The Complete McAuslan (17 page)

‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t. He died in South Africa, of fever, I think.’

‘Tut, tut,’ said the pipe-sergeant. ‘Isn’t that just damnable? No proper medical provisions then, eh, Cuddy?’

I was studying the picture—‘Peshawar, 1897’, it was labelled – and thinking how complete a stranger one’s closest relative can be, when a voice at my elbow said formally:

‘Good evening, sir,’ and I turned to find the impressive figure of the R.S.M. beside me. He nodded in his patriarchal style – even without his bonnet and pace-stick he was still a tremendous presence – and even deigned to examine great-uncle’s likeness.

‘If he had lived I would have known him,’ he said. ‘I knew many of the others, during my boy service. You have a glass there, Mr MacNeill? Capital. Your good health.’

The mess was beginning to fill up now, and as we chatted under the pictures one or two others joined us—old Blind Sixty, my company quarter-master, and young Sergeant McGaw, who had been organiser of a Clydeside Communist Party in civilian life. ‘How’s Joe Stalin these days?’ demanded the pipe-sergeant, and McGaw’s sallow face twitched into a grin and he winked at me as he said, ‘No’ ready tae enrol you, onyway, ye capitalist lackey.’

They gagged with each other, and presently I finished my drink and straightened my sporran and said I should be getting along . . .

‘Have you shown Mr MacNeill his forebear’s other portrait?’ demanded the R.S.M., and the pipey, at a loss for once, said he didn’t know there was one. At which the R.S.M. moved majestically over to the other wall, and tapped a fading print with a finger like a banana. ‘Same date, you see,’ he said, “97. This is the battalion band. Now, then . . . there, Pipe-Sergeant MacNeill.’ And there, sure enough, was the ancestor, with his pipes under his arm, covered in hair and dignity.

The pipe-sergeant squeaked with delight. ‘Isn’t that the glory! He wass a pipe-sergeant,
the
pipe-sergeant, like myself! And hasn’t he the presence for it? You can see he is just bursting with the good music! My, Mr MacNeill, what pride for you, to have a great-uncle that wass a pipe-sergeant. You have no music yourself, though? Ach, well. You’ll have a suggestion more of the Antiquary before ye go? Ye will. And yourself, Major? Cuddy? McGaw?’

While they were stoking them up, the R.S.M. drew my attention to the band picture again, to another figure in the ranks behind my great-uncle. It was of a slim, dark young piper with a black moustache but no beard. Then he traced down to the names underneath and stopped at one. ‘That’s him,’ he said. ‘Just a few months, I would say, before his name went round the world.’ And I read, ‘Piper Findlater, G.’

‘Is that
the
Findlater?’ I asked.

‘The very same,’ said the R.S.M.

I knew the name from childhood, of course, and I suppose there was a time when, as the R.S.M. said, it went round the world. There was the little jingle that went to our regimental march, which the children used to sing at play:

Piper Findlater, Piper Findlater,
Piped ‘The Cock o’ the North’,
He piped it so loud
That he gathered a crowd
And he won the Victoria Cross.

There are, as Sapper pointed out, ‘good V.C.s’ and ordinary V.C.s – so far as winning the V.C. can ever be called ordinary. Among the ‘good V.C.s’ were people like little Jack Cornwell, who stayed with his gun at Jutland, and Lance-Corporal Michael O’Leary, who took on crowds of Germans singlehanded. But I imagine if it were possible to take a poll of the most famous V.C.s over the past century Piper George Findlater would be challenging for the top spot. I don’t say that because he was from a Highland regiment, but simply because what he did on an Afghan hillside one afternoon caught the public imagination, as it deserved to, more than such things commonly do.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘My great-uncle was in distinguished company.’

‘Who’s that?’ said the pipey, returning with the glasses. ‘Oh, Findlater, is it? A fair piper, they tell me – quite apart from being heroical, you understand. I mind him fine – not during his service, of course, but in retirement.’

‘I kent him weel,’ said Old Sixty. ‘He was a guid piper, for a’ I could tell.’

‘A modest man,’ said the R.S.M.

‘He had a’ the guts he needed, at that,’ said McGaw.

‘I remember the picture of him, in a book at home,’ I said. ‘You know, at Dargai, when he won the V.C. And then it came out in a series that was given away with a comic-paper.’

‘Aye,’ said the pipe-sergeant, on a triumphant note, and everyone looked at him. ‘Everybody kens the story, right enough. But ye don’t ken it all, no indeed, let me tell you. There wass more of importance to Findlater’s winning the cross than just the superfeecial facts. Oh, aye.’

‘He’s at it again,’ said Old Sixty. ‘If you were as good at your trade as ye are at bletherin’, ye’d have been King’s Piper lang syne.’

‘I’d be most interested to hear any unrelated facts about Piper Findlater, Pipe-sergeant,’ said the R.S.M., fixing him with his eye. ‘I thought I was fully conversant wi’ the story.’

‘Oh, yes, yes,’ said the pipey. ‘But there is a matter closely concerned with regimental tradition which I had from Findlater himself, and it’s not generally known. Oh, aye. I could tell ye.’ And he wagged his head wisely.

‘C’mon then,’ said McGaw. ‘Let’s hear your lies.’

‘It’s no lie, let me tell you, you poor ignorant Russian lapdog,’ said the pipey. ‘Just you stick to your balalaikeys, and leave music to them that understands it.’ He perched himself on the arm of a chair, glass in hand, and held forth.

‘You know how the Ghurkas wass pushed back by the Afghans from the Dargai Heights? And how our regiment wass sent in and came under torrents of fire from the wogs, who were snug as foxes in their positions on the crest? Well, and then the pipers wass out in front – as usual – and Findlater was shot through first one ankle and then through the other, and fell among the rocks in front of the Afghan positions. And he pulled himself up, and crawled to his pipes, and him pourin’ bleed, and got himself up on a rock wi’ the shots pingin’ away round him, and played the regimental march so that the boys took heart and carried the crest.’

‘Right enough,’ said Old Sixty. ‘How they didn’t shoot him full of holes. God alone knows. He was only twenty yards from the Afghan sangars, and in full view. But he never minded; he said after that he was wild at the thought of his regiment being stopped by a bunch o’ niggers.’

Sergeant McGaw stirred uncomfortably. ‘I don’t like that. He shouldn’t have called them niggers.’

‘Neither he should, and you’re right for once,’ said the pipey. He sipped neatly at his glass. ‘They wass not niggers; they wass wogs. Any roads, they carried him oot, and Queen Victoria pinned the V.C. on him and said: “You’re a canny loon, Geordie”, and he said, “You’re a canny queen, wifie”, and —’

The R.S.M. snorted. ‘He did nothing of the sort, Pipe-sergeant.’

‘Well, not in so many words, maybe,’ conceded the pipey. ‘But here’s what none of you knows. The papers wass full of it, how he had played the regimental march under witherin’ fire, and “Cock o’ the North” was being sounded up the length and breadth of the land, in music halls, and by brass bands, and by street fiddlers, and everybody. The kids wass singing it. And Findlater, when his legs wass mended, suddenly took thought, and said to his pal, the corporal piper, “Ye know, I’m no’ certain, but I doubt it wass the regimental march I played at all. I think it was ‘Haughs o’ Cromdale’.”

‘The corporal piper considered this, and cast his mind back to the battle, and said Findlater was right. It wasnae “Cock o’ the North” at all, but he didnae think it was “Haughs o’ Cromdale” either; by his recollection it was “The Black Bear”.

‘They argued awa’, and got naewhere. So they called on the Company Sergeant-Major, who confessed he couldnae tell one from t’ither, but thought it might have been “Bonnie Dundee”.

‘Finally, it got to the Colonel’s ears, and he wass dismayed. Here wass the fame of Piper Findlater ringin’ through the land, and everyone talking about how he had played “Cock o’ the North” in the face of the enemy, and the man himself wasnae sure what he had played at all. There wass consternation throughout the battalion. “A fine thing this,” says the Colonel. “If this gets out we’ll be the laughin’-stock o’ the Army. Determine at once what tune he played, and let’s have no more damned nonsense.”

‘But they couldn’t do it. Every man who had been within earshot on the Dargai slope, as soon as you asked him, had a different notion of what the tune was, but how could they be sure, with the bullets flying and them grappling with their bayonets against the Khyber knives? You have to have a very appreciative ear for music to pay much heed to it at a time like that. One thing they decided: there was general agreement that whatever he played, it wasn’t “Lovat’s Lament”.’

‘Lovat’s Lament’ is a dirge; played with feeling it can make Handel’s Largo sound like the Beatles.

The pipe-sergeant beamed at us. ‘Well, there it was. No one was certain at all. So the Colonel did the only thing there was to do. He sent for the Regimental Sergeant-Major. “Major,” says he, “what did Piper Findlater play on the Dargai Heights?”

‘The R.S.M. never blinked. “‘Cock o’ the North’, sir,” says he. “Ye’re sure?” says the Colonel. “Positive,” says the R.S.M. “Thank God for that,” says the Colonel. And it was only later that it occurred to him that the R.S.M. had not been within half a mile of Findlater during the battle, and couldn’t know at all. But “Cock o’ the North” the R.S.M. had said, and “Cock o’ the North” it has been ever since, and always will be.’

Sergeant McGaw made impatient noises. ‘What the hell did it matter, anyway? They took the heights, and he won his V.C. It would have been just the same if he had been playin’ “Roll out the Barrel”.’

The pipe-sergeant swelled up at once. ‘You know nothing, McGaw. You have neither soul nor experience. Isn’t it important that regimental history should be right, and that people shouldn’t have their confidence disturbed? Suppose it was to transpire at this point that Nelson at Trafalgar had said nothing about England expecting, but had remarked instead that he was about due for leave, and once the battle was over it was him for a crafty forty-eight-hour pass?’

‘Not the same thing at a’,’ said McGaw.

‘You’re descending to the trivial,’ said the R.S.M.

‘The country would degenerate at once!’ cried the pipe-sergeant, and at this point I finally made my excuses, thanked them for their hospitality, and left them in the throes of philosophic debate.

Back in our own mess, I mentioned to the Colonel that I had been entertained by the sergeants, and had heard of the Findlater controversy. He smiled and said:

‘Oh, yes, that one. It comes up now and then, not so often now, because of course the survivors are thinning out.’ He sighed. ‘He was a great old fellow, you know, Findlater. I used to see him going about. Indeed, touching on the pipe-sergeant’s story, I even asked him once what he did play at Dargai.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Wasn’t quite sure. Of course, he was an old man then. He had an idea it might have been “The Barren Rocks of Aden”. Or possibly “The 79th’s Farewell to Gibraltar”. I had my own theory at one time, I forget why, that it must have been “The Burning Sands of Egypt”.’

I digested this. ‘So it’s never been settled, then?’

‘Settled? Of course it has. He played “Cock o’ the North”. Everyone knows that.’

‘Yes, sir, but how do they know?’

The Colonel looked at me as at a rather dim-witted child. ‘The R.S.M. said so.’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Foolish of me. I was forgetting.’

Guard at the Castle

It is one of the little ironies of Army life that mounting guard is usually more of an ordeal than actually standing guard. And frequently the amount of anguish involved in mounting is in inverse proportion to the importance of the object to be guarded. For example, as a young soldier I have been turned out in the middle of the night in jungle country, unwashed, half-dressed, with a bully-beef sandwich in one hand and a rifle in the other, to provide an impromptu bodyguard for the great Slim himself; this was accomplished at ten seconds’ notice, without ceremonial. On the other hand, I have spent hours perfecting my brass and blanco to stand sentry on a bank in Rangoon which had no roof, no windows, and had been gutted by the Japanese anyway.

This merely proves that Satan finds mischief for idle hands, and there are few hands idler than those of military authority outside the firing line.

Edinburgh Castle, from the guards’ point of view, is in a class by itself. It is tremendously important, in a traditional rather than a strategic sense; if someone broke into it and pinched Mons Meg the actual well-being of the country would not be affected, but the blow to national prestige would be tremendous. The papers would be full of it. Consequently, providing a guard for the Castle involves – or used to – more frantic preparation, ceremonial, organisation, and general nervous tension than the filming of
Ben Hur.
It is rather like a combination of putting on a Paris fashion display and planning a commando raid, and the fact that its object is to provide a skeleton guard which couldn’t stop a marauding party of intelligent Brownies is, in the military view, beside the point.

It was a few months after our battalion had come home from the Middle East to be stationed near Edinburgh. It was one of those summers just after the war when there was gaiety and eagerness in the air, and the dark years were just behind and everyone was enjoying themselves. Princes Street was all sunshine and uniforms and pretty dresses, the American Fleet was in the Forth, royalty was coming to town, God was in his heaven, and I was once again the battalion orderly officer. It was a restful job, wandering round barracks drinking cups of tea in the cookhouse, chivvying the Jocks out of the canteen at closing time, casting a critical eye at the guards and picquets, and generally taking life easy – until some genius in the High Command woke up one morning with the brilliant idea that during the royal visit, with distinguished American naval dignitaries also being on hand, it would be nice to have a Highland regiment on guard at the Castle. That meant us, and us meant me.