In the United States Navy, a sailor who has never ventured south of the Equator is called a Pollywog and once you have crossed that line and gone through the initation you are a shellback.

1981 on my WestPac Cruise I crossed the line and passed through the initiation transforming from a pollywog to a shellback.

Most of that ceremony and hazing are now lost to my memory, robbed by the mists of time but there is one moment one image that stays with me.

LHA 3 was an amphibious assault ship that carried boats, jets, and helicopter of the Marine Corps to take beaches and was about the size and shape of an aircraft carrier from the second world war. At the stern of the ship was the elevator that lifted aircraft from the hanger deck to the flight deck directly above.

I was on a leash, don’t you just love initiation ceremonies, in the hanger deck and it was only dimly lit. Slowly the elevator descended from the flight deck. On the elevator were at least twenty men, this was well before any women served on combat vessels, but the bright daylight beyond them cast them into sharp silhouette and they appeared only as shaped without any discernible features. Everyone on of them had a length of hose and were crouched over beating the deck in near unison with these, chanting guttering shrieks with every stroke.

It was as though a squad of orcs had appeared and were enraging themselves for battle with their hated foes the elves.

There was, of course, no battles and no beatings, but that stark and compelling image has stayed sharp in my mind’s eye for 40 years.