The Complete McAuslan (26 page)

‘No, sir.’

‘Didn’t hear anyone drop from the parapet, either into the fort or over the wall into the desert?’

‘No, sir.’

‘No marks to show anyone had been there?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Nothing missing or been disturbed, Sergeant Telfer?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘Well, then,’ I said to Macleod, ‘it looks like the four o’clock jump – we all know what can happen on stag; you think you see things that aren’t there . . .’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Macleod, ‘I’ve had that. I wouldnae swear I
saw
anything at all, sir.’ He paused. ‘But I felt something.’

‘You mean something touched you?’ ‘Nat-at-at, sir. I mean I chust
felt
some-wan thair. Oh, he wass thair, right enough.’

It was sweating hot in the office, but I suddenly felt a shiver on my spine, just in the way he said it, because I knew exactly what he meant. Everyone has a sixth sense, to some degree, and most of its warnings are purely imaginary, but when a Highlander, and a Skye man at that, tells you, in a completely matter-of-fact tone, that he has ‘felt’ something, you do not, if you have any sense, dismiss or scoff at it as hallucination. Macleod was a good soldier, and not a nervous or sensational person; he meant exactly what he said.

‘A real person – a man?’ I said, and he shook his head.

‘I couldnae say, sir. It wasnae wan of our laads, though; I’m sure about that.’

I didn’t ask him why he was sure; he couldn’t have told me.

‘Well, he doesn’t seem to have done any damage, whoever he was,’ I said, and dismissed him. I asked Telfer, who was a crusty, tough Glaswegian with as much spiritual sensitivity as a Clyde boiler, what he thought, and he shrugged.

‘Seein’ things,’ he said. ‘He’s a good lad, but he’s been starin’ at too much sand.’

Which was my own opinion; I’d stood guard often enough to know what tricks the senses could play. But Macleod must have mentioned his experience among his mates, for during the morning, while I was supervising the water-drilling, there came Private Watt to say that he, too, had things to report from the previous night. While on guard above the main gate, round about midnight, he had heard odd sounds at the foot of the wall, outside the fort, and had leaned out through an embrasure, but seen nothing. (Why, as he spoke, did I remember that P.C. Wren story about a sentry in a desert fort leaning out as Watt had done, and being snared by a bolas flung by hostile hands beneath?) But Watt believed it must have been a pi-dog from the village; he wouldn’t have mentioned it, but he had heard about Macleod . . .

I dismissed the thing publicly, but privately I couldn’t help wondering. Watt’s odd noises were nothing in themselves, but considered alongside Macleod’s experience they might add up to – what? One noise, one sand-happy sentry – but sand-happy after only two weeks? And yet Fort Yarhuna was a queer place; it had got to me, a little, in a mysterious way – but then I knew I was devilled with too much imagination, and being the man in charge I was probably slightly jumpier with responsibility than anyone else.

I pushed it aside, uneasily, and could have kicked the idiot who must have mentioned the word ‘ghost’ some time that day. That was the word that caught the primitive thought-process of McAuslan, and led him to speculate morbidly on the fate of the graveyard garrison of Fort Zinderneuf, which had held him spellbound in the camp cinema.

‘It’ll be yin o’ they fellas frae Bo Geesty,’ he informed an admiring barrack-room. ‘He’s deid, but he cannae stay aff parade. Clump-clump, up an’ doon the stair a’ night, wi’ a bullet-hole in the middle o’ his heid. Ah’m tellin’ ye. Hey, Macleod, did your bogle hiv a hole in his heid?’

‘You’ll have wan in yours, McAuslan, if ye don’t shut upp,’ Macleod informed him pleasantly. ‘No’ that mich will come oot of it, apart from gaass.’

My batman, who told me about this exchange, added that the fellas had egged McAuslan on until he, perceiving himself mocked, had gone into sulky silence, warning them that the fate of Bo Geesty would overtake them, an’ then they’d see. Aye.

And thereafter it was forgotten about – until the following morning, at about 5 a.m., when Private McLachlan, on guard above the main gate, thought he heard unauthorised movement somewhere down in the parade square and, being a practical man, challenged, and turned out the guard. There were two men fully awake in the gate-guardroom, and one of them, hurrying out in response to McLachlan’s shout, distinctly saw – or thought he distinctly saw – a shadowy figure disappearing into the gloom among the buildings across the square.

‘Bo Geesty!’ was McAuslan’s triumphant verdict, for that side of the square contained the old stables, the company office, and Keith’s and my sleeping-quarters, and not a trace of anyone else was to be found. And Keith, who had been awake and reading, was positive that no one had passed by following McLachlan’s challenge (‘Halt-who-goes-there! C’moot, ye b— o’ hell, Ah see ye!’)

It was baffling, and worrying, for no clue presented itself. The obvious explanation was that we were being burgled by some Bedouin expert from the oasis – but if so, he was an uncommon good second-storeyman, who could scale a twenty-foot wall and go back the same way, unseen by sentries (except, possibly, by Macleod), and who didn’t steal anything, for the most thorough check of stores and equipment revealed nothing missing. No, the burglar theory was out. So what remained?

A practical joker inside? Impossible; it just wasn’t their style. So we had the inescapable conclusion that it was a coincidence, two men imagining things on successive nights. I chose that line, irascibly examined and dismissed McLachlan and his associates with instructions
not
to hear or see mysterious figures unless they could lay hands on them, held a square-bashing parade of both platoons to remind everyone that this was a military post and not Borley Rectory, put the crew of the drilling-truck to work again on their quest for a well, and retired to my office, a disquieted subaltern. For as I had watched the water-drill biting into the sand of the square, another thought struck me – a really lunatic idea, which no one in his right mind would entertain.

Everything had been quiet in Fort Yarhuna until we started tearing great holes in the ground, and I remembered my hopes that we wouldn’t disturb any historic buried ruin or Mythraic temple or ancient tomb or – anything. You see the train of thought – this was a fort that had been here probably since the days when the surrounding land had been the Garden of Eden – so the Bedouin say, anyway – and ancient places have an aura of their own, especially in the old desert. You don’t disturb them lightly. So many people had been through this fort – Crusaders, barbarians, Romans, Saracens, and so on, leaving something of themselves behind forever, and if you desecrate such a place, who knows what you’ll release? Don’t misunderstand me, I wasn’t imagining that our drilling for water had released a spirit from its tomb deep in the foundations – well, not exactly, not in as many words that I’d have cared to address to anyone, like Keith, for example. That was ludicrous, as I looked out of my office and watched the earthy soldiery grunting and laughing as they refilled yet another dead hole and the truck moved on to try again. The sentry on the gate, Telfer’s voice raised in thunderous rebuke, someone singing in the cookhouse – this was a real, military world, and ghosts were just nonsense. More things in heaven and earth. . .
ex Africa semper aliquid novi
. . . Private McAuslan’s celluloid-inspired fancies . . . a couple of tired sentries . . . my own Highland susceptibility to the fey . . . I snapped ‘Tach!’ impatiently in the fashion of my MacDonald granny, strode out of my office and showed Private Forbes how to take penalty kicks at the goal which the football enthusiasts had erected near the gate, missed four out of six, and retired grinning amidst ironic cheers, feeling much better.

But that evening, after supper, I found myself mounting the narrow stairway to the parapet where the sentries were just going on first stag. It was gloaming, and the desert was taking on that beautiful star-lit sheen under the purple African sky that is so incredibly lovely that it is rather like a coloured postcard in bad taste. The fires and lights were twinkling away down in the village, the last fawn-orange fringe of daylight was dwindling beyond the sand-hills, the last warm wind was touching the parapet, the night stillness was falling on the fort and the shadowy dunes, and Private Brown was humming ‘Ye do the hokey-cokey and ye turn aroond’ as he clattered up the stairway to take his post, rifle in hand. Four sentries, one to each wall – and only my imagination could turn the silhouette of a bonneted Highlander into a helmeted Roman leaning on his hasta, or a burnoused mercenary out of Carthage, or a straight-nosed Greek dreaming of the olive groves under Delphi, or a long-haired savage from the North wrapping his cloak about him against the night air. They had all been here, and they were all long gone – perhaps. And if you smile at the perhaps, wait until you have stood on the wall of a Sahara fort at sundown, watching the shadows lengthen and the silence creep across the sand invisible in the twilight. Then smile.

I went down at last, played beggar-my-neighbour with Keith for half an hour, read an old copy of the
Tripoli Ghibli
for a little while longer, and then turned in. I didn’t drop off easily; I heard the midnight stag change over, and then the two o’clock, and then I must have dozed, for the next thing I remember is waking suddenly, for no good reason, and lying there, lathered in sweat that soaked the clean towel which was our normal night attire, listening. It took a moment to identify it: a cautious scraping noise, as of a giant rat, somewhere outside. It wasn’t any sound I knew, and I couldn’t locate it, but one thing was certain, it hadn’t any business to be going on.

I slid out and into my trousers and sandals, and stood listening. My door was open, and I went forward and listened again. There was no doubt of it; the sound was coming from the old stable, about twenty yards to my left, against the east wall. Irregular, but continuous, scrape-scrape. I glanced around; there were sentries visible in the dying moonlight on the catwalks to either side, and straight ahead on the gate-wall; plainly they were too far away to hear.

As silently as possible, but not furtively, for I didn’t want the sentries to mistake me, I turned right and walked softly in front of the office, and then cut across the corner of the parade. The sentry on the catwalk overhead stiffened as he caught sight of me, but I waved to him and went on, towards the guardroom. I was sweating as I entered, and I didn’t waste time.

‘Get Sergeant Telfer, quietly. Tell him to come to the stable, not to make a sound. You three, come with me; you, McNab, up to the parapet, and tell the sentries on no account to fire until I give the word. Move.’

Thank God, you don’t have to tell Jocks much when there’s soldiering to do; within five minutes that stable was boxed as tight as a drum – four of us in front of it, in line, crouching down; two riflemen some yards behind, to back up, and two men with torches ready to snap on. The scraping sound was still going on in the stable, quite distinctly, and I thought I could hear someone gasping with exertion. I nodded to Telfer, and he and one of the Jocks crept forward to the stable door, one to each of the heavy leaves; I could see Telfer’s teeth, grinning, and then I snapped – ‘Now!’, the doors were hauled back, the torches went on – and there they were.

Three Arabs, glaring into the torch-light, two of them with shovels, a half-dug hole in the floor – and then they came hurtling out, and I went for the knees of the nearest, and suddenly remembered trying to tackle Jack Ramsay as he came weaving through our three-quarters at Old Anniesland, and how he’d dummied me. This wasn’t Ramsay, though, praise God; he came down with a yelp and a crash, and one of the Jocks completed his ruin by pinning him by the shoulders. I came up, in time to see Telfer and another Jock with a struggling Arab between them, and the third one, who hadn’t even got out of the stable, being submerged by a small knot of Highlanders, one of whom was triumphantly croaking ‘Bo Geesty!’ No doubt of it, McAuslan had his uses when the panic was on.

We quieted the captives, after a moment or two, but there wasn’t a word to be got out of them, and nothing to be deduced from their appearance except that they weren’t genuine desert Buddoos, but more probably from the village or some place farther afield. Two of them were in shirts and trousers, and none of them was what you would call a stalwart savage; more like fellaheen, really. I consigned them to the guardroom, ordered a fifty per cent stand-to on the walls, and turned to examine the stable.

They had dug a shallow hole, no more, in the middle of the stable, and the reek was appalling. Camel stables are odorous at the best of times, and this one had been accommodating beasts, probably, since Scipio’s day. But we had to see what they’d been after, and since a good officer shouldn’t ask his men to do what he won’t do himself . . . I was eyeing one of the fallen shovels reluctantly when a voice spoke at my elbow.

‘Jings!’ it said. ‘Hi, sir, mebbe it’s treasure! Burried treasure! ’

I wouldn’t have thought McAuslan’s deductive powers that fast, myself, but he explained that there had been treasure in Bo Geesty – ‘a jool, the Blue Watter, that Bo Geesty pinched aff his aunty, so he did.’ From the glittering light in his eye I could see that his powers of identification would shortly lead him to the dream-stage where he was marrying Susan Hayward, so I indicated the shovel and asked him would he like to test his theory.

He began digging like a demented Nibelung, choking only occasionally as his shovel released noxious airs, exclaiming ‘Aw, jeez!’ before falling to again with energy. His comrades stood aside as he hurled great lumps of the ordure of centuries from the hole – even for McAuslan, I decided this was too much, and offered to have him spelled, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He entertained us, in gasps as he dug, with a synopsis of the plot of
Beau Geste,
but I can’t say I paid much attention, for I was getting excited. Whatever the Arabs had been after, it must be something precious – and then his shovel rang, just like the best pirate stories, on something metallic.