The Maclarens (The Regiment Family Saga Book 1)

by CL Skelton

  The formalities over, the colonel would leave the cell and Jimmy Grigor would be alone with the chaplain. The Maclarens did not boast a chaplain of their own. Mr Campbell, grey haired and a little bent from years of devoted service to his parish, was the minister at Beauly within which parish the Maclarens’s barracks fell.

  Mr Campbell had seen many people die and he knew that he had in nearly every case been able to ease the passage of the soul out of this life. But this was the first time that he had been in the company of a man so obviously full of life and so obviously to be dead within the next half hour. It was no easy task. He had visited Grigor on several occasions since sentence had been passed and he had mildly accepted the oaths and blasphemies which had been flung at him. It saddened him that he could find no way of reaching this man. He hated the whole business, or he would have done had he been capable of hate. The brutality of it all was so foreign to his nature and now they were alone together. He looked down at his own thin bony hands which clutched at his Bible, searching for words and wishing that this useless time would pass. And then he condemned himself for wishing a man’s life away. But it was only for a moment or two and then they would come out, the prisoner, the minister and two guards, and then Donald Bruce would take Jimmy Grigor out before the assembled battalion and kill him. He would not kill him with his own hands, but he would say the word upon which the twelve men in his party would send Jimmy’s soul speeding to Eternity.

  Earlier Donald had superintended the loading of the rifles, ten with ball and two with blank according to the regulations, so that no man in the firing party could ever know for certain that it was he who had fired the fatal bullet. The rifles had been drawn at random from the armoury and now all was ready for the grim ritual of killing Jimmy Grigor.

  Donald was fighting back the feeling of nausea that was welling within him. He kept telling himself that it was wrong to feel sympathy for Jimmy Grigor and that his punishment was well earned. The crime for which he was now about to suffer was one of brutal and deliberate murder. Lance-Sergeant Murdoch, young and recently promoted, had caught Grigor and three others gambling in the barrack room and as was his duty had immediately placed them under open arrest. Grigor, a one-time corporal who had lost his stripes for losing his temper, had flown into a violent rage, seized a bayonet, and before anyone could move to stop him, had stabbed the unfortunate Murdoch half a dozen times. Murdoch had died the next day in the regimental sick bay. Sergeant Murdoch had been a good man. He had only been with the regiment for five and a half years, and in those days of slow promotion had risen dramatically once his training period was over. He had had all the markings of a good soldier, a man who might even have emulated his commanding officer’s feat and risen from the ranks. He had been respected by officers and men alike. Lance-Sergeant Murdoch had had that rare ability of being able to command men without causing rancour or resentment. Had he been permitted to live he would have commanded. But it was not to be, for at the age of only twenty-four he had been savagely cut down by a drunken oaf.

  Frankie Gibson, sometime ghillie, sometime poacher, and now Colour Sergeant of C Company, a position once held by the commanding officer himself, walked slowly round the ranks assembled at the bottom of the hollow square and facing the stark, solitary post. He was a small man, dark, and with a lined, weather-beaten face. A man of great humour, whom old Colonel Sir Henry Maclaren had accepted into the regiment with the words: ‘Your wages will be more than covered by the salmon I save.’ But there was nothing to laugh at today.

  ‘Frankie.’ It was Corporal Munroe standing at the rear of C Company who hissed his name.

  ‘What is it, Johnny?’

  ‘When are we going to get this bloody business over wi’?’

  ‘Bide yoursel’,’ replied Frankie. ‘Jimmy Grigor’s in nae hurry.’ And then turning on a young private in the rear rank, ‘Pull yoursel’ taegether, sodger.’

  Frankie had recognized the signs. The man was swaying and clutching on to his rifle for support. It was young Peter Leinie, C Company’s newest recruit, a man who looked considerably less than the eighteen years he claimed.

  ‘Ye’ll see a damned sight worse than this when we get to Egypt.’ And he spat upon the ground. He hated this business as much as any man in the regiment.

  ‘Squad! Squad, attention! Present arms!’ called Lieutenant Bruce, drawing his broadsword and holding it at the salute. It was that same broadsword that he had so proudly received from the hands of the Prince of Wales at the passing-out parade at Sandhurst. A beautiful thing it was too with the blade finely chased and his name engraved upon it and the little splash of red velvet peering through the intricate workings of the basket hilt. He stood there, tight lipped, as his father Colonel Bruce emerged from the guardroom.

  Willie Bruce returned the salute. Donald was looking at a point somewhere over Willie’s head and Willie fixed his gaze on the top button of his son’s doublet. It was not a time for looking a man in the eye. His left hand tightened on the crumpled piece of paper which he had just read to the condemned man.

  ‘Carry on, Mr Bruce,’ he snapped, and turned away in the direction of the battalion.

  Willie’s leathery face, the legacy of many campaigns and long service under the hot suns of the Empire, was expressionless as he strode away, concealing the emotion which he felt within himself. He hated the fact that it had fallen to his son to do this filthy job. ‘What a bloody awful way to blood a man,’ he had said the previous day when he had lunched with Andrew Maclaren over at Culbrech House, ancestral home of the founders of the regiment. Andrew Maclaren, who had commanded the regiment before him until a burst of fire from a Gatling gun, their own, in India had shot away the lower part of his right leg, was sympathetic towards his old friend. They had been boys together, served together all of their adult lives, loved the same woman, and they were half-brothers.

  ‘Bring the whole family over to dinner tomorrow,’ Andrew had said. ‘I’ll try and lay something on to take Donald’s mind off it.’

  Willie carried on between the barrack blocks to where the men were waiting. It was Frankie Gibson who spotted him.

  ‘Ser’nt-Major,’ he called. ‘C.O.’s coming.’

  Regimental-Sergeant-Major Macmillan took up his position at the rear of C Company and called the parade to attention.

  At the guardroom Lieutenant Bruce gave the order:

  ‘Reverse arms, left turn.’

  They made the turn almost with gratitude, for the command meant that they would not have to face their victim. There were two drummers and a piper about three paces ahead of them and they too turned with them. They were all looking intently ahead. All brutally conscious in that silence so intense that every creak, every breath they took, every drip of water which slid from the guardroom roof into a little puddle below registered on their minds. Their minds were numbed, insulated against the act that they were about to perform. They tried to think only of what they could see, and what they could see was the back of the neck of the man in front of them. Some of them tried to count the hairs. Private Wilkie, standing behind Billy Anderson, intently studied a burgeoning boil on the back of his thick, red, pock-marked neck.

  In all of them there was a terrible desire to get the damned business over with and yet every one of them realized that each minute they prolonged their duty was another lifetime to Jimmy Grigor.

  It was only a moment in actual time after the command to turn had been given that the drummers, their instruments muffled in black cloth, raised their sticks, while the piper inflated his bag and the first plaintive notes escaped from the drones.

  A moment later the minister emerged, followed by Grigor, flanked by two guards holding him under the arms. He was wearing fatigue dress, the buttons stripped from his tunic, and his pinched and pointed face was grey.

  ‘Tak’ your bloody hands off me,’ he yelled at his guards. ‘Dae ye think I canna walk?’

  No one took any notice of him.

  �
��By the right slow march,’ commanded Donald, and the piper struck up a lament and the drums beat a solemn tattoo as they started towards the battalion.

  Among the execution detail there was one man alone who hoped that he had not drawn a blank. Billy Anderson was Jimmy Grigor’s marra, his friend and drinking partner, a man as hot tempered and violent as Grigor himself; a man who, had he believed in God, would have realized that ‘there but for the grace of God …’

  Anderson had already made up his mind to disobey the order to aim at the victim’s heart. He was a good shot and he was determined to shoot poor Jimmy right between the eyes. It would be quicker that way. It was the last favour he would be able to do for him.

  Though it could not have been more than a couple of minutes, it seemed an eternity to Donald Bruce before the regiment came into sight. He wanted to run, get the damned business over with, but like everything else in the bloody army, it had to be according to regulations. So the procession crept in slow time towards the battalion. First the piper, followed by the drums draped in black. Then the firing party, twelve men and Donald Bruce. Then the coffin and last the prisoner with his guards and the minister who was murmuring all the while in a low monotone.

  Grigor, as the battalion hove in sight, seemed determined to put on a show. ‘Hald ya gob, ye psalmy bastard,’ he shouted at the minister, and then to all in general and to no one in particular: ‘Can ye no hurry? It’s bloody cald and youse’ll all be late for breakfast. I’ve had mine.’ He laughed, and there was just a touch of hysteria in his laughter. ‘Will somebody tak’ this bloody Bible puncher awa’? I’ll see ye in hell, minister.’ He paused and looked at the assembled men, men that he had lived with for ten years and more. He spoke again, but now his voice was calm as he looked at them all. ‘’Tis a bonny sight ye are for a mannie’s last look. Hurrah for the fighting hundred and forty-eighth!’

  That was when the first man fainted. Peter Leinie slumped forward over his rifle.

  ‘Leave him,’ growled Sergeant Gibson as the man on each side of him moved to pick him up. Frankie was sympathetic towards the youth; better to leave him where he was until it was all over.

  Donald marched his men to a line which had been marked twelve paces from the execution post, and there he halted them. The drums and pipes stopped and the instrumentalists marched off in quick time to the rear of the battalion. In the silence which followed, the coffin was taken to a wooden marker a few paces beyond the post.

  Then came Grigor. Quickly the two guards strapped his hands and ankles to the post with a coarse hempen rope and then stood aside while the minister said a few last words to him. Private Anderson was watching Grigor intently, trying to catch his eye, but Grigor looked neither at him nor at the minister, and his lips never moved. Then the minister, his head bowed and shaking sadly in recognition of a task undone, moved away. The two guards placed a white bandage over Grigor’s eyes and stepped aside.

  Colonel Willie Bruce, standing to the right of the firing squad, looked at his watch. It was exactly nine o’clock. ‘Carry on, Mr Bruce,’ he said quietly.

  Donald ran his tongue over his dry lips. The wind had dropped but the air was still heavy and damp and the only sound he could hear was the heavy breathing of his men. Five words now stood between Jimmy Grigor and Eternity, and Donald Bruce had to say them.

  ‘Mr Bruce,’ the colonel spoke again, and there was a note of censure in his voice.

  ‘Squad!’ Four words left. ‘Present!’

  The rifles came to the men’s shoulders. Three.

  ‘Load.’

  There was a ragged clicking as the men cocked the hammers of their Snider-Enfields. Two words left.

  A longer pause this time, then … ‘Aim.’

  A single word now and it would all be over. A second man in the ranks fell, but no one else moved. Their face muscles were tense as they stared compulsively, but unwillingly, at the drama before them. Twice Donald opened his mouth to utter the fatal word. Twice no sound came from his lips. It was too long. Men tried not to look, screwed up their faces, tried to close their eyes or look down at their boots. The pause went on and on until …

  ‘Damn you! FIRE!’

  It was Jimmy Grigor who gave the order. There was a flash, a line of curling smoke, and a single ragged craaack which killed Jimmy Grigor and brought Donald Bruce back to reality. He looked towards the dead man. There was a mass of blood on his chest, and one neat round hole between his eyes.

  It was in that moment that the wind blew. A fierce gust cutting in across the Beauly Firth taking the haar with it and revealing the red disc of the rising sun to flood the parade with light, picking out the yellow brasswork and the silvery burnished bayonets of the men. They were standing there transfixed by the horror of the ritual killing and waiting for the next command which would free them from their ordeal.

  Two men helped Peter Leinie to his feet.

  ‘What happened?’ he whispered.

  ‘It’s over,’ said Frankie Gibson. He eyed the lad with some concern. He was young, probably too young and sensitive, though that apart he had the makings of a good soldier.

  ‘Firing party, slope arms. Right turn. Quick march.’ Donald called out the orders in rapid succession. He marched them back to the parade ground where the cold grey light was gleaming off the pink of the tall barrack blocks.

  ‘Firing party, halt! To the left, dismiss.’ He did not even pause to return the men’s salute as they fell out, but ran directly to the toilets in the officers’ mess where he was violently sick.

  Slowly he returned to his room in the mess. There he sat down at his plain wooden desk and took pen and paper. Then he stopped.

  More than anything he wanted to forget the horror that he had just witnessed. He had not observed the actual moment when Jimmy Grigor’s body slumped at the post, the life torn from it. His eyes had been shut, his facial muscles tensed as he tried to screw up the courage to utter the fateful word. He sat there with the pen clutched in his hand pressed hard upon the surface of the desk. He could not think of anything else, strain though he might. If this was soldiering he knew that he wanted no part of it. He had hated the cold brutality, as cold and bitter as that November morning, more than he had ever hated anything in his life. It was more than he could bear. Desperately he tried to banish the brutal memory from his mind. But it was no good. Over and over again he heard the crackle of the rifles and almost felt the bullets tearing into his own body as they had ripped the life out of Jimmy Grigor.

  He sat staring for what must have been several minutes at his blurred and unreal surroundings.

  Finally, with an effort, he dipped his pen into the inkwell and started to write. When he did his mind was made up. He wrote rapidly and firmly in his neat precise hand. The letter was addressed to his commanding officer, requesting permission to surrender his commission. He read it through and placed it in an envelope; at that moment Donald had no stomach for the army. He wanted to be out.

  As he was sealing the envelope, there was a tap at his door. He looked towards the door, irritated at the interruption. The knock was repeated.

  ‘Come in.’

  Captain Farquhar entered. Farquhar, probably the wealthiest man in the battalion, who loved horses, thoroughbreds, of course, and had been given command of the battalion mules as a consequence, was also commander of C Company and the Gatling gun which went with that honour.

  Farquhar in his own way was as much an anomaly in an infantry regiment of the 1880s as was his commanding officer Willie Bruce. Tall, wealthy, and extremely handsome, he was the type of officer that you would have expected to find in one of the crack cavalry regiments. He had a capacity, however, for action which was well hidden under his indolent facade. He was one of those people who could take part in a violent skirmish with the same casual ease with which he would take his after-dinner brandy and cigar in the mess. He had been several years with the regiment. In a way he was responsible for Willie Bruce getting command, for he h
ad fired the Gatling gun which had cut down Andrew Maclaren and caused the loss of his leg. It had been an unfortunate accident and he knew that he himself was in no way blameworthy. He was sorry of course, but guilt had never entered his mind. He did not brood and he did not dwell on the incident, it was a pure mischance and, as far as Alex Farquhar was concerned, that was an end to the matter. Not that he lacked feelings. When he walked into that room, he knew full well the torment that Donald Bruce was experiencing. It would not have happened to him but he could understand it happening to someone else.

  He stood just inside the door, his neatly drawn, delicate features moulded in an expression of sympathy for the suffering of his brother officer.

  ‘Donald,’ he said, ‘the old man wants to see you now.’

  ‘I can guess why,’ replied Donald, chewing at his bottom lip. ‘It wasn’t a very good show, was it?’

  ‘My dear chap,’ Farquhar was sympathetic, ‘I can only say thank God it wasn’t me.’ Then as Donald made no move, ‘I shouldn’t keep the old boy waiting if I were you. He didn’t seem very happy.’

  ‘Thanks, Alex,’ replied Donald, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll go now.’

  ‘Look, Donald,’ said Farquhar, ‘I know what you must be feeling. I’ve been through it too, I shot one of my own men once. You’ve just got to learn to live with it.’

  ‘That was in India, an accident, in action; this is different.’

  ‘I suppose so. You’d better go and see the C.O. Like me to walk over with you?’

  ‘No, no. I’m all right, honestly.’

  Farquhar left him and Donald picked up his note, put on his feather bonnet, and went out through the pillared portico of the officers’ quarters. The day was brightening and the winter sun was beginning, fitfully, to break through, gleaming off the little puddles, and here and there sparkling on the wet walls of the barrack blocks. There was a chill in the air and there was no one about, and for this Donald was grateful. The men would have been given a stand-down until after the midday meal. He could visualize them sitting around in their bare, strictly functional barrack rooms. Each of them exactly like its neighbour. The walls painted brown to a height of exactly four feet and six inches, topped by a line of black one inch wide and then yellow up to the white ceiling. The two rows of iron cots, twelve a side, with their straw palliasses and blankets neatly folded. Above each bed a green painted tin locker with the owner’s kit neatly stacked according to regulations. A spotless rifle would be standing by each bed and just in front of it a scrubbed wooden bedside locker. The centre of the room would be dominated by a cylindrical iron stove. Though the day was cold, the stove would be unlit, for the rules demanded that fires should not be ignited before four o’clock in the afternoon. Beside the stove a burnished coal bucket, gleaming in the gloom, filled twice a week by the barrack orderly from the regimental coal dump.