British Voices

by William Sheehan

  My father met me, and in his hand was a telegram already waiting for me. It was short and to the point: ‘Report whereabouts of File SX 40 or return forthwith’. I knew the file of course, but for some minutes I could not, for the life of me, remember what I had done with it.Then it all came back to me, and I wired back: ‘Quartermaster’s Stores, search fleabag’. I had pushed the secret file down to the bottom of my bedding role to hide it, in the mess, while I lunched, as I slept in the small mess building. Then, in my excitement at getting way on leave, I had forgotten all about it and told my soldier servant to roll up my bedding and to put it in the Stores.

  I had a splendid fishing holiday, mainly in Loch Cliff, for sea trout, fishing almost under the shadow of the Muckle Flugga Lighthouse, the most northerly building in Great Britain. When not fishing we picniced with Mother, and spent hours watching all the sea birds, and in particular the Great Skuas, the boldest birds in Britain, so far as man is concerned. From Unst we moved to Bridge of Walls on the main island, here the actual sea trout fishing was better than further north, so we went back there in September 1922, and as my fishing skill improved, I got several fine sea trout of three or so pounds.

  Soon after I got back from my leave, Donald Cameron left us for six months leave to his home at Forden in Tasmania, and so I became acting Adjutant. I think, as it was, our Brigadier, Higginson, knew his job well enough, but he was certainly well served, for his Brigade Major was Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Montgomery, ‘Monty’ now to all Britain, and his Staff Captain was the brother of ‘Bimbo’ Dempsey later to command the whole British Army in Normandy and Germany in the Second World War.

  In September, 1921 they decided to hold a Brigade Sports meeting in Cork, and at that time there were about eight infantry regiments in the 17th Cork Brigade. Travelling to and from sports meetings and and from in old fashioned motor vehicles, covered with rabbit netting to keep out any Sinn Féin grenades thrown at us, and all armed, to the teeth, with Lewis guns, rifles and grenades.

  From the regiment’s point of view this athletic meeting was a great success, as we won the championship cup given, and it was also satisfactory that, out of all the regiments competing, the only other Scots regiment, our friends of the KOSB, were the runners up.

  I acted as captain of our team, and won one or two races myself, for which I got the silver cigarette box I still have. I don’t think, though, I can have been a very good captain in some ways, because it seems I appointed myself to tell our best long distance runner, one Sergeant Herniman, the number of each lap he was running, as he passed me in a three mile track race. I used stones in my pocket to register the laps, but he has more than once reminded me, in recent years, that I managed to mix up my stones, and he kept his final sprint for a lap, after the winning post was reached, and thereby lost the race.

  The great bulk of our Battalion went to Cork for this meeting and after we had won we marched through the streets of Cork playing the pipe tune ‘The Black Bear’ traditionally reserved for occasions like this, with all the Jocks ‘hooching’ away hard when the drums beat by themselves and the pipers stop for a few notes at regular intervals.

  Soon after this meeting in, I think, October 1921, Donald Cameron, now back from Australia, was taken away from us to be a Brigade Major at Aldershot, and I succeeded him as the proper gazetted Adjutant. I was very pleased at this, as Adjutant was by far the best job any junior officer could hold, and my own grandfather had been Adjutant of the 79th Cameron Highlanders some 60 odd years before me. Donald was eight years older than I was, he was already a Brevet Major, who had passed through the Staff College. He was one of the few serving officers who had joined before 1914 as a regular, and was a man we all liked and respected, and some I knew feared, and not without just cause.

  I was to be the Adjutant for over three and half years, all told, and I much enjoyed my time in this appointment. There is no doubt that, in my day, he cut a far more important figure in an Infantry Battalion than is the case today. There was apparently far less office work than nowadays, and in any case I nearly always contrived to have an unofficial Assistant Adjutant, in the office, who took most of the dull routine work off my shoulders.

  I thus had the time, and accepted the opportunity now allowed me, to interest myself and meddle in any side of the Battalion’s activities that I cared to. One of my main interests was regimental history, and I took all the piper, drummer, tradesmen and band boys in this subject, myself, every week, as well as lecturing all the NCOs. We had, in those days, between twenty and 30 boys in the unit. They had all enlisted for long service and most of them eventually did their 21 years in the Army, ending often as our Warrant Officers. I must admit my teaching of Army history was biased in the extreme, always extolling the Highland Brigade in general, and the Camerons in particular! The object of course was to arouse still further the intense regimental esprit of these lads.

  The type of question given them was therefore generally as follows: ‘What do you know about the assault on Burgos in 1812?’ Answer expected: … ‘The first man to enter the hornwork of the fortress was Sergeant John Mackenzie of the 79th’ ... Question: ‘Which Division after Waterloo, did Wellington particularly commend in his despatch?’ Answer expected: … ‘The 5th Division in which were serving all the Highland regiments’ … and so on. I also took care, on every battle anniversary in which the regiment had distinguished itself, to insert in the day’s orders a short account of the part we played.

  Another particular interest of mine were the young NCOs. It so happened that, during much of my tenure, several of the Company Commanders were Brevet Lieutenant Colonels, who had even commanded Battalions in the Great War. As a result, they found it difficult to enthuse over the training and administration of a weak infantry company in barracks at Aldershot. Provided, therefore, they were outwardly deferred to, and consulted, they were prepared to leave the Adjutant with a very free hand. It is no exaggeration to say that few if any private soldiers ever asked for promotion to Lance Corporal, without first being picked out and then told to apply by the Adjutant.

  Again every NCO going temporarily away, say on a course of instruction, was seen alone by the Adjutant and exhorted, when away from us, to be a good Cameron, and thus a pattern of smartness and efficiency. Every NCO going on leave was again interviewed by me and instructed exactly how to set about enlisting more Camerons while at home, and thus claim and get the extra leave and regimental reward of money he earned thereby. After every Battalion drill parade, the RSM brought up directly in front of me, as Adjutant, any soldiers who had been deemed as idle on parade. I, there and then, awarded them, I may say quite illegally, extra drill parades, and did this without any reference to their company commanders.

  Similarly all minor punishments of subaltern officers lay in the Adjutant’s hands. Each offender was always asked … ‘Will you take the punishment awarded … (which usually entailed extra spells of doing orderly officer or stoppage of leave) … or do you want to be reported to the Commanding Officer?’ In practise the last procedure was seldom necessary. If the wise CO ever noticed that Lieutenant ‘X’ seemed to remain a lot in barracks, and was more often than others on some regimental duty, he just held his peace.

  In addition, I found being Adjutant in Southern Ireland was an unusual appointment for a soldier, and often very hard work. As the whole civil administration of the country had broken down and ceased to work, a sort of martial law was in force. As a result we in the orderly room, for instance, had to take on the local registration of births, deaths and marriages, and even hold all the inquests, of which, at such a time, there were certainly plenty.

  I well remember one occasion when I, and my Assistant Adjutant, Alasdair Macgillivray, later on retirement to become a well known Baillie of Inverness, held an inquest in the orderly room, on the body of a new born infant, who had been found suffocated with a rag in its throat, close to our camp. He and I held many other rather macabre inquests as well as this one, w
hen we had the poor baby’s body on the orderly room table.

  Another inquest I held was in a village nearby called Carrigtwowell, on the corpse of a man, who was laid out in a cottage surrounded by lighted candles, while a lot of Irish women were holding a wake, and wailing around the body. I came to the conclusion that the man had been murdered by some opposing Irish faction and I returned a verdict of death by unknown hand. Many years later it was revealed to me that the man had in fact been shot, or even murdered, by a certain Cameron, who had been out on his own secretly at night. I think the madman concerned was the same individual who was soon after removed from the regiment and the Army.

  This sort of thing was the seamy side of Ireland as far as the British were concerned. I am sure it happened because the British Government would not, or dare not, properly support the Army in the impossible task they had given it to do, tied as we were always by restrictions on our legal actions.

  Finally, as matters became really bad, the Government brought into Southern Ireland irregular volunteer forces of semi-soldiers and semi-police called ‘Black and Tans’, who were largely recruited all over Britain from ex-temporary officers and men who had served in the Great War, of a type who would not, or could not, settle down in civil life, and some of whom were undoubtedly no more or less than real ‘thugs’. They were totally undisciplined, by our regimental standards, and members of this curious force undoubtedly committed many atrocities, and, in retaliation, dreadful atrocities were, in turn, committed on them by the Sinn Féin bands roaming the countryside.

  They seemed to make a habit of breaking out of their barracks at night, illicitly, and killing men they thought were suspect rebels, and in this way the habit spread surreptitiously even to a few Army officers and men. So indisciplined were some of these auxiliary policemen, who had been recruited to reinforce the remnants of the Royal Irish Constabulary, most of whom had by this time been killed, that whenever some of them accompanied me, on any search, patrol or foray, in which I was in command, my first action was always to detail two or three of my Jocks simply to watch over them, and see that they did not commit any atrocities such as unlawfully looting or burning houses, when they were acting under my command, or even shooting prisoners, on the grounds that they were attempting to escape.

  Nevertheless, despite all that I have recounted, we, young officers, managed to have quite a lot of fun in Ireland. We had, for instance, a number of jolly guest nights; with very few exceptions we were never the least drunk, but we were full of fun, and enjoyed after dinner wild Reel dancing and riotous games.

  At one dinner we had as chief guest, Admiral Sir Reginald Tupper, then Naval C in C at Queenstown, of what was then called the Western Approaches. He was a splendid old sportsman, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy his time with us. After dinner we got him into the middle of a rather wild eightsome reel, and once in the centre we never let him out; each one of us in turn ‘hooched’ the old chap, and did our reel steps to him, which he nobly tried to follow. At the end, he was naturally very exhausted, and some of us felt rather penitent, as he was really too old for such wild ploys. Rumour had it when he got back to Admiralty House he was put to bed for a day or two by Lady Tupper to recuperate!

  Again, at that period, we had various small detachments in the various forts in Cork Harbour, such as Fort Carlisle and Campden. Visiting them gave us opportunities for good mackerel fishing. At Youghal the sea fishing seemed to be very good, and once when stationed there, we went out fishing with the local doctor, and anchored to fish. I was very sick indeed in the Atlantic swell and did not at all enjoy it.

  After some months Admiral Tupper left and was succeeded by Admiral Sir Ernest Gaunt; with Admiral Tupper went his daughter, a most popular young lady with the youngsters of both services. Admiral Gaunt arranged a big fancy dress at Admiralty House to which all Camerons were invited. Here all could dance in safety, as the naval residence was surrounded by armed marine sentries, and a Marine band played.

  Now we soldiers were, of course, on semi-active service, and had little kit with us. After dining in the Mess one night, therefore, we all dressed ourselves up as best we could, using sporran tassels as imitation beards, and putting on collars back to front to represent clerical dress, etc. We then set off to Admiralty House in good spirits, well pleased with our efforts. This attitude did not last long. We were received by the Admiral and his lady, both of whom were in resplendent professional costumes; the Admiral togged up as King Henry VIII or some such costume. Then, we found all around us Naval officers who had taken the fancy dress ball very seriously, and moving about as they did, in their ships, were all dressed in real fancy dresses hired in London, from places like Clarksons. We had made a very poor showing and felt, now, rather embarrassed.

  That night, the Battalion orderly officer was a Second Lieutenant Alasdair Maclean of Pennycross in Mull. Shortly before I left for the ball, he knocked on my door, already dressed up in some weird fancy dress, and asked for my permission, as Adjutant, to get a non-dancing officer to answer for him in barracks. I, naturally, as Adjutant ordered him straight back to duty, and told him to report to me again in five minutes properly dressed in uniform. The next day I said to him, ‘Alasdair, why on earth did you not come to me and ask for leave to exchange duty properly dressed in uniform; if you had I would certainly have let you exchange, but coming, as you did, was just too much for any self-respecting Adjutant’. His answer was, ‘I just thought you would not have the heart to stop me, when you saw me all beautifully dressed up’. Perhaps with that rather unusual outlook for a soldier, it is not surprising that my friend Alasdair has ended up as a wonderful producer of Army Tattoos, for which work all Scotland knows about him.

  At one time in Ireland I was living in a partitioned hut, divided by match-boarding into a number of small sleeping rooms. Mine happened to be at the end next to where several of the officers’ batmen were wont to collect when cleaning our uniforms. One evening I lay on my bed, and heard several of the Jocks talking away, and with the thin partitioning, short of blocking my ears, I could hear every word said. They had got hold of an old Army List which they were thumbing through at our regimental page. As each name was read out, some Jock or other would remark … ‘Och, I know yon man’ and then proceed to make a short pithy remark on the officer in question.

  Generally, in their remarks it seemed to me, while kindly disposed to our foibles, they were very much ‘on target’, and I thought how little the soldiers missed regarding the strengths and weaknesses of their officer’s characters. Finally they got to one of my brother officer’s names, a nice man, but certainly ineffectual. The reader of his name dismissed him with but one short contemptuous remark ... ’Ach, Haskett, he’s no an officer at all, at all, the poor mannie, chust a choke’.

  As was natural, as the Sinn Féin movement gradually gathered strength, fewer and fewer of the local Irish families attempted to entertain Army officers from a very natural fear of reprisals; but a definite local exception was the family of the well known local bank manager, belonging to an old Irish Roman Catholic family. He had several daughters, and very good looking and charming girls they were, and so partly due to his courageous attitude, at one period three of his daughters became engaged to no less than three of our Protestant Cameron officers. Later two of these engagements ended in marriage, to my great friend Colin Cameron, and to Charlie Macleod (Dalvey), son of the old Dalvey, who commanded a company in the 3rd Battalion when I joined at Invergorden, some seven years earlier.

  As regards the soldiers, there is no doubt but at this time, a good deal of hard drinking went on, especially in the Sergeants’ Mess, and it was no wonder, for when off duty there was so little for them to do, cooped up as we were in a small camp surrounded by sentries and barbed wire. We did our best with games in camp and whist drives and the like, but we were allowed no wives or families there, and few of the local Irish girls dared to be seen with a British soldier.

  I had an old orderly roo
m clerk sergeant whom I knew very well was a hard drinker, though one never saw him drunk. Suddenly the poor man went sick, and it was finally diagnosed as lead poisoning. The cause was that in the Sergeants’ Mess there was a lead pipe from the beer barrel, in which the first pint drawn off, spent the night. He was invariably the first man to drink a pint in the morning, hence his illness.

  When New Year’s Day came, I, as Adjutant, ordered double guards and sentries all round our perimeter wire, as knowing what would happen inside camp it seemed an obvious precaution. All the various companies had the usual tremendous New Years’ dinners, and as Adjutant I had to go round with the Commanding Officer and drink a toast of neat whisky, to the officers and men of each company.

  As a result of this, and a heavy midday meal, I was just settling down to a New Year’s afternoon nap, when the Brigade Headquarters phoned me up, (it was probably Monty), as Brigade Major, himself ) and gave orders that a large party was to be sent out at once in our lorries, to hunt for a suspected ambush, or some such ploy, ten or twenty miles away.

  Now normally we always had a platoon on duty for an instant job like this, and all one did was to order the Guard Bugler to sound three ‘G’s’ on his bugle and the duty party turned out at the double, while the duty lorries warmed their engines. Now the RSM and I had already picked some 50 well known teetotallers that day as all the camp guards, and I felt that to order out the standby duty troops at 3pm on New Year’s day might be tricky for the officers concerned. I decided, therefore, to sound the camp fire alarm, whereby every single officer and man in camp had to fall in at the double on parade. Several hundred men turned out, a good few in no shape for any lorried patrol, and I selected a composite force there and then from all the remaining teetotallers.