The Complete McAuslan (55 page)

For some reason that I’ll never understand, it steadied me. I clipped the wire, and as I unsnapped the mortar box catches it dawned on me what Errol was up to, the lunatic – and it seemed only sensible to lift the lid slowly, push in the wire, fumble artistically in the interior before closing the lid as though it were made of porcelain, and spare two seconds for a calculating look at the bewildered mob beyond the bridge. To my horror, they were advancing – I looked back at the platoon, fifty yards off, and sure enough Errol was kneeling at the other end of the wire, which was attached to a metal container – a petrol jerry-can, as it turned out. He had one hand poised as though to work a plunger; with the other he waved an urgent signal.

‘Get out of it!’ I yelled, and as MacLeod and his mate scattered and ran I seized McAuslan by the nape of his unwashed neck, running him protesting from the bridge before throwing him and myself headlong.

It worked. You had only to put yourself in the shoes of Burnous and Co. to see that it was bound to. We weren’t wiring things up for the good of their health, they must have reasoned: that sinister mortar box lying on the bridge must be packed with death and destruction. When I had rolled over and got the sand out of my eyes they were in full retreat across the market square, a great disordered rabble intent on getting as far as possible from that unknown menace. In a few seconds an army of rioters had been turned into a rout – and the man responsible was sitting at his ease on the jerry-can, giving me an airy wave of his cigarette-holder as I trudged back to the platoon.

‘You mad son-of-a-bitch!’ I said, with deep respect, and he touched his bonnet in acknowledgement.

‘Psychology, laddie. Not nearly as messy as shooting poor wee wogs, you bloodthirsty subaltern, you. That would never have done – not on top of the Brigadier’s hawks. Not all in one day. Cattenach would have had kittenachs.’ He chuckled and stood up, smoothing his immaculate khaki drill, and shaded his eyes to look at the distant remnant of the riot milling disconsolately on the far side of the market-place.

‘Aye, weel, they’ll no’ be back the day,’ he said, imitating a Glasgow wifey. ‘So. Where will they go next, eh? Tell me that, MacNeill of Barra – or of Great Western Road, W.2. Where . . . will . . . they . . . go?’

‘Home?’ I suggested.

‘Don’t you believe it, cock. Marbruk wasn’t with ‘em — he’ll still be holding forth to the main body down at Yassid. Oh, if we’d lost the bridge he’d have been over sharp enough, with about twenty thousand angry wogs at his back. But now . . . I wonder.’

I was still digesting the outrageous bluff he’d pulled. I indicated the jerry-can and the string of wire running to the bridge. ‘Do you usually carry that kind of junk in your jeep?’ I asked, and he patted me on the shoulder, as with a half-wit.

‘I’m the Intelligence Officer, remember? All-wise, all-knowing, all full of bull. Oh, look – soldiers!’ Half a dozen Fusilier trucks were speeding down the New Town boulevard towards us, and Errol shook his head in admiration as he climbed into his jeep.

‘Locking the stable door,’ said he, and winked at me. ‘I’d better go and see which one they’ve left open. Buy you a drink at Renucci’s, nine o’clock, okay?’ He waved and revved off with a horrific grinding of metal, changing gears with his foot, which takes lots of practice.

When I showed the Fusilier Company Commander the mortar box with its fake wire he didn’t believe it at first, and then congratulated me warmly; when I told him it had been Errol’s idea he grunted and said, ‘Oh, him’, which I thought both ungrammatical and ungrateful, and told me I was to withdraw my platoon to the hospital. So I passed the remainder of that fateful day chatting up the nursing staff, drinking tea, and listening with interest to Private McAuslan telling Fletcher that it was a bluidy good job that bomb hadnae gone off on the bridge, because me an’ Darkie an’ MacLood an’ Dysart would hiv’ got blew up, sure’n we would.

‘It wisnae a bomb, ye bap-heid! He wis kiddin’ the wogs. There wis nothin’ tae it.’

‘Are you tellin’ me, Fletcher? Ah wis there! Ah cairrit the bluidy thing! Help ma Goad, if Ah’d known! That man Errol’s a menace, so he is; he coulda goat us a’ killed, me ’an Darkie an’ MacLood an’ Dysart . . .’ You can fool some of the people all of the time.

It was only when the alert was over, and I had sent the platoon back to barracks with Telfer and foregathered at Renucci’s for the promised drink with Errol, that I learned what had been happening elsewhere. It had been high drama, and the clientele of Renucci’s bar and grill were full of it. After our episode at the bridge, things had fallen out as Errol had foreseen: Marbruk es-Salah, after whipping up his followers at Yassid Market, had launched them at dusk through the old Suk slave-market in an attempt to invade the business area of the New Town, two miles away from Kantara. Part of the Suk had been burned and the rest pillaged, and the enormous crowd would undoubtedly have broken out with a vengeance if they had not suddenly lost their leader.

‘Nobody seems to know exactly what happened,’ a stout civilian was telling the bar, ‘except that Marbruk was obviously making for the weakest point in the security cordon — you won’t credit it, but there wasn’t even a constable guarding the Suk Gate. God knows what would have happened if they’d got beyond it; sheer devastation and half the New Town up in smoke, I expect. Anyway, that’s when Marbruk got shot —’

‘But you said there were no troops there,’ someone protested.

‘Nor were there. It seems he was shot
inside
the Suk. What with the uproar and the fact that it was dark, even his immediate henchmen didn’t realise it at first, and when they did — sheer pandemonium. But they’d lost all sense of direction, thank God – otherwise we wouldn’t be standing here, I daresay.’

‘Who on earth did it? Did the police get him?’

‘You’re joking, old boy! In the Suk, during a riot, at night? I should think our gallant native constabulary are too busy drinking the assassin’s health.’ ‘I heard they got Marbruk’s body out . . .’

I lost the rest of it in the noise, and at that moment Errol slipped on to the stool next to me and asked what I was drinking.

‘Antiquary – hang on, I want to hear this.’

‘Evening, Carlo.’ Errol rapped the bar. ‘Antiquary and Glenfiddich and two waters, at your good pleasure.’ He seemed in fine fettle, glancing bright-eyed over the crowd. ‘What’s to do?’

‘Marbruk’s dead.’

‘You don’t say? That’s a turn-up.’ He whistled softly, fitting a cigarette into his holder. ‘How’d it happen?’

I indicated the stout civilian, who was continuing.

. . . probably one of his political rivals. You know what they’re like – pack of jackals. With Marbruk gone, there’ll be a fine scramble among his lieutenants.’ ‘It wasn’t one of the gang with him,’ said a police captain.

‘Burgess saw the body and talked to informers. Shot twice, head and heart, almost certainly with a rifle, from a roof-top.’

‘Good God! A sniper? Doesn’t sound like a
bazaar-wallah
!’

‘Whoever it was, here’s to him,’ said the stout civilian. ‘He probably saved the town in the nick of time.’

Our whisky arrived and Errol studied the pale liquid with satisfaction. ‘First today.
Slàinte mhath.
’ He sipped contentedly. ‘Yes, that’s the good material. Had dinner?’

‘Too late for me, thanks. I’ll have a sandwich in the mess. I’ve got a report to write.’

‘How Horatius kept the bridge?’ He grinned sardonically. ‘You can leave me out of it.’

‘Don’t be soft! It was your idea that did it!’

‘They won’t like it any better for that. Oh, well, please yourself.’

‘Look, if it wasn’t a rival wog, who was it?’ someone was exclaiming. ‘It can’t have been police or military, without authority – I mean to say, it’s simple murder.’

‘And just Marbruk — the king-pin. A political rival would have tried to knock out that right-hand man of his, Gamal Whatsit, wouldn’t he?’

‘Well, perhaps . . . or it may just have been a personal feud . . .’

Errol was lounging back on his stool, studying the menu on the bar, but I had the impression he was listening, not reading. I noticed that like me he was still in K.D., belt, and revolver, and less spruce than usual: there was a smudge of oil on his shirt and one sleeve was dirty. He looked tired but otherwise at peace with the world.

‘When you’ve finished inspecting me, MacNeill,’ he said, still scanning the menu, ‘how about getting them in again?’

‘Sorry. Two more, Carlo.’

‘Anyway, it was a damned fine shot,’ said the police captain. ‘Two damned fine shots – and as you say, just in time, from our point of view.’

‘You won’t break a leg looking for the murderer, eh?’

‘Oh, there’ll have to be an inquiry, of course . . .’

‘I’ll bet there will,’ Errol murmured, and laughed softly – and something in the sound chilled my spine as I put my glass to my lips. Sometimes a sudden, impossible thought hits you, and in the moment it takes to swallow a sip of whisky you know, beyond doubt, that it’s not only possible, but true. It fitted all too well . . . ‘killing Huns with cheese-wire by night’ . . . the expertise with small arms . . . the rumours of anti-terrorist brutalities in Palestine . . . the scientific destruction of a boxing opponent . . . the cold-blooded nerve of his bluff at Kantara Bridge . . . all that I knew of the man’s character . . .

‘Steak, I think,’ said Errol, closing the menu. ‘About a ton of Châteaubriand garni — that’s parsley on top, to you – preceded by delicious tomato soup. Sure I can’t tempt you? What’s up laddie, you look ruptured?’ The whimsical glance, the raised eyebrow, and just for an instant the smile froze on the handsome face. He glanced past me at the debating group, and then the smile was back, the half-mocking regard that was almost a challenge. ‘The cop’s right, don’t you agree? A damned good shot. You used to be a sniper – what d’you think?’

‘Someone knew his business.’

He studied me, and nodded. ‘Just as well, wasn’t it? So . . . as our stout friend would say – here’s to him.’ He raised his glass. ‘Okay?’

‘Slàinté,
I said, automatically. There was no point in saying anything else.

We drank, and Errol turned on his stool to the dining-room arch immediately behind him. A little Italian head-waiter, full of consequence, was bowing to a couple in evening dress and checking his booking-board.

‘Table for one, please,’ said Errol, and the little man bared his teeth in a professional smile.

‘Certainly, sir, this way – ’ His face suddenly fell, and he straightened up. ‘I regret, sir – for dinner we have to insist on the neck-tie.’

‘You don’t mean it? What, after a day like this? Oh, come off it!’

‘I am sorry, sir.’ The head-waiter was taking in Errol’s informal, not to say untidy, appearance. ‘It is our rule.’

‘All right, lend me a tie, then,’ said Errol cheerfully.

‘I am sorry, sir.’ The waiter was on his dignity. ‘We have no ties.’

Errol sat slowly upright on his stool, giving him a long, thoughtful look, and then to my horror laid a hand on his revolver-butt. The head-waiter squeaked and jumped, I had a vision of inkpots being shot off desks – and then Errol’s hand moved from the butt up the thin pistol lanyard looped round his neck, and smoothly tightened its slip-knot into a tie.

‘Table for one?’ he asked sweetly, and the head-waiter hesitated, swallowed, muttered: ‘This way, sir,’ and scurried into the dining-room. Errol slid off his stool, glass in hand, and gave me a wink.

‘Blind ’em with flannel, laddie. It works every time.’ He finished his drink without haste, and set his glass on the bar. ‘Well . . . almost every time.’ He gave his casual nod and sauntered into the dining-room.

The investigation of Marbruk es-Salah’s murder came to nothing. There was no more nationalist unrest until long after our departure, when a republic was established which turned into a troublesome dictatorship – so troublesome that forty years later the American air force raided it in reprisal for terrorist attacks, bombing our old barracks. This saddened me, because I had been happy there, and it seemed wasteful, somehow, after all the trouble we’d had just preserving that pleasant city from riot and arson and pillage. I’m not blaming the Americans; they were doing what they thought best – just as we had done. Just as Errol had done.

I lost sight of him when I was demobilised; he was still with the battalion then, going his careless way, raising hackles and causing trouble. Many years later, a wire-photo landed on my newspaper desk, and there he was among a group of Congo mercenaries; the moustache had gone and the hairline had receded, but there was no mistaking the cigarette holder and the relaxed, confident carriage; even with middle-aged spread beneath his flak-jacket, he still had style. Yes, I thought, that’s where you would end up. You see, there’s no place for people like Errol in a normal, peace-time world; they just don’t belong. Their time lay between the years 1939 and 1945 – and even then they sometimes didn’t fit in too comfortably. But I wonder if we’d have won the war without them.

The Constipation of O’Brien

Apart from the three afternoons devoted to games (which in our battalion meant football, no matter what the time of year) the most popular event of 12 Platoon’s working week was undoubtedly the Education Period. Not that they were especially thirsty for academic improvement, but the period came last on Friday afternoon, at the end of the week’s soldiering, and following immediately after a bathing parade which consisted of lolling on the warm sand of a gloriously golden North African beach, idly watching the creamy little waves washing in from the blue Mediterranean – the kind of thing millionaires would have paid through the nose for, but which in those balmy post-war years the British Army provided free. And there was no Hotel Ptomaine just over the skyline in those days, crammed with reddened tourists, bad drains, and abominable canned music; just a thousand miles of nothing stretching literally to Timbuctoo on the one hand, and Homer’s sunlit sea on the other, apparently unsailed since Ulysses went down over the horizon to distant Djerba.