The British Royal Navy has an interesting attitude to the
matter of violence. Visiting death and other forms of wanton destruction upon
Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, Dutchmen – even Americans back in the days when
we were first cousins but had as yet no special relationship – is a matter of
honour and unimpeachable propriety. Coming to blows with a fellow officer
cadet, however – even under cover of darkness in a college dormitory, and even
though the adversary is an Iranian (as far as I’m aware, the Royal Navy never
closed for action with a Persian vessel) – is a grave affair indeed,
potentially attracting the direst of punishments. But such was the situation I
found myself in one cold winter’s night at BRNC Dartmouth in the Year of Our Lord
AD something-or-other, and such was the punishment I faced.
So should I tell the story? It shows the worst and the best
of me (strictly in that order) but I can’t at present think of a moral. And if
there’s no moral, why would anybody be interested?
At the moment I’m in no condition to judge. Apart from The
Issues, my difficult knee is giving me the runaround tonight. (It wakes me up
at around 5 in the morning sometimes. I’m lying there with a bent leg and a painful
knee. The only way to alleviate the pain is to stretch the leg out, the process
of which is even more painful, but it has to be done…)
As for telling the story of how Cadet Razhegi and I came to exchange
people power, I might or I might not.
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