PW Earsman
Traveller in the arts
Posts: 27
(4/30/02 9:09 am)
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The Adventures of a One-Legged Duck Chapter II
OF UNIFORMS AND UNIFORMITY
Life for the New Zealand teenage male in the late 50’s was pretty simple. Those who weren’t still at school had a job. Jobs were plentiful. If you got the sack from one job, you just gave your old boss the finger and went across the road and got another. So we had money. Not a lot, but then there wasn’t a lot to spend it on. Nightclubs were non-existent so most of our money went on cigarettes, beer (nobody took a lot of notice of the legal drinking age of 21), and the optimistic pre-coital entertainment of teenage girls. Teenage girls who usually managed to frustrate our fumblings by wearing dresses with at least 12 petticoats, turning a promising night of passion into a nightmare of frantic, rustling, frustration with what resembled a toilet-roll cover.
It was also easy to be fashionable. One could be “cool” simply by having trouser cuffs so small, as to give the wearer the appearance of wearing bicycle clips. Some cuffs were so tight in fact, that zip fasteners were inserted to facilitate the insertion and the removal of the feet. Herman Munster-sized crepe-soled shoes (brothel-creepers) were popular, but optional.
Despite the fact that dressing in “style” was at least as important to most young people then as it is today, for reasons I don’t clearly remember I was not particularly fashion-conscious. Which as we will see, was probably just as well.
According to the priorities of the army of the time, fashion was determined to be as important to its soldiers as matching socks might be to a pig farmer. This fact was brought home to me with ringing clarity when I reported to Fort Cautley on Auckland’s North Shore, my new home.
Fort Cautley was built as artillery barracks during World War II. Concrete gun emplacements and machine-gun bunkers are still dotted all over the nearby cliffs overlooking Auckland’s Waitemata harbour. I guess the idea was that when the Japanese Imperial Fleet crept timidly into the harbour, so fear-struck would they be by the sight of a handful of gunners picnicking near converted naval guns on the hill, that they would scuttle their battleships and swim ashore to beg for internment.
I don’t know what I was expecting in the twilight-zone of army fashion when I reported to the Quartermaster’s Store at Fort Cautley that Monday morning. Certainly not what I got, that’s for sure.
Ambrose Bierce (or was it Mark Twain?) tells us that the friendliest thing in the world is a wet dog. A large wet dog is what a lot of Q Stores actually smell like. Not usually all that friendly however. Quartermasters have a curious mindset. Everything in their store is regarded as their own personal property, and it is their firm belief that nothing should ever be issued to soldiers. Soldiers would only get it dirty, or damage it. Probably both. However this attitude did not prevail when it came to the fitting-out of a recruit. I’m sure, despite their outward appearance of bored detachment, Q-store staff inwardly hugged themselves with delight at the looks of dismay on the new soldiers” faces as item after item of ill-fitting, obsolete and downright ugly clothing and equipment was heaped on the counter in front of them.
Staff Sergeant Morgan, the Fort Cautley Quartermaster, was Welsh. Not that there’s anything wrong with being Welsh. I mean, they sing very well. It’s just that they think that their rugby team is unbeatable. Or did in those days anyway. New Zealand could never beat Wales at rugby. Always score more points, but never actually win if you appreciate the distinction.
“Ahah!” he cried from behind the counter, spearing me to the doorframe as I walked into the store that first morning. “Buggers cheated again on Saturday didn’t you then? Bloody referee! English he was I’m sure! What can you bloody expect then? New Zealand players, English referee. We didn’t stand a bloody chance boyo, not a bloody chance!”
I was momentarily stunned by this attack on my nation’s rugby team but managed to mask my indignation with a look of profound terror.
He was a large lump of a man aged in his mid-forties. Several rows of medal ribbons adorned his thick chest and a large head was dominated by a hooked and badly-broken nose. Clearly a man with whom not to trifle.
“What do you want then?” he demanded, perhaps disappointed that I didn’t take up the gauntlet. “I hope it’s not a lot. Nearly morning teatime you see.” He spread his arms wide, palms towards me as if to protect his merchandise, then thrust his huge head forward giving the appearance of a massive, ugly, bird of prey looking for its morning tea, “See anything you like then madam?”
I handed him a small stack of papers consisting of one original and several carbon copies that I’d been given at the camp headquarters a few minutes earlier. “I’ve just joined up,” I said lamely. “I’m supposed to get this stuff from you.”
He took the papers from me with thumb and forefinger and held them at arm’s length as though they had been recently rescued from a latrine. “You’re to be issued with all this then?”
I shuffled my feet. “I suppose so. That’s what they told me.”
He looked at me furiously, “But it’s nearly morning tea time man!”
Morning tea must be something really special I thought, but said nothing. He sighed deeply and anchored a corner of my pieces of paper to the counter with a huge brass shellcase. “Let’s get started then. Do you know your measurements boyo?”
“My what?”
“Your measurements, how big you are.”
“Oh, six feet.”
He raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Wait there.”
He disappeared beneath the counter for a moment and reappeared with a tape measure and a clipboard. “Let’s be having you then.” He came through the counter flap and let it fall with a crash. “Arms up.”
Flailing the tape measure about like a snake in a gale, its brass tip often threatening to have my eye out, he measured my chest, waist, hips, inside and outside leg, shoulders, arms, neck and head, never pausing to write anything down on the clipboard. I found out later that day that this impressive display of memory did not result in a satisfactory balance between truth and fiction in the matter of the sizes of the clothing and the size of the body on which it was to be draped, buttoned or laced.
Morning tea must have indeed been fast approaching because clothing and equipment began disappearing off shelves and landing on the counter in front of me with blinding speed.
Battledress jacket – 2
Battledress trousers – 2
Greatcoat - 1
Braces – 1 (Braces?)
Shirts JG – 4
Trousers JG - 4
Shirt SD – 1
Collar SD – 2
Stud Collar SD 2 (collar studs?)
Tie Khaki – 2
Socks woollen khaki pairs - 2
Boots black GS pairs – 2
Vest woollen – 3
Drawers woollen – 3 (What?)
Gloves woollen pairs - 1
Web belt w/brass – 1
Anklets pairs – 1 (What?)
Hat brimmed – 1
Cap – 2
Badges, hat, RNZSigs – 2
Puggaree RNZSigs 1 (What?)
Housewife – 1 (What?)
Blankets – 5
Sheets – 2
Pillow slips – 1
Kitbag – 1
“Right boyo,” said Staff Sergeant Morgan. “That’s your bloody lot.” He plucked a pen from his top pocket and slapped it down on the small stack of paper under the shell-case. “Sign ‘em.” He glanced at his watch, “Smartish.”
I smartishly scrawled my signature on all the copies.
He extracted the bottom copy and threw it in a wire basket on the counter. “That’s it. Pack all that stuff in your kitbag and bugger off!” He looked at his watch again.
I began to cram all my new clothing into the cylindrical canvas kitbag which was clearly designed by someone who thought that all soldiers’ kit was shaped, and therefore could be stacked, like dinner plates. I managed to get most of the gear into the bag, but was still left with a pair of boots, all of my bedding, and my “lemon squeezer” boy-scout hat.
Staff Sergeant Morgan shuffled impatiently from foot to foot. “Here,” he said, “This way.”
He tied the leather laces of the boots together and put them around my neck so that the boot openings cradled my ears and the huge bulbous toes met under my chin. Then he jammed the hat on my head so that my ears stuck out like wing-nuts, lifted the kitbag up under my right arm, followed by two of the blankets and pushed the remainder of my bedding under my left. I staggered towards the door, certain I was either going to drop the whole thing any second, or be arrested for having made an unusually well-equipped escape from a Home for the Terminally Bewildered.
“Wait!” he called. He walked up to me. “Open your mouth.”
Without thinking I did as I was told.
He quickly wedged the folded carbon copies of my requisition between my teeth. “These - back to the orderly room. Now hop it.”
I hopped it.
“Hey!” he called at my retreating back. I paused. “Is your boss Lieutenant Collis?
I managed to nod, the toes of the boots clipping me under the chin.
“Then I suggest you get your hair cut before tomorrow.”
Oh joy.
Somehow, that first day, I managed to get my haircut and to sort out my uniforms into some semblance of order. I was assisted in this latter task by my roommate, a chubby, pink-faced gunner about my age called Tony.
“…and this crap,” he held up the woollen vests and drawers, “makes very useful polishing cloths.”
I took them from him and looked at the garments carefully. “What are these string things?” The vests, and the drawers (which I estimated would reach my knees) were each equipped with fabric strings. One at the front, one at the rear, and one on each side.
He laughed. “You’re, hahaha, supposed to, hahaha, tie your vest to your underpants.
Hahaha.”
“What?”
“True.”
“@#%$!” I threw them onto my bed.
He began to pull things out of my kitbag, throwing onto the bed those items he guessed I’d be familiar with, pausing at those of which he considered I might have trouble guessing the purpose.
Tony picked up a blue fabric ring. “Puggaree.”
“What’s it for?”
“It goes around the crown of this.” He picked up my brimmed hat, known as a lemon-squeezer due to the four dents in the crown; rather like a Mountie’s hat. “Like that. Every corps has a different coloured one. We hardly every wear them. Mainly for ceremonial parades, stuff like that.”
He picked up what looked like an ugly khaki ski cap with earflaps which clipped to the sides. “This, is for daily wear.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. You should be grateful. This one seems to have been made by someone who actually had access to the pattern. Some of them are really ugly. And this…” holding up a small cotton envelope, “is your housewife, otherwise known as “hussif”.
“What the @#%$ is that?”
Tony unfolded the little cotton package secured by a fabric tape. Inside were a variety of needles, each gleaming in its little fabric sheath, together with a selection of cotton and brown buttons. “This is for you, Pete my friend. How’re your sewing skills?”
“Not real good,” I replied.
“You’ll learn.” He said confidently.
Yeah, right.
With Tony’s help, I pieced together my web belt and associated brass fittings and stowed my gear
in the lowboy and wardrobe allotted to me.
Tony looked at his watch. “We got a little while before the boozer opens. Want a quick tour?”
“Sure,” I said, “Okay.”
The barracks at Fort Cautley was a two-storied building shaped like the plan view of a capital “H” with the cross stroke extended slightly; the two uprights being the sleeping quarters consisting of one and two man rooms, together with showers and toilets. The centre stroke of the “H” contained a recreational room furnished with desperately uncomfortable vinyl easy chairs and couches, and, across the hallway, the dining room. The walls of the corridors and the rooms were of dark, polished wood resulting in a gloomy atmosphere only slightly relieved by the highly polished linoleum floors. I was to find out very soon who was actually responsible for keeping the floor so blindingly shiny.
Back in our room, Tony gave me a quick rundown on what was expected of me, including the cleaning duties. I discovered that afternoon what was to be hammered home countless times over the next few years, that is that cleanliness, shininess, and tidiness far outweighed anything else that a young soldier was expected to achieve and maintain. If your room was clean and tidy, your boots highly polished and you maintained knife-edge creases in your trousers, you could get away with just about anything. (Cultivating the pretence of mindless deference to the whims of self-important, born-to-rule officers was a useful skill also).
“Feel like a beer?” asked Tony when the tour was over.
“I”m under age,” I replied ruefully.
“No problem,” said Tony. “The Duty Officer seldom checks up on a Monday night. Usually just the weekends.”
“Fine,” I replied, smiling for the first time that day.
“One more thing,” said Tony as we strolled towards the wet canteen. “Friday night room inspection. All the rooms are inspected by the Duty Officer at 6 o’clock Friday nights. If your room isn’t up to scratch, you don’t leave the barracks until it is.”
“Why Friday night?” I asked
“Just a bit of bastardry,” he replied. “Maximum inconvenience for the troops, maximum satisfaction for the officer. You’ll get used to it.”
“Oh will I?” I said.
“Oh yes.”
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Adventures of a one legged duck
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