Body odour, or just imagination

Returning to the camp was a relief there was now purpose to my life again and the solemnity of the previous weeks was soon behind me and humour was again breaking through the clouds.
I was no longer with the same class of trainees as I had previously, they had moved on to different subjects and I had no way of catching up, so, there was now a slight predicament what to do with me until I could pick up were I had left off with the next class.
It was going to be several weeks because of the forthcoming leave periods. The list of jobs I could have been given was vast and many were interesting, I didn’t want to be gate staff as that meant shift work and being so junior I would have no doubt had the permanent night shift. I could have been given the harbour training ship; at least that would have felt like a step nearer, actually being in the navy. The armoury could have been good fun, loads of time on the ranges. No, none of these jobs were for me.

I started at the “Piggery” the very next morning. Collingwood had its own pig farm, they had dozens of pigs and they all needed feeding and cleaning out. Talk about shit jobs, I had never seen a pig but I imagined them to be a reasonably small and docile animal, I was not prepared for what I met, the most awesome bad tempered porkers in the world, and “shit” you would have to see it to believe it, these monsters threw it out horizontally, sometimes several feet.
Looking back there should have been a health and safety induction for the job, they could bite hard, stand on your feet, squash you against any movable or immovable object, they could urinate over you, shit on you and if they were in an amorous mood well, I’m not even going to go there.
The first job of the day was to visit each dining hall in turn to recover all the slops from the previous day’s meals and also that morning’s breakfast, it included all perished food, raw food and grease that had or hadn’t made it to the ovens.
We then placed the tons of waste food into a container that was poured down a chute were we had to run our hands through it to remove any cutlery, glass, salt sellers or Iranians that might have got into the slop by accident.
It was amazing some of the stuff that was recovered from the slop; the slop was then boiled for a long time in a pressure vessel were it was maintained at a set temperature.
This was the time when we cleaned out the pig pens, after the pigs had been removed, I must add. Nothing had prepared me for this task; it’s not like picking up horse crap from fresh straw or even picking up after your dog. This was almost biological warfare, all in one overalls, worn, so the legs were outside the wellies, never mind a pitch fork to pick it up, this stuff was just like the porkers had been on vindalloo, come to think of it they probably had been. It had to be diluted with water to get it down the drains; I was brushing, whilst up to my knees in it for over an hour.
The most dangerous time of the day was when the pigs were at the troughs, the food when ready was piped from the pressure vessel along pipe work to the many feeding stations, the pigs knew it was coming, it was the time to make sure you were well out of their way.
The only good thing about the job was I finished early, however any time gained was lost in the shower trying to be rid of the smell.
Eating in the dining hall never had the same attraction again. I always thought I could smell the pigs and I was also sure other people could smell them as well.

It was probably just imagination.