The Complete McAuslan (21 page)

Friday morning, of course, was just the weeding out; the big stuff, finals and so on, was for next day. They were still putting up the last marquees and making a kind of royal box with red carpet when I went off to have lunch, change into my best uniform, and present myself at the opening of McAuslan’s court-martial.

It was held in a big, bare room somewhere in Redford Barracks, and such are memory’s tricks that I can remember nothing more of the background than that. There was a long plain table for the members of the court, the president of which was a sad-looking Sapper colonel with bags under his eyes. There was a square, tough-looking major in the Devons, and a very pink young man with chain epaulettes on his shoulders – a cavalryman of sorts. There was also a prosecutor, tall and lean and (to me) looking full of malevolence and brains; there was Einstein, nervous and rather untidy, muttering to himself and diving in and out of his brief-case; he saw me sitting on the chairs for witnesses and spectators, and came over confidentially.

‘Bit of a break gettin’ an engineer for president,’ he whispered. ‘They’re all barmy. Can’t say I like the look of that major from the Bloody Eleventh, though; he’ll be a martinet, no error. Dunno about the boy; that type you can never tell – might be soft-hearted, might be a sadist. Think we could risk a fag? No, better not. Bad impression.’ He removed his glasses, fidgeted, and drew my attention to Prosecution. ‘One of the worst, I’d say; you know, the Middle-Temple-if-it-please-your-ludship-my-pater-was-a-K. C. type. Creeps, the lot o’ them.’

‘How’s McAuslan?’ I asked.

‘Clean,’ said Einstein, ‘thanks to the efforts of a couple of lads who’ve been scrubbing him half the morning. I told the brute straight, I said, ‘You may be guilty, but by God, at least you’re going to look innocent.’ They just took him to the showers and went at him with brushes; shifted a power of dirt, they did. Hallo, curtain up.’ There was a thump of marching boots outside. Einstein slid out of his seat. ‘Well, into thy hands, Blind Justice, and may God defend the right, or something,’ he muttered, and went back to his table.

There was a roar of commands, a stamping on the polished boards, and in came prisoner and escort, marching like crazy. McAuslan was in somebody’s best tunic and tartan – certainly not his own – and for the first time in my experience his face was pink, not grey. Whoever had washed him had done a terrific job; he looked like a normal human being – well, nearly normal, for his habit of swinging leg and arm together was still apparent, and when he halted he crouched at attention rather than stood. But his hair appeared to have been stuck down with glue, and when he sat, trembling violently, in the accused’s chair, he looked much as any other court-martial candidate looks – scared and lonely, but not scruffy.

There is something frighteningly simple about a court-martial. It is justice stripped to the bare essentials. Usually only prosecutor and prisoner’s friend have any legal knowledge; for the rest it is common sense backed by King’s Regulations and the Army Act. There is a minimum of ceremony, and for that matter a minimum of talk. But it is probably the fairest shake in the world.

The charge was read, and Einstein pleaded not guilty. The president nodded mournfully to Prosecution, who got up and began to deliver himself, outlining the case against the accused in a languid, matter-of-fact Oxford accent.

The impression he gave was that Corporal Baxter, an n.c.o. of sterling character and charming disposition, had approached McAuslan and suggested that he enter for the inter-regimental pillow-fight. McAuslan, laughing such a laugh as the pious might conceive on the lips of Satan, had refused in the most savage terms. Corporal Baxter, disappointed rather than annoyed, had pleaded with him winningly; McAuslan had repeated his refusal and added the foulest abuse. In spite of this, Corporal Baxter had persevered with forbearing firmness, but the hardened scoundrel would not be moved, and eventually, with great reluctance, Baxter had put him on a charge. Thereupon McAuslan had offered him the vilest of threats, which might well have been taken as the prelude to an assault. No assault had taken place, admittedly, but Prosecution obviously thought it had been a close thing. He then called Corporal Baxter.

Hearing it the way Prosecution had told it, I could see McAuslan already on the rockpile; there seemed no possible defence, and I was surprised to see Einstein looking bored and inattentive. I knew very little about courts.

Corporal Baxter strode masterfully in, looking slightly pale and young, with his stripes gleaming whitely, and took the oath. In more formal language he repeated what Prosecution had said.

‘Let us be quite clear, Corporal,’ said Prosecution suavely, when Baxter had finished. ‘You ordered the accused to enter for this event, the pillow-fight. What words did you use, so well as you can recall?’

‘I remember exactly, sir,’ said Baxter confidently. ‘I said. “You’ll put your name down for the pillow-fight, McAuslan”.’

‘I see. And he said?’

‘He said he bloody well wouldn’t, sir.’

‘Very good. And after you had repeated the order, and again he refused, you charged him, and he became abusive?’

‘Yessir.’

‘What did he say?’

Baxter hesitated. ‘He called me a shilpit wee nyaff, sir.’

The president stirred. ‘He called you what?’

Baxter coloured slightly. ‘A shilpit wee nyaff.’

The president looked at Prosecution. ‘Perhaps you can translate? ’

Prosecution, hand it to him, didn’t even blink. He selected a paper from his table, held it up at arm’s length, and said gravely:

‘Shilpit, I am informed, sir, signifies stunted, undergrown. As to “wee”, that is, of course, current in English as well as in . . .’ he paused for a second ‘. . . the Northern dialects. Nyaff, an insignificant person, a pip-squeak.’

‘Remarkable,’ said the president. ‘Nyaff. Ny-ahff.’ He tried it round his tongue. ‘Expressive. Synonymous with the Norse “niddering”.’ ‘Sir?’ said Prosecution.

‘Niddering,’ said the president. ‘A worthless person, a nonentity. Possibly a connection there. So many of these Norse pejoratives begin with “n”.’

Einstein coughed slightly. ‘Hebrew, too, sir. “Nebbish” means much the same thing.’

‘Indeed?’ The president brightened. ‘I’m obliged to you. Nyaff,’ he repeated with satisfaction. ‘Remarkable. Do go on.’

Prosecution, looking slightly rattled, turned again to Baxter.

‘And after he had called you . . . these names?’

‘He called me a glaikit sumph.’

You could see Prosecution wishing he hadn’t asked. The president was looking hopeful. ‘Sumph,’ said the president with relish. ‘That’s strong.’ He looked inquiring, and Prosecution sighed.

‘Sumph, a dullard, an uninspired person, a stick-in-the-mud. Glaikit, loose-jointed, awkward, ill-formed.’ He put down his paper with resignation. ‘There is more, sir, in the dialect and in ordinary speech, but I question whether . . .’

‘What else did he call you?’ said the president, taking control. Baxter looked sulky.

‘A rotten big bastard,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ The president looked disappointed. He shot a glance at McAuslan, as though he had hoped for better things. ‘All right, then. Carry on, please.’

The major suddenly intervened. ‘This was just common abuse?’

‘Pretty uncommon, I should say,’ observed the young cavalryman cheerfully.

Prosecution, obviously deciding that things must be put on the right lines again, addressed Baxter:

‘Common abuse or not, the point is that a definite order, clearly given and understood, was disobeyed. You are quite clear on that?’

‘Yes, sir.’ You could see that Baxter didn’t care for courts-martial. They just exposed him to a repetition of unpleasant personalities. ‘I gave him a good chance, sir, but he just kept refusin’.’

Unbelievably, McAuslan spoke. ‘Ah called him a two-strippit git, as weel,’ he announced.

This produced an immediate sensation in court. Prosecution rounded indignantly on the accused, the escort snarled at him to be silent, Einstein dropped his spectacles, and the president said he hadn’t caught the last word properly. McAuslan, startled at the effect of his intervention, got up hurriedly, upset his chair, cursed richly, and was thrust back into his seat by a savagely whispering regimental policeman. When order had been restored, and the president had been heard to murmur, ‘Git, get, geat – possibly Geat, a Goth. Wiglaf was a Geat, wasn’t he?’ Einstein rose for cross-examination.

‘Odd kind of order, wasn’t it, Corporal – to enter for a pillow-fight?’

‘I was detailing men for duties connected wi’ the sports,’ said Baxter stiffly.

‘What other events did you order people to enter?’ asked Einstein.

Baxter hesitated. ‘The others I ordered were for fatigues, like settin’ up hurdles and helpin’ wi’ the tents.’

‘I see. And why did you order the prisoner into the pillow-fight? Why him, particularly?’

Baxter looked sullen, and Einstein repeated his question. ‘This was the only soldier you ordered to enter a specific event. Now, why him, and why the pillow-fight?’

‘He was dirty, sir, and I told him he could do wi’ a wash.’

‘Dirty, was he? Had he been on fatigues?’

‘He’s always dirty,’ said Baxter firmly.

‘Oh, he hadn’t been on fatigues? You’re sure of that?’

‘Well, yes, sir,’ said Baxter. ‘He had been on fatigues . . .’

‘What fatigues?’ snapped Einstein.

‘Ablutions, sir.’

‘So he had every right to be dirty at that time?’

‘Yes, sir, but . . .’

‘Never mind “but”. If he was dirty then, it was only natural, considering the fatigues he had been doing, isn’t that so?’

‘He’s always dirty, sir,’ insisted Baxter. ‘He’s the dirtiest thing in the battalion . . .’

‘Stand up, prisoner,’ said Einstein. ‘Now, Corporal, take a good look at him, and tell me: is he dirty?’

Baxter looked at McAuslan, balefully. ‘Ye wouldnae expect him to be . . .’

‘Answer my question! Is he dirty?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Yet you said he was
always
dirty. Well, Corporal?’

‘It’s the first time I’ve seen him clean,’ said Baxter doggedly.

‘Ye’re a bloody liar,’ said McAuslan, aggrieved.

‘Ah’m no’ . . .’

There were further sensations at this, culminating in a stern warning to the prisoner — I doubt if it would have been half as stern if he had employed a choice Caledonian epithet instead of Anglo-Saxon which the president knew already. Then Einstein resumed, on a different tack.

‘When you gave this alleged order, Corporal . . .’

‘I can’t have that,’ said Prosecution, rising. ‘Defence’s use of the word alleged is calculated to throw doubt on the witness’s veracity, which is not in question.’

‘Who says it’s not?’ demanded Einstein. ‘He’s admitted one mis-statement already.’

‘He has done no such thing. That is deliberately to distort his evidence. I submit . . .’

‘Perhaps we could rephrase the question?’ suggested the president, back to his normal despondent self now that there were no further fine avenues to explore in McAuslan’s vocabulary.

‘Very good, sir,’ said Einstein. ‘Corporal, before you gave the order which you’ve told us you gave, did you not
suggest
, as distinct from ordering, to the accused that he enter the pillow-fight?’

‘It was an order, sir,’ said Baxter.

‘But wasn’t it given, well, jocularly. In fun, you know?’

Cunning Einstein knew quite well that if he could get even a hint of admission on this point, he had put a big nail in the prosecution’s case. But not-so-cunning Baxter knew that much too.

‘No, sir,’ he said stoutly.

‘No smile? No – well, you know – no case of, “Hey soldier, you look pretty mucky; how about getting a good wash in the pillow-fight?” Wasn’t that it? And didn’t the prisoner treat it as a joke, and tell you, joking in turn, to get lost? Wasn’t that about it, Corporal?’

‘No, sir, it was not.’

‘And didn’t you take offence at this, and
turn
the joke into an order?’

‘No, sir, definitely not.’

‘Do you know that the prisoner claims that you
did
smile, at first, and that he didn’t take your order seriously until, much to his surprise, you put him on a charge?’

‘I don’t know that, sir.’

‘You never realised that he thought you were being funny?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Have you ever ordered a man to go in for a pillow-fight before?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Ever heard of such a thing?’

‘I’ve heard of orders being given, sir,’ said Baxter boldly.

‘That wasn’t my question, Corporal, and you know it. Have you ever heard of a man being ordered to enter a pillow-fight? ’

‘No, sir.’

‘So you would agree it isn’t a common order?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Right,’ said Einstein. ‘Thank you, Corporal. No more questions.’

Prosecution was actually rising when Einstein bobbed up again, as though he had forgotten something.

‘I’m sorry, just one more question after all. Corporal, how long have you been a corporal?’

‘Three weeks, sir.’

Einstein sat down without a word.

Prosecution contented himself with re-emphasising that an order had been given and understood, and got Baxter to clarify the point about McAuslan’s dirtiness: McAuslan, Baxter said, had always been dirty until the present occasion.

‘When you would expect him to be looking his best?’ asked Prosecution.

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

‘Thank you, Corporal. That’s all.’

Baxter saluted and strode out, and Prosecution called Lance-Corporal Bakie, who corroborated Baxter’s evidence as to McAuslan’s refusal of a straightforward order. No, Bakie had not seen Baxter smile at any time, nor had McAuslan appeared to regard the order as anything but a serious one. In Bakie’s view, the refusal had been pure badness on McAuslan’s part, but then McAuslan was notoriously a bad bas . . . a bad soldier. Dirty? Oh yes, something shocking.

Einstein didn’t even bother to cross-examine, and when Bakie stood down Prosecution announced that that was it, from his side. He seemed satisfied; he had made his point clearly, it seemed to me. Einstein, muttering and rummaging through his papers, presently rose to open the defence, and to an accompaniment of crashing furniture and stifled swearing, Private McAuslan took the stand.