Ramblings of an Old Man – Part 9 Lumpy Jumper

As an old man, in my seventies, who has been given the nod by my doctors that my days are numbered, I spend a lot of time looking back at my life. Recalling what I have done and achieved. Regretting the things I should have done and did not do. I do not suppose for a moment this is unusual, but when it happens to you, it takes it out of you, initially at least.

I never planned on these thoughts going public. It was just a few scrappy notes for my own consumption. The ramblings of an old man, as it were. But one of the individuals concerned saw those notes. They thought that others may identify with some of the situations and suggested I tidy them up into a story and post them on your forum.

And I do not profess to be a literary genius; so, if my writing style and grammar offend you, you know where the ‘close’ button is!

Part 9 – Lumpy Jumper

They say, “When one door closes, another door opens.” For me, for once, that would be true. I just had to wait a few more weeks until…well that is this story, that time was now.

It was spring 1976. The Cypriot weather was starting to ramp up nicely, with the promise of fine, dry, sunny and hot weather through until the next autumn, at least. The previous month my twentieth birthday had come and gone, and I’d come to terms with the end to my brief, but torrid relationship with ‘Pad Brat’ Sally, who was currently swanning around the Middle East on her gap year adventures. And good luck to her.

I was not going out of my way to actively seek a new partner, but would certainly not balk at the chance should an opportunity arise. That opportunity came out of the blue at work during one day shift.

I had my head buried in an equipment cabinet, performing a scheduled maintenance task, when I heard the shift supervisor, a sergeant, call my name. “Titus, I’d like to introduce you to a new shift member, Max’s replacement.” Max was the shift ‘old guy’ and would complete his tour at the end of the current shift cycle, and fly home for disembarkation leave, before taking up his next post. In fact we were having his leaving piss up during our days off, in five days time.

Crawling out from under the cab, I turned to to face the Sarge and immediately did a double take. Firstly, the new tech was a ‘Lumpy Jumper’. Secondly I recognised her. Searching my brain, I pulled her name out of the fog. She was another Julie.

It should need no explanation, but ‘Lumpy Jumper’ was a generic term, used by some branches of the forces, for a female serviceman…sorry, servicewoman! Something to do with the fact that most of them had distinct ‘lumps’ in their uniform pullovers. Not in every single case it has to be said, there were notable exceptions, but Julie definitely fell into the first category.

I recognised Julie from my technical training base, where she had been one of the few female trainees within our trade speciality. She had started her course just a couple of months before I passed out. I quickly did the maths in my head, deciding that she should have finished her stage one training about six months ago. I wasn’t far off, it turned out she had indeed completed the previous September, but had been on a short UK tour, before being drafted overseas, to us.

I hadn’t had a great deal of contact with Julie in training, but she obviously recognised me too, and seemed quite pleased when she saw a familiar face. She was quite a lithesome girl, slim and graceful, but as already suggested, with prominent breasts under her uniform shirt (it was getting too warm by now to actually need that jumper.) Her fair hair was tied and pinned up in the regulation bun at the back of her head, but I recalled that when let down, it cascaded past her shoulders. She was wearing gold studs in her pierced ears, and the small amount of makeup permitted on duty, the light eye liner accentuating her piercing blue eyes, which already had me captivated. I was in love again, or more likely it was lust.

Sarge carried on speaking, but it didn’t sink in what he was saying. He rolled his eyes at me, knowing where my mind was, and repeated himself. As an experienced shift member (I was about halfway through my tour by then), I had been chosen to act has Julie’s mentor. To show her the ropes, how we did things, what resources we had, where things were kept, etc. I was well chuffed, not only because it was recognition that I was doing a good job myself, but also because it would give me a legitimate reason to hang out with her, in work at least.

Sarge suggested we started with a tour of our various facilities (we had kit spread out over multiple locations). That is what I would have done anyway, but I’d effectively just been given permission to leave my assigned tasks and go ‘walkabout’ with Julie. Before I could do that though, I needed to finish the job I had started. I excused myself and dived back into equipment cabinet.

Within seconds, I caught a waft of perfume, and glanced back to see Julie had knelt beside me to watch what I was doing, she was itching to get started. I was only too pleased to explain exactly what I was doing and why. She showed a keen interest and asked lots of questions. At risk of sounding patronising, it showed she knew her stuff and was likely to be a valuable member of the team. I asked if she would like to have a go at finishing off the task and bringing the system back online. She jumped at the opportunity, so I moved aside to let her in. She took my place, kneeling head down in the cabinet, affording me a wonderful view of her very shapely arse, filling out her tight uniform trousers. She really was the whole package.

She completed the task, with minimal intervention from me, diligently performed a tool check, to ensure we’d left nothing in the kit, and ran up the system. A quick functional check showed all was working perfectly, and it was time to start our tour. It was mid-morning, so the first venue was naturally the canteen, for a brew. I bought us both a coffee and a slice of cake and we grabbed a seat at an empty table to consume them.

As we ate and drank, we chatted freely. She was easy to talk to. I didn’t feel as reticent with her as I usually did when meeting new women. Perhaps because we already had a lot of common ground. I asked for news from the training school, not much had changed, except there were more and more women going through now than ever. A good thing in my view, and not just from a pervey viewpoint.

Next I asked what I was dying to know. What was her accommodation like. Not too bad she said; currently she was sharing a four-man (four-woman actually) room with three others. But, as she was a slightly higher rank than them (as engineering tradespersons, we passed out of training straight to OR3 level), so she was high on the list for a single room, when one became available. Nice! She said she had heard ours what a bit grim. It was, but it was getting better. It was still well above its designed occupancy level, but at least now I had a single level bed (the bunks had gone) and a lockable wardrobe for my kit.

Break over, we resumed our tour (well, started it properly really). I showed Julie around the main equipment and control rooms, before signing out a Land-Rover and starting a drive around the remote sites. We paused for lunch, then resumed our outing. I explained to her that the SOP was that she would shadow me for at least a month, before being signed off as ‘competent’, she would be able to work unsupervised. Though in truth, for electrical safety reasons, we nearly always worked in pairs. I secretly hoped that provided we got on, and it was looking good so far, we could partner on a more permanent basis.

We, I more correctly, managed to drag things out until just before tea time. We returned to base, I handed in the vehicle keys and completed the paperwork to record our mileage and fuel state, and we reported back to Sarge. The shift did not finish until 20:00, but we were dismissed to the cookhouse for our meal. Sarge turned to Julie and told her, as a once only gesture, if she still had personal admin to do, she could be stood down from the rest of the shift. She admitted she still had unpacking and domestic tasks to complete, so she would take the offered opportunity, thank you. After our meal, I left Julie at the gate to the female accommodation. Before we parted, she reached out and put her hand on my forearm, for “three Mississippi’s” (you have to be a TBBT fan to understand that one!) and thanked me for making her first day so enjoyable. I replied that I’d very much enjoyed it too. True dat! Saying I’d see her at work for tomorrow night shift, I went back to work.

We had three night shifts to the end of the cycle. It was a bit of a baptism of fire for Julie. That first night we had a major outage on one of the systems, needing extensive diagnosis and remedial action. Julie proved her worth straight away. She needed no encouragement to get in there with the rest of us, earning the respect of the rest of the crew from day one, well night one. It was full on, and there was no time for chatter or social interaction. By shift change the next morning we were all glad to see an end to it. As a group, we grunts shared a well deserved breakfast in the cookhouse, before we went our separate ways, to our beds.

The following night was also quite busy. We were playing catch up on the scheduled work that got postponed the night before, plus that nights tasks. But it wasn’t quite as intense. Some of the jobs were at one of the remote sites. I knew already that I did not need to be looking over Julie’s shoulder all the time, so we split the jobs to get it finished more quickly. As we worked we chatted. At one point I asked her about her previous post. Where she was and what it was like. She was reluctant to talk about it, but I sensed an issue and pushed her a bit on the subject. She finally opened up and told me how much she had hated it there. Her senior, and most of the ‘lads’ had treated her like shit. No better than a tea girl and a skivvy. They would not trust her with any technical work. Why? “Because I haven’t got a cock!” As she put it.

I fucking hate that attitude. Throughout my service I worked under, over and alongside females (mind out of gutter, I am being serious here). There were women I would, literally, have followed into battle, and men I wouldn’t have given the time of day; and vice versa. It matters not a fuck what genitals you have, only that you can do your job, are a team player and you have your buddies’ backs; as they should have yours.

She started to tear up a little and continued; She had applied for overseas as soon as possible to get out of there. The posting came just in time, as she was on the verge of going for a discharge, even considered getting pregnant if necessary (an automatic medic discharge in those days.)

She was really upset now and I felt like a total shit for forcing her to go back to her dark time. I wanted to tell her that would not happen here. That the talk about town confirmed that she was already regarded as ‘one of the lads’. Part of the team and woe betide any fucker that messed with one of us. I held out my hands, palms up, just intending for her to hold them, at arms length while I tried to comfort her. Tactical error though, but not problematic.

Julie misinterpreted my gesture, thinking I was inviting her to hug. She moved forward into my open arms and enveloped me with hers and started to sob. I was totally floored for a moment. What the fuck did I do now? The only real option was to accept the hug. I carefully placed my hands on her back, freezing them in place. I remained silent, allowing her to vent her emotions in her own time and way.

There was absolutely no sexual intent to her embrace, but I could not help but notice the feel of her body against me, the smell of her perfume and the touch of her hands behind me. I prayed I would not throw a boner and had to use every bit of will power I had not to do so.

After a few minutes, her sobs decreased to soft snivelling, then stopped. I felt her arms loosen their grip on me and I also let mine fall back to my sides. She stepped away and turned from me, composing herself, wiping her eyes with her hands and shirt sleeves. When she faced me again, I could see her distress had turned to utter embarrassment.

She cringed and apologised “for being a wuss.” Begged me not to “tell the blokes’ what a girl I am.” I assured her I absolutely had no intention of doing so. Nobody would hear about it from me, it was just between us, and I’d already forgotten about it. I reiterated that she was one of us now, and we looked after our own, period! Her relief was clear. She noticed the wet patch on my shoulder, where her tears had fallen. She reached out and rubbed it with her hand, trying in vain to dry it (one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three…). Then, she leaned forward and, for just the briefest part of a second, placed her lips on my forehead, in a kiss. “Thank you”, she said and went to gather her tools.

I too collected my stuff, signed the maintenance log, grabbed the vehicle keys and headed for the door. We had to leave right now, before I did or said anything utterly, utterly stupid. My word was my bond, I never told anyone what happened that night, until now.

Mercifully, the last shift of the cycle was much more sedate. Once the routine tasks were completed, the cleaning done and the paperwork filed, it was into the boredom of overnight watch-keeping. Monitoring systems to ensure things were performing as planned. Hoping nothing would fail to disturb the peace, yet perversely secretly wishing for some activity to break the tedium.

We had a crew room with comfortable (?) chairs and brewing tackle, where we could relax a little. We’d often have marathon card games (Find the Lady, or colloquially ‘Hunt the Cunt’ was most popular), backgammon contests or vicious Risk campaigns. There was a quick flurry of activity at midnight (we’ll 2am actually, as for work purposes we followed Zulu time (GMT), so the world was synchronised) as we transitioned the systems to a new day’s settings. Things then went quiet, people would often doze in the crew room until dawn came. It was my turn to man the control room until morning. To my surprise, Julie said she’d keep me company in the watch office, so she could learn the routine.

I sat at the control desk and offered Julie the one ‘comfy’ armchair, which she gratefully accepted. We were alone for the first time that night, and Julie once again apologised for the previous night, but also that she felt much better for getting things off her chest. That was all that really mattered, I told her. Time to forget and enjoy her time in Cyprus.

We talked a bit of shop as I prepared job sheets for the next day, and then chatted in general as we just chilled. Soon, the conversation dried up and when I turned to face Julie, I saw she had fallen fast asleep in the chair. I kept quiet and let her sleep. A bit pervy maybe, but I just sat watching her slumbering. A cute smile on her face. A wayward tendril of hair had escaped from its grips, tickling her cheek making her twitch. Her full breasts rising and falling under her shirt. My thoughts were definitely drifting away from the professional. I was smitten and developing feelings for this woman. I had no idea at that point if she felt anything for me.

Morning broke, people started to stir and make a brew. I gently teased Julie awake and handed her a cup of coffee, to kick start the day. She was a bit embarrassed that she had zonked out on me, but I assured her it was not a problem. Coffees drunk, we cleared up for shift change, and when relieved, headed for breakfast. The other shift members didn’t join us that day, so we ate alone. I suddenly had a weird thought, were they ‘giving us space’? We’d see.

As we finished up, I asked Julie if she was going to Max’s ‘gozome’ piss up the following night. She said probably not. She hadn’t actually been invited, and besides, she wouldn’t know anyone there. “That’s bollocks”, I said. Firstly, it’s open to all, so I’m formally inviting you now; and secondly, you’ll know me and the rest of the shift members, at least. I suggested I would accompany her to the venue (only the unit bar), we’d meet up with the others there, I’d make any necessary introductions, then she could do her own thing; stick with us or go her own way, as she pleased.