Читать книгу Rum Bum and Baccy - Bernie Howard - Страница 10

As ratings, from the age of twenty you became entitled to the tot, or if you didn’t want it, you became T and received threepence a day. Our rum was mixed as to one part rum to two parts water and this made up a tumbler full. Chief and petty officers had theirs neat and the reason ours had to be drunk as mixed with water was so you couldn’t bottle and keep.

The strength of the rum was this: one tot and you would become gibberish and have the ability to eat any crap put before you; two tots you were pissed, three legless, four or five could kill you.

There was also a lot of strict protocol. Rum was collected in a fanny which was a metal urn and dished out by one rating with another rating ticking off as you collected. When you got your rum you gave each of these a wet, which was about a teaspoonful. The next amount given for a favour was a sip which was about a tablespoonful followed by a gulp which was about two tablespoonfuls. God help anyone who took a sip instead of a wet or a gulp. Half tots were sometimes given which was half a glass. These were only given for really big favours.

Rum came up at around twelve o’clock dinner time. A rum station was set up where a large open-topped barrel would be placed to top up with a wooden keg of rum and the appropriate water. There would be an officer in charge of this delicate procedure.

In HMS Zulu this station was set up by a water cooler at the top of our messdeck ladder. Now when all the messdecks had collected their rum the remainder was disposed of down the water cooler, the pipe of which ran down into our messdeck. We soon found a join which we could undo and worked at it until it could be opened and closed easily. All we had to do now was get someone to hang about at the top of the ladder and give us the nod when the excess rum was being disposed of, then open the join, jug under and Hey Presto! This gave us roughly an extra third of a tot each and, on rare occasions, an extra tot. There was a snag, though, as the water cooler was a favourite place to throw up in after a night ashore, so we had to put up with bits of half-digested curries etc. but overall it was worth it.

The only time I was issued with neat rum (neaters) was when I was in field gun. As you had to keep one hundred per cent fit and so you didn’t drink it, a blind eye was turned to bottling. On a weekend leave I took a bottle home to Swaffham for my mates to sample. In the lounge bar of the Kings Arms I shared out my ill-gotten gains. The next day my good friend Phil McCarthy, who could really drink, said to me, “I can’t believe it. I came in at twenty past eight and was pissed by half past.” That was the strength of the tot.

Water cooler with rum station