I fancy the wee man’s got tabs in place of tits.’
‘Beyond me, Jock. Give us the bottle will you? There’s a good chum.’
‘Aye, and you look as though you need a drink. That bloody growth must take it out of you. You look pale. But you’re a terror with the women, Charlie; there’s no denying it. You’re a great big bloody white-faced stoat with bushy eyebrows.’
Charlie did not hear him. He was having difficulty with his drink.
‘I say, old man. D’you think we could dispense with the glasses. Is that on?’
‘Aye. Never mind the glasses. If anyone has a right to get fu’ the night it’s big Jock Sinclair and his friend Charlie Scott. Did you hear him say that about the whisky? He doesn’t drink it, you know.’
‘Poor chap.’
‘Aye. That’s so; the poor wee laddie.’ Jock ran that one round his tongue with a mouthful of whisky. Then he chuckled. ‘The poor wee laddie … the new boy, he called himself; all in his mufti …’
Jock sat musing and sniggering for a moment or two, then his resolution seemed to strengthen and he picked himself to his feet.
‘He’d no bloody right blowing in here like that without warning me or Jimmy first. That wasn’t right at all. It was bad form. That’s what that was.’ Then he clenched his fists. ‘Whatever way you look at it,’ he said, ‘they’ve no right to put him in above me. And it makes me angry, Charlie. It makes me bloody angry.’ Charlie did not reply and Jock continued to walk up and down. Then at last he returned to his chair and he tapped the arm of it with his finger. His eyes were narrowed, and perfectly still. He did not even remember to smoke.
After a while, Charlie sat up and handed him the bottle. Then he rubbed his eyes with his long freckled fingers.
‘We’re not great talkers, Jock.’ Jock was tipping back the bottle, and more out of politeness than anything else Charlie went on, ‘Not great talkers at all.’
‘We’ll have the Corporal-Piper,’ Jock said.
‘That’s it, my boy.’
‘That’s just what we’ll do. And we’ll listen to the music.’
He rose clumsily to his feet and he shouted from the door leading into the dining-room. In a moment Corporal Fraser was with them, and Jock had to begin all over again.
‘Have you been asleep, Corporal Fraser?’
‘No, sir. I have not been asleep. I have been waiting, sir,’ the Corporal replied slowly.
‘And cursing and binding and swearing … Och, man, I’ve been a piper mysel’.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Jock looked up. ‘And I was a bloody sight better than you.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Jock paused; then he cocked his eyebrow and put his head on one side. ‘Have you got a bint down town, Corporal? Have we kept you away from her, eh?’
The Corporal stood to attention. His cheeks had coloured a little.
‘You’ve got a lassie, have you, eh? Well, Corporal, have you got a tongue in your head?’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘You’ve got a lassie?’
‘Aye, sir.’
The Corporal looked more than uneasy; but Jock persisted.
‘What d’you think of that, Charlie? The Corporal’s got a lassie.’
‘Good for the Corporal.’
‘No, no, Major Scott, that’s no the thing to say at all.’ Jock looked at him very disapprovingly.
‘No?’
‘No. You should say “Good for the lassie!” Aye, and good for the lassie. It’s not every lassie that catches a Corporal-Piper. No it’s not. Is she bonny, Corporal?’
‘I think so, sir.’
‘“I think so,” he says; d’you hear that? And, tell me Corporal,’ Jock’s voice was scarcely more than a whisper, ‘Are your intentions strictly honourable?’
‘Aye indeed, sir,’ the Corporal said stoutly.
Now Jock raised his voice: ‘Then you’re a bloody foo’, Corporal; that’s what you are. You’re far too young for that. A soldier shouldn’t marry young. You leave honourable intentions to fathers like me. It’s a father’s worry, anyway. I always say if I catch my lassie at it, I’ll welt the laddie, but I’ll probably never catch her, anyway. So there we are. He’s too young for honourable intentions, is he no, Charlie?’
Charlie nodded vigorously. ‘I’m too young,’ he said.
‘You’re a bloody rogue, Major Scott; that’s what you are. No mistake.’
‘Has the Corporal had a drink, Colonel?’
But the Corporal interrupted: ‘No, thank you, sir. Not if I’m going to play, sir.’
‘We didn’t bring you here to look at your dial, however bonny the lassie may think it is. I can tell you that, Corporal … We’ll have a tune now. We’ll have Morag’s Lament again.’ Jock looked solemnly at the Corporal. ‘Morag was the name of my lassie, once upon a time, and Morag’s the name of my wee girl.’
‘Sir.’
‘And then we’ll have The Big Spree. After that we’ll think and you’ll have something to wet your lips. Come away with you then. Come away with you.’
To the unpractised ear a pibroch has no form and no melody, and to the accustomed ear it has little more. But it is a mood and a pibroch was something Jock felt almost physically; damp, penetrating and sad like a mist. It enveloped him and pulled at his heart. He was far too much the professional to be moved to tears, but the Corporal played well and it took a moment before Jock fully recovered himself. The pibroch very often comes to a sudden end; it is a finish that makes it a fragment, and the more sad for that. Jock nodded his head slowly, three times.
‘Corporal Fraser, you’ll make a piper yet.’
The Corporal gave a sunny smile.
‘Aye, you’re better at the pibroch than I’d known. Your grace-notes are slurred but otherwise it was good. Now give me the pipes, lad; we’ll have a turn ourself.’
In his trews, with his fat bottom waggling as he marched up and down the room, Jock looked comic. To begin with, he looked comic. But soon he was in the full rhythm of the tune, and he was absurd no longer. A good piper is like a rider who is one with his horse, and Jock was soon part of the music. He played some marches, with a fault or two; then a slow march; then a faultless pibroch. That is something that a man does only a few times in his life; and the Corporal was dumb with admiration.
