Three Hours Past Midnight
Raymond Daley
Copyright 14/2/2012 by Raymond Daley
Smashwords Edition
I hate this shift. We're on the gate and it's late.
Or early. Or both.
Probably both.
Time does funny things on a night shift, Doubly so on guard.
By this point in the shift it's easier to say it's closer to knock off. Have a goal in sight and try to keep it in focus.
Even when you are tired, it's better to try and keep your eyes and mind focused on the end of the shift. Four hours sounds like a long time but two of those are going to be spent right here.
It's late autumn, I can smell the decay of the leaves in the forest that begins less than fifty feet away from where we are standing. It reminds me of home.
Gate guard is one of those duties that suck royally but are necessary. Someone has to watch the station whilst everyone else sleeps, right now that's the job of me and my oppo.
On this particular gate (which happens to be that of the officers mess) we are alone. The mess itself is set back from us, we can't see the entrance from here. Our unit is an odd one, split into three parts. Here, where we are is the officers mess, about half a mile behind us is the main site - where all the real business happens. And somewhere off to our left about five minutes away is the Airmans and domestic site.
That's where we live and sleep. That's where my bed is. That's where I'd rather be right now than on guard.
But such is life.
As the old saying goes "It's the Air Force, not the fair force!". The RAF is full of little homilies like that one.
"If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined up" is another favourite.
Right now, all that's between every terrorist and numerous snoring Ruperts, some wives and dependants are me, my oppo the LACW and Mr Crappy Plastic Rifle.
Thank the cheapskate bastards at the MOD for Mr Crappy Plastic Rifle, otherwise known to the world in general as the SA-80. We are taught not to call it that, we are to refer to it by its correct designation - The L85-A1. Or as I prefer Mr Crappy Plastic Rifle.
Mr Crappy Plastic Rifle is both apt and correct. When I first joined up four years ago we had proper guns. Real guns.
Hang on, sorry. We were not supposed to call them guns. My bad. That's the civilian showing. Real weapons.
We had the SLR. Long, heavy, very metal and capable of serious damage.
I can recall the little lecture in a cold room sitting on an itchy horsehair mat at RAF Swinderby telling us that a 7.62 mm round was capable of killing at over five hundred metres. That it was more than able to penetrate a thick tree and kill someone on the other side. Now that was a proper gun.
Sorry, weapon.
I hated the SLR for a multitude of reasons, the strongest of which was it had got me back-flighted twice during basic training at RAF Swinderby.
Royal Air Force Swinderby - School Of Recruit Training. Six weeks of hell, if you are lucky.
It's not there any more. They closed it in the mid `90's and moved recruit training to Halton where it still remains.
The old and the bold remember Swinderby. Some of us even fondly.
Swinderbutlins. Swinditz, Stalag Swinderby. The old girl went by many names, most of them unrepeatable in polite company.
Ah, I just digressed, didn't I?
Yes, I had hated the SLR. At a specific point in your recruit training came the day you had to actually fire the SLR.
Range Day.
A maximum of three attempts in one day to fire at a target at a set range and score a sufficient number of hits in close proximity.
What they call a grouping.
My first attempt was with 3 Flight on 1 Squadron. Silly Blue scarf, silly blue cap disc, very scared to be firing real bullets.
Correction, live rounds. Never call them bullets.
"Bullit was a film starring Steve McQueen. This is a round, so called because it isn't". I'm still not sure if that's an actual memory of something said to me. I might have just used artistic licence. Forgive me if I did. As an author your mind is the canvas on which I paint my picture.
Training is given, safety is paramount. No-one is allowed anywhere near the range until they have proven they can be safe with a weapon.
Trust is earned, not given.
Come range day there are more than a hundred of us. Maybe more, maybe less. Count us like the Aborigine, One, two, many, lots.
We fire in groups of twenty with another twenty stood behind each point ready to either fire or assist the person in front. Our Regiment instructors are there, our drill instructor may have been there too. My memory is hazy on that point.
It's almost twenty-two years since I did that. Half a life away.
I can recall failing the first time, being sent back into the line for a second attempt which I also failed. I struggled to hold the weapon as the barrel was very long, it was heavy and I had no real arm strength. I was sent back to the line and failed my third and final attempt that day, the bad news was dealt quickly.
Back-flighted, see you next week for another try young man.
***
Welcome to 9 Flight, 2 Squadron. Are you enjoying your red scarf, red cap disc and new block full of people who don't know you, don't want to know you and don't care that you are already a failure?
The guy in the bed next to me was quite nice to me, I'm very sorry now that because of the passage of time I can't remember his name. He was going for Regiment training.
Pebble Monkey. Bless him.
The evening before the range he spent time talking to me very patiently about all the right ways to think and act during the range. How to breathe, where to look. He was so helpful. I was going to pass this time. I had all the tips.
The week before I'd found that I had struggled to cock my rifle during loading. I couldn't get any purchase on the cocking handle. It was small, it was stubby and those bastard springs were bloody strong in offering resistance.
I am a creative person. Obviously so, I am a writer.
But I have a good mind for problem solving and saw my way around this issue. I went to the NAAFI and purchased a packet of plasters. Which I then taped around three of the fingers of my right hand. Index, middle and the other one thats not the little finger. I was then able to get some grip on the cocking handle and was able to cock the weapon more easily.
Range Day, Version 2.0
Same objective as before only this time I am a marked man, the Regiment know my face. I am a shitbag reflight.
My freshly applied plasters are very visible.
"Are you injured? Are you unfit to fire today?" asks the shouty Regiment man. I explain the logic behind the plasters, I am given a very stern glare strong enough to melt wax and the wills of lesser men and am left to continue to be a bag of shite with plasters on his fingers. A fucking inventive shitbag at least.
Second try at the big task, shooting something. I am put into the very first group to shoot, we are the first up to fire. Lots of bangs and the whiff of cordite later.
Fail, back in the line for the next group in. This time I'm standing behind someone as the second shooter.
No grassy knoll in sight.
Yes, I just made a JFK joke. In poor taste perhaps but I was nervous as hell.
Up to the firing position, the moments of hope. The target is checked again. Another fail.
I'm at the back of the line this time. We go through the song and dance act again to the same outcome. I fail.
Reflighted again.
"You are a failure. You are a bag of shite! Get off my range!" Those may not have been the exact words of the Regiment instructor that day but it was his general tone, inflection and demeanor.
You get used to being shouted at during recruit training. Having someone screaming at you mere inches from your face was common practice back then.
It does have a point. It's supposed to make you hate them. As recruits you then have a common enemy which unites you . It creates a team where none previously existed. At the start of your military career your brain says 'I am' because you mainly care about what happens to you. By the time recruit training has finished with you your brain should be saying 'We are' because you know you can't succeed without the help of others.
The many are stronger than the one. Very Star Trek.
I digress. Again, sorry.
***
Welcome to 22 Flight, 3 Squadron. I've now acquired a nickname from the drill staff.
I am "The total tourist" on account of how I have now been in all three training squadrons.
I do hear the name used within earshot but no-one ever calls me it to my face. I have that much dignity left.
If I was a reflight shitbag before, I dread to think what I am now after two reflights. It probably starts with c, ends in t and rhymes with blunt.
This time it's not just the Regiment and the drill staff who know I am the shitbag reflight. I'm witnessed unpacking my kit into the empty bed-space by my new room mates. 'Who the fuck is this?' say the looks on their collective faces.
Yep, it's a shitbag reflight. Sorry lads, I'll try not to drag you down with me like a sinking ship.*
*(NB:- Mythbusters has since disproved that this actually happens, it's complete and utter bollocks)
During weapon safety training I manage to prove my worth to the lads with my advance knowledge of the tests they are about to face. Suddenly I am no longer AC Shitbag Reflight. I am AC Useful Foreknowledge, an airman who knows the future. Bugger Doctor Who, I've seen their future. I've lived it. I KNOW what's around every corner.
I am the fourth in a group of friends from home who have chosen the Royal Air Force as a career. All their collective memories have been shared with me. What will happen, when it will happen. Almost nothing should be a surprise to me. Life always has at least one trick up it's sleeve though.
Later that afternoon gradually becomes Range Day 3.
It's a beautiful sunny day with a light breeze and I find myself standing in that queue yet again.
It's here that I overhear a conversation I'm sure no-one else was supposed to catch, especially me.
OC RAF Regiment marches past us as we stand to attention to look less like the bags of shit he probably thinks we are.
He walks up to the Senior Regiment instructor present who happens to be standing at the front of the queue. Even from where we are standing "Is Daley on the range?" I can hear him ask the Sergeant. I try to look as invisible as the camouflage I am wearing will allow me. The big white name tape with DALEY on my chest is giving me away.
"Don't know sir" replies the Sergeant, not the answer the officer is looking for really.
Then the officer says that magical phrase I will remember to my dying day or until I get Alzheimer’s. "When he shoots, pass him through. No grading, just pass him through. Understand?"
The Sergeant says that yes he understands and nods his head at the same time, he wants his boss to see there's no confusion on the issue. The look in his eye begs to differ. Orders are dispersed by him down the chain of command to the rest of his instructors. Heads are briskly nodded, orders are to be followed, to be obeyed. They don't care why they don't know. All they know is they have instructions to follow.
The big man himself has spoken, I am to be given a free pass. Do not go to jail, collect two hundred pounds.
I'm in the tail end of the next group in, second man to fire.
The time between him starting and finishing seems to take forever. A fuzzy memory fragment tells me this poor sap has a nasty accident when he gets on the wooden board to fire. The poor fucker slices his palm open on a loose nail that is promptly stamped down by a random Regiment guy keen to leave no evidence as matey boy is wheeled off to the med centre for stitches. He's not in our room, I don't know his face.
The time between me taking the firing point and being told to go get my target seems to be over and done in a matter of seconds. The queue for target marking is yet another eternity however. The Regiment instructor is checking targets, is it a passing score? Pass means piss off and clean your weapon, fail means get your useless arse back in the queue to try again.
"Next man! Name and last three?" that's the instructor checking the guy in front of me. AC Blake, a tad on the rotund side but makes up with enthusiasm for his shortcomings in speed, strength and fitness. The wee specky fella has a killer brain on him through. Bless his Billy Bunter-looking heart, you might want Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson in a shoot-out but when the shit hits the fan I'd rather have good old Blakey by my side. I trust the little fucker with my life, you know he'd take a bullet for any man in this line.
Blakey hands the nice man in Olive Green his target. The nice man in Olive Green pulls out his plastic gauge thingy and liberally applies chalk to various holes on the target. If he gave Blakey a number I didn't hear it, I did however hear him say "Blake, pass! Next man, name and last three?"
I step forward. Best loud voice now. "Daley, 922 Staff!"
It takes two seconds for the nice man in Olive Green to process my input. You can see him doing the mental computations, he has orders, he must carry them out. Pure instinct tells him to pull out the plastic gauge thingy and his piece of chalk. Then his memory kicks in. He glances at the target.
Jedi mind trick time. These aren't the holes you're looking for.
He makes a show of moving the gauge around my target, no chalk is used. "Daley, pass! Next man, name and last three?" his tone is less than impressed. I'm not a pass, I'm a shitbag. I'm less than a shitbag. He looks at me. Once. Twice. "You passed, go clean your weapon outside. Inspection in ten minutes, I want it gleaming!"
He'll get no argument from me, Twice is enough to convince me to bugger off. I'll make sure he gets gleaming and then some.
Finally I get to proceed to the next week of recruit training. We lose Blakey that week to Military Field Training, he is deemed to have not given his all over those two days at North Luffenham. He's told to pack and leave for 1 Squadron as soon as we get back. While everyone else catches up on sleep I take the time to shake his hand and wish him luck.
It's possible that I helped him shift some of his kit to his new block. On that I am hazy, I may have. I tried to be nice where I could.
***
Meanwhile, back in the real Air Force.
I am still on the hated gate, in the dark, near the forest. She is nervous. My oppo, I mean. It's funny because there's no bugger awake for miles who isn't a blue suit on the job. I'm armed. I'm at the top of the food chain as far as I am concerned. I am miles from the nearest apex predator. There's bound to be a zoo close to me, with lions, tigers or crocodiles and alligators. Those buggers are well behind bars but apart from those bars the only thing between me and them is actual physical distance.
No-one should have to be afraid of physical distance.
In the darkness we hear noises. Birds are easily recognised. Owls most certainly. She hears something she's never heard before and shoots me a 'What the fuck was that?' type of glance. She's a big city girl, the wildest form of life she's seen are pigeons or the lads outside her local at chucking out time. Me, I am a child of the suburbs. My home may be concrete and ring-roads but I know grass and trees when I see them. Unlike some people on this unit I appreciate air without car fumes in it. She doesn't trust air you can't slice or see.
We get the sound that spooked her again. "Fox barking" I say, smiling at her. Nothing to fear there, I've read 'Fantastic Mr Fox'. Roald Dahl wrote it not far from here. In early autumn during the daytime we get pheasants on the treeline. You can completely understand how he came to write 'Danny, Champion Of The World'. As far as 'James And The Giant Peach' goes? Who the fuck knows, he was a bit of a bloody weirdo when you come to think about that one.
The rest of our night is fairly quiet but not entirely uneventful. We have a couple of visitors wander in and come near the barrier.
The forest is National Trust land. Our first uninvited guest is a badger. It's big, you don't realise how big they actually are until you see one close up.
With less than twenty minutes of the shift remaining we are walking around to stave off the cold when our second visitor wanders up to the barrier, brave as you like. Where I normally work they come to the window in the daytime for our bread thrown outside. It's a deer. She tells me she's never seen one before apart from on telly.
He or she stands close by for a few moments, it's too far away and too dark to define gender. I'm not a bloody expert. Give me credit for knowing it's a deer at least. I dread to think what her closest guess would have been, mutant dog perhaps? "Got a pass mate?" I ask it, humour to defuse the situation.
The deer decides it doesn't want to come onto the station and makes its way back into the darkness towards the forest. Perhaps it forgot its pass, or it's a very well disguised terrorist method actor. Either way it left the way it came.
Our last ten minutes or so drag out. We're straining our ears now to hear the dulcet tones of a Ford Transit engine. The familiar blue shape (No, not the TARDIS. It's almost as roomy inside though!) is a welcome sight and we have the barrier up and ready to get the hell off this shift. The LACW is in the back of the wagon and her replacement gives me a nod.
That nod is just "You exist. This is me, who doesn't really know you just acknowledging you exist. Ok?" It's a lot to say in a nod but it's well conveyed.
My replacement gives me a similar nod. "All quiet" I say and am unlocked and unloaded then in the Transit, in transit.
Back in the warmth of the Guardroom there's a fresh brew on so it's heat is most welcome. As is a quick jimmy riddle, the cold makes you want to go more. After a slash and a hand-wash I'm back with the Guard Commander annotating the log for our shift.
Mark it NTR. Nothing To Report. I'll save the close encounter of the animal kind for some future literary project I decide. Oh look, I just did!
We set about clean-up so we can get to breakfast then get stood down when the day shift come in. Our relief is relieving.
Bed is calling. It's cold but it's warmer than being outside.
Sleep beckons.
Another wonderful day in the Royal Air Force.
________________________________________________________________
Authors Notes:- I had to change the title of this after a read through. I was out by an hour. I had to write down the actual hours of a night guard watch to discover that mistake.
Unless I've said I was hazy or I outright said I made it up pretty much everything you just read is real and happened to me. That's your tax money hard at work. right there.