the liquor circled even faster in his glass. There were two sets dancing the eightsome. The first was lively, but their behaviour was excusable at the end of such a party. That could not be said for the second. Jock, Douglas Jackson, Rattray, and a fourth who was a local farmer, were the men in the set, and they were hoping that the Colonel would come to watch. Three or four times Jimmy Cairns, dancing in the other set, had implored them to dance less noisily. But he had done so in vain.
Barrow’s lip twitched and he rubbed his thumb against the tips of his fingers. The whole floor was shaking, and the glass in the front door was rattling as the dancers leapt about the room swinging, swaying and shouting. When they saw the Colonel the noise increased, and a moment later Rattray inadvertently let go of the partner he was swinging vigorously so that she spun like a top across the floor, lost her balance, and fell. She fell at Barrow’s feet.
Corporal Fraser and the other piper stopped playing and the dance came suddenly to an end. The Colonel reached forward to help the girl and she shook her hair from her face. She was too uncertain of the look in Barrow’s eyes to say anything at all and Jock was the first to speak.
‘Are you all right, lassie?’
But it was Barrow who spoke next. His voice was low and clear.
‘Mr Rattray. I believe you owe this young lady an apology.’
‘Oh hell …’ she began. She was a student from St Andrews, this girl, and she knew all the words, but when she looked at the Colonel again her vocabulary failed her, and her voice died away. The Colonel stood very tensely. The gin in his glass was shaking so violently now that it splashed, and when Jock observed that a little of it had spilt he looked at the Colonel’s face, and he smiled a half-triumphant smile.
‘Have a drink, boy, have a drink,’ he said cordially; then he half turned towards the others. ‘Unless you’d like to join us. I’m sure Douglas here’ll stand out.’
Barrow’s voice was a pitch or two higher than usual.
‘Piper: this will be the last reel.’
‘Sir.’
The Colonel stood and watched as the pipers played again. He took a gulp of his drink to empty the shaking glass. The dance began quietly, to Jimmy Cairns’s great relief, and the girls soon adapted themselves to the style of it. They held their heads high and their backs arched: they placed their hands firmly with the palms downwards before them when it came to a swing. Barrow’s shoulders dropped an inch with relief.
But when it was Jock’s turn in the centre he let his bloodshot eyes rest on the Colonel by the door. For the first circle he behaved himself: he set to his partner and to the third lady, and he completed the figure of eight with reserved precision coming near to perfection. Then when they circled again he sprang off the ground, flung his hands high in the air and let out a scream to crack rock. The others followed his lead. The noise rose, the floor started to shake again, and the glass in the door rattled louder than before.
The Colonel’s voice rose above it all; and he was collected no longer.
‘Sinclair! Sinclair! Stop the dancing. D’you hear me, Piper? Stop at once!’
He looked sick. Hearing the commotion people emerged from the cloakrooms and the ante-room to witness a scene such as the Mess had not known in forty years. But Jock had never looked so foursquare. He stood in the middle of the dancers and there was still the suspicion of a smile lurking behind the bland expression of his face. Embarrassed by the silence, one or two people in a mumbling sort of way endeavoured to interrupt, but the Colonel snapped at them to keep silent. One of the girls who had spoken blushed with indignation.
Jock’s voice was low when he spoke.
‘You called me, Colonel?’
‘I did. I’ll see you tomorrow. Tomorrow. I’ll … Pipers, we’ve had enough of this. Quite enough.’ Barrow fidgeted as he spoke, and although Jock was just a few yards in front of him, he was shouting. Then there was quiet. The dancers moved, and the pipers marched smartly out of the frozen world. Corporal Fraser looked upset, almost guilty, as if he had seen those things which a good piper should not see.
Now, for the first time the Colonel looked around him and he looked afraid and bewildered as if he had awoken from a dream and found himself at his own trial. He sighed heavily, and stretched his fingers.
Jock stared at him quite steadily, with victorious calm. He did not quite have the audacity to say, ‘Are you going to rap me over the knuckles, Colonel?’ but he thought of doing so. Instead, he grinned openly at the dancers around him.
Barrow now turned to the guests. ‘The party’s over. It’s late. It’s very late. I’m sorry it should end like this.’
Jimmy came to the rescue. ‘It’s time we all had something to eat …’ he said with a friendly smile, but Douglas Jackson was not smiling. He had not moved, and he stood on the floor with one foot planted before the other, and his hands on his hips, in a Highlander’s pose.
‘We were just beginning to enjoy ourselves, Colonel.’ It might have been a reasonable enough thing to have said, but Jackson had once before spoken out too boldly.
The Colonel checked himself, and everybody waited again. Jock was now grinning openly. Slowly the Colonel turned his head.
‘Who said that?’ And he knew perfectly well.
‘I did.’
‘Adjutant!’
Jimmy was trying to steady everybody. He nodded and moved up to the Colonel.
‘Not now,’ he whispered, but the Colonel braced his head back.
‘Do as you’re told. Take his name. Take that officer’s name.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Jimmy said. Of course he knew the name, so he did not move and two or three people in the room began to giggle. Jackson, for all his impudence, was looking very white himself now and he stared at the Colonel unblinkingly. The onlookers were fascinated by the scene, and apart from the two women who giggled, they were petrified by it. In the hall, they stood quite still. But in the doorway through to the ante-room people were shoving and craning their necks to see better. Just in the same way that speeches are passed back in a crowd too large, a commentary of the scene was passed as far as the billiards room and the dining-room where some of the servants stood, their heads on one side, to hear more clearly.
But it was all over. The Colonel turned quickly away and walked towards the cloakroom, while some of the others went up to talk to Jock and Jackson. Jock laughed and shook his head, but Jackson was still very white. As some of his cronies congratulated him he stuck out his chin a little further.
‘I was in my rights,’ he said, then he swore a little, but he did not relax enough to smile. In a moment when they were still standing about the hall the Colonel reappeared again, with his coat and bonnet on. He stopped by the front door, and putting on his gloves, he lifted his head and said:
‘Good-night, all.’
One or two replied ‘good-night’, but the door had not closed behind him when the laughter began to ring round the room. Jimmy was sweating now: he was suddenly angry, and he tried to shout them down, but Jock was leading the laughter, and they paid no attention to him. They laughed all the louder when Jimmy grabbed his bonnet and ran
