21

Racked Out

The only place – indeed the only space – I could truly call my own was my bunk, or ‘rack’ as it was more commonly known on board, in 9 Berth, named for its nine bunks, on 3 Deck. Here I could escape from the rest of the crew and actually find time to contemplate the day’s events, read a book, listen to music and have some private time. But first and foremost I came here to sleep. I was eternally shattered from the never-ending watch-keeping cycle, and needed my eight hours off in between watches – that, or I’d be catnapping in the afternoon to prepare for a long night ahead in the control room.

It was cramped all right, me and the rest of the tactical systems team crammed into 9 Berth. The size of a chunky walk-in wardrobe, I likened it to being half the size but roughly the same shape as the box you serve into in a game of tennis. It measured three paces forward by either side, and that was just the space in which we could walk or indeed fall around in when it was pitch dark (all the time), trying to get pants, socks, trousers, shirt and sandals on ready to go on watch.

Entering 9 Berth, I’d first be hit by the overarching hum of human flesh in need of a 30-minute soak in a large, soapy bath, quickly followed by the secondary whiff of spunked-in socks, shirts and trousers hanging on pegs, mixed with a hint of bad breath, sweaty balls and arse. A rare cocktail indeed. Three bunks faced me on entry, with three to the port side and three on the starboard. At the bottom of the bunks there were sets of tiny drawers, one for each member of the crew. I tended to stow my boots and overalls in the drawer to keep them separated.

Within the berth there was an overwhelming sense of the walls closing in, and at any given time there might be a maximum of six people sleeping in this tiny space, with the other three out on watch. My bunk was situated dead ahead of me as I walked into the space, about 6 feet off the ground. When I first joined it was a baptism of fire even getting into the bloody thing. The bunk itself was around 6 feet long by 3 feet wide, and the headspace between the mattress and the bottom of the bunk above couldn’t itself have been much more than 3 feet. A squash and a squeeze, to put it mildly.

Inside the bunk was a sleeping bag, pillow, a light for reading and then a ‘punkah louvre’ – think of the outlet you sit under in an aircraft that supposedly pumps out fresh air while you fly – that blew recycled fresh air out into the bunk to try to stop its resident from overheating. I could barely turn over to sleep on either side without banging my shoulder or arm or head on some part of the Formica panelling above. I’m 5 foot 11 inches and was at that point very slim, so if I had trouble manoeuvring myself in here, spare a thought for my taller and larger crewmates, curled up like massive oversized adults trying to sleep in a child’s bed – very Gulliver’s Travels. They constantly had to change position to get comfy in the hope of getting some kip – it must have been a nightmare. The closest you’d get in the real world would be one of those pod hotels in Tokyo, but while they’re similar in length and width, they’re much more generous with head space, so they don’t feel too claustrophobic. There was nothing funny about Lilliputian bunks and big, bleary-eyed seamen becoming irascible with their constant lack of sleep. A reduction in general alertness and brain function equalled a higher likelihood of serious fuck-ups while on watch.

It was like getting racked out in a coffin – you were crammed in, light out, curtain pulled closed … and buried alive. Well, that’s what it felt like the first night I dived on work-up before my first patrol. I remember thinking there was no way I was going to hack this for the duration; time to rethink the career choice. But I soon grew to love it here in this tiny, dank and dark space, as I could switch off from the Groundhog Day monotony of the patrol cycle and drift off into the land of nod.

My bunk in 9 Berth was situated very close to AMS 1* on 3 Deck, home to bits of machinery like the bilge pump and hydraulic plants, whose soporific humming wove a hypnotic spell over me, making it easy to get off to sleep at will. This was coupled with the fact that I was usually totally shattered – or at least slightly the worse for wear – when I finally hauled myself up for some shut-eye. As I was on the top bunk I’d have to reach up and grab the very small hand grip, then hoist my legs up, point them into the bunk and jack-knife in, followed by my head and shoulders. Finally, it would be curtain pulled back and then – for the first time in hours – glorious privacy. Lots of the crew slept in T-shirts and pants. Fuck that. The clothes I wore were smelly enough without sleeping in them as well. Nope, it was the bollocky buff for me, naturally with pants at the ready if I had to get up smartish or woke up with a hard-on. My sleeping bag had to last the whole patrol – it wouldn’t be washed for the duration – and 90 days sleeping in the same bag was a stretch. I tried to air mine as best I could between watches, unzipping it and leaving it open, with the air vent pointing downwards to give it some biff.

If the boat changed depth, ascending to or back down from periscope depth, it always used to wake me, but the slow, beguiling inclines of the boat as we reached for the skies or the depths of the ocean below were incredibly comforting while I drifted in and out of consciousness. The sub is in many ways like an aeroplane in terms of the end-to-end and sideways movement … one wing up, one wing down, while on a boat the foreplanes and afterplanes do the same job, although mostly without the turbulence. A submarine also has three-dimensional movement: forwards, backwards and lateral, plus the ability to travel in a vertical plane, up towards the surface and down to its test depth.

Many captains used the phrase ‘She flies very well’ when commenting on Resolution’s manoeuvrability, and it was a joy just to lie back and enjoy the ride. The changes of depth and course were so smooth we could have been travelling business class – without the views, of course.

Everyone had to be as quiet as possible down in the bunk spaces, and you’d quickly become the resident arsehole if you were found to be making a din. Silence often proved difficult to maintain with the buzz of coming off watch or following a few jars, especially as some of the crew were racked out in the passageway; imagine the hustle and bustle of hairy-arsed submariners careering past and flopping into their bunks. Being racked out downwind of the toilets could have serious disadvantages, particularly if we were in sonar silent state, when flushing was not allowed.

Coffin dreams were not something we talked about in great detail – these nightmares made sailors shout or lash out in fear that they were being buried alive or slowly suffocated by a gradually reducing space, the walls literally coming in from each side. I used to have dreams that the roof of my bunk was closing in on me, and on a few occasions I fell out of the top bunk to get away, waking up as I hit the deck hard, which startled both me and my crewmates. Some people used to scream and shout so much in their sleep that you had to wake them up.

I remember having a dream in which I saw my own funeral take place, only to discover that I was still alive in a glass-lined transparent coffin, thrashing around like a madman, my face covered in white greasepaint like a clown. No one could see I was alive but me, looking down on myself on top of the hearse. I woke up screaming and dripping with sweat, so much so that I thought I’d shat myself. This dream has stayed with me to this day. I put it down to the general stress of the living environment, my body clock being all over the place and eating at irregular times; when combined, these could certainly lead to some strange goings-on in the bunks at night.

There was one guy who occasionally sleepwalked, which was a bit unnerving as I was never quite sure what he might do. He did it one night when we were away on a training course in Plymouth, and went and sat on the window-sill, opening and closing the curtains. I kept an eye on him from my bed in case he opened one of the windows, as we were a few floors up. He didn’t, but proceeded instead to get up, walk to the middle of the room, piss on the floor and get back into bed. Had he sleepwalked on board he’d have been intercepted pretty quickly as there was always someone milling around, and hopefully they’d have caught him before he fell down a ladder or appeared at the skipper’s cabin wanting to relieve himself.

Away for three months at a time, surrounded by stinking sailors … so what else went on in my bunk? It doesn’t require a great deal of imagination, but everyone needs some ‘private time’ to themselves. It was universally known that masturbation was rife on board, which was only natural, although I do remember a shipmate saying he’d gone one whole 70-day patrol without indulging. His daily updates after about week two started to get on everyone’s wick, and he quickly became the patrol bore. No one believed him, but he was adamant; his first cum face post-patrol must have been a picture. On the flip side, you could tell who overindulged; thanks to their ferocious bashing the bishop just an hour before, they’d be walking bandy-legged along the passageways on their way to keep watch, looking just like John Wayne.

Some people made more noise than others, and one guy in our berth used to leave his light on when he was in full swing; it looked like a puppet show from the other side of the curtain. There’d also be the tell-tale sign of curtains twitching and the right elbow hoving in and out of view. At this point, if I’d just arrived in 9 Berth, I usually walked around and returned in five minutes, giving them time to finish up. Each submariner would have their own ‘wankerchief’, ‘wank hanky’ or plain ‘jizz rag’, an essential bit of kit that one used to clean up, varying in material from a bit of cotton to civvy socks or the girlfriend’s underwear. This was usually stowed under the mattress or the pillow, something I didn’t object to as I was on the top bunk. I was a lot more respectful to crewmates with the use of toilet roll which, unlike the wank hanky, was easily flushable. Any residue would have the habit of trickling down from above, not great for someone on a lower bunk; their sleeping bag could assume the look of a plasterer’s radio come week five. Onanism aside, I was lucky I was a deep sleeper – someone could have been playing the drums next to my head and I wouldn’t have woken up. I guess I averaged around six hours sleep per day, which wasn’t too bad under the circumstances.

Waking time in the bunk was mostly spent either reading or, that other great saviour, listening to music. It was always slightly annoying trying to read in there as the space was so confined, but listening to music was perfect. With the Walkman next to my head and headphones on, I’d be out like a light in no time. My music collection was fairly substantial for a patrol. I used to take around 50 cassette tapes with me, crammed into my passageway locker along with my washing kit and changes of clothes. Music was everything to me, and I’d loved it ever since my father bought me an old Glen Campbell live album when I was about ten.

Growing up in and around the Midlands in the late 1970s and early 80s, I soon became aware that music stood for so much more than just the sounds – it was also culture, the clothes, the way you identified yourself. As a kid I loved The Jam and was always influenced not just by their music but also by what the band wore, in particular Paul Weller. I would go into Beatties department store in the Mander Centre in Wolverhampton to get the two-tone Jam shoes and the boating blazer. I never liked the Mod haircut, though, being far too self-conscious to dare wear it on the streets of the West Midlands. Someone would have taken offence and mouthed off, so I plumped for the ska suedehead. I also loved the early look of Dexys Midnight Runners’ On the Waterfront-style vibe, with pea coat, woolly hat or box jacket and duffel bag, plus I’d never heard anyone sing like Kevin Rowland; he was of Anglo-Irish descent and spent much of his childhood in Wolverhampton, just the same as me. With his rich and incredibly powerful voice that could cover the octaves, he was a sort of male version of Kate Bush, whom I also adored.

The West Midlands had been home to reggae, two-tone and ska, so I’d grown up listening to bands such as Ranking Roger, Steel Pulse, UB40, The Specials and The Beat. My father loved his classical music, which I’d initially hated, but since my school years I’d grown increasingly to appreciate it, and under the oceans it became a real godsend: Elgar, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Vaughan Williams or Bruch could all reduce me to a blubbering wreck in my bunk.

I listened and re-listened to the albums I took on patrol, and would play them over and again until the Walkman mangled the tape. I can still recall every single word of Tom Waits’s Closing Time and Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love, and even now, when I hear them many years on, they immediately transport me back into that tiny cramped space of my bunk.

* Auxiliary machinery space.