrical panel shorted out. The old girl was as dead as yesterday's fish and would need to be dry-docked (she needed her bottom scraped and painted anyway) for at least three weeks for the damage to be put to rights.
After floundering around in the mess, with nothing but the battery-powered emergency lighting to see by, we managed to get dressed, gather our gear, and off we went to the Manning Office. Here we were greeted with open arms. It was leave time in Esquimalt and as none of us were due for leave until September, we could be gainfully employed elsewhere. The Coxswain and Dusty were sent down to the Boat Shed to play, Spud and Taylor to the Drill Shed to teach Rifle Drill to the recruits, and I drew what I thought at the time was the short end: the Parade GI at Albert Head was due for annual leave and I, being qualified in the intricacies of the Drill Manual, not to mention a Whale Island alumnus, would replace him.
I grumbled a bit, but all that got me was a half-day's leave. I did manage to con the Manning Petty Officer into giving me a Route Letter, which meant that I would be reimbursed for all reasonable expenses and, as there were no staff accommodations at Albert Head, this meant that I could stay at a motel nearby the camp on the Crown.
I returned to the ship, emptied my locker and piled everything I owned into the back of my car, an ancient, but very dependable Land Rover, and took off for Vancouver, where I spent a pleasant afternoon on Wreck Beach, studying the terrain. I had some dinner late in the day, and then returned to the Island, driving through Esquimalt, through Colwood, to Happy Valley where I found a small, clean motel. The next morning at 0700 I reported to the Albert Head Base Orderly Room (BOR) and took up my duties as Parade Chief Gunnery Instructor to the Leadership School.
My duties were less than onerous. Most of the instructors were Army, seconded from the PPCLI, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Being army, they were their usual pain in the ass but I got along with them.
On arrival I was given a cook's tour, handed some keys and left to my own devices. I quickly oriented myself and began what was to become my daily routine. In the morning, at 0800, I organized Divisions, although the students did all the work as parade staff, Parade Commander and so on. After Divisions was the first drill class of the day, where the students were put through their paces. This lasted until Stand Easy. After Stand Easy I had a class in NBCD, Nuclear, Biological, Chemical Warfare Defence, and then it was time for lunch. After lunch there was another drill class, followed by a class where I taught the students how to organize a parade. After another Stand Easy I was free until 1600, when we all secured. The students went to the canteen, as the social half of the Combined Mess was called, and the instructing staff went home. That was during the week.
On Friday, usually around 1400, everybody was given a "Make and Mend", the better to get an early start on the weekend. The staff and instructors left for their homes, some to the Colwood Marriage Patch, two to Metchosin where they owned houses, and one to Sooke, where he ran a marina on the side. The trainees took off at a rate of knots, some in their own cars crammed with their friends, others in the Duty Bus, all to lose themselves in the fleshpots of Victoria or Vancouver. The only people left would be the Duty Watch: a Duty Officer, a Quartermaster and a Roundsman, and a Duty Cook.
During the week standing watch was a rum go. With the instructors ashore, the students would gather in the canteen, drink beer, play the jukebox, or stay in their barracks, studying, or sleeping. Lights Out was at 2230 and everybody was supposed to be in bed by 2300, when Pipe Down was sounded. Once an hour the Roundsman would wander off to check the buildings. Once a watch the Duty Officer would make Rounds, and most of them did it just before Pipe Down. Once Rounds were completed there was a lumpy cot in the XO's cabin, or you could stretch out on one of the benches in the Base Orderly Room (BOR). It was always quiet, and always boring. And I only had to do it once every 17 days. Unfortunately the watch lasted from secure at 1600 until 0800 the following morning - we did not maintain shipboard routine.
Weekend watches were usually boring, except for Friday and Saturday nights, when you had to deal with the drunks. The trainees came back to the camp if they hadn't managed to shack up somewhere, or there wasn't an all night party in the barracks back at Esquimalt. Technically everybody had weekend leave, and didn't have to be back until leave expired at 0600 on Monday morning.
Most of the students did stay ashore, but there were always a few, the loners, the trouble makers, the ones who couldn't get laid in a cat house, who came back. The last duty bus would growl down the unpaved road and hiss to halt in front of the Head Shed around 2230 and out they would stagger. Coming back on board drunk was a chargeable offence and most of them had the sense to keep their mouths shut and would shuffle off down the path to their barracks and beds. Some were giggly, some were desperately trying to look sober, and all of them were drunker than coots.
With the departure of the last bus there was usually a couple of hours of silence. Around 0300 things would heat up when the hard-core party boys came back. Some had their own cars, which they parked outside the gate, others rode in cabs - a ruinous expense, but it was either take a cab or sleep in the park. This group always included a number of Naval cadets, a merry little band I really gave little or no thought to.
As budding young officers, and first class pains in the ass in training, the Naval Cadets were usually at least polite to the training staff, but some were archly arrogant, and some their usual supercilious selves. If they behaved themselves I ignored them and they would stagger off down through the camp to their own barracks blocks, which were located deeper in the woods. If they were obnoxious, I would log them, and the Executive Officer, who was an Old Navy type who brooked no nonsense, would deal with them at Defaulters. They were usually fined, told to apologise for their ungentlemanly conduct, and to go and sin no more.
I must admit that at the time, for some reason, I never really thought of officers as sexual beings. I never had the opportunity to see them at play and they were all, to me, androgynous beings far too interested in furthering their own careers and stabbing each other in the back to be interested in sex, at least with each other. The younger ones, however, seemed desperate to project the accepted image of a "sailor", rollicking, jovial, and horny and in Albert Head they proved it.
The first inkling of what was going on in the isolated Naval Cadets' barracks came on a rainy Sunday morning. I was duty, as you might have guessed, and was safe and dry in the Head Shed, the Headquarters Building, which was located directly inside the main gate. It was a large, wooden building, built on high brick supports, with a wide, open porch reached by steep wooden steps. It contained, in addition to the BOR, the Captain's Day Cabin, and the Executive Officer's cabin.
I had spent a quiet night in the XO's cabin, with the windows open, grading and commenting on the latest paper exercise I had given my students. It was a silly thing, but important. They were given a paper parade square, a ship's company, and a parade state. The students were required to write an OpOrd, an Operations Order, detailing every aspect of the parade from the number of participants to the music the band would play during the inspection.
As I was reading through the papers, chortling and thinking that Jack Tar had not lost his sense of humour or irreverence for officers, I paid very little attention to what was going on outside in the Orderly Room. Oh, I heard the duty hands chatting, or slamming the door whenever they left for Rounds, or the heads, but the sounds were familiar and I really didn't hear the noise.
As I read I became aware of a rumbling in the far distance and vaguely realized that a summer storm was on the way. It had been a very hot, rainless summer, and the nights had been humid, which set everyone complaining about their inability to sleep. The storm - accompanied by thunder and lightning - broke the humidity and as it was Sunday I assumed that everyone would sleep late.
Around 0600 I slogged through the mud - the place wasn't paved, and became a quagmire in any kind of wet weather - to the Combined Mess and had some breakfast, which put the duty cook in a mood because he was busy preparing the brunch that was normally served from 1000 until 1400. Fed and watered, I returned to the Head Shed and sent the Quartermaster and Roundsman off for their breakfasts. I knew this would piss off the cook even more, but oh well, life's a bitch, and then you marry one.
I finished my reading, leaned back in my chair, and listened to the torrential rain pounding against the roof over my head. I was wondering how I would fill in my remaining time - I was due to be relieved at 0800 - when I heard the sound of footsteps on the wooden steps that led to the building. I glanced through the open window and saw the backs of two round white hats sitting on top of black Burberrys. The hats identified the wearers as Naval Cadets, the Burberrys as Reserves. I paid little attention to them. They were obviously taking shelter on the porch, waiting for the first Duty Bus to show up and take them into Esquimalt, and church - there being no chapel at Albert Head.
My eyes were beginning to droop - it had been a long night - when I high-pitched giggle and a voice muttered, "Neil, stop that!"
My eyes opened, all thought of nodding off forgotten, and my ears perked up. I looked a little closer and saw under the black band of his cap, the nape and hair of one of the cadets. The skin colouring was what caught my attention. It was a rich, burnt honey colour. The name of course helped. "Neil" was a short - he stood about five feet seven or eight - black haired Cadet from back East, Ontario as it happened. He was no more or less innocuous than the rest of the Naval Cadets. It was his colour that set him off from the rest.
For some reason the Navy was, and always had been, white. You need only to look at any photo of any ship's company, from 1910 when the Navy was established, through the both World Wars, through the Korean War, and well into the 1980s and you will never see a black or Oriental face. Neil was the only person of colour in Albert Head, indeed in the BOC training program that I knew of. He was of South Asian origin. He, his parents, and innumerable siblings, had emigrated from the West Coast of India in the late '50s.
He was not a bad looking kid. He had a slim, well-formed body and button bright eyes behind black-framed glasses. He was well spoken, quite intelligent and a laughing stock. He was an obnoxious little toad who, from lack of height, or his colour, tried to put the moves on anything female, desperate to prove that he was just as desirable as his white peers. Either that or he was terminally horny. I suspect the latter.
His classmates were always chucking shit at him for trying to get his end wet, and almost never succeeding. He gave the impression of being an interested, goal-oriented aspiring officer. He was consistently at the head of his class, and seemed destined for a stunning, naval career. However!
Neil had been cautioned, twice, by the Mess Manager of the Wardroom, to moderate his actions and been counselled once by the Esquimalt Base Surgeon on his inappropriate conduct with regard to females. I always believed that Neil was just a horny little man. I later heard through the vine that bears grapes that on the second phase of his training, now an Acting Sub-Lieutenant, he had failed his Watchkeeper's Orals and, after being told to stay on board and study for his makeup exam, had instead gone ashore, got drunk, and scored. I also heard that he never rose above his rank and eventually, having got the message that he would never again tread on an iron deck, and forever be assigned to dead-end jobs that nobody else wanted, resigned his commission.
The dark blond, short cropped hair under the officer's cap next to Neil's told me that his church-going companion was "Brad", who was from Neil's home unit in Hamilton, Ontario. I had noticed that cadets from a unit tended to keep together as a group. There were two others from Hamilton, "Peter" and "JP" and they more or less stuck together. I will get to them later.
I was not particularly interested in any of the Naval cadets. They were there, I was there, and they were not my students. I saw the cadets from time to time when they deigned to honour us with their presence in the canteen, or when they travelled to and from Esquimalt on the Duty Bus. Other than that, they lived in their own little world, which was fine with me.
That is not to say that I did not have an opportunity to "evaluate" them, if you will. Frankly, none of them impressed me overmuch, particularly the two sitting just outside the window. To put it bluntly, if Neil, Brad and I were the last three gay males left on earth, I would run like a thief in the night from the pair of them.
Neil was a sexual opportunist. He preferred women, but would show hard to a guy if a blowjob, and I suspect, although I have no proof, a butt fuck, were on offer. Neil was loathsome, a user, Brad was something entirely different.
As I went through life, from time to time I would meet people, as everybody does, whom I disliked at first sight. There was no rhyme or reason for it - I just didn't care them. I never pretended to be a great judge of character, far from it, and I've paid the price for my misjudgements. But when it came to Brad, sadly, I was right on the money.
Brad was the type of person who engendered mistrust from the moment you met him. He was, amongst other things, a poseur, pretending to be something he was not, an aristocrat in a sea of commoners. He put on airs, and while he did not quite crook his pinky finger when drinking tea - he never drank coffee - he came close, assuming the prissy air of a maiden aunt as he sipped delicately. He dressed carefully and fussily and was constantly being pointed out as a fine young man, and a good example of what an officer should look like. He tried to impress everyone with his "knowledge" of the social graces (what few he had all being wrong). The next year he was tasked with arranging a mess dinner for his course, and was chased from the Wardroom by an irascible Chief Steward when he insisted that not only was the salad not served after the entrée, but was served before the soup and the fish! He was, in fact, Shanty Irish desperately trying to be Lace Curtain.
He was not a particularly good-looking man. Brad was, I think 22, and stood about five foot six. He was quite thin, with a slim waist. He had a backward sloping forehead and viewed the world through rimless, narrow spectacles, his restless hazel eyes forever darting to and fro. And it was his eyes that gave the measure of the man and lent truth to the old saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul.
Brad had beady eyes, feral and sly, that gave promise of treachery and distrust. His eyes said that he would fuck you up the ass if you crossed him, that he'd betray you - even if you were his best friend - if you offended him, that he would savage you like a Great White if you dared to swim in his private waters. His eyes projected his lack of morals, character and conscience. If Hell existed, and if there was truly a fury greater than a woman scorned, Brad was that fury.
That Brad was gay was hardly a secret. How he got past the normally homophobic selection board I shall never know. He was effeminate, at times prissy, at other times venomously cruel, his biting comments reserved for those who spurned him, and those whom he no longer wished to be associated with - for whatever reason.
As a closeted gay man, I marvelled at the chances Brad took. Perhaps the danger of discovery appealed to him. Usually he was quite . . . coy. He tried to project an aura of masculinity, and failed miserably. Most of the time he pretended indifference to the attractions he so obviously felt for his fellow cadets - he never put the moves on Lower Deckers, who were beneath his notice. When he was irretrievably attracted, however, he acted as if he were the ingénue in every low-budget film I'd ever seen. I caught his act one night in the canteen. His voice would go sultry, he would hover, he would flutter like a moth enamoured with the flame, he would pat gently, and he would stand or sit as close to the object of his desire as he dared. It was comical, and it was disgusting to the extent that those watching could not quite believe what they were seeing.
The night I watched him, the object of Brad's attention and lust was "J.P." - Jean-Pierre Lamonte, who was an Ontario born Quebecois. He haled from Mattawa, which is just across the Ottawa River from La Belle Province. He was a stereotypical young Québecois, dark haired, with a light, olive complexion, not tall, stocky rather than muscular with dark, smouldering eyes - "Bedroom eyes" my mother would have called them.
J.P. was quiet, confident, and one of the truly sweetest young men I had ever met. He took criticism and praise calmly, never taking offence when the drill instructors screamed at him for what they called his "Air Cadet Strut", which had to be seen to be believed, a sort of stiff, smooth legged gait, with the butt stuck out and exaggerated arm movements. He was also castigated for his way of giving orders, which was also in the Air Cadet manner, starting low and ending high, a sort of sing song that grated after a while.
Despite his naval faults, J.P. was the type of young man whom everybody wanted as their "little brother." He was the type of young man that you liked on first meeting, and ended up wanting to cuddle him and just make him happy. Everybody, Wardroom and Lower Deck, liked him and I swear that half the Wrens in Esquimalt would have flopped down on the deck and spread for him!
To his credit, J.P. never let on that he knew exactly what Brad was up to. It was evident also that J.P. wasn't interested - at least in what Brad had to offer. He gently rebuffed Brad's pathetic attempts at seduction and moved away. In retrospect, I should not fault Brad for lusting after J.P. who, while he wasn't all that handsome, was well and truly blessed by God. I had seen him, and while I was not and never have been a fan of the "natural man", I would have made an exception in J.P.'s case.
If anything, J.P. had one fault, and that was a fondness for sweets, and it showed. To help him keep his weight down he swam in the pool at the Base Rec Centre every day. I had always been a swimmer and also used the pool when I could, and it was in the change room one sunny afternoon where, like all males secure in their sexuality and secretly proud of their endowments, J.P. stripped off to change into his bathing suit.
J.P. naked was a mind-numbing sight. He had strong thighs, a firm, well-formed ass, and a long, very thick tube of flesh that flowed from a thick, curly bush of black hair over high hanging, large balls. His dick was, soft, a good five inches long, and slightly darker than the rest of his body. Unmarred, and with no definition to indicate that under the thick foreskin was a large head, his penis ended bluntly, with just a small, circular opening over the slit in the glans. Like I said, I would have made an exception for him, and I could not blame Brad for lusting after it. That J.P. was unabashedly straight, with a girlfriend back home, to whom he wrote every day, did not deter Brad in the least, and he made up for his unfulfilled lust (so far as I know) by helping more than one of his classmates make it through the night.
From what I overheard that rainy morning, Neil was obviously on Brad's visiting list.
"Come on," Neil said in a whining voice, "we have time."
"No we don't" insisted Brad firmly. "The bus will be along any minute and I plan on taking communion."
"So? The rules say you can't eat before communion. All I'm asking for is a quick hand job!"
"No!" From the corner of my eye I saw the movement of Brad's head as he turned to look at Neil. "I am not sticking my hand up your Burberry! God knows when the Duty Watch will show up, and the bus will be here any minute!"
"Nobody will see," pleaded Neil, who was sitting to the right of Brad. He moved closer to Brad. "Come on, you know how I like it when you choke my chicken. I brought an extra hanky. Come on, I'm on the bone big time!" he wheedled annoyingly. "You can put your hand down the sword slit."
I will take this opportunity to explain that at the time, even though "Unification" was in full swing, with new ranks, and new uniforms, the Naval Reserve and the Sea Cadets still wore the old pattern, Navy uniforms, square rig (the traditional sailor suit with the blue collar and round, distinctive, hard cap), Petty Officers and above in the round rig (double-breasted, brass-buttoned jackets, and white "garrison" hats) in the winter, whites or khakis in the summer. It was a bone of contention between the Permanent Force and the Reserves that would not be resolved until everybody was stuck in the new Loden Green suits.
I admit to being jealous. Here I was, looking like a bus driver for a rural, near bankrupt bus line - when I was wearing winter dress, or a gas station attendant when I was wearing summer dress - and there they were, looking like sailors.
The reason for this was, quite simply, bureaucratic bungling. First of all was the fact that the government, and DND, could not decide on what the new uniforms would look like. Once the general pattern was decided, the various little nuances had to be determined - we were in our cloth cap badges and gold anchors on the collars phase - and until the final design was settled the old uniform was still issued.
Issuing the new green suits took time, of course, and first the Fleet, then the shore side matelots would be kitted out with them, then the Reserves, and finally the Sea Cadets. This worked fine in theory, but there was so much dissension and cat fighting, first over the design, and then over the fabric the uniforms would be made from, that the initial kit issue of the new uniforms seemed to take forever. There was also the "fiscal responsibility" factor.
Fiscally responsible was and is an oxymoron as anyone who has ever lived under a Liberal dominated parliament well knows. The Party motto should be "Grab what you can, tax and spend, your term in office is gonna end." Fiscal responsibility meant cutting the Defence budget whenever possible, the money being needed to keep Quebec in Confederation and to fund whatever Liberal social boondoggle that happened to be popular at the moment.
New uniforms meant spending money, which DND didn't have in the first place and, since no one had bothered to inform the procurement section, they went right on buying the old pattern uniforms, and DND ended up with warehouses filled with bell-bottom trousers, collars, gunshirts, and white caps! When somebody finally noticed, it was decided that the new kit would be issued in increments, to ease the strain on the budget, first the East Coast, where the bulk of the fleet was, then the West Coast, then the inland units and bases, then the Reserve Divisions.
The Sea Cadets, being Sea Cadets, were Tail End Charlies, and glad of it - it took years for them to be given a green uniform. As the saying went, the uniforms currently in stores would be issued until stocks were depleted, or all members kitted out, whichever came first. The blue uniforms would continue to be issued to the Sea Cadets until somebody decided on which of the designs on offer were the most ugly, and therefore fit for Sea Cadets.
Eventually everybody would be kitted out, but until that happened the Reserve Divisions still sent their members out wearing their blue uniforms. Part of the blue uniform initial kit was a greatcoat, and a Burberry. Swords were always worn for ceremonial occasions, and all officers were required to own one. The swords, complete with gold sword knot, were given to all graduates of RMC, and Royal Roads, and were usually supplied by Wilkinson, the premiere sword maker in England. Reserve officers were required to purchase a sword, belt and sword knot, usually through Gieves, or the local Wilkinson representative.
Naval sword belts are never worn outside the jacket, and they are always carried, except when the officer was part of a Colour Party, and they were slung on a small brass hook fitted on the sword belt. To facilitate this, two slings, one longer than the other, were attached to the belt and while this worked very well in fine weather, in the winter, when everybody wore the wonderful, full-collared, warm wool greatcoats, or in wet weather, a Burberry overcoat, carrying a sword was impossible; and so it was "slung".
Slightly above and behind the left pocket in the greatcoat and Burberry was a "sword slit". This allowed the scabbard of the sword to be passed down the inside of the coat, and slung, with only the gold hilt of the sword and gold and black leather tip of the sword scabbard to be seen. To the best of my knowledge the sword slit had never been used to facilitate a hand job, but Neil was persistent. "Come on, Brad," he continued to moan, "I'm hard already and you know you like to play with extra skin." He gave Brad a small nudge. "It's all ready for you and you know that when you play with my skin I cum quick!"
"No," replied Brad sharply.
"Pleeeaaassse," Neil wailed in quiet desperation. "You always say you can't resist a natural man!" Then he added, "And let's face it, there are not too many of us around!"
"After last night I am thinking about revising my preferences," sniped Brad waspishly.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" demanded Neil, a touch of anger in his voice. "You sure as fuck liked it last night! You didn't seem to think about revising your preferences when you were hanging from my foreskin!" Once again he nudged Brad. "Twice!"
I saw Brad turn his head, and while I could not see them, I knew there was fire in his eyes as he warned Neil venomously, "I prefer a clean natural man, and the next time you come sniffing around with that little dick of yours in your hand I would suggest that you do it after you've showered!"
"But . . . but . . ." sputtered Neil, "I was horny, and anyway, it was just a little Goanese spice to make your taste buds sing!"
"Day old spunk, stale piss and cock cheese, is what it was!" snarled Brad. "In future I will thank you not to beat off or piss forty times a day without showering and then have the nerve to ask me to make your little dick happy!"
Neil slumped unhappily against the Head Shed wall, accepting defeat. His voice took on a pouting tone as he retorted, "You don't say that to Peter, and you sure as hell wouldn't say it if J.P. came round with that baseball bat of his at the ready!"
"Peter is one of the cleanest kids I know," returned Brad with a knowing sniff. "And J.P. is too innocent and too naïve to come around." His shoulders slumped. "He won't give me the time of day. Unfortunately."
"You mean you and J.P., you haven't . . .?" asked Neil, his voice filled with disbelief.
"No we haven't," snapped Brad. "And it's none of your business. Now shut up. Here's the bus. If that friend of yours who lives in the Annex is around and will let us use his cabin, and if you clean your dick, I'll take care of you after Mass!"
They both stood up and I could hear Neil chattering his gratitude. I was a little disappointed in Peter, who was a nice young man who gave promise of being a very good naval officer, and very pleased that J.P. was innocent and naïve.
While curious, I had no real opportunity to further my education for a fortnight. I did not want to be obvious, and had no real reason for staying in camp after my working day ended, and had no opportunity to eavesdrop, okay snoop, or to observe Brad at hunt. I was surprised that no one complained about what I assumed he was doing, or whom he was doing it to, in the dark of night; but then I remembered my days as a trainee gunner in Stadacona, where we had had our own resident "queer", who was pleased to make anybody who wanted it, happy. It was also, as Brad had told Neil, none of my business. If Brad's cabin mates didn't complain, who was I to?
In actual fact, I saw very little of the Naval cadets. They were always gone when I came on board, and had not returned by the time I left for the day. As I did not drink and drive I did not see them at any of the course parties, simply because I never attended any of them.
I of course kept in touch with SBU (P). Albert Head was wearying, and I was feeling wanderlust. I wanted to get back to sea. Secretly I needed to get away from the temptation that assaulted me every morning when I inspected my students and I always found something else to do when they had their daily session with the Muscle Bosons, doing callisthenics, wearing their shorts and T-shirts.
It had been 14 days since standing my last watch, and if the gods were kind, I would never have to stand another one in Albert Head. My ship, her engine repaired, new equipment installed, was all but ready to come out of the dry dock. It was only a matter of time. All that needed to be done was to have her hull painted grey, and the numbers painted on her bow, and I could return "home".
It was a Friday when the call came, and my Draft Chit was issued. I would be required to report on board the ship the following Wednesday. My draft in Albert Head would end at midnight on Sunday; I could take two days leave and report as ordered. I drove out of the gate happier than I had ever been. Five days and freedom!
I had barely stopped the car in front of the unit I was occupying at the motel where I had been billeted when a telephone started ringing, breaking the quiet of the muggy, sun-lit afternoon. I ignored it, never realizing that it was the phone in my room that was ringing insistently.
For some reason I associated the muted, annoying ring of the telephone as a harbinger of something terribly bad. Nobody knew where I was staying, except the Manning Office, and the Chief Clerk back in Albert head. The ringing telephone meant something was wrong. We could have gone to war - to direct traffic as we really weren't trained to do much else and were fast becoming the laughingstock of NATO - or that the Dockyard had blown up, or that a fire had raged through the deteriorating buildings of Albert Head and levelled the place.
As I had heard nothing on the car radio, or read anything in the newspapers hinting at war, and knowing that the Dockyard was still standing - at least it had been the last time I looked, it could only be something about Albert head. It was.
Cursing I picked up the receiver and listened to the deep, basso voice of Mongo, one of the Senior Leader trainees and the Duty Quartermaster, fuck up my weekend. This was not exactly true, it was the Chief Clerk, whose turn it was to be Officer of the Watch, who fucked up my weekend.
As Mongo told it, in his lazy, drawling way, the Chief's middle son - he had three - and some of his friends had set off in two cars, planning on spending the day at Gowlland-Tod Provincial Park, smoking pot, drinking beer, swimming in Sqally Reach and chasing girls, in the hopes of getting more than their swim suits wet - the typical pursuits for teenage boys. As we later learned, the boys had become rowdy, in the manner of teenage boys, and run afoul of a park ranger, who gave them all citations and ordered them out of the park. High on beer and Mary Jane, the boys took off down the road and halfway between the park and Langford they had decided to have a road race - not a very smart thing to do. Long story short, cars met log hauler, cars lost.
I listened, and asked, "Is the kid dead?"
"Haven't a clue," replied Mongo, his tone never changing. "The Chief looks like he is!"
"What!"
It transpired that the provincial police had called the kid's mother, who called his father in panic. The Chief, whether through anger, fear for his son, panic or whatever, had slammed down the phone, rushed from the BOR and promptly collapsed like a bag, as Mongo put it, of well-stomped shit.
"Mongo! Have some respect," I chided, trying not to laugh.
"Well, he looks deader than that little thing Tank hides in his Fruit of the Looms," returned Mongo.
In the background I could hear what sounded like a bear having a dump in the woods and knew that Tank was in the office with Mongo.
Mongo, who viewed his world with an irrepressible, irreverent, disrespectful, jaundiced eye, blathered on, "I've called the Têtes de Viandes, the Colwood EMS, Base, the Old Man and the XO," he informed me.
"So why call me?" I demanded.
"Because the Old Man told me to call you and you were dumb enough to answer the telephone," returned Mongo blandly. "We need a Duty Officer and you live the closest."
I could not argue with Mongo, or the Old Man's, logic. "Okay, on my way," I snarled unhappily. I hurried out to the car, slammed the door, didn't make me feel better at all, and took off down Happy Valley Road at a rate of knots.
As I drove - breaking more than one traffic regulation - I had to laugh at Mongo, one half of the Frick and Frack Team of Albert Head.
Mongo, who had a perfectly good first name, had been gifted with his nickname by someone in his university fraternity who had seen one of the series of inane, pointless "beach blanket" movies that Hollywood produced to pander to the horny teenager market. I am sure everyone is familiar with the genre, always filmed on a sunny beach with miles of white sand and thundering surf. The films all followed the same pattern, scene after scene filled with big-bosomed girls, usually blond, muttering the most inane drivel a screenwriter ever put to paper, and wearing the skimpiest bathing suits the censors would allow - to attract the boys.
There would be a herd of handsome, hard-bodied young men - to attract the girls, of course - also blond, wearing the tightest trunks the censors would allow, although for the life of me I could not understand why. They all seemed to be hung like gerbils and there wasn't a decent basket or bulge in the lot.
Frolicking in the surf would be the handsome, shy young hero, the beautiful, shy young heroine, the resident letch and always, for comic relief I suppose, the resident dimwit, always a thick-as-a-brick, hulking muscle-bound dummy whom everybody called Moose or, in one forgettable film, "Mongo". This character always spoke in grunts and monosyllables. He played football, naturally.
A functioning illiterate, whose level of comprehension seemed to be only slightly higher than that of a rhododendron, he never got the point in any joke. He also always secretly lusted after one of the less obnoxious girls in a sweet, innocent way, and generally gave the impression that he could, and often did, fuck up a wet dream.
In many ways our Mongo resembled the cinematic character, although in fairness, he could hardly help "hulking". He stood six feet seven inches tall, weight 275, and had a well muscled, firmly toned body. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and was quite handsome in a rough sort of way. He also, for his own reasons, played to the image, pretending to be as thick as a plank, grunting, farting, and generally making a pain in the ass of himself. In truth, he was far from being a Mongo. He did play football for the McMaster University Senior Varsity. He was good enough to be asked to try out for one of the pro teams - the Blue Bombers if I recall correctly - where he blew a knee, which ended his football career. He was also as sharp as a tack and two years down the road, when he took his degree, he was class valedictorian. He was an intelligent, observant young man, and the type of man the Navy wanted desperately to recruit but never could.
Tank, who was Mongo's bosom buddy, drinking partner, butt of his jokes, and Falstaff to Mongo's Prince Hal, came by his nickname honestly. His last name was Tancred, and he was built like a tank, 300 pounds of muscle standing six feet tall that you did not want to fuck with. He also played football with Mongo, although he never aspired to the pros. He was rock steady, and never put a false foot forward.
The unkind, or dirty-minded, usually read something into the relationship between Mongo and Tank that was not there. Mongo was very old-fashioned, in his own way morally doctrinaire, and did not believe in pre-marital sex under any circumstances; and I would bet my last dollar that the only male hand he had ever had on his dick was his own. Tank was a little more liberal, but he too felt the same way Mongo did, and would, as would Mongo, in time marry his childhood sweetheart. They were, in short the perfect pair to be on duty when the Duty Officer decided to have a heart attack.
I arrived immediately after the Colwood EMS and saw that the Chief was being attended by the Merchantmen and was not in fact dead. He had suffered a massive heart attack and would eventually be invalided out, but he was alive, saved by the Merchant brothers, who had started CPR.
The Merchantmen were brothers, and were at Albert Head taking their Senior Leaders Course. They came from a tribe of likeable, skinny people who seemed to be dedicated to supplying the medical needs of the Toronto hospital system. All their brothers and sisters, and there seemed to be hundreds of them, geared their life goals to medicine. Tim and Tom Merchant were Sick Bay Tiffys in the Toronto Naval Division, HMCS York, and pre-med students at the University of Toronto. They were much more experienced and better trained than our resident Pecker Checker, and the Chief had been in good hands.
What struck me as unusual was the crowd of people rubbernecking and cracking jokes at the plight of the poor Chief Clerk. In addition to the MP's, the EMS personnel, the Commanding Officer and the Executive Officer, there seemed to be more trainees and officer cadets than would normally be about on a Friday afternoon. The small area in front of the Head Shed was as busy as Halifax on Natal Day. The Old Man immediately set upon me and before I knew it I was volunteering to stand the Duty Watch until someone else could come in. My second mistake of the day.
It turned out that it was nearing the end of the month, and just about everybody was broke, or close to it. I groaned when Mongo told me this. Instead of a quiet, near deserted camp, the place would be crawling with people. They would all congregate in the canteen, spend what money they had, or could scrounge from their mates, on cheap beer and Mongo, or Tank, or I, would have our hands full pulling drunks out of the bushes and the rafters.
Once the Chief had been packed off in the meat wagon, and the MP's had taken their obligatory report, the area was cleared and everybody went off to dinner. Mongo, Tank and I settled in, played some cribbage, gossiped and answered the telephone. Those who had some money left took off ashore. Those who were short on the readies gravitated to the canteen. Every so often Mongo or Tank would wander off to do Rounds. It was a very pleasant, if boring evening.
At midnight I went over to the canteen to close it down. There were the usual pleas for an extension of the bar hours, which I could see no valid reason for refusing, and told the barkeep to close up at 0100. The room was its usual rowdy, smoky self, with the long tables filled with empty plastic cups piled into high pyramids, and dead, empty, plastic beer jugs. In one corner, aloof, sat Brad, Neil, J.P. and Peter. Brad and Neil were their usual obnoxious selves, while J.P. and Peter were warm and friendly. J.P. was a little drunk. Neil was a lot drunker while Peter and Brad, nursing glasses of beer, were relatively sober. J.P. waved and Peter smiled his shy sweet smile, asking if I would care to join them. I begged off as I was on Duty. God, I hated that word at times!
Peter was one of those people who gave the impression of being too sweet for his own good. This was a sham, for he had a mind like a steel trap, and a spine of stainless steel. He came from a long-established Navy family, his father being a senior Captain. Peter was a "Blue-Noser", as we called anyone from Nova Scotia. A native Haligonian, Peter came from money and lived, when in Halifax, in a huge house in the South End, overlooking the Dingle.
Like Brad and Neil, Peter was a student at McMaster, shared a dorm room with J.P., and belonged to the Hamilton Naval Division, HMCS Star. He was not handsome in the classic sense, but he was good looking, although tending to prettiness. This I think was because while he was around 22 or 23 years old, he looked to be about 12! Had he and J.P. been alone I might have stayed. I did not, however, need or want to be around Brad and Neil, the resident perverts.
Leaving the canteen, I returned to the Head Shed, read some orders and the usual bumf that the Admin clerks produced, listened to Mongo chucking shit at Tank, and then played some more cards.
Around 0050 I sent Mongo and Tank over to the canteen to take care of the chucking out. They put on their "It's time and don't fuck with me!" faces, and off they went. Amongst their other attributes they were excellent bouncers. While they were gone I read the Night Order Book, making note of the usual "Call Me If In Doubt" entry, and the curt "Maintain Fire Watch!" notation. This I took very seriously.
Anyone who has ever been to summer camp will know the kind of accommodations offered at Albert Head. Built on brick pilings, the long, wooden barracks were not insulated, the siding hammered over the bare struts and braces of the frame. The roofs were asphalt tiles. They were minimal accommodations, and really quite dismal.
Summer on Vancouver Island is usually dry, and very pleasant. Normally the nights are warm and humid, but near the coast there was usually a light breeze that cooled the air enough for sleeping. There were nights, however, when the Pacific showed its wrath, in the form of a thunderstorm or a squall with gusty cold blasts of wind. To take the chill from the air each barracks was equipped with oil-fired, high, square, space heater style stoves - one at either end of the barracks. They had a tendency to overheat, and the Night Roundsman was kept busy keeping an eye on them, and regulating the heat. I had the utmost confidence in Mongo and Tank's abilities, but as Duty Officer I was required to make Rounds.
Shortly after 0130 they came back. Their beery breath told me that they had lingered before closing the bar. A glass, or in Mongo's case, a jug of beer, didn't faze either of them at all. From the huge, overloaded sandwiches in their hands I knew that they had visited the Mess Hall and were in their carnivore modes. With the pair of them in a feeding frenzy I kept my hands well clear of their mouths. I thanked them both profusely for seeing to the care and feeding of their noble leader, which they ignored, and I settled back to my reading.
Presently I heard the crushing of gravel under rubber tires and saw the lights of a car go by. The Canteen Mangler had finished his bar muster and was on his way home. I could also hear the Siren call of the cot in the XO's cabin, but bravely decided to face the inevitable and announced that I was off on Rounds. Both Mongo and Tank choked on their over-sized sangies and set to giggling. I knew what they were on about, of course, and told them that they both had dirty minds, and left.
After closing and locking the gate - late arrivals could honk until one of us woke up to grumpily come out and open the damned thing - I headed for the trainees' barracks.
Having lived in a mess deck, I more or less knew what to expect. Put a large group of young, healthy men in a closed environment, deprive them of the natural outlet (to most of them) of cooperative female companionship, and you ended up with monkey spanking in the night. I had seen it, and heard the lip biting moans, and panting my entire career. From my first night in Cornwallis the sound, and occasionally the sight, of guys beating off, were familiar to my ears.
As you might expect, anything remotely pleasurable to the Lower Deck, including masturbation, was strictly forbidden by Queen's Regulations And Orders, and those caught were treated to Captain's Defaulters, a lecture on personal morality, sometimes fined, or had one's leave stopped. The miscreant also had to undergo a session with the Base Surgeon, or the ship's doctor (if there was one on board) and a lecture from either the Padre (P), or the Padre (RC) about the sins of the flesh. What happened if the poor sod happened to be Jewish, or a Druid, I have no idea.
It goes without saying that nobody paid the slightest attention to QR&O's, and happily wanked away. Those without inhibitions grunted and groaned most satisfactorily. Others panted quietly until their mission had been accomplished. Others managed to master the silent jerk off and I swear that at least one of them could choke his chicken without moving the sheets! Some used a shot mat - a spare piece of clothing or an old T-shirt - while others used an old sock. Still others, the less fastidious, squirted onto the sheets and ignored the grumbling of the laundrymen.
As Night Roundsman I had seen my share of nightly masturbators. Some would frantically roll onto their stomachs as I entered the mess, hiding their bones, while others would carry on pumping away happily. Some would wave and smile, others frown. Once a stoker waved his hard dick at me.
It was all a part of mess deck life and nobody gave a shit because chances were you were going to end up doing the same thing later on! Everybody masturbated with impunity because they knew that the Code would keep their secret. The Code said that the Roundsman never saw or heard anything, never carried tales and never, under any circumstances whispered the secrets of his mess deck into the always wide-open ears of the Officer of the Day or the Duty Petty Officer. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, and couldn't be used at your court martial!
Knowing that I would see, or hear, someone performing his nightly ablutions, I went into the first barracks a little warily. After all, the trainees only knew me as a pestiferous instructor, and had no reason to trust me. In no way did I wanted to embarrass any of my young students, I kept my flashlight, which had a red, plastic lens to preserve my night vision - and theirs - pointed down at the scarred, wooden deck.
Much to my surprise the double rows of single bunks - about half of them empty - were as silent a nunnery. In the bunks that were occupied sprawled sleeping bodies, some on their sides, some on their stomachs, and one trainee half on and half off his bunk, naked, and with a semi pointing upward. My thrill for the night, I thought, and left the barracks and walked over the Combined Mess.
In the Combined Mess galley I checked to make sure that the stoves were off, and that the refrigerators were set to the right temperatures. From the galley, since I was hungry, not having eaten since lunch, I wandered into the main room, to check out the Night Rations - cold cuts, salads left over from supper, bowls of pickles, loaves of bread and industrial size cans of strawberry jam and peanut butter.
I pushed open the door separating the galley from the dining room and was immediately confronted by a scene of desolation and shambles, as if a horde of rampaging Huns had only recently departed. What had been a table filled from one end to the other with barely consumable food was now a ravaged landscape.
Strewn across the table were bits and pieces of half-eaten slices of bread, knives still crusted with hardening penis butter (as the students called it), congealed strawberry jam that had dripped onto the deck, bowls of wilting salad - never a popular late night snack - and, on a large platter, what looked like the aftermath of an axe murder! The cooks, in a rare fit of generosity, or more likely because it was close to or past its "eat by" date, had set out a large, pressed ham. The thing had been hacked and cleaved without mercy, and tendrils of dark gelatine glistened in the pale light of my flashlight. The surrounding tables were cluttered with half-filled cups of cold coffee, crumpled paper napkins, and more crumbs and bits of bread.
Growling, and promising that there would be a reckoning and a lecture about cleaning up after yourself in the morning, and with my stomach growling, I checked the bar, which was closed with thick shutters that would stop a tank, and then visited the second barracks.
Once again, all was quiet. There was the usual sleep-induced mumbling and gnashing of the teeth-grinders, a large fart, and one low moan, that could or could not have been a successful wet dream. I had no interest other than finishing my rounds as quickly as I could and returning to the Head Shed for the Officer of the Day's keys, which I would use to raid one of the refrigerators.
The narrow path that led to the "Wardroom" side of the camp was empty and all but silent as I shuffled toward the twin barracks where the Naval cadets slept. The area was very quiet, without even the scuffle of a night critter to break the silence. The moon was high, the sky above ebony and studded with millions of bright points of light, clear and cloudless. Barbara Cartland would have loved that sky.
The barracks was, not surprisingly, a shambles, and I could well understand why the Naval cadets had been nicknamed "The Untidies" - actually named after the University Naval Training Divisions, which hadn't been around since the war. The name had stuck and the living arrangements certainly lived up to the nickname.
Once again, only half the bunks were filled with the lumps and ill-defined shapes of sleeping bodies. I checked the first heater, and then set off down the barracks toward the second. I noticed that most of the sleepers had just dropped whatever they had been wearing onto the deck and crawled into their bunks, as there seemed to be a rumpled pile of clothing beside or in front of each bed. The wooden mess table, which ran the length of the barracks and separated the two rows of single beds and lockers, was littered with the detritus of young men: books, open and closed, note pads and tablets with scribbled lecture notes, two or three plates nicked from the Mess Hall bearing half-eaten food, and, for variety, a pair of tighty-whiteys looking forlorn, and a pair of striped boxer shorts with a large hole in the seat.
I checked the second stove and then, with nary an errant huff or puff from the sleeping cadets to break the stillness of the night, I crossed the few yards of gravel and entered the second barracks.
Lulled by the quiet into a false sense of serenity, I checked the first stove and walked quietly down the length of the barracks. I noticed a large, sprawling mass on one of the bunks. It was J.P. He was naked except for a pair of boxers, which had ridden up to expose the blunt end of his penis and one very large testicle. I recalled my own somewhat diminutive set of upper deck fittings, allowed a sigh of envy, and carried on down toward the second stove. As I approached the massive stove I saw a glimmer of light spilling across the deck, from under door leading to the heads and washplace - each barracks had an attached showers and toilet space, far be it that the budding young officers might have to shower, shave or shit with the Lower Deck riffraff!
Thinking that one of the dipshits had left the lights on, I checked the stove, found it off, and had barely pushed the door leading to the washplace open when I heard a high-pitched squeal that could never have come from the resident shithouse rat.
The squeal should have set the alarm bells to clanging, but I was tired, and hungry, with my brain firmly set in neutral. I almost fainted when I opened the door.
Leaning over one of the sinks that lined the far bulkhead of the washplace, clutching the porcelain in what looked to be a death grip, was Peter, as naked as the day he was born. Kneeling on the cold tiles of the deck was Brad, with his nose buried deeply in the cleft of Peter's skinny ass! Brad was enthusiastically, and from Peter's gyrations and moaning, expertly dining at the Rosebud Café.
The sound of my lower jaw clunking against the tiles of the deck was lost in the muted cacophony of ecstasy as Peter pushed his butt frantically backward to meet Brad's rabidly probing tongue and sucking lips.
I am sure that my eyes grew as round and a large as dinner plates as I listened, dumbstruck to Brad's lapping moans of delight. Peter's eyes were closed and he was panting heavily when he pushed back forcefully.
"Eat my ass, Brad!" Peter moaned, lost it lust. "Chew me man! Aaahhh shit, yeah, lick my hole!" He began to grunt and while his No. 1 mount was facing away from me, from the sounds that Peter was making I figured that he was about to fire a heavy-calibre shot across the porcelain bow of the sink. I also thought that the old saying was true - it was the quiet ones you had to watch out for!
While he was busily rimming Peter, Brad's right arm and hand were pumping away between his legs. He was facing away from me as well, but I didn't need a BRCN (Book, RCN) to tell me what Brad was doing. Quite suddenly, Peter turned around, which surprised me, offering his cock for Brad's waiting mouth.
"Suck it," Peter groaned. "I gotta cum, man . . ." He thrust his hips forward and said, "You know how I like it." Brad lowered his head and Peter moaned the strangest thing: "Remember, just the head! Just the head!"
This surprised me even more. In my very limited experience, while I knew that the head of one's penis was extremely sensitive, I had also learned that most guys, in Peter's position, would have been face fucking Brad with abandon, ramming his dick down Brad's throat. But then again Peter knew what got him off to the best effect and what the hell, whatever floats his boat.
Brad, who had not missed a beat (sorry) skittered back and I saw Peter's full front. The guy was hairy! He presented such a clean, smooth, exterior with all of his clothes on that I had to look twice. First, his chest was covered in a fan of dark black hair that descended into a curly treasure trail, which led in turn to a lush growth of equally black and curly pubic hair covering his lower stomach and groin. Jutting from this miniature forest was a thin, five-inch penis.
At first glance it appeared quite normal. I saw that the head was covered with a thin sheath of skin clearly outlining the glans beneath, the skin flowing over the head to end in a small, wrinkled ferrule of skin. Then Brad left off beating his meat. He reached up to grasp Peter's thinness. Leaning back slightly, Brad revealed his own penis, which was thicker than Peter's, obviously circumcised, with a heart-shaped head, poking upward at an angle from his sparse pubic bush.
Brad's hand moved slowly, pulling down Peter's foreskin. Here my eyes widened again as I expected the skin would roll down, revealing the heated glans. What happened was that the skin parted, but not in the way I expected. One side seemed more elastic and as the opening widened it revealed a cherry-red, slimy glans. Brad reached out to finger the small circle of exposed spongy flesh, gently wiping away the clear fluid that coated the glans. He licked his finger and then pulled again, gently, until Peter's foreskin had barely cleared the ridge of his glans.
Peter began to thrust instinctively as Brad's finger and tongue brought him closer and closer to the edge. Peter's eyes were tightly closed and his jaw gaped, his harsh panting filling the small washplace. He suddenly thrust his hips forward, growling a desperate warning, "Gonna . . . gonna . . . cum!"
Brad leaned forward and his lips encompassed just the cherry-red head of Peter's cock. Peter shuddered and his body began to jerk spasmodically as he unloaded into Brad's gently suckling mouth.
"Oh God!" Peter moaned loudly and all put stood on his tiptoes as the last of his orgasm passed through his body and into Brad's mouth.
Brad let out a sudden groan and his dick twitched and a long stream of semen flew into the air to splatter against Peter's legs. When he finished squirting, Brad sat back on his heels, grinned evilly, and licked his lips.
Somewhat at a loss as to what, if anything, I should do, I was distracted by a strangling sound behind me and quickly stepped back into the darkness of the Mess. I saw a dark figure leaning over the side of a bunk, obviously spewing its ring all over the deck. I walked closer and the dark figure became Neil - why was I not surprised - paying the price of overindulgence. I also heard a grumbling and snuffling, and a curse word or thirty, from the bunk next to Neil's. A head, followed by a body, popped up. The cadet emerged from his bunk - to this day I cannot remember his name - and shuffled to Neil's bunk. The door to the washplace opened and Brad and Peter stuck out their heads.
In the end I obeyed the Code. I pretended to have just entered the barracks, pretended not to have seen anything, told Brad and Peter to take charge of Neil and throw him into the shower to sober him up, and to then clean up the mess - I had no idea what Neil had been eating but the smell was enough to gag a maggot. I then continued on my Rounds.
The next morning I was relieved by one of the other instructors, returned to my motel room, and slept for 11 hours. Later in the day I paid the bill and pointed the nose of my car toward Esquimalt. I never returned to Albert Head. I lost track of Mongo and Tank, J.P. and Peter, and the rest. I did hear about them from time to time though, and one I read about in the scandal sheets.
The Navy is a small family, and no matter where one goes, sooner or later you end up playing "Do you remember?" I never found out if Brad had attained the ultimate goal: J.P. I read in the newspapers that Brad eventually left the Navy to take, of all things, Holy Orders, becoming, in time, the dean of a provincial cathedral where he became involved, allegedly, in a ring of pederasts and paedophiles, involving, again allegedly, some very important people and the Cathedral Boys Choir. He never went to trial, being deemed medically unfit.
He died, so I was told, alone and unloved, in the Hospice of Saint John of the Cross of Acre, in Toronto, of AIDS.