Chapter 10: Sea Daddies and Sea Mommies

Seaman Michael Nyland graduated from Recruit School in March 1974 and was immediately posted to HMS Raleigh to commence training as a Writer; a sailor specialising in pay, personnel matters and administration.

He was glad to see the back of HMS Chelmsford; Spike and the three other Leading Recruits had passed out at the end of January and had posted off to other establishments to undertake their category courses. Jimmy Lovejoy, Jean Burgess and Billy Marron caught the train to Chelmsford every Friday to catch up with their ‘girlfriends’, Polly, Doris and Mary.

Mike spent every weekend dressed as Michele, staying at the dodgy lodgings just down from Pink Pussycats where Michele became a regular. She never took the same bloke home twice and most nights she didn’t even bother to hook up. When she did, she made sure that the admirer knew it was a one night stand and not to expect a repeat performance. Michele’s experiences with Bill and Jason Jones had put her off long term relationships.

Polly, Doris, and Mary also posted to HMS Raleigh to undertake their Officer Steward’s and Cook courses. Michele had drifted away from her protégés and they no longer needed her as they had learned all they could from her about crossdressing. Their boyfriends now visited them in Plymouth, which had a large underground gay and transgender scene with numerous bars and nightclubs.

Michele noticed that quite a few of the logistic branch sailors were gay and suspected that a few might also be into crossdressing. A disturbing consequence of her on and off romance with Jason Jones was that she had been made aware of rumours going around that she and some of her shipmates had been, and may still be, Barrack Room Bettys. She suspected that Jason had leaked the rumour to get back at her.

Whilst at HMS Raleigh Mike worked hard at his studies and only took Michele out of the closet when the urge became irresistible. Then she would find a cheap boarding house or hotel near a tranny friendly venue and find some punter to bring home to give her a thorough fucking and then immediately leave. She didn’t bother socialising with Polly, Doris or Mary.

Mike graduated top of his class and his mom and dad came to the graduation parade and were glad to see that their son had given away ‘that silly crossdressing nonsense’.

“See son, I told you the Navy would make a man out you,” Mike’s father lectured him over a pint at the wet canteen.

“If only you knew dad,” Mike smiled back.

Mike glanced down at his pint and noticed a tiny ring of nailpolish in the cuticle of one of his fingernails where he hadn’t quite got the nailpolish remover. He smiled to himself and then smiled at his dad.

Mike’s dad was proud of him and also proud of his son’s forthcoming draft to the Navy’s Flagship.

HMS Ark Royal was the biggest ship in the Navy with a complement of 2700 officers and sailors and 39 embarked aircraft. It was a rabbit warrant of steel passageways, compartments and galleries. When Mike drafted on board he was impressed with the vessel’s sheer size and the number of personnel on board. As a mere Able Seaman ‘scribe’ he felt quite insignificant amongst those who drove the ship, manned its weapons, operated the machinery and flew and maintained the aircraft.

He worked in the Personnel Office down on four deck where he sat behind a desk handling files. The office was quite claustrophobic, with four painted steel bulkheads, rows of filing cabinets and three desks manned by Writers headed by the ‘Perso’ or Personnel Officer, CPO Rod Latham.

When he was posting in another AB Writer, who had been detailed off to be Mike’s ‘sea daddy’ until he settled in, led Mike around the ship. Mike had to take his post-in chit to various offices and stations around the ship, he met his DO, a doddering old Lieutenant who was one of the ‘Pussers’, Supply Officers, on board.

“This is officer’s country up here aft on two deck, you only ever come here if you’re ordered to ok?” Bob Bently, his sea daddy, explained.

They went to the Naval Police or Joss-man’s office where a Petty Officer signed and stamped his post-in chit.

“You’re not that Barrack Room Betty I’ve heard about are you?” the PO asked.

Mike shook his head and looked away.

“What’s that about?” Bob asked.

“Just some bullshit story that some arsehole started,” Mike explained.

They went to the Regulating Office where Bob explained how the watch and station bill worked.

“See we’re day hands; we don’t keep watches like the stokers and dip-dabs. But we have collateral duties. See here, you’re Two Charlie PO’s messman for breakfast and dinner.”

“What does that mean?” Mike asked.

“Well there are a couple of PO’s messes because there are so many of them but you go to 2C PO’s café and serve breakfast and dinner to the Petty Officers. They get table service see.”

“And after dinner my time’s my own?” Mike enquired.

“Unless they do something stupid like calling action stations which they do sometimes during exercises. See here is your action station, the after damage control section base,” Bob pointed to the station bill.

“You’ll get the hang of it, don’t worry,” Bob said.

And Mike did, after being on board for three months he knew the ship pretty well and had adapted to the ship’s routines. Ark Royal was old, busy and noisy; aircraft took off and landed at all hours and there were endless pipes over the ship’s main broadcast. Being so large, she didn’t move around that much but in heavier sea states she tended to roll and Mike had a touch of mal de mer until he got his sea legs.

What was frustrating was working in the office deep in the bowels of the ship. Whenever he could, Mike went up to the GDP Gun Direction Platform which was a deck high up on the island to watch the planes take off and land. Or he went up onto the three deck starboard after ladder bay where he could get fresh air and was one of the few places on the ‘uppers’ where junior rates could smoke on an aircraft carrier. The holy-stoned, oak planked quarterdeck was officers country so he couldn’t go there and the focsle was the senior rates upper deck recreation area but it was noisy during flying stations as the catapults were above it.

Mike had seen Doc Holliday behind the servery of the main galley and he also caught up with Brian Perkins in the ladder bay one day while he was having a smoke.

“So there’s three of us Betty’s on board,” Polly said, sitting on a bollard smoking.

“Yeah, I saw Doc in the main galley. Are you two still, you know?” Mike asked, arching a brow.

“Yeah back in Pompey,” sailor’s slang for Portsmouth.

“We meet up with Jimmy and Billy when their ship is alongside. They’re both in HMS Leander and she usually escorts us; so you know, most of the time we’re in port at the same time.”

“Mary’s in Blake so we don’t see her much.”

“So you’re still all together then?” Mike asked.

“Well yeah, but did you know that Spike’s on board?” Polly went on.

“And worse. He’s in the Bosuns Party and guess who is I/C of the Bosuns Party?”

Mike blanched.

“Yeah, Petty Officer Knocker White,” Polly flicked his butt into the spitkid.

Mike shuddered.

“Well there’s over two over thousand officers and sailors on board the Ark so I’m not likely to run into them am I. And if so, so what?” Mike replied.

“Be careful Michele, it’s a big ship and there’s lots of secrets on board and lots of compartments where things happen that don’t accord with Admiralty Regulations,” Polly whispered.

Mike had heard that there were illegal activities happening in some of the Ark’s less frequented spaces. There was gambling on uckers and mah-jongg, mojo parties with illegal spirits, there were pornographic movie nights, there was talk that some of the homosexuals on board met for trysts and that some them offered fellatio to so-called straight sailors.

Ark Royal was a floating city filled with testosterone infused young men with all sorts of needs and desires.

“Don’t call me Michele. I’m Mike! Michele only comes out ashore,” he answered.

“Besides who could get their girly gear into these fucking two by three foot lockers. I can hardly get all me kit in there as it is.”

“Just be careful Michele, err Mike. Like I said it’s a big ship,” Polly turned and headed back towards the ladder leading down to wardroom where he worked.

Mike put Polly’s counsel down to bitterness because Mike had stopped stepping with his old Betty gang and had become a loner. But still, Polly’s warning sent a chill down Mike’s back.

He looked out at the calm seas; he watched HMS Leander and the other escorts dancing around screening the carrier while he smoked another cigarette.

“Bollocks!” he said and went over to the hatch leading down to 3 deck, then down the next ladder to 4 deck and the personnel office.

One other strange occurrence happened that day, whilst Mike was busy working on various files CPO Rod Latham walked behind him, stopped and massaged his neck.

“I hear you were quite the Barrack Room Betty back at Chelmsford,” he whispered in Mike’s ear and then moved on as if nothing had happened.

Four weeks later and nothing went terribly wrong for Mike.

Ark Royal had sailed with her escorts for a two-week shakedown prior to deploying to the Med and then down into Asia. Everyone on board was excited about the forthcoming deployment but not looking forward to the workup required beforehand.

There had been a few training sessions and drills leading into the more complex action stations exercises and one afternoon Mike was required to close up at the after damage control section base.

“Ok we are going to practice responding to a damage control incident. The scenario is we have been hit aft and we need to make a damage assessment. So you lads pair up and rove the after compartments looking for damage and report in ok?” the Chief Stoker in charge of the section base explained.

The DC teams paired up but there was an odd number. The Chief looked down at his clipboard.

“Nyland, prove!” Mike raised his hand.

“You get over here with me as the incident board marker, you take Nyland’s place,” he said to the spare hand.

Mike was happy to be left in the section base drawing on the incident board, which was a big schematic of the whole after section of the ship laid out on it like a map in both plan and elevation.

The exercise had been running for about twenty minutes when a sound powered telephone rang on the section base I/C desk. He picked it up and listened looking intently at AB Nyland.

“And there’s ten quid in it for me, no questions asked?” he said into the phone.

He listened for a beat then hung up.

“Nyland, get over here,” the Chief growled.

Mike went over to where the CPO was now standing pondering the incident board.

“Ok I’ve had a report of battle damage in Six Quebec Delta Alpha. I need you to investigate,” the Chief said, his face red.

Mike looked at the incident board and furrowed his brow.

“But Chief, that’s a compartment, within two other compartments and is down on six deck below the waterline. Surely the DC rovers would have found an entry point above it. It says here the compartment is an old store and no longer used anyway so if it floods so what?” Mike had become quite adept at his job.

The Chief clipped him around the ear.

“Just do what you’re fucking well told will you! I don’t make up the stupid exercise scenarios, I just respond to them.”

Mike knew that answering back would be fruitless so he grabbed his anti-flash gear and leak-stopping bag and headed off, closing and dogging all the doors and hatches behind him because the ship was at Damage Control state Zulu. It took him a while to find Six Quebec Delta Alpha compartment because he had to pass through a maze of other compartments to get there.