The Complete McAuslan (59 page)

It took me about an hour, quite enjoyable in its way, to work my way down to within a stone’s throw of the lamp. It was flat-on-your-belly stuff, an inch at a time, listening to the darkness, and twice some mysterious radar stopped me just in time while a shadow ahead resolved itself into a prone Gunner, waiting motionless for unwary stalkers. Each time I had to retreat painfully slowly and take a new tack, with my clothes full of itching sand and my stomach feeling as though it had been through a bramble bush. Then I struck what looked like a good line along a fold of dead ground, worming forward until I was close in to the bridge, snug in a patch of inky shadow, with the lamp not twenty yards ahead, just asking for it. Talk about your Chingachgook, thinks I, and was bracing myself to dive the last few yards when a voice out of the night offered me a cigarette. It was a Gunner captain, sitting still as a post within a yard of me; he had been watching my progress, he said, for several minutes.

‘I’d have challenged, but you seemed to be having such fun. Gin, by the way.’

‘Din,’ I said, rolling over on my back and accepting his cigarette, ‘you rotten sadist. MacNeill, Lieutenant, D Company, and you’re not getting my I.D. discs, either; I got within sight of your kindly light.’

‘Most of your chaps did, but everyone who tried to stalk the lamp has been nailed. Bound to be,’ he went on smugly. ‘I think we’ve got it pretty well sewn up. In fact, I’d say it’s about time we called it a night, wouldn’t you? Getting on for dawn, and I’m damned cold – can’t see any of your latecomers doing any better . . . hullo, who’s that?’

He was looking towards the bridge; in the dim glow of the red lamp a figure could be faintly seen, shambling uncertainly and pawing in a disoriented manner, like a baboon with a hangover. I stared with a wild surmise – I knew that Lon Chaney silhouette, even to the draggling outline of its cellular drawers . . .

′Hey, you!′ cried the Gunner Captain, and the figure started, lurched, and stumbled; there was a clatter and a mouth-filling guttural oath – and the lamp was out, plunging the bridge into blackness. There were yells of astonishment, someone blew a whistle, the Gunner Captain swore horribly and started shouting for his sergeant, people ran around in the dark, and for about two minutes chaos reigned. Personally I just lay there and smoked, waiting for enlightenment.

It came when someone brought a torch and they focused it on the figure which lay snuffling and swearing beside the wreckage of the lamp, bewailing the fact that he had got ile a’ ower his drawers, an’ them his only clean pair. He sat blinking and aggrieved in the spotlight while the Gunners regarded him with dismay, demanding to know who he was and where he had come from.

‘Good Lord!′ said one, ‘he’s still got his tags on!’ And sure enough, he still had his identity discs round his unwashed neck. Which meant he hadn’t been picked up by the defenders – somehow he had avoided capture, and here he was in undisputed possession of the lamp which he had undoubtedly extinguished, glaring in baleful distress at his inquisitors and wiping his nose fretfully.

‘Who the hell are you?’ demanded the Gunner Captain in wrath. ‘And why the hell are you half-naked?’

I realised there were unplumbed mysteries here, and they must be played for all they were worth.

‘He’s McAuslan. One of my Jocks,’ I said, with just a hint of complacency. ‘Yes, as I hoped, he’s bagged the lamp. He’s pretty good at this sort of thing, of course.’ Good might not be the appropriate word, but it would do. ‘Well done, McAuslan. Yes, you see, he likes to wear as little as possible when he’s stalking; in fact he usually does it entirely stark. He’s – ’

‘Ah wis jist gaun ower the bridge for a – ’ McAuslan was beginning, but fortunately the rest was lost in Gunner upbraidings and demands for explanation. I hustled him to his feet, whispering sharply to him to keep his lip buttoned, for I knew the half had not been told unto me, and whatever it was I didn’t want the Gunners to hear it. They weren’t in the mood.

‘How the blazes did he get through?’ demanded the Captain. ‘Dammit, our posts were as tight as a tick – he couldn’t have!′ Aggrievedly he added: ‘Nobody saw him!’

‘That,’ I pointed out, perhaps tactlessly, ‘is the object of the exercise. You confirm he’s still got his tags, and he put out the lamp? Fine; let’s go, McAuslan.’

We left them recriminating, and I got him in the lee of a truck. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Talk.’

‘Ah wis jist gaun ower the bridge for . . . tae do . . . Ah mean . . .’ he began miserably, holding his drawers up. ‘Ah mean, Ah wantit fur tae relieve mysel’. Ah wis fair burstin’, honest, so Ah wis,’ he continued earnestly. ‘No kiddin’, sur, Ah didnae mean tae break their lamp, straight up, but yon man roared at me, an’ Ah jist couldnae help it. An’ Ah wis burstin’ – ’

‘That’s all right, McAuslan; it doesn’t matter. How in God’s name did you manage to get in at all? The last thing I saw you were out yonder, with a Gunner breathing down your neck. Didn’t he catch you?’

‘Aw, him.’ He made a dismissive gesture, unwisely with the hand holding his pants up, and grabbed them just in time. ‘Big animal he wis. He got haud o’ me, an’ sat on ma heid, but Ah wis too fly fur ‘im. Ye see, when he says ‘Gin’ tae me, Ah says “Gin” back tae him. ‘Whit′s that?′ says he. ′Gin′, says Ah. ‘Ah’m on your side, Jimmy.’ An’ the silly big soad let me up, an’ Ah clattered ‘im wan an’ left ’im haudin’ himsel’. He wis a right mug, yon,’ added McAuslan, with some satisfaction.

‘Well I’m damned!’ I said reverently. Talk about peasant cunning. ‘But how on earth did you get in – I mean, not only within sight of the lamp, but actually up to it? That was . . . well, marvellous – they had sentries everywhere!’

‘Ah, weel, ye see,’ he said, hitching up his underwear and assuming a professorial pose, ‘it wis like this. When Ah got awa’ frae the mug — ‘Gin’, says he, wid ye believe it? – Ah took a look fur ra North Star, but Ah couldnae see the bluidy thing. It must hiv gone oot, or somethin’. Onywye, Ah wis aboot fed up wi’ the map-readin’ lark – Ah mean, Ah could’ve done it nae bother, efter a’ ye’d tellt me, but Wee Wullie had loast ra map, an’ ra compass – och, he’s a right big eedjit, yon,’ said McAuslan with feeling. ‘Nae sense, an’ him half-fleein’ wi’ rum. He’s an awfy man in drink, so he is. An’ he’s nae use wi’ a map, onywye. He wis wandered. He wandered
me
, Ah don’t mind tellin’ ye,’ he added indignantly. ‘So when Ah got awa’ frae the mug, Ah hid in a ditch fur a wee while, an’ along comes a truck. It stoaped, so Ah crawled underneath, so’s they widnae see me. They wis Gunners, an’ soon they brought along some o’ oor boys that they’d nabbed, an’ pit them in ra truck, an’ startit up. An’ Ah wis fed up trampin’ through the sand, so Ah jist catched hold o’ the pipes unner ra truck, an’ got me feet roon’ them, an’ they brung me in. An’ when they stoapt by the brig Ah jist let go an’ cam’ oot, an’ Ah wis burstin’ somethin’ hellish, so Ah went fur – ’

‘Stop, stop,’ I said, trying to take it in. By his own account he had travelled about a mile clinging to the bottom of a three-ton truck, with a desert road speeding by a couple of feet beneath his ill-covered rump. I shuddered, and looked at him with awe. Initiative, I was thinking, determination, endurance . . . map-reading and compass work not so hot, admittedly, but maps aren’t everything.

‘Ah’m sorry aboot the lamp, though, sur . . . it was a accident, Ah didnae see the thing, an’ when he shoutit Ah jist breenged intae it, an’ . . . Ah suppose,’ he added, wrinkling his urchin face dolefully, ‘that it’ll mean anither stoppage oot ma’ pey, an’ Ah’m still payin’ fur the tea urn Ah dropped on cookhoose fatigue, an’ MacPherson’s glasses, an’ . . .’

‘No,’ I said emphatically, ‘it won’t be stopped out of your pay. Or if it is, you’ll easily be able to pay for it out of the three hundred lire you’ve earned tonight. Never mind why.’ I looked at him, backed up defensively against the truck, clutching his revolting drawers, knuckling his grubby nose. ‘Son, you’re great. Just don’t tell anyone how you got through to the lamp, understand? They didn’t spot you, so they’re not entitled to know. Right – hop into the truck and we’ll get you back to barracks, and you can change out of your evening clothes. Well done, McAuslan.’

‘Och, ta very much, sur. That’s awfy good o’ ye,’ said McAuslan – but he said it with a strained, worried look which puzzled me until he added, pleadingly: ‘Afore Ah get intae ra truck . . . Ah’m still burstin’, no kiddin’ . . .’

For the record, MacKenzie and the Adjutant and the Padre paid up like gentlemen — suspicious gentlemen, but I didn’t enlighten them. I turned the money over to McAuslan, enjoining him to put it straight into saving certificates for himself and Wee Wullie. They didn’t, I’m afraid. Instead they went on a magnificent toot the following Saturday, which concluded with Wee Wullie staggering back to barracks with McAuslan on his back finding his way, he alleged, by the stars. I might have taken more satisfaction in the success of his navigation if I hadn’t been the orderly officer who met them at the gate.

The Sheikh and the Dustbin

When I was a young soldier, and had not yet acquired the tobacco vice (which began with scrounging cigarettes at routemarch halts when everyone else lit up and I felt left out) I used to win cross-country races. This surprised me, for while I had been athletic enough at school I had never been fleet of foot; in the infants’ egg-and-spoon race, and later in the hundred yards, I would come labouring in well behind the leaders, and as a Rugby full-back I learned to be in the right place beforehand because I knew that no amount of running would get me there in time if I wasn’t. So it was a revelation, when the Army hounded us out in the rain to run miles across soggy Derbyshire in P.T. kit, to discover that I could keep up a steady stride and finish comfortably ahead of the mud-splattered mob, winning 7
s
. 6
d
. in saving certificates and having the Company Sergeant-Major (who was seventeen stone, all fat, and smoked like a chimney) wheeze enthusiastically: ‘Aye, happen lad′ll mek a Brigade rooner! Good at all sport, are yeh, MacNeill? Play football, roogby, cricket, do yeh? Aye, right, yeh′ll be left inner in’t coompany ’ockey team this art’noon, an’ report to’t gym fer boxin’ trainin’ on Moonday. Welter-weight, are yeh – mebbe middle-weight, we’ll see. Done any swimmin’, ‘ave yeh? ‘Ow about ′igh joomp . . . ?’ That’s the military mind, you see; if you’re good at one thing, you’re good at everything.

It didn’t take long to convince him that I’d never held a hockey stick in my life and was a wildly unscientific boxer, but being a resourceful old warrant officer he made good use of my running ability, in a rather unusual way – and did much to advance my military education. For during those weeks of basic training I was detailed several times to escort prisoners to the military jail, the idea being that if during the journey by rail and road a prisoner somehow won free of the Redcap to whom he was handcuffed, I would run him down — what I was to do when I caught him was taken for granted. It never came to that; all our malefactors went quietly to the great grim converted factory at Sowerby Bridge which was the North Country’s most feared and fearsome glasshouse and remains in my memory as one of the most horrible places I have ever seen. If my cross-country talents did nothing else, they won me a first-hand look at an old-style military nick which convinced me that, come what might, I was going to be a good little soldier.

The bleak walls and yards with their high wire-meshed gates, the lean, skull-faced guards screaming high-pitched, the crop-headed inmates doubling frantically wherever they went, our prisoner having to strip naked at high speed in the cold reception cell under the glaring eye of what looked like a homicidal maniac in khaki – all these were daunting enough, but what chilled my marrow was the sight of a single, everyday domestic object standing outside a doorway: an ordinary dust-bin. Only this one had been burnished until it gleamed, literally, like silver; you could have shaved at it without difficulty. The mere thought of how it had got that way told me more about Sowerby Bridge than I wanted to know; think about it next time you put out the rubbish.

I don’t suppose that military prisons are quite as stark as that in this enlightened age (where did they go, those gaunt, shrieking fanatics of staff men? Do they sit, in gentle senility and woolly slippers, watching
Coronation Street
?) but in their time they were places of dreadful repute – Stirling, and Aldershot (whose glazed roof is supposed to have inspired the name ‘glasshouse’); Heliopolis, outside Cairo, where prisoners were forced to run up and down the infamous ′Hill′, and Trimulghari, in India, home of the soul-destroying well drill in which wells had to be filled and emptied again and again and again. Perhaps rumour made them out worse than they were, but having been inside Sowerby Bridge, I doubt it. Reactionary old soldiers speculate wistfully on their reintroduction for modem criminals and football hooligans, forgetting that you can no more bring them back than you can bring back the world they belonged to; like conscription, they are just part of military history – for which the football hooligans can be thankful.

However, this is not a treatise on glasshouses, and if I have reflected on them it is only because they are part of the train of thought that begins whenever I remember Suleiman ibn Aziz, Lord of the Grey Mountain, who had no connection with them personally. But he was a military prisoner, and belongs in the same compartment of my memory as Sowerby Bridge, and barred windows, and Lovelace’s poem to Lucasta, and ‘jankers’, and McAuslan and Wee Wullie labouring on the rockpile, and the time I myself spent in cells as a ranker (the sound of that metal-shod door slamming is one you don’t forget in a hurry, when you’ve been on the wrong side of it), and all my varied thoughts and recollections about what the Army used to call ‘close tack’. Detention, in other words, and if it has two symbols for me, one is that gleaming dustbin and the other is old Suleiman.

He was quite the unlikeliest, and certainly the most distinguished prisoner ever to occupy a cell in our North African barracks. I won’t say he was the most eccentric, because those bare stone chambers at the back of the guardroom were occasionally tenanted by the likes of McAuslan and Wee Wullie, but he was more trouble than all the battalion’s delinquents put together – something, fortunately, which happened only on Hogmanay, when it was standing-room only in the cells and Sergeant McGarry’s provost staff were hard pressed to accommodate all the revellers.