Boy Entrant; The Recollections of a Royal Air Force Brat (24 page)

Before long, the warmth of feelings around the family hearth seemed to evaporate like the morning mist, replaced by the old status quo. Once again, I became the frequent target of belittling criticism and the urge that prompted me to leave home in the first place surfaced strongly again—although I was in no rush to resume the disciplined life at St. Athan. The solution was to spend as little time as possible in the family home, so I either spent time out and about with my friends, or visited my many relatives in the Coleraine area. Eventually, on the second day of 1957, and with a great sense of relief, I set off on the return journey back to South Wales.

* * *

The boat to Liverpool was just as crowded on the way back as it had been coming over, but I was able to find Billy Cassidy and the others without any trouble. As before, all available seating in the passenger lounge was occupied, so we made our way down into the hold again and carved out a reasonably comfortable little area where we could possibly get some sleep.

Two regular RAF people in uniform were also taking shelter in the hold, although they weren’t actually travelling together. One was an airman in his early twenties and the other was a member of the Women’s Royal Air Force, a WRAF. She was also in her twenties, slim, with slightly reddish blonde hair and attractive in a girl-next-door kind of a way. Both seemed to gravitate towards our small group from different directions and we all got talking together. Boy Entrants were something of a rarity to most members of the regular service, so they were curious about us and the meaning of our chequered hatbands and brass wheel badges. We, for our part, were curious about life in the regular service so everyone had lots of questions. But, because she was the only woman in our midst, the WRAF got most of the attention and, young though we were, we all tried to impress her and gain her attention. She responded to our juvenile adulation in an engaging flirty kind way, obviously enjoying it.

The sea was calm during this crossing and after two or maybe three hours the other boys and the regular airman gradually dropped out of our little discussion group as they started getting settled down for the night. I was the last one left talking to Sandra, the WRAF girl (by this time we were on first name terms), but in the process had managed to clear a little area on the floor and had laid my kitbag down as a pillow and then used my heavy greatcoat as a blanket. Sandra seemed to be travelling light and had little protection from the cold night air, other than the thin uniform she wore, so I offered her my greatcoat to keep her warm.

“Thanks,” she said, “but why don’t we share it?”

“Okay,” I agreed, wondering exactly what she had in mind.

I soon found out when she came over to where I lay and then lay down alongside me, pulled half of the coat across her body and snuggled up close to me. Her nearness and warmth had an electrifying effect on me, but also made me feel tense and unsure of how to position my body. We could both see that other passengers in the hold were watching us intently under the bright floodlights that illuminated the hold.

“Try to keep the coat down over me,” Sandra said, “I don’t want anyone seeing up my skirt.” Then she added, “And I haven’t anything on under my shirt!”

I had no difficulty understanding the first part of her statement, but the second thing about wearing nothing under her shirt had me puzzled. “What do you mean you’ve got nothing on under your shirt?” I asked.

She didn’t answer, but instead took my hand and placed it on her breast. She had unbuttoned her tunic, so I could feel the soft yielding flesh through the thin fabric of her shirt.

“Shhhh,” she whispered in my ear, “I’m not wearing a bra.”

My hormones, which by this time were already wide-awake, now thundered into a full-scale stampede. My pulse raced, my throat went dry and my head throbbed as I gently caressed the tender softness, feeling the small hard lump of her nipple pressing into the palm of my trembling hand.

“Okay, let me try again,” I said, very eager to learn as I moved my now parted lips towards her. She met them with her warm moist mouth and our lips crushed together. My head suddenly seemed to be filled with lightning flashes and ringing noises sounded in my ears. Never in my life, up to that moment, had I experienced anything so sensually wonderful. But the best was yet to come—suddenly and unexpectedly I felt her tongue thrust itself into my mouth, increasing the pleasure of the kiss a thousand-fold. Then it was all over as she quickly pulled back.

“That’s enough,” she said, “you’re really far too young for this. Let’s just get some sleep.”

That was much easier said than done, as far as I was concerned, because sleep was the furthest thing from my mind right then. I moved my hand around to the front of her shirt again and found the softness that I had suddenly become hopelessly addicted to. But almost immediately, her hand came quickly up to grasp mine and firmly move it away to a neutral area, where she continued to hold on to it tightly. The passionate interlude was over and I could tell she really meant it, so I tried to relax and go to sleep as she suggested. We had been like that for another half hour or so when the regular airman suddenly approached us. He told Sandra that he’d got a much more comfortable place to sleep, which was away from the light and with cushions to lie on. He then suggested that she come and share it with him. To my dismay she agreed and saying only that she was sorry, went off with the airman.

It could be said that Sandra was merely toying with a young boy’s emotions for her own amusement—and I dare say there’s a lot of truth in that. But, whether she knew it or not, I learned more during that brief encounter than I could ever have learned in months of fumbling through the awkward teenage courtship rituals that had seemed so enjoyable only a few days prior to my encounter with Sandra underneath the greatcoat. That night, my transition from boy to man took a giant leap forward.

I never travelled by the Liverpool route again after that. The apparent absence of Wing boys during the crossings had puzzled me, but long before going on my next leave, I discovered the reason for that. It turned out that they all used the Heysham to Belfast ship, which was owned and operated by British Railways. The ships on the Heysham route were modern, much more comfortable and had better catering services than those that sailed from Liverpool. There was also the added advantage that the railway station at Heysham was right on the dockside, making it a matter of simply getting off the train and walking a short distance to where the gangplank led onto the ship. So, even though Heysham was a little farther north than Liverpool, the slightly longer rail trip was well worthwhile.

* * *

On the first day after returning from leave, we were instructed not to unpack the bulk of our kit, since we were going to be moving from the ITS lines to the Wing lines on the following day. Other than giving us that instruction, the DIs mostly left us alone during our final day in the Initial Training Squadron. In fact, Corporal Hillcrest seemed to have disappeared altogether.

That evening Corporal Blandford came into our billet to wish us good luck for the future. He’d been drinking. Not heavily, but just enough for him to be much less inhibited than usual. His tunic was unbuttoned and he wore his hat on the back of his head as he sidled into our billet in a very relaxed manner. We all gathered around to talk to him because, even though he represented discipline in our lives, he was a very likeable person who had always treated us fairly. For a while, he entertained us with anecdotes from his years of service and commented on some of the funnier things that had happened during our time in ITS. When Potter’s name came up, Blandford rolled his eyes and remarked that there was always one like him in every entry. We just lapped it all up. Then the topic of conversation changed to his views on the other drill instructors. When someone mentioned Corporal Hillcrest, Blandford confided that none of the other DIs liked him.

Corporal Blandford didn’t answer, but instead looked around and stared pointedly at the row of four fire extinguishers that stood in the entrance to the billet. Two were painted red indicating that they were soda-acid extinguishers and two were painted a cream colour to signify that, when activated, they discharged a fountain of thick foam for extinguishing oil or grease fires. Then he looked back at us, arched his eyebrows in a theatrical way and said, “Well, that’s up to you boys now, isn’t it? I couldn’t encourage you to do anything unpleasant against a brother NCO, now could I?” With that he smiled, said goodnight and good luck and then left the billet.

We called out, “Bye Corp,” as he disappeared into the darkness of the night. Then we stood around for a little while thinking and talking about what he had said, before somebody had the idea of going to check if Hillcrest was in his bunk. One or two people went around on the outside of the billets to see if his light was on, coming back a few minutes later with the news that his bunk was in complete darkness. On hearing that announcement, four boys grabbed an extinguisher each and, with several of us accompanying them, set out once again around the outside of the billets. Sure enough, the bunk window was in darkness.

“The window’s locked, what are we going to do now?” someone asked.

“Break the fuckin’ window! That’s what we’re going to do,” another voice answered.

With that, there was the tinkling sound of breaking glass. Next came a wooshing sound as the contents of both soda-acid extinguishers were released into the bunk through its broken window pane. Then it was the foam extinguishers.

“Somebody’s coming!” a voice called out in a loud whisper.

In a panic, the person holding the last foam extinguisher heaved the whole thing through the hole in the window, while it was still disgorging its foam, and we all pounded away across the grass towards our billet, under cover of darkness. When we got inside there were great sighs of relief and laughter and joy that we’d finally taken a little revenge on someone who had quite deliberately made our lives much more miserable than was really necessary. We moved to the Wings the very next day and never heard a single thing about the incident after that.

Postscript

Andy Wiles, one of our number in the 29th entry who went on to become a commissioned aircrew member after he passed out of boy entrant training, told me a story of his encounter with the infamous DI from our ITS days, identified in the story as Cpl. Hillcrest (although that was not his real name).

Andy was in a party of aircrew at RAF Bulmer who were witnessing the demonstration of a helicopter being “hot refuelled”; that is whilst the engine is running. Because of bad weather, the operation was being performed just inside a hangar, with the doors wide open – obviously a nerve-wracking situation where the slightest hiccup could easily turn the whole thing into a disaster. During the hot fuelling process, the crew became conscious of a figure marching towards them across the concrete hangar floor and, from the sound of his footsteps, realized he was wearing the heavy type of hob-nailed boots beloved by DIs. Because there was the danger that an accidental fuel spillage in the confines of the hangar could very easily be ignited by an errant spark, such as might be kicked up by the interloper’s boots striking the concrete floor, Andy separated himself from the crew to intercept this individual and prevent him from venturing into the hazardous area. On getting closer, Andy realized it was none other than his old nemesis, Cpl. Hillcrest, who had apparently been posted to RAF Bulmer as his requested last posting, prior to the end of his service. Hillcrest came to a crashing halt when Andy ordered him to stop, and although Andy was certain that the DI recognized him as one of his former “victims”, the corporal never outwardly acknowledged any awareness of their prior shared history. At least now, as an officer, Andy had the utter satisfaction of receiving a drill manual style salute from “Babyface” (the
real
nickname by which he was scornfully known to those of us who had suffered so miserably at his hands). Corporal Hillcrest then turned around and retraced his steps, back the way he came, never to be seen again.