The Complete McAuslan (60 page)

They were busy enough during the rest of the year, too, but not because our Jocks were rowdier than any other soldiers; if our cells were well used it was because the Colonel, unlike some commanders, refused to use the glasshouse as a dumping-ground for incorrigibles. To him, a man in Heliopolis was a dead loss to the regiment, and a failure, and he would move heaven and earth to keep our worst offenders out of the Big House – especially if they had been good men at war. Wee Wullie’s record of violence and drunkenness should have put him on the Hill for years – but Wullie had played the soldier when it counted, in the Western Desert, and the regiment had a long memory. As it did for the remarkable Phimister, a genuine hero of Japanese captivity who must thereafter be forgiven for spending more time on the run from the Redcaps than he did on parade. It wasn’t easy, and the Colonel had to do some inspired string-pulling on occasion, but no one doubted it was worth it. A Highland regiment is a family, and settles its own differences within itself – if that sounds trite, it’s true. So when Phimister went walkabouts yet again and was picked up trying to board a tramp steamer in Tunis, or Wullie overturned a police jeep and battled with its occupants, or McAuslan went absent and tried to pawn a two-inch mortar in the bazaar (so help me, it’s a fact), there was no thought of shipping them to the glasshouse; they did their time in our own cells under the iron hand of McGarry, digging and carrying in sweltering heat, deprived of tobacco and alcohol, and safely locked in at night. It was genuine hard labour, they hated it, it kept them out of trouble, and as McGarry used to say:

‘They come tae nae herm wi’ me. What? They were never so weel aff in their lives! Wullie’s sober an’ McAuslan’s clean, an’ that’s mair than ye can say when they’re on the ootside. I don’t gi’e them any bother – an’ by God they don’t gi’e me any.’

Looking at McGarry, you might have feared the worst from that last remark. All provost staff tend to resemble galley oversees, and he was rather like an outsize Ernest Brognine playing Ivan the Mad Torturer, but the appearance was deceptive. Despite barrack-room gossip, McGarry never laid hands on a man unless he was hit first, in which case he hit back - once. (The exception was Wee Wullie, who had to be hit several times.) For the rest, McGarry got by on presence and personality; the mere sight of that huge figure at the top of the guardroom steps, thumbs hooked in the top of his kilt as he coldly surveyed the scene, was the most potent disciplinary force in the battalion.

It was into this strange guardroom world that Suleiman ibn Aziz came unexpectedly on a summer night. I was orderly officer, and had just finished the routine inspection of prisoners to make sure they were still breathing and not trying to tunnel their way out. There were two in residence: McAuslan starting fourteen days after his brief career as a mortar salesman, and Phimister as usual. I was signing the book when I noticed that one of the four vacant cells was open – and within there was an undoubted rug on the floor, a table, chair, chest-of-drawers, jug and wash-basin, and in place of the usual plank and blanket there was a pukka bed, with sheets and pillows. I thought I must be seeing things.

‘Who in the world is that for?’ I asked. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve got the Brigadier in close tack!’

‘Nae idea, sir,’ said McGarry. ‘I just got word tae have a cell ready, an’ then the Adjutant himsel’ turns up tae see tae the furniture. It’s no’ a regular client, anyway.’

‘Somebody from outside? He must be pretty special. But why us?’

‘Strongest jyle in the province, this,’ said McGarry, not without satisfaction. ‘God kens what kind o’ sodgers Mussolini built this barracks for, but he wasnae takin’ ony chances wi’ his defaulters. These walls is six feet thick. There’s tae be a special sentry on the door, too.’

This was unprecedented – as was the appearance of the Colonel, Adjutant, and second-in-command at the main gate just after Last Post, when a staff car arrived bearing the Provost Marshal and a small figure in a black burnous and silver-trimmed
kafilyeh
handcuffed to a Redcap escort. He stood sullenly while the Colonel and the Provost Marshal conferred briefly, and then he was uncuffed and brought up the guardroom steps for delivery to McGarry; I had only a glimpse of a lean, lined swarthy face with an enormous beak of a nose and a white tuft of beard, and two bright angry eyes glaring under the
kafilyeh
hood. They hustled him inside, and the Adjutant, who had been hovering like an agitated hen, beckoned me to follow to his office, where the Colonel was sounding off at the Provost Marshal:

‘. . . and you can tell G.H.Q. that I don’t take kindly to having my barracks turned into a transit camp for itinerant bedouin. What did you say the beggar’s name was?’

‘Suleiman ibn Aziz, sir,’ said the P.M. ‘Known in Algeria as the Lord of the Grey Mountain, apparently.’ He hesitated, looking apologetic. ‘In Morocco they call him the Black Hand of God. So I’m told, sir.’

‘Never heard of him,’ said the Colonel. ‘How long are we supposed to keep him?’

‘Just a week or two, I hope – until the French come to collect him. I know it’s a nuisance, sir, but there’s really nothing to worry about; he’s over seventy.’

‘I’m not in the least worried,’ snapped the Colonel, who didn’t like the P.M. at the best of times. ‘Nor am I a damned innkeeper. Why’s he so important, anyway?’

‘Well, sir,’ said the P.M., looking impressive, ‘I’m sure you’ve heard of Abd-el Krim . . . ?′ The Adjutant’s head came up at that famous name; like me, he knew his P. C. Wren. The Colonel frowned.

‘Krim? The chief who led the Riff Rebellion in Algeria, back in the twenties? Gave the French Foreign Legion a hell of a dance, didn’t he? Yes, I’ve heard of him . . .’

‘The Red Shadow!’ said the Adjutant brightly, and the Colonel gave him a withering look.

‘Thank you, Michael, you can play a selection from
The Desert Song
later.’ He turned back to the P.M. ‘I thought Krim surrendered to the French 20 years ago – what’s this bird got to do with him?’

‘Absolutely right, sir, Krim did surrender,’ said the P.M. ‘But Suleiman didn’t. He’d been Krim’s right-hand man from the start of the Riff revolt, near the turn of the century, commanded his cavalry – he was the man who drove the Legion out of Taza in ’24, overran their forts, beat up their columns, played hell all over. Real
Beau Geste
stuff,’ he was going on enthusiastically, until the Colonel raised a bleak eye from scraping his pipe. ‘Yes, well . . . he had something like 20,000 Riffs behind him then, but when the French really went to town in ’26 Krim packed in with most of ’em, and Suleiman was left with just a handful. Swore he’d never give up, took to the Moroccan mountains, and has been hammering away for twenty years, off and on – raiding, ambushing, causing no end of trouble. The French captured him twice, but he escaped both times.’ The P.M. paused. ‘The second time was from Devil’s Island.’

There was silence, and the Colonel stopped scraping for a moment. Then he asked: ‘Where did you learn all this?’

‘Intelligence bumf, sir – it’s all in the dossier there. Just came in this afternoon. Suleiman was picked up only two days ago, you see, by one of our long-range groups south of Yarhuna, acting on information from the French in Oran – ’

‘What the devil was he doing over here? We’re more than a thousand miles from Morocco!’

The P.M. looked perplexed. ‘Well, it’s rather odd, actually. When he escaped from Devil’s Island it was early in the war, about ’41. He managed to get back across the Atlantic, God knows how – he was nearly seventy then, and he’d had a pretty rough time in captivity, I believe. Anyway, he reached Morocco, got a few followers, and started pasting the French again, until our desert war was at its height in ‘42, when for some reason he came east and pitched in against Rommel.’ The P.M. spread his hands in wonder. ‘Why, no one knows . . . unless he regarded the Germans as allies of the Vichy Government. When the war ended the French were still after him, and for the past year or so he’s been hiding out down south, quite alone. There was no one with him in the village where our people found him.’

‘And the French still want him? At this time of day?’ The Colonel blew through his pipe. ‘What do they intend to do with him, d’you know?’

The P.M. hesitated. ‘Send him back to Devil’s Island . . . so Cairo tell me, anyway. It seems the French regard him as a dangerous public enemy – ’

‘In his seventies? Without followers? After he’s been on our side in the war?’

‘It’s up to the French, sir. We’re just co-operating.’ The P.M. shifted in his chair, avoiding the Colonel’s eye. ‘I ought to mention – there’s a note in the dossier – that Cairo regards this as a top security matter.’

‘Indeed?’ The Colonel’s tone was chilly. ‘Then why don’t they put him in Heliopolis, instead of my guardroom?’

The P.M. looked embarrassed. ‘Well, we’re convenient here, of course – next to French territory. If they took him to Cairo, it would be bound to get talked about – might get into the papers, even.’ He glanced round as though expecting to find reporters crouched behind his chair. ‘You see, sir, the French want to keep it hush-hush – security, I imagine – and Cairo agrees. So the transfer, when it’s made, is to be discreet. Without publicity.’ He smiled uneasily. ‘I’m sure that’s understood.’

The Colonel blew smoke, considering him, and just from the angle of his pipe I knew he was in one of his rare cold rages, though I wasn’t sure why. The P.M. knew it, too, and fidgeted. Finally the Colonel said:

‘We’ll look after your prisoner, Provost Marshal. And if we don’t come up to G.H.Q. Cairo’s expectation as turnkeys, I suggest they do the job themselves. Convey that, would you? Anything else?’

The P.M., who wasn’t used to mere Colonels who raised two fingers to Cairo, got quite flustered, but all he could think of to add was that Suleiman ibn Aziz spoke Arabic and Spanish but only a little French, so if we needed an interpreter . . .

‘Thank you, my Adjutant speaks fluent French,’ said the Colonel, and the Adjutant, who had spent a hiking holiday in the Pyrenees before the war, tried to look like an accomplished linguist. The P.M. said that was splendid, and made his escape, and we waited while the Colonel smoked grimly and stared at the wall. The second-in-command remarked that this chap Suleiman sounded like an interesting chap. Enterprising, too.

‘Imagine escaping from Devil’s Island, at the age of 70!’ The Adjutant shook his head in admiration. ‘Poor old blighter!’

‘You can probably save your sympathy,’ said the Colonel abruptly. ‘From what I’ve heard of the Riffs’ treatment of prisoners I doubt if our guest is Saladin, exactly.’ He gave a couple of impatient puffs and laid down his pipe. ‘Still, I’m damned if we’ll be any harsher than we must. You’re orderly officer, MacNeill? See McGarry has him properly bedded down and I’ll talk to him in the morning – you do speak French, don’t you, Michael? God knows you’ve said so often enough.’

The Adjutant said hastily that he’d always managed to make himself understood – of course, he couldn’t guarantee that an Arab would understand the Languedoc accent . . . why, in Perpignan they spoke French with a
Glasgow
accent, would you believe it, mong jew and tray bong, quite extraordinary . . . Listening to him babble, I resolved not to miss his interview with Suleiman next day. When the others had gone he began a frantic rummage for his French dictionary, muttering vaguely bon soir, mam’selle, voulez-vous avez un aperitif avec moi, bloody hell, some blighter’s knocked it, and generally getting distraught.

‘Never mind your aunt’s plume,’ I said. ‘What’s the old man so steamed up about?’

‘I’ll just have to speak very slowly, that’s all.’ He rumpled his fair hair, sighing. ‘Eh? The Colonel? Well, he doesn’t like having his guardroom turned into a political prison – especially not for the Frogs. You know how he loves
them
: “Brutes let us down in ’14, and again in ’40 – ” ’

‘I know that, but what’s wrong with having to look after an old buddoo for a week or two?’

‘It’s politics, clot. The Frogs want to fix this old brigand’s duff, and no doubt our politicians want to keep de Gaulle happy, so the word goes to Cairo to co-operate, and we lift him and hand him over – but quietly, without fuss, so it doesn’t get in the papers. See?’

‘What if it does?’

‘God, you’re innocent. Look, the old bugger’s past it, the Frogs are just being bloody-minded, we’re co-operating like loyal allies – but d’you think Cairo wants to be seen helping to give him a free ticket back to Devil’s Island? So we get the job, ‘cos we’re out here far beyond the notice of journalists and radicals – anti-colonialists and so on – who’d make a martyr of the old boy if they heard about it. Are you receiving me?’

‘Well . . . sort of . . . but he’s a rebel, isn’t he?’

‘Certainly, fathead, and ten years ago no one would have given a hoot about handing him over. But it’s different now. Don’t you read the papers? The old enemies are the new patriots. Gandhi’s a saint these days . . . so why shouldn’t this old villain be a hero? After all, he always has been, to some people – fighting for his independence, by his way of it. Suppose his name was William Wallace – or Hereward the Wake? See what I mean?’

It was new stuff to me, in 1947. Yes, I was an innocent.

‘So that’s why the Colonel gets wild,’ said the Adjutant. ‘Being used as a stooge, because Cairo hasn’t got the guts to pass this Suleiman on openly – or to tell the Frogs to take a running jump. Which is what the Colonel would do – partly because he can’t stand ’em, but also because he’s got a soft spot for the Suleimans of this world. God knows he fought them long enough, on the Frontier, and knows what a shower they are, but still . . . he respects ′em . . . and this one’s over the hill, anyway. That’s why he’s hopping mad at Cairo for giving him a dirty job, but it’s a lawful command, and he’s a soldier. So, incidentally, are you,’ added the Adjutant severely, ‘and you ought to have been in the guardroom hours ago, examining padlocks. I don’t suppose
you
speak French? No, you ruddy wouldn’t . . .’