Читать книгу Tunes of Glory - James Kennaway - Страница 9

THREE

But it was after Barrow had left them that the drinking really began. All the tunics were loose again. Jock sat on the leather guard in front of the log fire and the smoke from his cigarette crawled up his cheek, over his flat blue eyes. The junior subaltern caught his attention again.

‘Mackinnon? D’you know the words of the Lord’s Prayer?’

‘Yes, Colonel.’

‘You do?’ Jock’s eyes were very bloodshot now. It showed when he rolled them. ‘Then you’re not so bloody ignorant as I thought you were.’ He stared at the boy, who looked very pale and nervous. It was no secret that he had already retired once that evening to be sick.

‘Poor wee laddie. Can you smoke yet?’

‘I think so.’

‘Poor laddie … Och.’ Jock was restless. He moved now to an armchair and he dropped into it. ‘Och, to hell with all this,’ he said impatiently. ‘Och, to hell with all this.’ Major Charlie Scott was lying full length on the settee beside Jock’s chair and Jock now leaned over towards him.

‘Charlie boy, are you dead yet?’

‘Cold. As cold as Flora Macdonald.’

‘I can tell you, chum, there’s some is colder than her.’

Charlie made no reply further than to let his heavy eyelids drop again and Jock turned to the group still hanging around the ante-room. His voice was a sergeant’s again.

‘Get away with you, you bairns and cheeldron; away to your holes and your chariots. You’ve drunk more than you or I can afford and you’re the worst lot of bastards I’ve ever known. And Jimmy Cairns is the worst of the lot of you.’

‘I’m too tired,’ Cairns said. ‘I’m too tired even to insult you.’

‘Just try and I’ll have you drummed out of the Battalion.’ Jock’s energy was unlimited.

‘I’m whacked.’

‘Good night, Jimmy lad.’

‘Aye, Jock.’

The Corporal brought a full bottle and the others went to bed, leaving Charlie Scott on the couch, stretched out like a walrus on his back, and Jock sitting in his chair with his knees apart and his hands clasping the arms. They sat there, quiet for a long time. It was Charlie who spoke at last.

‘You know, Jock; I once had a woman under water.’

Jock hardly seemed to be listening. ‘Aye, man? Was it salt or fresh?’

Charlie sat up. He looked rather dazed.

‘Flesh,’ he said. ‘All flesh.’ But Jock did not smile.

‘Charlie, have I been such a bad colonel; have I, man?’

Charlie took a long time to reply. He seemed to have difficulty in finding the right words.

‘Never known a better,’ he said with a sharp shake of his head.

‘Och, man. Stop your fibbing. I asked a civil question.’

‘Honest to God, old boy. In the war …’

Jock shook his head and he said, ‘“Old boy, old boy, old boy.”’

‘You asked me and I tell you. For God’s sake, chum …’

‘D’you really think that, Charlie?’

Charlie seemed a little irritated by his questions. He touched his moustache. ‘Sure, sure.’ He gave an apostrophied nod and a little belch. Then he lay down again and there was another pause. Jock drew a circle on the leather arm of the chair with his forefinger and he traced it again and again. Then he said in a whisper:

‘It’s no fair, Charlie. It’s no right after four years and another six months on top o’ that. It isn’t … Och, but he’s here now and what a spry wee gent he is. I fancy the wee man’s got tabs in place of tits.’

‘Beyond me, Jock. Give us the bottle will you? There’s a good chum.’

‘Aye, and you look as though you need a drink. That bloody growth must take it out of you. You look pale. But you’re a terror with the women, Charlie; there’s no denying it. You’re a great big bloody white-faced stoat with bushy eyebrows.’

Charlie did not hear him. He was having difficulty with his drink.

‘I say, old man. D’you think we could dispense with the glasses. Is that on?’

‘Aye. Never mind the glasses. If anyone has a right to get fu’ the night it’s big Jock Sinclair and his friend Charlie Scott. Did you hear him say that about the whisky? He doesn’t drink it, you know.’

‘Poor chap.’

‘Aye. That’s so; the poor wee laddie.’ Jock ran that one round his tongue with a mouthful of whisky. Then he chuckled. ‘The poor wee laddie … the new boy, he called himself; all in his mufti …’

Jock sat musing and sniggering for a moment or two, then his resolution seemed to strengthen and he picked himself to his feet.

‘He’d no bloody right blowing in here like that without warning me or Jimmy first. That wasn’t right at all. It was bad form. That’s what that was.’ Then he clenched his fists. ‘Whatever way you look at it,’ he said, ‘they’ve no right to put him in above me. And it makes me angry, Charlie. It makes me bloody angry.’ Charlie did not reply and Jock continued to walk up and down. Then at last he returned to his chair and he tapped the arm of it with his finger. His eyes were narrowed, and perfectly still. He did not even remember to smoke.

After a while, Charlie sat up and handed him the bottle. Then he rubbed his eyes with his long freckled fingers.

‘We’re not great talkers, Jock.’ Jock was tipping back the bottle, and more out of politeness than anything else Charlie went on, ‘Not great talkers at all.’

‘We’ll have the Corporal-Piper,’ Jock said.

‘That’s it, my boy.’

‘That’s just what we’ll do. And we’ll listen to the music.’

He rose clumsily to his feet and he shouted from the door leading into the dining-room. In a moment Corporal Fraser was with them, and Jock had to begin all over again.

‘Have you been asleep, Corporal Fraser?’

‘No, sir. I have not been asleep. I have been waiting, sir,’ the Corporal replied slowly.

‘And cursing and binding and swearing … Och, man, I’ve been a piper mysel’.’

‘Aye, sir.’

Jock looked up. ‘And I was a bloody sight better than you.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Jock paused; then he cocked his eyebrow and put his head on one side. ‘Have you got a bint down town, Corporal? Have we kept you away from her, eh?’

The Corporal stood to attention. His cheeks had coloured a little.

‘You’ve got a lassie, have you, eh? Well, Corporal, have you got a tongue in your head?’

‘Aye, sir.’

‘You’ve got a lassie?’

‘Aye, sir.’

The Corporal looked more than uneasy; but Jock persisted.

‘What d’you think of that, Charlie? The Corporal’s got a lassie.’

‘Good for the Corporal.’

‘No, no, Major Scott, that’s no the thing to say at all.’ Jock looked at him very disapprovingly.

‘No?’

‘No. You should say “Good for the lassie!” Aye, and good for the lassie. It’s not every lassie that catches a Corporal-Piper. No it’s not. Is she bonny, Corporal?’

‘I think so, sir.’

‘“I think so,” he says; d’you hear that? And, tell me Corporal,’ Jock’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper, ‘Are your intentions strictly honourable?’

‘Aye indeed, sir,’ the Corporal said stoutly.

Now Jock raised his voice: ‘Then you’re a bloody foo’, Corporal; that’s what you are. You’re far too young for that. A soldier shouldn’t marry young. You leave honourable intentions to fathers like me. It’s a father’s worry, anyway. I always say if I catch my lassie at it, I’ll welt the laddie, but I’ll probably never catch her, anyway. So there we are. He’s too young for honourable intentions, is he no, Charlie?’

Charlie nodded vigorously. ‘I’m too young,’ he said.

‘You’re a bloody rogue, Major Scott; that’s what you are. No mistake.’

‘Has the Corporal had a drink, Colonel?’

But the Corporal interrupted: ‘No, thank you, sir. Not if I’m going to play, sir.’

‘We didn’t bring you here to look at your dial, however bonny the lassie may think it is. I can tell you that, Corporal … We’ll have a tune now. We’ll have Morag’s Lament again.’ Jock looked solemnly at the Corporal. ‘Morag was the name of my lassie, once upon a time, and Morag’s the name of my wee girl.’

‘Sir.’

‘And then we’ll have The Big Spree. After that we’ll think and you’ll have something to wet your lips. Come away with you then. Come away with you.’

To the unpractised ear a pibroch has no form and no melody, and to the accustomed ear it has little more. But it is a mood and a pibroch was something Jock felt almost physically; damp, penetrating and sad like a mist. It enveloped him and pulled at his heart. He was far too much the professional to be moved to tears, but the Corporal played well and it took a moment before Jock fully recovered himself. The pibroch very often comes to a sudden end; it is a finish that makes it a fragment, and the more sad for that. Jock nodded his head slowly, three times.

‘Corporal Fraser, you’ll make a piper yet.’

The Corporal gave a sunny smile.

‘Aye, you’re better at the pibroch than I’d known. Your grace-notes are slurred but otherwise it was good. Now give me the pipes, lad; we’ll have a turn ourself.’

In his trews, with his fat bottom waggling as he marched up and down the room, Jock looked comic. To begin with, he looked comic. But soon he was in the full rhythm of the tune, and he was absurd no longer. A good piper is like a rider who is one with his horse, and Jock was soon part of the music. He played some marches, with a fault or two; then a slow march; then a faultless pibroch. That is something that a man does only a few times in his life; and the Corporal was dumb with admiration.

As he slowly laid the pipes down, Jock himself was aglow with pride. He was sweating with the exertion, but his eyes too were glistening. He was like a schoolboy who has won his race.

‘That’s how to play the movement, laddie. It’s no just a question of wobbling your fingers on grace-notes.’

The Corporal at last found his voice.

‘I’ve never heard the pibroch better; never better.’

Jock nodded shyly.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever played it better. So there you are. You have to be in the mood for the pibroch; it is a lament. It is a lament.’ He mopped his brow. ‘But it is something else as well. That’s the catch. It’s no just a grieving. There’s something angry about it too.’ Charlie Scott was sure it was all beyond him and in a moment Jock said, ‘Och, well, Corporal, you’ll be wanting away to your lassie. You’ll have to jump the wall.’

‘It’s too late for that now, sir.’

‘D’you hear that, Charlie? The lassie’ll have gone home to bed. Now see what you’ve done.’

‘Wise woman.’

‘Then away you go, Corporal. Away to your own bed.’ The Corporal put on his bonnet and came sharply to attention.

‘Permission to dismiss, sir.’

Jock looked up at him. He liked the formality. Suddenly he approved of the Corporal.

‘D’you want me to help you with that pibroch, Corporal?’

‘Very much, sir.’

Jock nodded. ‘A-huh,’ he said, and he clasped his hands and bent forward in his chair. ‘Tomorrow morning?’

Charlie said, ‘You’ll be in no sort of shape tomorrow morning.’ But Jock ignored him.

‘Half-past twelve?’

‘I’ll be in the gym then, sir.’

‘What are you up to in the gym?’

‘Boxing, sir.’

‘You’re a boxer? Light-heavy, is it?’

‘That’s it, sir.’

‘Then we’ll meet some other time. You’re a man after my heart, Corporal. We’ll make a piper of you yet.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Jock nodded again. He made a little gesture. ‘Dismiss.’

Through the biting cold, the Corporal made his way back to his bunk in the band’s quarters. He was shivering in spite of the whisky inside him, when, half undressed, he slipped between the rough blankets and drew his greatcoat over the bed. He had put newspapers between the blankets earlier in the evening, and now he was glad of them. As he lay there he could see the cloud of his breath in the pale light of the barrack lamp which shone through the narrow window by his head, and he felt a soldier’s loneliness. He thought for a moment of the grace-notes, and the pibroch; then he thought of his girl; just thought of what she looked like. He wished he could keep her more constantly in his mind but she kept slipping away from him, and away again as he slowly fell asleep. But in his dreams her face was transformed, for the Corporal dreamt of his Colonel.

The bottle was three-quarters empty.

‘You’re a miserable man,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s not three-quarters empty. It’s a quarter full.’

‘It’s your turn.’

‘I had some when you were blowing your guts out.’

‘You have no music in you. No music in you at all.’

Jock put the bottle to his lips again, then he held it in his lap. The chairs all round faced one way and another. It was as if a storm had abandoned them there.

‘I was thinking as I played, Charlie. I should have been the Pipe-Major; that’s what I should have been. But that was not the way of it. And I’ve acted Colonel, and I bloody well should have been Colonel, and by this hand boy, I bloody well will be Colonel. I will.’

But Charlie was snoring. For an instant Jock looked as if he were going to kick him, then he seemed to see the joke.

‘Oh, you bastard,’ he said slowly and gently. He pro-nounced the word with a short a. ‘Oh, you bastard! You’re no a good listener, either.’ And alone he finished the bottle.

Like a bath of water, the room grew slowly colder and Jock sat dazed. He could not bring himself to move, though the hand which clasped the empty bottle grew icy cold. At last he bit his lip and, stiffly, rose to his feet. Then gently – and it took great strength – he lifted Charlie in his arms, and a little unsteadily, carried him upstairs. He placed him on his bed, and threw a couple of blankets over him. Charlie was still sound asleep. And Jock smiled on him, as if he were a child.

He brushed his hair in front of the mirror, and once more he buttoned his tunic and his trews. He lit a cigarette, and with great concentration he found his way to the cloakroom where he remembered to collect his bonnet and coat. The air outside made him gasp. The wind had dropped but the sky was starless; there would certainly be more snow before morning. He dug his heels into the ground in the approved fashion, but this did not prevent him slipping on the icy patches. Precariously, he picked his way round the barrack square. As he marched up to the gate he walked more confidently and he swung his arms. Then suddenly he felt an urge to call out the guard and he instructed the sentry to shout the necessary alarm. The guardroom came to life with the sound of swearing and of soldiers clambering off their steel bunks. Rifles were dropped and somebody kicked over a tin mug; knife, fork and spoon were scattered over the concrete floor. But by the time they had formed in their correct rank outside Jock seemed to have lost interest in the proceedings. He could see a fault in the dress of every man there but he did not bother to inspect the guard. He just returned the Corporal’s salute, and without a word went on his way. He left the guard bewildered and the Corporal apprehensive.