No sodomy, no lash — and now no rum
When Winston Churchill became the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, he got up the noses of the brass by forcing the Royal Navy to convert to oil from coal.
When one (I like to imagine, extravagantly whiskered) old admiral complained he was scuttling naval tradition, Churchill is said to have replied: “Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.”
I saw no sign of sodomy or the lash when I spent a fascinating two weeks embedded with the Royal Canadian Navy in 2010, but rum was on hand as it has been since 1655 when sailors in the Royal Navy were first provided with a daily ration of half a pint.
Human resource departments were somewhat less wellness focused in those days. Sailors were often pressed into service. (American objections to that practice led to the War of 1812.) Sailors were routinely flogged to death for minor infractions, living in filth, dining on weevil-infested biscuits and rotten beef.
But at least every day they got a bit of rum.
The British grog ration ended on July 31, 1970 — Black Tot Day. Two years later, the Canadians followed suit.
Sailors wore black arm bands and carried out mock funerals for the Black Tot, but they were still able to buy a glass of rum at their mess.
Now the brass is taking that away.
When I was embedded on HMCS Halifax for a mercy mission to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010, and spent two weeks barking my shins on steel bulkheads, I was struck by the carefully structured hierarchies and specific culture of the ship.
On a warship at sea, where every sailor’s life depends on her fellows, everybody has her place, from the captain in her wood-lined study to the potato peelers in the galley.
There are three separate universes: The officers, the non-commissioned officers and the junior ranks.
Life for the junior ranks is much better than it once was, but it’s not easy because of the demands of the work and the lack of creature comforts that the rest of us take for granted.
Sailors sleep in small bunks, stacked three deep, listening to one another scratch and snore.
When the ship is steaming along in heavy seas and the engines are roaring, it’s tough to sleep. Sailors never really have any privacy and are separated from their loved ones for up to nine months at a time.
I was lucky enough to have pints in the wardroom — where the middle-aged NCOs enjoyed a quiet beer in overstuffed armchairs at the end of a shift — and the junior ranks’ mess, a pleasantly crowded, noisy beer hall where the able seamen knocked back beers and complained good-naturedly about the martinets who boss them around all day.
It seemed to me the junior ranks mess was a useful pressure release for the (mostly younger) low-ranking sailors. They run their own mess and officers are forbidden from entering so that they can relax for an hour or two every day.
I was impressed by the buddy system that kept sailors from getting hammered. There’s an often ignored two-beer limit, but nobody gets drunk.
One night, when one young seaman with glowing cheeks tried to order a fifth beer, his shipmates gently shut him down, reminding him they would have to wake him up in the morning.
That simple and friendly exchange among comrades taught me something about the nature of life aboard, where sailors must and do look out for one another.
That system of comradely watchfulness broke down aboard HMCS Whitehorse in June when alcohol contributed to incidents of sexual misconduct, shoplifting and drunkenness by naval reservists while the ship was at port in San Diego.
Furious brass hauled the ship home, ordered a report and Friday vice-admiral Mark Norman declared the navy has decided henceforth Canadian warships will not allow drinking at sea.
A spokeswoman for Defence Minister Rob Nicholson said he welcomed the new rules: “We are supportive of the Navy’s modernized alcohol policy which promotes a healthier lifestyle.”
NDP Defence critic Jack Harris noted that similar rules are applied on oil rigs: “We’re certainly not opposed to having reasonable restrictions on alcohol aboard ships.”
Navy sources tell me that the service has already moved so far from the free-boozing bad old days that sailors won’t mind much, but I’m not so sure.
Who speaks for the swabbies in the lower ranks? Nobody. How will they feel about having their beer fridges locked? The brass is unilaterally changing the social contract with sailors.
And why is this happening? Because of some misbehaviour by reservists. Regular members take pride in their ability to look out for one another and handle their liquor unlike the Yankee squids, who aren’t trusted with alcohol.
With scant evidence, senior officers have decided the men and women who put their lives on the line for us can’t have a beer at the end of the day.
The only ray of hope for swabbies is captains can make exceptions to the rule for special occasions.
Perhaps over time, if a less abstemious officer is one day running the navy, captains will be given wide latitude to decide which occasions are special.