‘When you get to my state nothing’s that shocking. You’re kind of punch drunk. You just get more and more numb till there’s two of you. And there’s one Jock Sinclair knocking about the town with his heart breaking and there’s me looking down at him … Laddie, are you scared of me still?’
‘No, sir.’
‘By reason of the whisky?’
‘Not only that, sir.’
‘Good for you. I’m sorry I’m no a more cheerful companion. You’ll away back to the Mess and say “Christ, the old boy was weeping in his dram the night” – you will, you will.’
MacKinnon protested that he wouldn’t.
‘You can trust me implicitly,’ he said and the expression amused Jock again. He approved of the child.
‘I didn’t get you right, laddie,’ he said suddenly. ‘Not right at all.’
MacKinnon did not know what to say. He looked at his cigarette and he said at last:
‘I’ve learnt to smoke properly.’
Jock looked at him, mystified. Then the recollection was clear.
‘Christ alive, it was you I shouted at for your smoking, was it?’
‘Yes, sir. But you were absolutely right to.’
‘Right? To hell with that, laddie. You bloody well smoke as you like. Here, here,’ he said and he rummaged in a drawer of the dresser behind him. He fumbled until he found a new packet of cigarettes and he pushed them across the table.
‘Here’s a packet for you. It’s no bloody business of big Jock Sinclair’s how you smoke them.’
‘Oh no, sir, I couldn’t take …’
Jock raised his hand. ‘You take them. You take them when they’re offered.’ Then he opened his fingers out and he smiled shyly. ‘I want to give them to you, laddie, I want to.’
‘Thanks most awfully.’
Jock couldn’t get over his expressions.
‘ “Thanks most awfully.” Dammit, dammit,’ he said, ‘It’s a different language altogether.’ Then they went on drinking a little longer, and MacKinnon was thrilled by it all. Jock spoke very quietly, and they had talked on many subjects when MacKinnon at last recalled one of the war stories they always told about Jock.
‘Is that true, sir?’
Jock nodded. ‘It’s true enough.’
‘But it’s fabulous.’
‘Did you no hear?’ he said with a little smile. ‘I’m a fabulous man.’ Then when he’d said that the world seemed to fall away from him again and he looked immensely sad, as he remembered. He could see the admiration in the boy’s eyes, and for the first time in his life he did not enjoy it. He moved away from the table and stood up. He was suddenly ashamed. He brushed some ash off his tunic then he turned and he said:
‘You’ll no say anything about this get-up, will you?’
‘Not if you don’t want me to, sir.’
‘You will.’
‘No, I won’t sir.’
‘Good for you.’
But Jock was restive now: he was tired of their chat.
‘Would your grandad have let his lassie marry a corporal?’
‘No, sir.’
Jock clumped his fist down on the table.
‘Aye, well I’m going to. D’you hear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘That’s what I’m going to do.’
‘I’m sure you’re right, sir.’
‘Och, things’ll be fine. I’ll fix that, and Jimmy Cairns’ll help fix Riddick and the others. I’ll no lie down yet. You’ll see, we’ll fix it. We’ll forget all the little things. We’ll start anew. D’you know what? D’you know what the real trouble is?’
‘What’s that, sir?’
‘The Battalion’s been at home too long. That’s the trouble. When it’s yours, laddie, remember that. There’s always trouble when a battalion’s too long at home. Remember that.’
‘I shouldn’t think I’ll ever be Colonel, sir.’
‘Laddie, d’you want to be?’
‘Very much.’
‘Then you will be. That’s the trick about life. If you want something bad enough, you can get it. That’s the way of it. Barrow, you know, Barrow wanted to be Colonel. He told me. He told me this afternoon. Oh, for Christ’s sake, I should have seen it coming. I should have seen it.’
‘Oh no, sir. I don’t think anybody could have seen it. How could any one know a thing like that?’
Jock sat down again by the stove and he played with the poker as he talked.
‘You can tell,’ he said. ‘If you take the trouble to.’ He sighed. ‘Och, what a carry-on. D’you know what I said to him the day when he was trying to speak to me?’
MacKinnon waited.
‘I said I wanted to go to sleep. And he just left me. Aye. Och, well. C’mon laddie, it’s time you were away back to your chariot.’
But when MacKinnon had gone Jock still walked about the kitchen, smoking cigarettes – ‘for Christ’s sake, like a bloody neurotic.’ He sat down and pushed the bottle away. He felt so much that he couldn’t feel at all. He was happy that he had been saved. Happy that he should let Morag go, because he already felt the reflection of her smile. He was angry with Charlie, sad about Mary, amused by Mac-Kinnon, annoyed by Rattray, bitterly disappointed by Jimmy, and afraid of what he had let Barrow do. He was all of these things, and none of these things, because he was tired. Exhaustion swept over him, leaving him ragged and apprehensive, too tired to think and too excited to sleep, even now. Worst of all, he knew, as he had known every night since that night in the desert, that in the morning they would be waiting for him to cope with the thing, and suddenly he did not want to cope any longer.
He wanted nothing. It was as if he had prepared himself to die, and death for a joke had passed him by, so that he was doomed to go on making the same noises and meeting the same people, like a ghost of himself. Suddenly afraid, he started to say the Lord’s Prayer out loud. But the echo of the very first phrase killed it and he shrugged. He walked over to the shelf and picked out his favourite book. He had put Morag’s note to say that she was out with her friend inside the cover of it, when he had picked it up to read it on the previous evening. But now not even the note, not even the lie, seemed to touch him. The book was not the Bible but a book of nursery rhymes which he had practically learnt by heart when he was teaching them to Morag. On the previous evening when he read the little fairy story he had written for her long before, he had nearly cried, but he read it now as if he were looking at it from another world. Even the self-pity had vanished now. It was about a skylark never dying but soaring straight through the golden gates. His eyes passed over the words again and again, but he did not read them. As with the words, so was the rest of the world, and all its problems. It was like a merciful concussion. The only thing he could think about now was the riddle that had occurred to him and he looked at the back of his hand as he said again and again, ‘The Colonel struck the Corporal, and the Battalion it was that died.’ He tried it over again until at last he said to himself:
‘The Colonel struck the Corporal,
And how come that to pass?
‘Aye,’ he said out loud. ‘And that’ll finish as a rude one.’ The thought of that gave him just a little relief and he clenched his fists together.
A colonel does not need an arm to strike with; he needs teeth to hang on with.
BOOK THREE
The Funeral Orders
ONE
THE ORDER GROUP foregathered in the piping-room, according to instructions. The Regimental Sergeant-Major was there with the Pipe-Major. The Company Commanders were there, and Mr Simpson had unfurled the map over the blackboard. They all stood around, talking nothings, like candidates outside an examination hall. But they stood to attention when Jimmy announced the arrival of the Colonel.
Jock had not looked so smart since the days before the peace. He gave his orders with battle conviction; with complete command; with attack; with effect. They sat in folding cane chairs, silent and attentive as he started accordi
ng to the book:
‘Bonnets off.’
He faced them. He never took his eyes from them. He never referred to a note.
‘INFORMATION:
‘You see behind me a plan of the streets of the city. Most of the places I mention will be familiar to you but for the benefit of those of you who have confined their outings to a ground sheet on the park there, or a motor run to the nearest country house, I will point out the places to which I refer in the following orders.’
No one laughed at his joke, but nobody was supposed to. He was merely collecting their attention.
He took a deep breath.
‘Colonel Barrow was found dead late on the evening of February 20 and on February 23 was adjudged as having committed suicide while the balance of his mind was disturbed. Enquiries were made of his wife, who abides in a London mews …’
There was a little stir, and Macmillan nodded as much as to say he had known. Some pouted and Charlie said out loud, ‘I’d forgotten that one.’
Jock’s eyes flashed.
‘I do not expect to be interrupted when I’m giving orders.’
The effect was like a slap in the face. Charlie winced. They all sat up straight in their seats. There was absolute silence in the room and Jock waited a long time, so that the effect would sink in. Then, as they expected him to continue the orders he said sharply again, ‘Not now; not in the future; not ever; not by anyone.’ And he paused again. Charlie sat like a statue, with his eyes in front of him.
‘Mrs Barrow referred us to her husband’s lawyers, Holden Good and Co. of Bedford Row, London, who stated that the Commanding Officer had no relations other than his wife. At her request it was decided that the funeral arrangements should be made and executed by the officer now commanding the Battalion.
‘The Colonel’s remains are at present in the c.r.s. attached to this barracks. A site for the grave has been found in the cemetery which lies some third of a mile east of the main bridge. Here. It lies on the hill.’
Jock pointed on the map with a pointer that had until then lain untouched on the desk.
‘And here.’
He laid down the pointer again and let his hands drop to his sides. His audience was completely attentive, and although it was one of those rooms where every scrape of a chair carries and every cough is magnified, there was still no sound, but for the echo of the click as the pointer came to rest on the desk. Jock was breathing faster now. His eyes moved round the company sitting in the two rows in front of him. All the other chairs had been folded against the walls and the floor had been scrubbed for the occasion. Even the boxes on top of the lockers at the back of the room had been dusted, and the high narrow windows washed. Jock took off his bonnet which was tight enough to have marked his brow, and he smoothed down his hair with his hands, so that it lay absolutely flat. He looked at them all, and at each one of them: the Company Commanders in the front and the Adjutant and Warrant Officers behind.
‘All companies, full strength, except for various members of H.Q. Company who will remain in barracks together with the guards and pickets of the day – all companies will take their part in the operation. All officers and other ranks on leave for any reason other than compassionate will be recalled today before 1500 hours. Various officers at present attached War Office and at present attached Royal Military College, Sandhurst, who were personally acquainted with Barrow, will also take part. Regardless of rank or seniority for the purposes of this operation these officers will count as part of this Battalion and the contingent will be under my command.
‘The pipes and drums will parade.
‘The Burgh police will be acquainted with the orders which follow.
‘So much for Information.’
They moved in their seats and Macmillan glanced at Jimmy Cairns and made a little face. The Order Group, like a charger, was held hard at the bit and being pushed on by the urgent boot. It had been the same on the Adjutant’s Parade earlier that morning.
‘INTENTION:
‘The Battalion will bury the Colonel.’
Jock blinked and glowered at Macmillan who gave just the shadow of a smile. He was always inclined to mock the army’s more ludicrous regulations. The object of the exercise – to kill the enemy, to capture the castle, or to bury the dead – always struck him as vaguely amusing. Charlie moved his moustache, but he looked quite serious. Jimmy was anxious lest he should miss anything and he had his notebook on his knee. The Pipe-Major nodded at the end of each sentence and the Regimental Sergeant-Major stuck his legs out in front of him, with an air of resistance. Mr Simpson endeavoured to look keen and intelligent and he was so self-conscious that he missed a great deal of what was said.
‘METHOD: The Colonel will be given the full honours of the martial funeral.’
Charlie cocked an eyebrow and in reply Macmillan gave the slightest shrug. Jock said ‘martial funeral’ again, as if in reply to them, then he took another deep breath.
‘For the purpose of these orders we can divide the operation into three distinct parts. Before the ceremony. The burial itself. The return to barracks.
‘Taking two, first. Exact orders concerning the burial will affect only some senior officers and Warrant Officers and the Padre will run through the service with us tonight at 1930 hours. Parade in the reading room in the Mess.’
The officers were glad to have something definite to write down. Some put ‘1930, Reading room,’ others ‘Padre 1930 hrs.’ Jimmy Cairns noted all three relevant facts: the time, the place, and the purpose. But as soon as they had made their notes they looked up again. Jock waited until the last word was written down. He did not hurry. Jimmy was biting his lip. The orders were all new to him. Three or four times he had asked Jock what the arrangements were to be, but Jock had ignored him. He had looked straight through him. For two days he had hardly said a word to anybody. He had been building up to this. He still looked nervous, his voice was a little too loud, his gestures a little sudden, but it was a Jock they hardly remembered. The victory and the years that followed had made them all forget the days when he had been nervous and electric like this. Simpson, who had not known him then, was bewildered by the change.
But as the orders continued, and the full scale of the operation was made plain Jimmy grew frightened, and he could see that the others were uneasy too. It was soon clear that the plan anticipated was the sort of funeral usually reserved for heroes who were also generals. The first picture Jock gave them of the long winding column of men, the music and the mourners, opened their eyes to the scale of the thing. There had not been such a funeral from Campbell Barracks in a hundred years, and there had been a score of colonels since then.
‘Before the ceremony:
‘The R.S.M. will parade the Battalion in line, A Company on the right, the carrying party and the pipes and drums in the rear, and the colour party, under Mr Simpson, ahead of the line. The extra contingent I mentioned will not parade, but will stand ready by the guardroom under the general guidance of the Quartermaster. They will join the marching column separately in the position which I will indicate in due course.’
He gave some details of the personnel forming the colour and carrying parties, and some orders concerning detailed rehearsals to be carried out that afternoon.
‘The carrying party itself will be comprised of the eight senior sergeants acting as bearers and a full platoon of men drawn from all companies to pull the gun carriage.’ There was a gasp at that. The gun carriage was reserved for marshals. But Jock continued without pause. ‘The whole will be under the immediate command of the R.S.M. ’
He moved back, and rolled up the map, displaying the blackboard.
‘On my command the Battalion will move to the right in column of threes, and slow march out of barracks in the following order.’
He pointed to the blackboard, and as he read out what was written there he indicated each item with the pointer.
‘A Company.
Pipes and Drums.
<
br /> Carrier Party and Gun carriage.
Colour party.
Commanding Officer, Adjutant, and extra contingent of mourners.
H.Q. Company.
Transport Company, on foot.
B,
C,
D Companies.’
Jimmy at last caught Charlie’s eye, but Charlie gave nothing away. Macmillan looked round at Simpson, who was behind his right shoulder, and he made a wry face. Simpson made a schoolboy’s gesture with his hands: the sort of gesture boys make when a master is talking about something beyond the class’s comprehension. Feet moved, and the chairs creaked a little, while Jock ran on. His voice never varied in tone. The words came loudly and quickly:
‘As the Battalion moves off there will be ample time for the various detachments to join at the correct juncture while the companies wheel round the three sides of the square. The order of march will be final as we pass the guardroom and the barracks gate.
‘The R.S.M. will consider the march-off in detail with the several Company Sergeant-Majors and party commanders. I suggest there is a rehearsal parade tomorrow at 1000 hours.’
Mr Riddick always liked to raise an objection, but after the rebuff Charlie had received he was careful to be correct in his behaviour.
‘Permission to interrupt, sir.’ He stood up, and Jock eyed him warily. He carried the pointer horizontally in his hands.
‘Granted,’ he said, using his short a.
‘1000 hours is Battalion Orders, sir.’
‘There will be no Battalion Orders tomorrow.’ There had been none since the Colonel’s death. Jock had had no time for detail, and no inclination for it.
‘Begging your pardon, sir, there are several persons under arrest, sir.’
Jock turned back to him, savagely.
‘Don’t answer me back, Mr Riddick!’ He clasped his fingers tightly round the pointer then he moved to the tall desk and he placed the pointer on it softly.
‘Not now,’ he said, looking down at the desk. ‘Not ever.’
Mr Riddick was red and indignant.
Household Ghosts Page 17