Free We Joined The Navy by John Winton Page B

was more friendly than they had expected. He was an ex-Beatty himself.
    ‘I’m Tim Castlewood,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to show you characters what gives in this mighty vessel. How’s Beatty these days? Is old Froud still spitting fire and brimstone?’
    ‘He is,’ said Paul.
    ‘He’s O.K. when you get to know him. You should hear him singing “The Harlot of Jerusalem”.’
    Paul tried to imagine Mr Froud singing ‘The Harlot of Jerusalem,’ but his imagination jibbed. It was easier to imagine the Loch Ness Monster singing ‘Annie Laurie.’
    Tim Castlewood led the way out on to a narrow platform jutting out from the island. He took off his cap.
    ‘Off caps, fellows. No caps allowed while flying is in progress.’
    ‘What’s the idea of that?’ asked Maconochie.
    ‘It might blow off and get in a pilot’s way or get caught in something. It’s safer to take them off and hold them in your hands while you’re goofing.’
    ‘Goofing?’
    ‘Watching the flying. Anyone who watches the flying is known as a goofer. Where you’re standing now is a goofing position.’
    Down below, the flight deck was being made ready for flying. Men in coloured flight deck helmets were handling aircraft off the lifts and on to the flight deck. Small red trucks drove in and out, towing aircraft to be ranged aft where more men stood waiting with chocks. Other parties were preparing the catapult loaders, laying out bridles and hold-backs, trundling starting trolleys and tail-wheel forks, and unreeling fuelling hoses. Two men in heavy white suits and steel helmets with axes thrust in their belts stood by the large flight deck mobile crane at the after end of the island. The work was directed by unintelligible barks over the flight deck broadcast.
    The aircraft were ranged in two lines down each side of the after end of the flight deck. The pilots walked out from a door in the island, carrying their helmets in their hands, and manned their aircraft. A pilot’s mate in overalls leant over each cockpit and strapped the pilot in.
    The carrier had increased speed and turned into the wind. The wind buffeted the island with increasing strength. The ship’s wake curved in a long crescent of eddies fringed on its outside edge by small tumbling waves.
    ‘We’ve got to turn into the wind,’ said Tim Castlewood. ‘We need about thirty knots over the deck. There’s quite a lot of wind today. Sometimes we boil up and down the Channel for a whole day looking for wind.’
    The flight deck was silent and ready. Everything now depended upon the wind. A meteorological rating stood by the catapults with an anemometer and signalled the wind speed to the bridge.
    ‘When Flyco gives them the tip they’ll taxi up one by one to the catapults and be boosted off. The catapults are those two tracks you can see running up to the forrard end of the flight deck.’ Tim Castlewood was watching the wind speed signals. ‘That’s it. They’ll start up any minute now. Of course, you’ve got to remember that we’re in no hurry today. If this was an operational strike this would all be done much faster.’
    A voice counted out the last seconds over the broadcast.
    ‘Five. Four. Three. Two. One. . . Start!’
    Puffs of smoke appeared at the cowlings. An engine fired and was joined by two or three more and finally by all. The sound expanded and beat against the island until the Beattys could feel it through their shoes and in their bones. The propeller blades swung slowly and idly, spun faster, until their individual profiles merged in a shimmering disc. The two rows of inanimate aircraft were alive and throbbing. The flight deck had come to life.
    Yellow-jacketed directors signalled the chocks away and motioned the aircraft forward, round and up the flight deck towards the catapults. The directors stood at intervals to accept the aircraft from each other and pass it on to their successors.
    The sound grew to an almost unbearable crescendo as the first