but no joke for Charlie this time, ‘You bastard …’
He would have struck the Corporal again, this time with a closed fist, and Morag had already given out a warning cry, when a voice behind him called out sharply:
‘Colonel Sinclair.’
It was Mr McLean, standing absolutely still, just inside the door. Jock turned and saw him, and came to his senses. With a sinking agony he saw what he had done and his jaw dropped, his face blank like a man awakened to the sound of guns. Suddenly all was noise around him. Chairs and tables were pushed about, the proprietor was there, somebody was looking at the Corporal’s eye and Morag was in front of him whiter still, crying, ‘I’m ashamed, I’m ashamed.’
He must have said something, protested, demanded; but it was the Pipe-Major who was in command and Morag went home to his house. When an officer strikes a ranker it is time for someone else to take command. The others paid up, moved out, gathered coats and chattels like citizens alarmed by war, and Jock found himself sitting in a chair with a stern-faced proprietor telling him to pull himself together and away out of here. The proprietor’s face had a lot of lines on it and he looked like a lawyer’s senior clerk; like that, or like a wolf.
‘Away out o’ here: I’m no having carryings on in this house. You must be out o’ your senses. And still with your bonnet on.’
Jock nodded, and nodded, and the proprietor disappeared. He sat motionless for a few minutes, stunned by it all, appalled by what he had done, by what one blow had cost him, alone in a nightmare silence that was like the long high notes of a lament.
ONE
THE DAWN WAS like an afternoon; the day seemed to break with an immense regret. There were no bright streaks dramatic enough for an execution; but it was a prisoner’s day, dull and without birds.
It was just freezing outside and the barracks was at its worst. The high wall closed out the real world like a frame surrounding an etching. A tint of brown in the sandstone was the only colour within the perimeter, apart from the white of the snow, and the grey: the grey of the slates where the snow had thawed a little and shifted in an untidy avalanche; the grey shoulders of the Officers’ Mess at the end of the square; the grey figures scuttling about from block to block, the orderly corporals, the pickets dismissing, the bugler in search of breakfast, and the detention squads sweeping away the first paths through the sticky snow.
And in the middle of it all was another grey form, apparently in no hurry, walking clumsily, his head and shoulders wagging from side to side, like a great bear in a ring. Jock had not been to bed at all, and now he felt cold and sick. His feet were wet, every limb was dead-weight, every joint stiff, and his chin rested on his chest. Only once or twice did he look up. He stared blankly at the buildings and the figures moving about as the day began, he observed the lights going on in the barrack rooms, heard the echoes of the first complaints. He turned all the way round to look at every building, at the chimneys, and at the arc of sky. Two or three times he had hesitated and slightly changed his direction; he left a track of his indecision behind him in the snow. Then he lifted his head and marched towards the stucco villas of the Married Quarters (Warrant Officers and non-commissioned ranks). These were hidden behind the Officers’ Mess in the northernmost part of the area, and every house was dismally identical.
Jock expected Morag to come into the cramped little room. He was sitting like a bundle in a greatcoat, heaped into a modern armchair. Mrs McLean’s parlour was very spick-and-span with its tiled fireplace, piano, antimacassars, calendars, and obstacles galore. If the furniture was displaced by six inches in any direction, there was no thoroughfare from the window to the fire or to the door. Jock stood up awkwardly when he heard the approaching foot-steps, and the Pipe-Major nodded to him.
‘I’d thought she would come down, but she’s very determined.’
‘Did you tell her it was me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Did you tell her the rest? What I said you’d to say?’
‘Aye. Mrs McLean and I have both had a word with her.’
‘And what did she say?’
‘She said she was tired.’ He gave a gesture of sympathy. ‘The lassie’s worn out: that’s all it is.’
Slowly, slowly Jock picked his way through the furniture to the little space in the bow of the window. He was careful that the borders of his coat should not sweep away any ashtray or ornaments and he still had hold of the cloth when he replied cautiously, ‘But I said I apologised.’ His hands came away from his coat. The light shone on the upturned palms. ‘I said I was sorry. Does the lassie think it was easy for me? Does she suppose it doesn’t cost me anything to say that? What more could I say?’
Mr McLean shook his head. He was at a loss, and he was afraid of Jock; afraid that Jock might fail.
Outside it had already begun to thaw. Some snow had slipped off the roof and there were a few drops of water falling from the rone pipe outside the window. There was some moisture on the window itself: just enough to tempt Jock to draw a double cross with his finger and rub it out again with the side of his fist. He left his fist resting on the pane and stared and stared at the greyness outside.
Mr McLean shifted uneasily and ran his fingers up and down the leather strap of his sporran. He smiled.
‘Och, Colonel Sinclair, you know what the young girls are. You know what the daughters are like: she’ll come away. She’s upset. It’s her dignity that’s suffered. It is her pride.’
Jock moved at ‘pride’.
‘A-huh. It’s her pride.’ He seemed too tired to go further than that and he dug his hands in his coat pockets. Then he smiled, moving his hands in the pockets with a sort of shrug.
‘It’s like having your own words flung back in your face. I taught her to be proud, Pipe-Major. I taught her independence. Christ, I don’t know why I bothered sending her to school. I taught her everything she knows.’
‘She’s a fine girl. But she’s like yourself. That is all that is the matter. She will come away. She is still upset: and the lassie is tired.’ His voice fell softly, like truth. But Jock’s was grating:
‘Ach, I should have known she would not come downstairs. She’s ashamed of me. I shouldn’t have come – and that’s a fact.’ He nodded and recovered himself. ‘It’s good of you to look after her.’
Again he stood still, and there was another silence. Then at last Mr McLean frowned and he said, ‘I cannot understand it. I cannot follow.’ He put his hand out in front of him as if he were groping for a solution. ‘A man of your experience; to do such a thing. Such a stupid thing. You can’t have considered.’
Jock stared at him, but did not reply.
‘It was a terrible thing,’ the Pipe-Major said and he sat down on the arm of the chair. Jock pulled a cigarette packet from his pocket. It was squashed, and there was only one cigarette in it. He rolled the cigarette round his fingers, reshaping it, and tapped the tobacco in at the ends. He
