Hands Lay Aft To Witness Punishment

Hands Lay Aft To Witness Punishment
By: Bas Bradley

The British Royal Navy’s greatness was hard earned and predicated on the discipline of the ships crews. This quality was passed down to the Navies of the British Colonies, one of which of course is the Royal Canadian Navy. During WW2 a lot of the Canadian Navy’s personal was made up of young lads from the Prairies and other inland Provinces who with their carefree attitude did not completely understand discipline at first, but they soon learned after a trip or two in the rattle (Navy Slang for trouble). Their problems with discipline were mostly misdemeanours such as being a little tardy in reporting for duty watch or not completing tasks to the satisfaction of the ones assigning these jobs. These minor infractions were handled at the First Lieutenant’s report and unless referred to the captain’s report were settled there with some minor punishment such as #11 (generally extra work in off hours) or stoppage of shore leave or pay or both. After a long trip to sea you certainly did not want to be burdened with even these small infractions so you did your best to behave yourself.

If you were referred to the Captains Report for punishment you had real trouble and would probably be the recipient of a trip to the quarterdeck after the boson’s mate piped “Hand Lay Aft To Witness Punishment”. What was the cause of this distasteful trip? Were you AWOL (away without leave) after permission for shore leave. The longer you were away, lets say days, not hours, the more serious this became. This charge started to escalate the longer you were away until it could become desertion. In the days of sail the charge of desertion would probably have the culprit hanging from the yard arm, for his sins. As a matter of fact, in the days of Mutiny on the Bounty,  (Captain Bligh would have you hanging from the yard for a hell of a lot less). Maybe you got drunk ashore and upon your return you raised hell and hit a superior officer when he tried to settle the commotion.  It is something you have been wanting to do ever since you came aboard but you needed a bit of self confidence in the form of the bottle.  Well you are going to wish for a bottle when you arrive on the quarter deck to hear what your punishment will be.  If it wasn’t one of the above infractions, maybe it was some other mayhem committed ashore which caused the Shore Patrol to escort you back to your ship.  In the great movie “Mr Roberts” the crew went a little wild and stole the Admiral’s pet Goat.

There are very few things you can get away with if you happened to get a free ride back to your ship by the Shore Patrol. This trip not only dishonoured the ship but for some reason the brass ashore felt they were dishonoured as well and they were going to make sure that the culprits were going to pay for this. Now we all know that there are people ashore who do nothing but sit behind desks and try to disguise themselves as sailors. Their favourite past time is to bum drinks off the ships officers and at the same time dishonour the real sailors when they get into a spot of trouble ashore. It now becomes incumbent upon the ships officers involved to make sure that this culprit is punished for dishonouring them and the ship ,therefore this man is placed on the Captains Report and a trip to the Quarter Deck to receive punishment, witnessed by the entire ships company. He who has disgraced us will now be disgraced himself.  This reminds all of us of Kipling’s great poem “Danny Deever” with the great  line that says,  “For they’ve done with “Danny Deever”.  You can hear the quickstep play.”

Sometimes a ship will have a First Lieutenant with a sense of humour when he hears the less serious cases. If the man being charged tells a convincing story which is actually a pack of lies, he might get off scott free and the bigger the whopper the better his chances. One of our guys said at his hearing that a terrible mistake had been made because he was just helping a little old lady across the busy street when a policeman started berating him for jaywalking and then he said that we sailors aboard these crummy ships thought that they could get away with anything. He said that it was bad enough that he insulted him but that when he started to berate his officers that was to much and he merely pushed the cop. When the first lieutenant pointed out that the cop, besides having two black eyes had also received a broken nose, our culprit said that when he pushed the cop he had fallen down a rather steep ravine and that was probably how he received his injuries. Yes he beat the rap and got away with a warning. Another one of our guys used to fall out with Roman Catholics at our morning devotion exercises. He knew that the First Lieutenant was also a catholic and so when he got into a spot of trouble ashore at a local bar for pushing a person around he explained that he was just having a quiet drink after a long trip with a difficult convoy when he heard this guy next to him starting to berate the Catholics, he got mad and told the guy to knock it off. He pointed out that in the ensuing argument he merely pushed the guy and although this guy got a couple of shiners he believed it was the protestant third party that did the damage. He also got off with a warning. When our ship was brand new, I was standing on the gun deck with a couple of my new ship mates when one of the guys with me,yelled “suck hole” to another of our crew, who was down on the jetty helping to bring aboard the First Lieutenant’s luggage. An officer who was watching all this and hearing the comment yelled in true Wm Bligh tones, “you there! get that man’s name.”This man was placed on the First Lieutenant’s report and when his case came up he was sentenced to three days ” No. 11″. It seems that the first lieutenant lost his sense of humour when it was his baggage that was involved and the offender stood before him. Incidentally that offender and I are still in touch with one another to this day and I still rub it in to him when I see him even though it happened over sixty years ago. Anything for a laugh eh!
We now come to the more serious offences, of which the offender is going to do time in Cells ashore. His crime has been discussed in the mess decks and the guessing goes on as to what kind of a sentence he will receive. There might even be a few bets laid down on this matter and although we all know that gambling is not allowed in the Navy, never the less it does exist. If we are caught gambling it is going to be hard to convince our first lieutenant that we are innocent. It is no secret when we hear the boson’s mate pipe “Hands Lay Aft To Witness Punishment”. After we are all assembled on the quarter deck, the officers are also assembled above us, just aft of the twelve pounder on this River Class Frigate. A petty Officer brings the ships company to attention and the prisoner is marched in though the after seaman’s mess by our Coxswain and Chief Petty Officer, who is responsible for our conduct and will be the prosecutor in this case. While at attention the order comes “Off Caps” and the offence is read. As the offence is read in detail, a piece of the prisoner’s identification is removed from the uniform. When the prisoner was first marched in, his hat tally had already been removed and now the rest of his badges would be removed so that he is no longer identified with that great service that is the Royal Canadian Navy. If memory serves I believe the order that these badges are removed are first, Canada Badges, good conduct, service chevrons, branch badges, ie. Asdic, Radar, Wt, Gunnery, Stoker etc. It is a very sad performance and none of us take pleasure in it. At last the sentence is pronounced and in this case it was 60 days cells. The prisoner is removed from our sight and we are dismissed to return to our duties, having learned the price of disobedience before our very eyes. At least we didn’t have to watch this defaulter being flogged with a cat of nine tails as in the old days.

Does this seem like cruel and unusual punishment? Every Naval Officer and Rating understands the reasoning of good discipline that must be observed in the service. When you are out to sea your very life depends on it. The great Canadian Author and Naval Veteran James B. Lamb explained it best in his book “On the Triangle Run”. He explains a life threatening scene when a group of corvette seamen are assembled on the quarter deck attempting to put a line on a huge freighter that has lost her screw propeller in a wild North Atlantic Gale. She is a 10,000 toner, in ballast and will surely capsize if her head is not tugged into a position that is head on to the gale. He explains that the pettiness of shore life matters little here in this emergency. It matters not whether your parents were rich or poor, whether your father was a labourer or a famous lawyer, whether you were a University graduate or had not finished high school , you are all in this together and nobody can help you now. When you think about what this great writer said, then the Boson’s Pipe,”Hands Lay Aft To Witness Punishment” makes sense.

*James B. Lamb wrote two great books about life in the Royal Canadian Navy, they are
(1)    The Corvette Navy
(2)    On The Triangle Run

These books are must reading for Naval Vets and those interested in the sea. They  are available at all Book Stores. Most Libraries’s also have them as well. If you enjoyed reading “The Cruel Sea” by Nicholas Montserrat, you will also enjoy James B. Lamb.

Below is a Navy Honour Guard being inspected by Commodore Cuthbert Taylor at the RCNA Naval Reunion held in Brantford in 1961. Following the Commodore is Brantford Mayor Richard Beckett and behind him is Navy Club President Ernie Fish (in beret).