touch the hidden nerve.
As in the case of Private Crombie, which would have sent our modern Race Relations Board into screaming fits of indignation.
He was in my platoon, one of a draft which joined the battalion from the Liverpool Scottish. They were fascinating in their way—men with names like MacGregor and Cameron and MacPherson, and all with Scouse accents you could have cut with a knife. Genuine Liverpool Scots, in fact, sons and grandsons of men who had settled on Merseyside, totally Lancashire in everything but name and race. But even among them, Private Crombie stood out as something special. He was what used to be called a Negro.
Which would not have mattered in the least, but he also happened to be a piper. And when he marched into company office about three days after he joined, and asked if he could apply to join the battalion pipes and drums, I confess it came as a shock. No doubt it was all the fault of my bad upbringing, or the dreadful climate of the 1940s, but my immediate (unspoken) reaction was: we can’t have him marching in the pipe-band, out in the open with everyone looking. We just can’t.
I maintain that this was not what is called race prejudice, or application of the colour bar. It was, as it appeared to me, a sense of fitness. If he had been eight feet tall, or three feet short, I’d have thought the same thing—simply, that he would have looked out of place in a Highland regimental pipe-band. But that, obviously, was something that could not be said. I asked him what his qualifications were.
He had those, all right. His father had taught him the pipes—which side of his family was black and which white, if either was, I never discovered. He had some sort of proficiency certificate, too, which he laid on my desk. He was a nice lad, and painfully keen to join the band, so I did exactly what I would have done in anyone else’s case, and said I would forward his application to the pipe-major; my own approval and the company commander’s went without saying, because it was understood that the band, or any other specialist department, got first crack at a qualified man. He marched out, apparently well pleased, Sergeant Telfer and I looked at each other, said “Aye” simultaneously, and awaited developments.
What happened was that the pipe-major was on weekend leave, so Crombie appeared for examination before the pipe-sergeant, who concealed whatever emotion he felt, and asked him to play.
“I swear to God, Mr MacNeill,” he told me an hour later, “I hoped he would make a hash of it. Maybe I was wrong to think that, for the poor lad cannae help bein’ a nigger, but I thought … well, if he’s a bauchle I’ll be able to turn him doon wi’ a clear conscience. Weel, I’m punished for it, because I cannae. He’s a good piper.” He looked me in the eye across the table, and repeated: “He’s a good piper.”
“So, what’ll you do?”
“I’ll have to tell the pipe-major he’s fit for admeession. He’s fitter than half the probationers I’ve got, and that’s the truth. I chust wish to God he was white—or no’ so black, anyway.”
Remember that this was almost thirty years ago, and there have been many changes since then. Also remember that Highland regiments, being strongly national institutions, are sensitive as to their composition (hence the old music-hall joke on the lines of: “ ‘Issacstein?’ ‘Present, sir’. ‘O’Flaherty?’ ‘Present, sir’. Woinarowski?’ ‘Present, sir’. Right—Cameron Highlanders present and correct, sir.’ ”)
Carefully, I asked:
“Does his colour matter?”
“You tell me, sir. What’ll folk think, if they see our pipe-band some day, on Princes Street, and him as black as the ace o’ spades, oot front, in a kilt and bunnet, blawin’ away?”
I could pretend that I rejected this indignantly, like a properly enlightened liberal, but I didn’t. I saw his point, and I’d have been a hypocrite if I’d tried to dismiss it out of hand. Anyway, there were more practical matters to consider. What would the pipe-major say? What, if it came to that—and it would—would the Colonel say?
The pipe-major, returning on Monday, was in no doubts. He wasn’t having a black piper, not if the man was the greatest gift to music that God ever made. The pipey, genuinely distressed, for he was torn between his sense of fitness on the one hand, and an admiration for Crombie’s ability on the other, asked the pipe-major to give the lad an audition. The pipe-major, who didn’t want to be seen to be operating a colour bar, conceived that here was a way out. He listened to Crombie, told him to fall out—and then made the mistake of telling the pipe-sergeant he didn’t think the boy was good enough. That did it.
“No’ good enough!” The pipey literally danced in front of my table. “Tellin’ me, that’s been pipin’—aye, and before royalty, too, Balmoral and all—since before Pipe-Major MacDonald had enough wind to belch oot his mither’s milk, that my judgement is at fault! By chings, we’ve lived tae see the day, haven’t we chust! No’ good enough! I’m tellin’ you, Mr MacNeill, that young Crombie iss a piper! And that’s that. And fine I know MacDonald iss chust dead set against the poor loon because he’s as black as my boot! And from a MacDonald, too,” he went on, in a fine indignant irrelevance, “ass if the MacDonalds had anything to hold up their heids aboot—a shower of Argyllshire wogs is what they are! And anither—”
“Hold on, pipey,” I said. “Pipe-Major MacDonald is just taking the line you took yourself—what’s it going to look like, and what will people think?”
“Beside the point, sir! I’m no’ havin’ it said that I cannae tell a good piper when I hear one. That boy’s good enough for the band, and so I’ll tell the Colonel himself!”
And he did, in the presence of Pipe-Major MacDonald, myself (as Crombie’s platoon commander), the second-in-command (as chief technical adviser), the Regimental Sergeant-Major (as leading authority on precedent and tradition), and the Adjutant (as one who wasn’t going to be left out of such a splendid crisis and scandal). And the pipe-major, who had the courage of his convictions, repeated flatly that he didn’t think Crombie was good enough, and also that he didn’t want a black man in his band, “for the look of the thing”. But, being a MacDonald, which is something a shade craftier than a Borgia, he added: “But I’m perfectly happy to abide by your decision, sir.”
The Colonel, who had seen through the whole question and back again in the first two minutes, looked from the pipe-major to the pipey, twisted his greying moustache, and remarked that he took the pipe-major’s point. He (the Colonel) had never seen a white man included in a troop of Zulu dancers, and he’d have thought it looked damned odd if he had.
The Adjutant, who had a happy knack of being contentious, observed that, on the other hand, he’d never heard of a white chap who wanted to join a troop of Zulu dancers, and would they necessarily turn him down if one (a white chap, that was) applied for membership?
The Colonel observed that he, the Colonel, wasn’t a bloody Zulu, so he wasn’t in a position to say.
The second-in-command remarked that the Gurkhas had pipe bands; damned good they were, too.
The Colonel looked at the R.S.M. “Mr Mackintosh?”
This, I thought, would be interesting. In those days few R.S.M.s had university degrees, or much education beyond elementary school, but long experience, and what you can only call depth of character, had given them considerable judicial wisdom; if I were on trial for murder, I’d as soon have R.S.M. Mackintosh on the bench as any judge in the land. He stood thoughtful for a moment, six and a quarter feet of kilted, polished splendour, and then inclined his head with massive dignity towards the Colonel.
