Fergus Lamont Read online

  To have passed through an Officers’ Training Centre, and then to have been gazetted as a second-lieutenant of the Perthshires did not mean that I had reached, to use Major Holmes’s phrase, the summit of Kangchenjunga; but it did represent, for one born in Lomond Street, a precipitous and risky ascent, with stretches of crumbly and slippery rock. Testimonials from Major Holmes, Mr Beaton, and Mr Ainslie, minister of the Auld Kirk, had provided reasonably good footholds, and hints of my relationship with the Corses of Darndaff, given out cunningly, gave support like a rope. Mainly however I had to rely on my appearance, my way with a kilt, my acquired upper-class accent (only the slightest adjustments proved necessary), my agility with words, and my confidence in myself. I was helped by the amiable gullibility of most of the senior officers. Fighting the Afghans and the Boers had not, it seemed, honed their wits or extended their knowledge of human trickery, in the way that skirmishing with the closemouth fusiliers had done mine.

  When I became friendly with Archie Dungavel, youngest son of Lord Gilbertfield, I was almost, as it were, in sight of the cairn. I looked more of an aristocrat than he, and yet everybody knew he was one. We joined the Perthshires on the same day.

  In the photograph he has his arm round my neck. He is the only one not smiling. If the Church of Scotland, like the Church of England, had been a fit place for a gentleman, he would have become a minister. He was morbidly religious, and had very thin legs: two severe handicaps for a Highland officer. He was eager that I should meet his sister, Lady Grizel.

  Let me introduce the others. They were all sons of landed gentlemen. They were not as close to me as Archie, but like him they admired me and were proud of my friendship. Beside Archie and me in the front row is Charlie Brack. His father was a baronet, with an estate near Dunkeld. High-spirited, he took nothing seriously, not even the war. He was good at comic imitations.

  The taller and suffer of the two at the back is Hamish Dunloskin. His father’s estate was in Argyll. Although only nineteen, he was haughty even when pissing. The men in his platoon had several nicknames for him: one was ‘Stiff-Erse’. There were times when he seemed to suspect I was some kind of impostor. Luckily, it was beneath his dignity to be inquisitive.

  Beside him stands Andrew Dalgleish. His father was a wealthy commoner, with a mansion in Edinburgh and an estate in West Lothian. Pink-faced and shy as a girl, he often blushed. He once showed me a photograph of his sister: she was sweeter-looking than Lady Grizel, but not more so than himself. After making a mess of drilling his platoon, he would have tears in his eyes.

  The boys of Gantock Academy, even those who lived in the largest villas, could not help coming into contact with various members of the working-class, such as charwomen and maids, coalmen and dustmen, ice-cream sellers, delivery boys, and shop assistants. They were, indeed, in spite of their pretensions, merely better-off members of the same tribe. My new friends, as Major Holmes had warned me, belonged to a different tribe altogether, one with potent gods. They needed their sergeants not only as assistants, but also as interpreters.

  Without having to try, they had all the graces, physical as well as social: so much so it was almost a surprise, in the showers, to see that their navels and penises were not any more refined than a boilermaker’s. No boilermaker I had ever met would have been so immodest as to talk about his sister while soaping his genitals, as Archie sometimes did. It wasn’t that they lacked modesty or good taste or respect for women; it was simply that, products of a process of evolution more wondrous than that which produced elephants, they did not need modesty to appear modest, or good taste to appear delicately minded or respect for women to appear respectful towards women. No matter how hard they tried they could not be vulgar.

  Discreetly, I patterned my behaviour on theirs. Since the seeds of aristocratic assurance were already in me because of my parentage, I learned with speed and accuracy. What I had to watch out for above everything else was not to seem conceited or stuck up. Aristocrats, I had noticed, were not snobs. Knowing that there was no one in society above them—royalty not counting—they didn’t bother about who was beneath them. To appear sublimely indifferent to rank and at the same time to expect deference was not an easy attitude to assume, unless practised from birth. There were times when I found myself stumbling into foolish humility or unnecessary arrogance.

  It was of course imperative that I cut myself off from Gantock completely. By not answering letters I made sure no more came. While I was still at the Officers’ Training Centre John Lamont wrote telling me his sister, my Aunt Bella, had died, and inviting me to her funeral. I did not reply.

  I knew I would be condemned as a heartless snob. Bessie would tell the very sparrows in the street that she had been right about me. At every closemouth in the East End I would be castigated. They would look up at pigeons passing and say that the Germans were welcome to me. No one, with the possible exception of Sammy Lamont, would understand that this present denying of my native town was strategically necessary, in order that one day, years later perhaps, I would be able to return to it, bringing my honour and fame as tributes.

  Among those I had to snub by silence were Smout McTavish, who sent a post card from his Glasgow barracks, Meg Jeffries, now Meg McHaffie, who wrote from Paisley, congratulating me on being made an officer, and joking about her own problems; and Uncle Tam, whose letter I could hardly bear to read: not because it was misspelled and unpunctuated, but because it was full of goodwill and empty of reproach.

  I got one letter from John Calderwood. It was a continuation of the peevish attack on ‘war-mongers and would-be heroes’ that he had launched at me in Ravenscraig, the night before I set off to join the army. Cathie had whispered that I wasn’t to mind him. He was really jealous of me: all his life he had seen himself as a resister of evil, and now that the most gigantic evil in history was threatening mankind he was prevented from resisting it by a crippled leg and absurd principles.

  In my reply I merely said, with soldierly dignity, that I was sorry he and I disagreed: time would prove me right.

  Cathie wrote several times. Her letters were disconcerting. One would be full of cheerful, lighthearted gossip about the teachers at the Academy, scribbled in her untidy, womanly handwriting; the very next would be written in big round painstaking childish characters, and contain prattle about her dolls, canaries, and goldfish. The most remarkable thing of all was that it was the infantile ones that were accompanied by cheques, not for trifling sums either, but for as much as fifty pounds. I was in some doubt as to whether or not these gifts were part of her childish game, not to be regarded as real. However, I eventually cashed them.

  Major Holmes wrote once, from hospital, where he was dying. It was a curious letter, written in stately seventeenth-century prose. He seemed to imagine that he was John Prentice, dying of wounds in a tent after the battle of Dunbar. He spoke tenderly of his son and his wife, and commended them to God. The Major himself was never married, and never devout.

  I let Archie read it. I explained about the cuirass with the hole in it. He wanted us both to rush off to Gantock and see the Major before he died. It seemed to him so noble and Christian a mission that he was perplexed when I refused. I said I could not bear to watch a brave man dying in pain and distress. If that was so, asked Archie, why was I in the army, eager to be sent to France where I was bound to see many brave men in that condition? In any case, surely I expected to see the Major again in heaven, made whole and happy again?

  Every normal child by the age of ten knows that miracles are not possible, heaven is an idea, immortality merely a hope, and love a sad imperfection. At nineteen Archie still had not accepted these bleak but bracing truths.

  What of Mary Holmscroft? She and I had agreed to keep in touch. The letters we exchanged were wary and brief. Along with other members of the ILP, she was in danger of arrest, for contravening the Defence of the Realm Act, with speeches against the war that were almost seditious. As an officer of the king, I ought
to have disapproved of her as a traitress giving assistance to his enemies; and I did disapprove of her for that. Also, as an aristocrat, I deprecated her excessive passion, and her vulgar assumption that she was right and virtuous, and those who disagreed with her wrong and wicked. At the same time, as a poet and seer, I felt in my heart that it was necessary, for the salvation of humanity, that there should be some voices—not too many—raised in condemnation not only of the present war but of all wars.

  Naturally, I did not mention my friendship with her, not even to Archie. When put to the test, I took sides against her.

  Sometimes, in the mess, after the senior officers had left, we went wild. In our green and black jackets and yellow and red kilts we must have looked, and sounded, like predatory animals—after all, the regiment’s nickname was The Wild Cats. Usually our pranks were of a physical nature, like the ‘dockies’ of my childhood. I was as reckless and agile as any. Occasionally, though, there was a discussion, or rather a shouting of opinions. One evening somebody brought up the subject of anti-war agitators. Somebody else mentioned ‘that beastly little bitch, Holmscroft’; he said she should have been burnt at the stake years ago.

  Other extravagant methods of exterminating her were suggested. Their grossness astonished me. When I had first gone to Gantock Academy, I had discovered that the fee-paying red-blazered pupils there were much cleverer at inventing coarse and obscene impertinences, and more effective in delivering them, than my jerseyed friends of Kidd Street board school. Now I made another discovery. My present colleagues, sons of landed gentry, surpassed the most foul-mouthed of the Academy boys. From their flushed, excited, refined young faces there issued, in patrician accents, every known demotic monosyllable of sexual significance, embodied in lewd suggestions as to appropriate punishments for a female denouncer of war.

  It was noticed that I was silent. A dozen voices challenged me to say what I thought ought to be done to Mary.

  ‘I assure you,’ I said, in my most expert drawl, ‘no torture you could possibly devise would be more horrible than what did actually happen to her once.’

  They cheered. ‘Good old Fergus. Tell us about it.’

  Archie looked quite tearful. He shook his head in an appeal to me.

  ‘When she was a child of seven—’ there were cheers at this masterstroke of a beginning—‘it was discovered one day that the cupboards of her home in the slums were as bare as Mother Hubbard’s.’ (Sarcastic groans of pity.) ‘So was her mother’s purse, and her dad’s wallet, and her little sisters’ piggy-banks.’ (More groans.) ‘In short, there wasn’t a penny in the house. In every grocer’s window in the district was a card, prominently displayed, saying “No Credit”.’ (Cries of ‘Quite right, too.’) ‘Nevertheless, our Mary, aged seven as I have said, volunteered to take a basket and go round all those shops, begging for food. Her father hastily put in a suggestion that she should ask for a packet of Woodbines for him as well. There are no greater optimists, you see, than the very poor.’ (Loud cheers.) ‘But our little heroine refused: she would subdue her pride to beg for food, but not for cigarettes. So off she went, with her basket. History does not record what form of words she used to soften the hearts of those capitalistic provision merchants; whatever it was, it did not succeed. Picture her humiliation. Picture her weariness. Picture her disappointment. Picture her reluctance to go home, with her basket empty.’

  Never was a more despicable act applauded so heartily. My reputation for not caring a damn about anybody or anything was established.

  Only one of my audience looked puzzled, as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether or not my heartlessness was contrived, to conceal my true pity for Mary, and my contempt for those laughing at her, including myself.

  His name was Baxter. He came from Perth, where his father was a lawyer. He was killed at Loos.

  Charlie Brack went down on his hunkers, until he was about the height of a seven-year-old. Holding out his sporran, he shuffled from one officer to another. They entered into the game and spurned him like hard-hearted grocers.

  It was regarded as the most entertaining night ever in the mess. After it, my lack of sentimentality towards the poor, or rather my courage in expressing it so publicly, was held in awe. That I had once been one of the poor myself, that I considered them to be richer in humanity than lords or lawyers, and that I intended one day to write apocalyptic poetry about them, was not likely now to be suspected.

  On our way to our quarters, over the cobbles and under the moon, Archie upbraided me.

  ‘Let me tell you, Fergus, I rather admire this woman Holmscroft.’

  ‘If she had her way, Archie, Gilbertfield Castle would be turned into a home for worn-out scrubber-women.’

  ‘Well, wouldn’t that be a more Christian use for it? I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I know nothing about the poor.’

  ‘Well, do you?’

  ‘Once, on holiday from Eton, I made a jolly big effort to get to know what it feels like to be poor.’

  ‘In a castle? With fifty servants?’

  ‘Let me tell you, Fergus, the part of the house where we live is horribly draughty in winter; and this was winter. I wore a sack next to my skin to get the feel of rags. I ate so little I felt hungry. I didn’t have much money, only a few shillings, but I threw it all into the lily-pond.’

  ‘But, surely, Archie, the agony of poverty isn’t suffering it yourself, it’s watching people you love suffering it.’

  ‘By Jove, Fergus, that’s well said. That’s very wise. That’s the sort of thing you should have been telling them tonight.’

  ‘They’d have laughed still louder.’

  ‘Anyway, do you know the conclusion I came to, after my experiment? I decided that morality can only exist in a society where wealth is fairly divided. I mean, what temptation is there for a rich man to steal?’

  ‘The temptation of wanting to be even richer.’

  ‘Don’t make cynical jokes, Fergus. Basically, you’re as serious as I am. When you make jokes they’re always heartless. There are some things shouldn’t ever be joked about. One’s war. Another’s poverty. The trouble with you, Fergus, and all the others, like Charlie, is that none of you knows anything about the poor.’

  I winked up at the moon.

  ‘I admit I don’t know very much myself, but at least I’ve tried. I’ve talked to lots of farm workers, and chaps that work on the estate. You can’t say they’re not poor.’

  ‘Why, don’t they get paid decent wages?’

  ‘No, they don’t. I’ve complained about it, you know. That’s the only reason why I wish I had been born the eldest, so that I could pay decent wages, and be an example to all other landowners.’

  He assumed that there would always be owners of vast estates. His concern for the poor was genuine, but he would have been similarly concerned if, at the zoo, he had seen lions in cages as small as single-ends, and monkeys dim-eyed from semi-starvation. The poor to him were not just a huge alien tribe, they were a lower species. They had weird habits, such as sharing lavatories and eating bread-and-margarine. It was the duty of Christian gentlemen to be kind to them.

  My profounder loyalties, I was glad to see, though of necessity kept secret, were alive and developing.

  TWO

  In the wilds of Afghanistan there is a game called buzkashi. It is a kind of rugby on horseback, with a dead kid or calf for a ball. The contestants are bearded men with fierce eyes and high-heeled boots. They respect no rules. Lady Grizel Dungavel, Archie’s twenty-one-year-old sister, would have excelled at buzkashi.

  This was the gentlewoman Archie was so eager that I should meet.

  She was waiting for us with a trap drawn by a handsome high-stepping pony. The train from Glasgow to London passed through Dungavel land, and stopped whenever a member of the family wished to get on or off. There was no proper station, only a small platform in the midst of a great moor. The guard hurried along to help us alight. Other passengers looked
out with interest. I wore over my kilt a tweed cape, for though sunny it was also cool. On some of the highest hills shone patches of snow.

  I had hesitated before accepting Archie’s invitation to spend a few days with him at Gilbertfield Castle, before we set off for France to join the regiment. Up to now, it had been easy enough to have my credentials as a member of the landed gentry accepted, because none of my fellow officers had been interested enough to ask difficult questions. Women, though, might be different. Lady Gilbertfield and Lady Grizel had never stood at a closemouth in their lives, and they would not have raucous voices, but they might well be as determinedly inquisitorial as Mrs Grier and her cronies.

  As soon as I saw Lady Grizel, or rather as soon as I heard her, I knew she would not be dangerous, as an inquisitress. Only if I had had four legs, hooves, and a tail, would she have queried my pedigree. She was a hippomaniac.

  ‘How do?’ she said, gruffly. ‘Been sitting here thinking tomorrow would be a good day to ride to the top of Spango yonder.’

  She pointed with her whip to a distant hill dappled with sun, shadow, and snow. There appeared to be no rocky precipices; nevertheless, to climb it, especially on horseback, struck me as the most useless achievement I could think of.

  She drove us at a reckless speed along the rough track.

  ‘There’s been no rain to speak of for three weeks,’ she growled. ‘So the going should be good. I don’t know why you didn’t join a cavalry regiment. Wearing a kilt must soften the backside.’

  She said it without a hint of jocularity.

  Her own backside, I thought, would be as hard as leather. Fatness of buttocks had never greatly attracted me in a woman, but neither had conquistadorial leanness.