Читать книгу Household Ghosts: A James Kennaway Omnibus - James Kennaway - Страница 10

TWO

THE PIPERS WERE in the pantry, recovering themselves. They were drinking beer, and the sweat poured down their faces. Their heavy kilts and tunics were hot and scratchy, and all the paraphernalia of their dirks and plaids was a nuisance to them.

The younger piper had yellow eyes and he spoke in a high-pitched voice.

‘He’s a bloody terror, and that’s what he is.’

‘Aye,’ said the Corporal, ‘and he’s a great man.’

‘He’s a bloody terror, and that’s what he is; I’m telling you, Corporal.’

‘You can close your mouth. You’ll need all your spittle the night.’

Mess stewards in their white bum-freezers hurried by in search of liquor.

‘Is it right he was a piper; is that right, Corporal Fraser?’

‘Aye. And he could be Pipe-Major if he felt like it, man. You should hear him on the pibrochs. There’s nobody to touch him. He’s played on the wireless, you know.’

‘I’m no a corporal; I never get the chance of listening to the bloody wireless.’

‘You’ll watch your language in the Officers’ Mess, Piper Adam.’

‘This is no the Officers’ Mess. This is the pantry.’ All around them were dirty plates and cutlery. ‘Look at the shambles, eh?’

‘Just the same.’

‘Och, away you go, Corporal … He’s a bloody terror; I’m telling you.’

‘Aye, aye. You’re telling me.’

The Corporal-Piper was a patient young man with the mild blue eyes of the far north. He came from that queer strip of flat land called the Lairg. It stretches for thirty or forty miles along the south side of the Moray Firth, and at no point is it more than a few miles wide. The road from Inverness to Fochabers is as straight as the pine trees there, and nowhere in Scotland is there so much sky. It is like a foreign land, and the people speak their English slowly, and with a mild intonation, as if they were translating from a foreign tongue. So it was with Corporal Fraser.

‘Aye,’ he said softly; and he finished his pint of beer.

Then they were called into the ante-room to play some reels. Jock had decided that they all ought to take some exercise before the next round of drinks and as it was too slippery for a race round the barrack square he ordered that there should be dancing. With Charlie Scott as his partner he led away with the ‘Duke of Perth’ while the others, standing in their lines, clapped their hands to the music.

Jock danced with energy and with precision. He leapt high in the air and landed miraculously softly on the toes of his small feet. That was how he had been taught to dance and the others had to try and dance like him. They put their hands above their heads; they swung; they yelled; they hooched. Then they had a drink and they began all over again with a new dance. By this time they were very warm and many of them had removed their tunics. Every officer in the Mess was dancing amongst the pillars in the long ante-room when the door opened and the new Colonel walked in.

For a moment, nobody observed him, and the dance continued. He was wearing a tweed suit and his jacket hung open. He had a moustache and his hair was growing grey, not at the temples where men like their hair to grow grey, but all over. Round his large eyes there was a yellowish shadow of tiredness, and his brow was lined. If you saw this man on a platform at a railway station you would at once be certain that there was a gun-case with his luggage; and you would be right. There must be fifty colonels who look very much like this one. He now stood quite still, as only an actor or a soldier can. His hands rested by his sides.

Mr Simpson followed Piper Adam’s eye, and he was the first to recognise the stranger. He immediately moved up the line to talk to Jock, who was absorbed with the dancing. He tugged at his elbow. His voice had the delighted urgency of the first man with bad news.

‘Colonel!’

‘What is it, laddie? Get down to your proper place.’

‘The Colonel’s here.’

‘You’re drunk, laddie.’

‘Colonel Barrow. He’s at the door.’

Jock looked round and stared, first at Simpson and then at the newcomer. Only a moment before he had been beaming with joy. He had joked with Charlie Scott as they gradually worked their way up the set to start their second turn. He had given a little imitation of some of Major Macmillan’s worse affectations on the dance-floor. Macmillan was a very smooth performer, and had Jock not been there he would hardly have bothered to move his feet at all. Jock meant no harm by his little demonstration. He was in good spirits. He had forgotten everything but the dancing and the drinking, and the music tingled in his veins. He liked to feel the floor bouncing. But suddenly the dancers and the pipers seemed to fade away from him, and he forgot them. He stopped clapping his hands and they hung in mid-air. A look of real pain crossed his face and he said in a whisper, ‘But dammit, he’s no due till the morn!’

Then his hands fell to his tunic and he began to button it up. He pulled in his stomach and bit his lip. He shouted at the top of his voice for the dancing to stop. The dancers heard but the pipers continued to play. When he shouted again they too understood and with a drone they ceased. Everybody now turned towards the figure at the door. Colonel Barrow did not sound nervous, but a little tired.

‘Good evening, gentlemen.’ His voice was very light. ‘My name is Barrow.’

Nobody replied. They looked at him, stunned. Then Jock strode down the middle of the room, his heels clicking on the boards. The two sets of dancers at each side of the room still stood in loose formation and they watched him come to a formal halt two paces away from the Colonel.

‘Jock Sinclair. Acting Colonel.’

‘I’ve heard a great deal about you.’ The Colonel spoke in the same light voice; he spoke pleasantly but seriously and as the two shook hands the officers readjusted their dress. They shifted about, and looked nervously at each other. Somehow, they felt guilty. Major Scott and the company commanders were duly introduced but Jock said there were too many bloody subalterns – all subalterns were bloody, all subalterns were damned – to attempt an introduction there and then. Jock behaved as if it were a parade. He was like one of those commanders you see photographed looking down and talking earnestly to his Queen.

‘And now, Colonel,’ his voice was very serious. ‘May we have permission to resume the dance that was interrupted?’ The Colonel looked surprised. ‘For heaven’s sake … I’m not here officially until tomorrow. You’re in command.’

‘Very well.’ Jock instructed Corporal Fraser and the others to carry on. ‘Charlie, we best break off.’ He turned to the Colonel again. ‘You’ll join us in a drink?’

‘Thank you. Brandy and soda.’

Jock blinked, and he looked down at his successor. ‘Not a whisky?’

‘Not a whisky.’

‘We all drink whisky in this Battalion,’ Jock said, heavily.

‘Oh, yes,’ Barrow smiled pleasantly. ‘I remember that. Whisky doesn’t really agree with me. D’you think we could adjourn to the far end of the room? I find it rather noisy here.’

Jock looked over his shoulder at the pipers playing behind them.

‘Whatever you like,’ he said and he never smiled once. As they walked the length of the room he glanced slantwise at the Colonel, but the Colonel was intent on the dancing.

Barrow put his hands in his coat pockets as he walked up the room, and once or twice he moved them with a nervous little jerk. He twitched his moustache. The officers stared at him and they noticed the rather sprightly step. He sprang on the balls of his feet, again with a sort of nervousness. His tread was as light as his voice.

‘This is my farewell party, you understand,’ Jock said when they sat down. ‘There’s not a carry-on like this every night. Four and a half years is a long time to command a battalion, and then …’ He did not finish the sentence, and Barrow did not finish it for him. He waited, and Jock felt clumsy. His hands clasped and unclasped: they lost their way.

‘Where the hell’s that bloody steward got to?’ he asked, and Charlie Scott, for something to do, went to find him.

Jock tried to settle in his seat and he undid the buttons of his tunic and trews.

‘Charlie’s a good lad … Aye. They’re all good men, except for some of the babies, and they’ll be good men in their time; some of them, anyway.’

Again Barrow kept silent.

‘Ah, well; you found your way here all right?’

‘I have actually been here before.’

Jock raised his eyebrows; he was heavily polite.

‘Aye? When was that?’

‘I came as a subaltern.’

‘From Sandhurst?’ The question was asked with an air of innocent curiosity.

‘From Oxford, as a matter of fact.’

Charlie had now rejoined them and the steward brought the tray of drinks.

‘From Oxford? Fancy that … Aye. And where were you before that?’

‘I was at school.’

Jock nodded. They were sitting on the leather settee by the dining-room door, and the dancing seemed far away.

‘Harrow, was it?’

‘No.’

‘Oh … I see, I see.’ Charlie Scott did not approve of Jock’s questions but every time he tried to interrupt Jock just raised his voice. Otherwise his voice was pitched at an unnatural low.

‘A-huh … You came in that way; with an Oxford degree.’

The Colonel smiled. He was leaning right back in the seat, with his head tipped back.

‘For what it was worth.’

Jock eyed him for a moment and he ran his tongue along his lower lip. Then he gave a little flick of his head: ‘Well I came in the other way. By way of Sauchiehall Street, Barlinnie gaol, and the band. I was a boy piper.’

‘It sounds a much better training,’ the Colonel answered pleasantly, and Jock breathed heavily. Charlie took his first opportunity.

‘You’ll have another drink, Colonel?’

‘Forgive me. I’m rather tired. I think I’ll turn in after this one.’

‘Are you no going to have a dance?’ The flat eyes rested on him.

‘If you’ll forgive me,’ the Colonel said again. ‘I’ve had a long day.’

‘You drove up?’ Charlie asked.

‘Hell of a journey.’

Charlie was sympathetic. ‘Family and all?’

The Colonel looked down at his brandy. ‘I have no family. I’m by myself.’

Charlie smiled. He felt required to say something. ‘Then we won’t have to cope with the Colonel’s wife.’

But the Colonel did not smile. He paused and sipped his drink. He replied suddenly, ‘I suppose there’s that to it.’

Then, the dance over, Macmillan came to pay his re-spects. Macmillan very quickly pitched the conversation on to a higher social level: the shooting and the shooting set. He mentioned some names; some names of titled people; but he did not, of course, mention the title. The Colonel was very pleasant. He did not seem to remember any of these people very clearly. He did not have any names to give in exchange.

Jock’s head was cocked on one side. He had had enough whisky to make him persistent. ‘It’ll be some time since you were with the Battalion, I’m thinking.’

‘Yes, I feel quite a new boy. It’s some time since I’ve been with any battalion. I’ve been sitting behind a desk for a year.’

Charlie screwed up his face with horror. ‘Ghastly …’

Macmillan said, ‘Too boring.’ Then he went on: ‘One of the boys said you were at Sandhurst.’

The Colonel looked him in the eye.

‘That would be Simpson,’ he said, and Jock was surprised.

‘Aye. You’re right, now. He’s over there. And what was it you said you did before Sandhurst?’

‘I don’t think I did say.’ The Colonel was still very patient.

‘You didn’t?’

Charlie Scott and Sandy Macmillan glanced at each other. The Colonel ran the tip of his finger round the rim of his glass.

‘Like you, Sinclair, I was in gaol.’

‘A P.O.W.?’ Jock gave a little snigger. ‘That’s not quite the same thing.’

‘I think I would have preferred Barlinnie gaol.’