The Complete McAuslan (46 page)

Most of them at least had some idea of what they ought to look like, from their dim recollections of prewar days; I didn’t. As I pulled up my reddish-brown herring-bone trousers – they seemed ridiculously loose and flappy-I realised that I had never worn a formal suit in my life. At school it had been blazer and flannels, and my kilt on Sundays. I tried the waistcoat and jacket and decided I looked like a Victorian commercial traveller. Still, it would do; I gave way to the ex-W.O. behind me, who bustled up to the mirror and exclaimed, ‘God sake, more like a bleedin’ kitbag with string round the middle than a bloody suit. There’s room for the whole bleedin’ Pioneer Corps in the crotch o’ this lot.’

I recovered my battle-dress jacket and kilt and went to try on a hat. They were trilbys, brown and blue, each with a tiny coloured feather peeping pathetically over the band. A stout, moustachioed Irish sergeant laid aside his rakish bonnet with its coffee-coloured plume, and placed a grey pork-pie on his cropped skull. He gulped at his reflection, and turned to me:

‘Jayzus, will you look at that! The bloody silly things they expect a man to put on his head.’

He must have thought exactly the same thing about his cockaded bonnet, once – but over the years he had grown into it, so to speak, his whiskers and personality had expanded with it, and now the civilian headgear looked ludicrous. He twitched it off and wandered off moodily in search of something else.

I tried on a hat; it felt and looked foolish and – what was the word? – trivial. Like the Ulsterman, I’d got used to the extravagance of military fashion. Why, in succession over the years I’d worn the rakishly-tilted forage cap, the tin hat, the old solar topee, the magnificent broad-brimmed bush hat of the Fourteenth Army (which isn’t just a hat, really, but a sort of portable umbrella-cum-hotel, with a razor-blade tucked into the band), the white-trimmed cap of the Indian Army cadet, the Highland tam-o’-shanter, and the red-and-white diced glengarry with its fluttering tails. Surprising, in the austere atmosphere of a modern war. And now, this insignificant thing with its tiny brim, perched foolishly above my ears. It didn’t even make me look like a gangster.

I stuffed it hurriedly into the big cardboard box I’d been given, adding it to the pile I’d collected. Shirts, shoes, socks, a quietish brown tie – I noticed that everyone else was doing the same thing. Nobody was going to venture out in his civvy duds - they would wear their uniforms at least until they got home, and gradually transform themselves into civilians. (Remember how on building sites, even well into the 1950s, you would see workmen putting on old, worn battle-dress jackets after their day’s work, or faded blue R.A.F. tunics? Others, like me, hung them away in cupboards to keep the moths happy, and tried them on twenty years after, puffing hopelessly as we tried to make them meet across middle-aged spread.)

I had resumed my uniform, and was tying up my box with string, when a voice floated over from behind a long rack of blue suits.

‘Name o’ Goad,’ it was saying. ‘Hi, Mac, this a’ ye’ve got? Nae glamour pants? Nae long jaickets? An’ no’ a pair o’ two-toned shoes in the placel Ye expect me to go oot wearin’ one o’ these b‘iler suits?’

I should have hurried away, but the sight of McAuslan playing Beau Brummel was too good to miss. I peeped cautiously round the end of the rack, and felt like Cortez when with eagle eyes he gazed on the Pacific.

McAuslan was surveying himself in a mirror, striking what he imagined to be a pose appropriate to a man about town; either that or he was trying to keep his trousers up with no hands. He was crouching slightly forward, arms back, like a swimmer preparing for a racing dive. On the back of his head was a brown pork-pie hat, in tasteful contrast to the dark blue serge trousers which were clinging, by surface tension, presumably, to his withers, and depending baggily to his calves – he still had his army boots on, I noticed – and the final flamboyant touch was provided by the identity discs on a dirty string which he still wore over a new civilian shirt and collar.

‘Bluidy awfu’,’ he remarked at last, to a weary-looking counterman. ‘Nae drape at a’. Youse fellas arenae in touch. The bottom o’ the breeks ought tae hang casual-like, ower the boots. See this lot – ma feet’s just stickin’ oot the end like a pair o’ candles oot o’ jeely-jars.’

‘Who the hell d’you think you are?’ said the counterman. ‘Ray Milland?’

‘Watch it,’ said McAuslan warningly, and waggled his feet to turn so that he could get a different view. This achieved the sought-after casual break of the trousers over the instep, inasmuch as the whole lot fell around his ankles, and he cursed and staggered about.

‘You’ll pay for that lot, if you damage them!’ cried the counterman. ‘For God’s sake, how can you try them on without braces? Here, let’s sort you out.’ And between them they hauled up the trousers, adjusted the braces, and considered the result.

‘Hellish,’ was McAuslan’s verdict. ‘The cut’s diabolical. See – ma flies is doon at ma bluidy knees.’

‘Monsieur hasn’t really got the figure, has he?’ said the counterman, a humorist in his way. ‘You don’t happen to have a third buttock, or something, do you?’

‘None o’ yer lip,’ said McAuslan, outraged. ‘Ah didnae dae six years sojerin’ just tae get pit oot in the street lookin’ like Charlie Chaplin. Fair does – could Ah go jiggin’ at the Barrowland or Green’s Playhoose in the like o’ these?’

‘Depends whether they go in for fancy dress,’ said the counterman, and McAuslan, turning in wrath, caught sight of me watching in stricken fascination. His gargoyle face lit up, and he cried:

‘Hi, Mr MacNeill! Jist the man! Gie’s a hand tae get sortit oot here, sir, wull ye? This fella’s got nae idea.’

Well, heaven knew I wasn’t short of practice in rendering the subject fit for public scrutiny; after two years of ‘sortin’ oot’ McAuslan I could have valeted Gollum. I helped to adjust his trousers, approved the fit of his jacket, joined in deploring the fact that it had ‘nae vents up the back; they’re a’ the rage wi’ the wide boys’, and assisted in the selection of a tie. This took a good twenty minutes, while I marvelled that the man who had been notoriously the scruffiest walking wreck in the ranks of the Western Allies should be so fastidious in his choice of neckwear.

‘Nae style,’ he sniffed, and wiped his nose. ‘But it’ll hiv tae do till I get doon the Barras.’ (The Barrows is a market in down-town Glasgow where you can buy anything.) ‘It’s no bad, but.’ And he pawed with grubby fingers at the muted grey tie which the counterman and I had suggested. ‘Whit d’ye think, sir?’

‘Not bad at all,’ I said, and meant it. In a way, it was quite eery; there was McAuslan’s dirty face, frowning earnestly from under the brim of a neat trilby, with the rest of him most respectably concealed in a blue serge suit which, considering that he was built along the lines of an orang-utan, fitted him surprisingly well. If you’d held him still, and scrubbed his face and hands hard with surgical spirit, he’d have looked quite good. Not that
Esquire
would have been bidding for his services, but he was certainly passable. I guessed that five minutes would be all he’d need to turn his new apparel into something fit for scaring birds, but just at the moment he looked more presentable than I’ll swear he’d ever been in his life before.

He seemed to think so, too, for after shambling about a bit in front of the mirror, peering malevolently, he expressed himself satisfied – just.

‘Ah’ll tak’ it,’ he remarked, with the resigned air of a Regency buck overcome with ennui. ‘But the shoulders isnae padded worth a tosser.’

I’d thought he would want to stride forth in his new finery, but he insisted on packing it all into the box, and resuming his befouled and buttonless battle-dress tunic, his stained kilt, puttees, and boots, which restored him to the dishevelled and insanitary condition I knew so well.

‘Nae doot aboot it, uniform’s more smarter,’ he observed, adjusting his bonnet to the authentic coal-heaver slant over the brows. I caught sight of myself, watching him in the mirror, and was startled to see that I was smiling almost wistfully.

‘Right,’ said he, ‘we’re aff. Be seein’ ye, china,’ he added to the counterman, and we made our way out into the open air, carrying our new clothes in their fine cardboard boxes. In addition I had my ashplant and a small suitcase; McAuslan humphed along with his kitbag over his shoulder.

My train, a local to Carlisle, was due to leave in about an hour; McAuslan-after I had consulted time-tables on his behalf and checked his warrant – would have to catch a later train going through to Glasgow. I don’t remember how we got to the station, but I know it was a beautiful golden August evening, and the streets were busy and the pavements crowded with people making their way home. There was time to kill, so I said to him:

‘I didn’t get any lunch, did you?’

‘Couple o’ wads’n a pie.’

‘Fancy a cup of tea?’

‘Aye, no’ hauf. Jist dae wi’ a mug o’ chah. Thanks very much, sir.’

We made our way towards a café beside the station, and I said,

‘You don’t call me “sir” any more, you know. We’re civilians now.’

This seemed to surprise him. He thought about it, and said:

‘That’s right, innit? Aye, we’re oot.’ He shook his head. “Magine that. It’s gaunae be . . . kinda funny, innit? Bein’ in civvy street. Wonder whit it’s gaunae be like, eh?’

‘We’ll find out,’ I said. ‘Let’s get in the queue.’ The café, short-staffed as most places were in the post-war, operated on the self-service principle, with two perspiring waitresses dispensing tea and buns at a counter. ‘No, hold on,’ I said. ‘You bag a table and I’ll get the teas.’ And while McAuslan gathered up our kit, I moved quickly to the end of the queue, just getting there before a bullet-headed private in the King’s Liverpool.

‘Bleedin’ soldiers in skirts,’ he muttered taking his place behind me, and as I turned to stare at him I realised I’d seen him in the demob centre earlier; sure enough, he too was carrying a cardboard box. Our eyes met, and he gave me a defiant stare.

‘Awright, wack,’ he said truculently. ‘Doan’t think you can throw those aboot any longer.’ And he indicated my pips. ‘Ah doan’t give a —— for officers, me; niver did, see?’

There was no answer to it, now; I didn’t have the Army Act behind me any longer, and any embittered ex-soldier could give me all the lip he liked. So I fell back on personality, and tried to stare him down, like a Sabatini hero quelling the canaille with a single imperious glance. It didn’t work, of course; he just grinned insolently back, enjoying himself, and jeered:

‘Go on, then,
leff-
tenant. What you gonna do aboot it?’

I had no idea, fortunately, or I might have done something rash. And at that moment McAuslan was at my elbow, smoothing over the incident diplomatically.

‘Bugger off, scouse,’ he said, ‘or Ah’ll breathe on ye.’

‘You’ll what?’ scoffed the Liverpool man, and McAuslan came in, jaw out-thrust.

‘Hold it!’ I said, and got between them. ‘Ease off, McAuslan. If our friend here wants to get cheeky with a fellow-civilian, he’s entitled to. And if the fellow-civilian decides to belt the hell out of him,’ I went on, turning to the scouse, ‘that’s all right, too, isn’t it? You can’t throw these pips at me either, son. All right?’

It startled him – it startled me, for that matter, but it worked. He muttered abuse, and I turned my back on him, and McAuslan hovered, offering, in a liberal way, to put the boot in, and gradually their discussion tailed off in dirty looks, as these things will. I collected our teas, and we got a table by the window, McAuslan still simmering indignantly.

‘Pit the heid on him, nae bother,’ he muttered, as we sat down. ‘Bluidy liberty, talkin’ tae you like that.’

‘It’s a free country,’ I said. ‘Forget it.’

‘Aye, but —′ he frowned earnestly. ‘Ye see whit it is; he knows you cannae peg him any longer, an’ he’s jist takin’ advantage. That’s whit he wis doin’, the ——’

‘Cheers,’ I said, smiling. ‘Drink your tea.’ McAuslan might not be a fast thinker, but when he grasped the implications of a situation he liked to explain them to feebler minds. To change the subject I asked:

‘What are you going to do when you get home?’

He took an audible sip of tea and looked judicious. ‘Aye, weel, Ah’ll tak’ a look roon’, see whit’s daein’. Ye know. Ah’m no’ hurryin’ mysel’. Gaunae take it easy for a bit.’

‘You live with your aunt, don’t you?’ I remembered that the platoon roll had given ‘Mrs J. M. Cairns, aunt’ as his next-of-kin ; also, irrelevantly, that his religion was Presbyterian and his boots size 8.

“At’s right. She’s got a hoose in Ronald Street. Ah don’t know, but; I might get a place mysel’.’

‘How about a job?’

‘Aye.’ He looked doubtful. ‘Ah wis on the burroo afore the war’ – that is, drawing unemployment pay – ‘but Ah done some pipe-scrapin’ up at Port Dundas, an’ Ah wis wi’ an asphalter for a bit. No’ bad pey, but Ah didnae like workin’ wi’ tar. Gets in yer hair an’ yer claes somethin’ hellish.’ His face brightened. ‘But Ah’m no’ worryin’ for a bit. Ah’ll tak’ my time. There’s this fella I know in the Garngad; Ah could get a job wi’ him, if the money’s right.’ He gave an expansive gesture which knocked over his tea-cup; with a blistering oath he pawed at it, and overturned my cup as well. In the ensuing confusion I hurriedly went for two fresh cups, leaving him apologising luridly and mopping up with his bonnet.

‘Awfy sorry aboot that,’ he said when I returned, ‘makin’ a mess a’ ower the place. Clumsy – that’s whit the R.S.M. used to say. ‘Ye’re handless, McAuslan.′ Put the fear o’ death in me, he did.’

‘Well, he won’t do that any more,’ I said.

‘Naw. That’s right.’ He took a gulp of tea, and sighed. ‘He was a good man, but, that Mackintosh. He was gae decent tae me.’ And he looked across at me. ‘So wis you. So wis Sarn’t Telfer, an’ Captain Bennet-Bruce . . .’

‘This is worse than Naafi tea, isn’t it?’ I said, and he agreed, remarking that he could have produced better himself, through the digestive process. Then suddenly he asked,

‘Whit ye gaunae do in civvy street yersel’, sir?’