The Complete McAuslan (61 page)

All was well in the guardroom, and through the grille in his cell door I could see the prisoner on the bed, still wrapped in his burnous, snoring vigorously.

‘By, but that’s an angry yin!’ said Sergeant McGarry. ′Hear him snarl when I asked if he wantit anything? I offered tae get him some chuck, but I micht as weel ha’e been talkin’ tae mysel’. Who is he, sir?’

I was telling him, when the gargoyle features of Private McAuslan appeared at the grille of the neighbouring cell, a sight that made me feel I should have brought some nuts to throw through the bars.

‘Hullaw rerr, sur,’ said he, companionable as always. ‘Who’s ra auld wog next door? See him, Ah cannae get tae sleep fur him snorin’. Gaun like a biler, sure’n he is.’

‘He’s a reporter frae the
Tripoli Ghibli,
come tae interview ye an’ write yer life story,’ said McGarry, and suddenly snarled: ‘Sharrap an’ gedoon on yer cot, ye animal, or I’ll flype ye!’ McAuslan disappeared as by magic. I finished telling McGarry what I knew about his prisoner, and he shook his head as we stood looking through the grille.

‘Black Hand o’ God, eh? He’s no verra handy noo, puir auld cratur. Mind you, he’ll have been a hard man in his time.’

That was surely true, I thought. In the dim light I could make out the hawk profile and the white stubble on the cropped skull where the
kafilyeh
had fallen away; he looked very frail and old now. The Lord of the Grey Mountain, who had led the great Riff
harkas
against the French invaders and fought the legendary Foreign Legion to a standstill, the drawn sword of Abd-el Krim, the last of the desert rebels . . . It was inevitable that I should find myself thinking of the glossy romance that had been shown at the garrison cinema not long ago, with its hordes of robed riders thundering over the California sandhills while Dennis Morgan sang the new words which, in the spirit of war-time, had been set to the stirring music of Romberg’s Riff Song:

Show them that surrender isn’t all!
There’s no barricade or prison wall
Can keep a free man enslaved . . .

It was pathetically ironic, looking in at the little old man who had been the anonymous inspiration for that verse, and had spent a lifetime fighting for the reality of its brave message, even taking part in the greater cause against Germany. The film fiction had ended in a blaze of glory; the tragic fact was asleep in a British Army cell, waiting to be shipped away to a felon’s death in exile, the scourge of the desert keeping McAuslan awake with his snoring.

His interview with the Colonel next day was a literal frost, for during fifteen minutes’ laboured interrogation by the Adjutant he spoke only once, and that was to say ‘Non!’ Seen in daylight he was a gaunt leathery ancient with a malevolent eye in a vulpine face whose only redeeming feature was that splendid hooked nose, but he carried himself with a defiant pride that was impressive. Seated in his cell, refusing even to notice his visitors, he might have been just a sullen little ruffian, but he wasn’t; there was a force in the spare small body and a dignity in the lifted head; whether he understood the Adjutant’s questions about his welfare (which sounded like a parody of
French without Tears
, with such atrocities as ‘Etait votre lit tendre . . . suffisant douce, I mean’, which I construed as an inquiry about the comfort of his bed) it was hard to say, since he just stared stonily ahead while the Adjutant got pinker and louder. That he was getting through became apparent only with the last question, when the Colonel, who had been getting restive, interrupted.

‘Ask him, if we give him the freedom of the barracks, will he give his word of honour not to try to escape?’

This was the Colonel sounding out his man, and it brought the first reaction. Suleiman stiffened, stared angrily at the Colonel, and fairly spat out ‘Non!’ before standing up abruptly and turning on his heel to stalk across to the window, thus indicating that the palaver was finished.

‘Well, he can give a straight answer when he wants,’ said the Colonel. ′He doesn’t lie at the first opportunity, either. Keep his cell locked at night, McGarry, with a sentry posted, but during the day he can sit on the verandah or in the little garden if he likes. The more he’s in open view, the easier he’ll be to watch. And he’s not to be stared at – see that that’s understood by all ranks, Michael. Very well, carry on.’

So we did, and in the following days the small black-robed figure became a familiar sight, seated under an arch of the guardroom verandah or in the little rock-garden at the side, the armed sentry at a tactful distance and McGarry as usual at the head of the steps. According to him Suleiman never uttered a word or showed any emotion except silent hatred of everything around him; at first he had even refused to sit outside, and only after McGarry had taken out the chair two or three times, leaving the cell door open, had he finally ventured forth, slowly, making a long survey of the parade square before seating himself. He would stay there, quite motionless, his hands folded before him, until it was time to go to his cell to pray, or the orderly brought his meals, which were prepared at an Arab eating-house down the road. He never seemed to see or hear the sights and sounds of the parade-ground; there was something not canny about the stillness of the small, frail figure, his face shaded from the sun by the silver-trimmed
kafilyeh,
as though he were under a spell of immobility, waiting with a furious patience for it to be lifted.

The Provost Marshal must have got word of the freedom he was being given, for he called to protest to the Colonel about such a focus of nationalist unrest being in full view from the gate where local natives were forever passing by. What the Colonel replied is not recorded, but the P.M. came out crimson and sweating, to the general satisfaction.

For there was no doubt of it, in spite of his hostile silence and cold refusal even to notice us, a sort of protective admiration was growing in the battalion for the ugly little Bedouin warlord. Everyone knew his story by now, and what was in store for him, and sympathy was openly expressed for ‘the wee wog’, while the French were reviled for their persecution, and our own High Command for being art and part in it.

‘Whit wye does the Colonel no′ jist turn his back an′ let him scarper?’ was how Private Fletcher put it. ‘So whit if he used tae pit the hems oan the Frogs? A helluva lot we owe them, an’ chance it. Onywye, they say the wee fellah got tore in oan oor side in the war – is that right, sur? Becuz if it is, then it’s a bluidy shame! We should be gi‘in’ him a medal, never mind sendin’ him back tae Duwil’s Island!’

‘Sooner him than me,’ said Daft Bob Brown. ‘Ever see that fillum,
King o’ the Damned?
That wis aboot Duvvil’s Island – scare the bluidy blue lights oot o’ ye, so it wud.’

‘We should gi’e him a pound oot the till an’ say “On yer way, Cherlie”,’ said Fletcher emphatically. ‘That’s whit Ah’d dae.’

You and the Colonel both, Fletcher, I thought. Scottish soldiers have a callous streak a mile wide, compensated by a band of pure marshmallow, and either is liable to surface unexpectedly, but if there is one thing they admire it is a fighting man, and it doesn’t matter whether he’s friend or foe, fellow or alien. Suleiman ibn Aziz was a wog – but he was a brave wog, who had gone his mile, and now he was old and done and alone and they were full of fury on his behalf. Barrack-room sentimentality, if you like, which overlooked the fact that he had been a fully-paid-up monster in his time; that didn’t matter, he wis a good wee fellah, so he wis.

Their regard showed itself in a quite astonishing way. It was a regimental tradition for Jocks entering or leaving barracks to salute the guardroom, a relic of the days when the colours were housed there. Now – and how it began we never discovered - they started to extend the time of their salutes to cover the small figure in the burnous seated in the garden; I even saw a sergeant give his marching platoon ‘Eyes left!’ well in advance so that Suleiman was included, and the Regimental Sergeant-Major, who happened to be passing (and missed nothing) didn’t bat an eyelid. Highland soldiers are a very strange law unto themselves.

I doubt whether Suleiman noticed, or was aware of the general sympathy. His own obvious hostility discouraged any approaches, and the only ones he got came from his fellow-prisoner McAuslan. The great janker-wallah was never one to deny his conversation to anybody unlucky enough to be within earshot, and since his defaulters’ duties included sweeping the verandah and weeding the garden, Suleiman was a captive audience, so to speak; the fact that he didn’t understand a word and paid not the slightest heed meant nothing to a blether of McAuslan’s persistence. He held forth like the never-wearied rook while he shambled about the flower-bed destroying things and besmirching himself, and the Lord of the Grey Mountain sat through it like a robed idol, his unwinking gaze fastened on the distance. It was a pity he didn’t speak Glasweigian, really, because McAuslan’s small-talk was designed to comfort and advise; I paused once on a guardroom visit to listen to his monologue floating in through the barred window:

‘. . . mind you, auld yin, there’s this tae be said for bein’ in the nick, ye get yer room an’ board, an’ at your time o’ life the Frogs arenae gaun tae pit ye tae breakin’ rocks, sure’n they’re no’? O’ course, Ah dae ken whit it’s like in a French cooler, but ach! they’ll no’ be hard on ye. An’ ye never know, mebbe ye’ll get a chance tae go ower the wa’ again. They tell me ye’ve been ay-woll twice a’ready, is that right? Frae Duvvil’s Island? Jings, that’s sumpn! Aye, but – mah advice tae ye is, don’t try it while ye’re here, for any favour, becuz that big bastard McGarry’s got eyes in his erse, an’ ye widnae get by the gate. Naw, jist you wait till ra Frogs come for ye, an’ bide yer time an’ scram when their back’s turned – they’re no’ organised at a’, ra Frogs. Weel, ye ken that yersel’. Here, but! it’s a shame ye couldnae tak’ Phimister wi’ ye – him that wis in the cell next door tae me, the glaikit-lookin’ fella. He’s no’ sae glaikit, Ah’m tellin’ ye! Goad kens how many times he’s bust oot o’ close tack – he wid hiv ye oan a fast camel tae Wogland afore ra Frogs knew whit time it wis! Jeez, whit a man! Aye, but ye’ll no’ be as nippy as ye were . . . ach, but mebbe it’ll no’ be sae bad, auld boy! Whitever Duvvil’s Island’s like, it cannae be worse’n gettin’ liftit by the Marine Division in Gleska, no’ kiddin’. See them? Buncha animals, so they are. Did Ah no’ tell ye aboot the time Ah got done, after the Cup Final? It wis like this, see . . .’

To this stream of Govan consciousness Suleiman remained totally deaf, as he did to all the sounds around him – until the seventh day, when the pipe band held a practice behind the transport sheds in preparation for next day’s Retreat: at the first distant keening note his head turned sharply, and after a moment he got up and walked to the edge of the garden, evidently trying to catch a glimpse of the pipers. For a full half hour he stood, his hawk face turned towards the sound, and only when it ended did he walk slowly back to the guardroom, apparently deep in thought. There he suddenly rounded on McGarry, growling: ‘L’Adjutant! Monsieur l′Adjutant! ’. The Adjutant was summoned forthwith, and presently came to the mess with momentous news: Suleiman ibn Aziz had demanded curtly that he be allowed to witness the band’s next performance.

I have written elsewhere of the Arab’s delight in the sound of bagpipes, and how they would flock to listen whenever the band appeared in public. But Suleiman’s interest was so unexpected and out of keeping with his grim aloofness that there was something like delight in the mess, and there was a big turn-out next day when the Adjutant conducted him to join the Colonel before H.Q. Company, where a chair had been provided for him. He went straight to it, ignoring the Colonel’s greeting, and sat erect and impassive as the band swung on in full fig, the drums thundering and the pipes going full blast in ‘Johnnie Cope’; they marched and counter-marched, the tartans swinging and the Drum-Major, resplendent in leopardskin, flourishing his silver staff, through ‘Highland Laddie’, ‘White Cockade’, and ‘Scotland the Brave’, and he watched with never a flicker on his lined face or a movement of the fingers clasping his burnous about him. When they turned inwards for their routine of strathspey and reel he lifted his head to the quickening rhythm, and when they made their final advance to ‘Cock o’ the North’ he leaned forward a little, but what he was making of it you couldn’t tell. When the Drum-Major came forward to ask permission to march off, the Colonel turned to him with a smile and gesture of invitation, but he didn’t move, and the Colonel returned the salute alone. The band marched away, and the Adjutant asked if he’d enjoyed it; Suleiman didn’t reply, but sat forward, his eyes intent on the band as they passed out of sight.

‘Oh, well, we did our best,’ muttered the Adjutant. ‘Don’t suppose we could expect him to clap and stamp. At least he didn’t walk out – ’

Suleiman suddenly stood up. For a moment he continued to stare across the parade ground, then he turned to the Colonel, and for the first time there was a look on his face that wasn’t baleful: his eyes were bright and staring fiercely, but they were sad, too, and he looked very old and tired. He spoke in a harsh, husky croak:

‘La musique darray maklen! C’est la musique, ça!’

It was the first time he’d ever offered anything like conversation – whatever it meant. ‘What did he say?’ the Colonel demanded. ‘Music of what?’

The Adjutant asked him to repeat it, but Suleiman just turned away, and when he was asked again he shook his head angrily and wouldn’t answer. So the Adjutant took him back to the guardroom while the rest of us argued about what it was he’d said; he seemed to have been identifying the music, but no one could tell what ‘darray maklen’ meant. The first word might be ′arrêt′, meaning anything from ‘stop’ to ‘detention’, but the Adjutant’s dictionary contained no word remotely like ‘maklen’, and it wasn’t until the end of dinner that the Colonel, who had been repeating the phrase and looking more like an irritated vulture by the minute, suddenly slapped the table.