by CL Skelton
At least there would not be the smell of stale food so common to army barracks. The Maclaren Highlanders were modern; by current standards, innovators. They had built a proper mess hall for the men where all meals were taken, something unheard of in most regiments, where the men ate sitting on their beds in the same room in which they slept.
The men themselves would be sitting around on the ends of their beds in tight little groups, and if they said anything, it would be to the effect that at least there would be no kit inspection that morning. Of what they had witnessed, they would say not a word.
They would talk about it eventually of course. In a week or two it would become a coarse soldier’s joke and Donald Bruce would be the butt. Donald’s lips tightened as he looked round the familiar square, gripping his letter. He hurried to the front of Headquarters Block and went in through the main entrance, returning the salute of the sentry as he passed.
He walked on down the long corridor ‒ it was painted in exactly the same brown and black and yellow as the barrack rooms ‒ his boots echoing in its bare emptiness. Offices flanked him as he passed: the regimental sergeant-major, the Orderly Room where they did the paper work, the adjutant, and the second-in-command. But always facing him, almost threatening in its heavy dark polished oak, was the door to his father’s office, bearing the legend picked out in gold: Commanding Officer the Maclaren Highlanders, and beneath this an embossed plaque of the regimental crest, a snarling Highland wildcat’s head and their motto: Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum. He tapped on the door and went in.
Colonel Bruce glanced up from behind the desk which was a legacy of the man who had founded the 148th Regiment of Foot, eighty years ago on the twenty-second of January. Sir Godfrey Maclaren, great-grandfather of the current holder of the title, Sir Andrew Maclaren, gazed disapprovingly down from his gilt frame on the wall flanked by similar portraits of his successors including Sir Henry Maclaren, father of both Andrew and Willie ‒ Andrew from the marriage bed and Willie from an idyllic moment in the heather. The wall was getting a little crowded and Willie was determined, if he could persuade the mess committee to accept, to present them with the portraits. Also on the wall, framed, was Willie’s personal indulgence, the badge of every rank which he had held throughout his military career, from the single stripe of a lance-corporal, through regimental sergeant-major, to the crown and single pip of lieutenant-colonel. There were also a few, a very few, personal trophies and mementos. There was a spear (or was it an assegai? Donald was never sure), a leather shield from Africa, a boomerang from Australia, a carved ivory elephant from India, and a daguerreotype of Donald’s mother, Maud Bruce.
Donald approached the man at the desk, saluted, and stood to attention. For some moments Willie Bruce regarded his son from under his bushy, ginger eyebrows which seemed to grow more out than across. There was a sympathy and a gentleness in his father’s expression which was the last thing Donald had expected to find.
‘All right, Donald,’ said Willie. ‘Tak’ your hat off and sit ye doon.’ Willie still spoke with the distinct accent which he had acquired during his childhood which had been spent with his mother and stepfather in the little whitewashed cottage which nestled in the south face of the hill behind Culbrech House.
‘Sir,’ said Donald formally without moving, ‘before you say any more, I want to apologize for what happened this morning. I am sorry, sir, I know I behaved in an unsoldierly manner, but I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t bring myself to say that word. And that is the reason why I have brought you this.’
Donald held the letter out and towards his father, and when Willie made no move to take it from him, he placed it on the desk in front of him.
Willie had not taken his eyes off his son for a moment.
‘I told ye to sit doon.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ replied Donald, obeying. He took off his feather bonnet and placed it on the floor beside the plain straight-backed wooden chair across from his father and sat there waiting as Willie slowly picked up the envelope.
‘I think,’ Willie said, very slowly, ‘I think I ken what is in here.’ He tapped the envelope against the tips of the fingers of his left hand. ‘I think you should take it back and tear it up.’
‘No, sir.’ Donald looked down, not wanting to meet his father’s gaze. ‘No, sir, my mind is made up. I’ll never be a soldier, sir.’
‘Wait a bittie,’ said Willie. ‘Before you say any more, there are two things I want you to know. First, you’re a Bruce. You’re my son. And secondly ‒ I had intended it as a surprise, but in the circumstances, I shall have to tell you now ‒ young Gordon will be joining the regiment next week.’
Donald looked up sharply and met his father’s gaze. There was no vestige of expression there. The leathery weatherbeaten skin, creased with long service and increasing age, was immobile. The eyes were neither hard nor gentle, neither cruel nor compassionate; they just looked, and they seemed to look right into his mind.
Willie Bruce waited as he looked into the young man opposite him, waited to see what sort of effect his pronouncement would have. He saw the uncertainty in his son’s eyes and he thought he saw the torment there too at the mention of Gordon’s name. Donald’s mouth was half open as if he was wanting to reply and could not find the words. The announcement had certainly come as a surprise to him, though he should have known. Young Gordon, who had gone to Sandhurst during Donald’s last term there, had aped his elder brother in fervent adulation of everything that he did. Not without cause, for Donald was one of those people who did everything well. Everything until today. Today he had failed, completely.
Naturally Gordon would know nothing of this, but he would find out. Donald was Gordon’s god and the knowledge of what this would do to their relationship weighed heavily upon Donald, for he had a very great affection for his younger brother.
‘I see, sir,’ replied Donald after a long pause.
‘What do you see, Donald?’
‘Well, sir … I’m not sure.’
‘Do you not think that it might be a terrible thing for a young man to join his regiment on the day that his brother ran away?’ He stressed the words ‘ran away’.
‘But I’m not running away, sir.’
‘Are you quite sure, Donald?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I tell you that you are wrong. You are running away, my son,’ said Willie. ‘The job that you were given to do today was probably the worst job that you will ever be given in the whole of your career, unless you get command and have to order good men to what you ken well will be their deaths. This morning, there was not a man in the battalion who would have willingly changed places with you.’
‘But they would have done it, sir.’
‘I have not yet finished, Donald. There was a time, it happened only once, but I mind fine there was a time when I too would have left the regiment. I did not, through no virtue of my own, but I bless the day that I did not.’
‘You, sir?’ Donald was amazed.
‘Aye, laddie. I’ll tell you aboot it, though the telling of it still hurts. It happened thousands of miles from here in China at a place called Taku. We had just fought an action. I was in C Company. We lost a third of our men. It was a hard day. There was a wee drummer boy, Wee Alex we used to call him. I had recruited him myself. Alex came through the action untouched; we had taken the fort and he was standing on a heap of rubble cheering and shouting when he was killed by a falling rock. I remember picking up that wee body and holding him in ma arms and cursing the army which had done that to him. I tell you, Donald, if I had been an officer, I would have been out the very next day. But I was only a sergeant at the time and it is no so easy if you are in the ranks.’
‘But, sir, that was in the heat of an engagement. This morning was just blind violence.’ He paused. ‘I couldn’t take it, sir.’
‘Did Grigor deserve what he got?’
‘Yes, sir, I don’t dispute that.’
‘Donald, listen caref
ully to what I have to say. It is important to any soldier. I am not a violent man and I know fine that you are not, either. Do you think that the army wants violent men? They do not! The man who died this morning was a violent man, that was why he died, and it was why Sergeant Murdoch died; and Sergeant Murdoch was a good N.C.O., he was not a violent man. You know, Donald, violence never made a good soldier, but a man like you could, and that is why I want you to stay in the regiment.’ He picked up the letter and looked at his son.
‘What shall we do with this, Donald? Until I open it, it does not exist, but once I do, I am bound to act upon its contents … Well?’
‘Sir, I think you had better tear it up.’ He watched as his father ripped the letter deliberately and slowly into fragments and dropped it into the wastepaper basket. ‘I am not fully convinced, sir, but it may be a mistake. You will understand when I tell you that I cannot promise that I shall not resubmit it.’
‘Thank you, Donald, I understand.’ His tone changed:
‘And now, Mr Bruce.’
‘Sir,’ replied Donald, getting to his feet and standing at attention, his feather bonnet under his left arm.
‘This morning you performed your duties in a most unsoldierly manner. You will report to the adjutant and request that he give you three extra orderly officers.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You may go now’ ‒ and as Donald turned to leave him ‒ ‘Tell the adjutant, not tonight. We’re dining with Sir Andrew.’
Continue reading Sweethearts and Wives by C. L. Skelton.
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