Those of us second-year Roadents of a naval persuasion stayed on at Roads after graduation for phase two of combined MARS and MARE training. That would ordinarily have taken place at VENTURE, the Naval Officer Training Centre in HMC Dockyard, only in the summer of '77, VENTURE was undergoing renovations so the Navy opted to use the College's facilities. We were joined by our fellow Horatio Hornblower-wannabes from RMC and CMR. Part of the course was spent at sea in destroyers of the Navy's Fourth Canadian Destroyer Squadron (CANDESRON 4). Our initial experience of Navy life at sea was pretty much the same as that for any brand-new sailor - learning the ropes, quite literally. We scrubbed decks, chipped rust, painted, and washed dishes. We stood watches as bridge lookouts, lifebuoy sentry, and helmsman. We participated in all manner of evolutions, e.g., berthing ship, coming to anchor, launching the seaboat, replenishments at sea, gun and mortar firing, firefighting, flood control, etc., etc. One of our favourite activities was pulling the ship's whaler, and by pulling, I mean rowing, a twenty-seven foot, one-ton open boat. Think of the film, Master and Commander: the Far Side of the World. Unlike the jolly Jack Tars of the film, we did not attempt to tow the ship with the whaler; instead, we would row around the ship a few times. The captain would keep a couple of knots headway on the ship, just to make things little more "sporting."

Eighteen of us eager cadets embarked in HMCS YUKON. While onboard ship, we were in the care and custody of a petty officer boatswain of the Deck Department, no doubt as penance for some misdemeanour. In YUKON, we found ourselves the temporary wards of a Petty Officer Second Class (PO2) Clouthier. We were accommodated in No. 1 Mess, which was right up in the bow of the ship. Well removed from the noisier parts of the ship, it was a perfect place for quiet contemplation. Except, perhaps, when the anchor cables (chains, in landlubber's parlance) were roaring up out of cable locker and out through the hawse pipes in the cable deck immediately forward of our mess, or when the Doomsday Weapon, the twin-barrelled, three-inch, seventy-calibre gun on the forecastle above was firing. But then again, we weren't allowed to be idly sculling about in the mess when fun things like that were going on. Also, being situated some hundred and fifty feet forward of the ship's centre of buoyancy, our mess deck, together with its hapless occupants, experienced quite pronounced vertical displacements as our sleek greyhound of the ocean ploughed through heavy seaways; there was never any doubt in our minds that we were most definitely "on the briny ocean tossed"* as we were tossed about in our bunks. 

We were a rambunctious group; there were several spirited characters in our ensemble, including Pete Avis, Gerry Horel, and Greg Robertshaw. We were enough to try to patience of a platoon of saints, let alone that of one poor boatswain petty officer. And we had the Greenwood twins, whom no one could tell apart, further complicating the life of the beleaguered PO2 Clouthier. 

When not on watch, we spent a good part of our time at ship's husbandry tasks; as neophyte sailors, we weren't qualified for much else. To relieve the tedium, Pete Avis and I had taken to engaging in impromptu fights modelled after the fight scenes in the TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man. (For the record, I have always maintained that we were reprising the fight scenes from the TV series Kung Fu, with yours truly in the role of Kwai Chang Caine.) We became quite adept at pummelling one another with mock karate chops and faux roundhouse kicks. With B-movie-quality choreography, we would stagger, tumble over equipment and furniture, slam one another into bulkheads (i.e., walls), etc., etc., all in slow motion, in a most convincing manner. We were rather less successful at mimicking the sound effects - "Ne… ne… ne… ne... Ne… ne… ne… ne... Pow!” (You had to be there.) But we tried.

Pete soon took the game to the next level, evolving it into one of ambush. For example, I would be heading off to supper in the Main Cafeteria, and Pete would leap out from behind a ladder, or off the top of a locker, and battle was joined! After a few minutes of mock brawling, we would pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and carry on, secure in the knowledge that if this Navy thing didn't work out, brilliant careers awaited us as Hollywood stuntmen. 

Our best performance began one evening up in No. 1 Mess. The fracas culminated with your humble narrator, reeling backwards from a well-placed kick to the chest, fell over the safety chain around a hatch opening, and executed a flawless, slow-motion tumble down the ladder into No. 2 Mess, where I sprawled on the deck. When I opened my eyes I saw, not my arch-nemesis at the top of the ladder, poised to launch himself downward to renew the attack, but the incredulous face of the long-suffering PO2 Clouthier. He looked down at me spread-eagled on the deck; he looked up at Pete, frozen in mid-spring. Apparently PO2 Clouthier had stepped into No. 2 Mess, on his way to tell us something or assign us some task, just in time to witness the climax of our expertly choreographed fight scene. Whatever his errand might have been, he changed his mind; he spun on his heel, and walked away, muttering under his breath something about crazy cadets...

*Farewell To Nova Scotia, Nova Scotian folk song, author unknown, WWI era