The Sheik and the Dustbin. George Fraser MacDonald
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hazri, sahib”, and having a pialla of perfectly-brewed tea and a sliced mango on my bedside table, there was now a crash of hob-nailed boots and a raucous cry of “Erzi tea! Some o’ it’s spillt, an’ there’s nae sugar. Aye, an’ the rain’s oan again.” Not the same, somehow. And where once there had been a fresh-laundered shirt on a hanger, there was now a freckled Glaswegian holding up last night’s garment in distaste and exclaiming: “Whit in Goad’s name ye been daein’ in this? Look at the state o’ it. Were ye fu’, or whit? Aye, weel, it’ll hiv tae dae - yer ither yins arenae back frae the dhobi. Unless he’s refused them. Aye. Weel, ye gettin’ up, or are ye gaunae lie there a’ day … sur?”
That was Coulter. I got rid of him inside three days, and appealed to Telfer, my platoon sergeant, for a replacement. And I hate to record it, for I like to think well of Telfer, who was a splendid soldier, but he then did one of the most diabolic things any sergeant could do to his new, green, and trusting platoon commander. Without batting an eye, and with full knowledge of what he was doing, this veteran of Alamein and Anzio glanced at his platoon roll, frowned, and said: “What about McAuslan?”
Innocent that I was, those doom-laden words meant nothing to me. I didn’t know, then, that McAuslan was the dirtiest soldier in the world, a byword from Maryhill Barracks to the bazaars of Port Said for his foulness, stupidity, incompetence, illiteracy, and general unfitness for the service, an ill-made disaster whom Falstaff wouldn’t have looked at, much less marched with through Coventry. This was the Tartan Caliban who had to be forcibly washed by his fellows and locked in cupboards during inspections, whom Telfer was wishing on me as batman. In fairness I can see that a sergeant might go to desperate lengths to keep McAuslan off parade and out of public view, but it was still a terrible thing to do to a subaltern not yet come of age.
I had seen McAuslan, of course - at least I had been aware of a sort of uniformed yeti that lurked at the far end of the barrack-room or vanished round corners like a startled sloth at the approach of authority, which he dreaded; I had even heard his cry, a raucous snarl of complaint and justification, for beneath his unkempt exterior there was a proud and independent spirit, sensitive of abuse. He had fought in North Africa, mostly against the Germans, but with the Military Police on occasion; his crime-sheet was rich in offences of neglect and omission, but rarely of intentional mischief, for McAuslan had this virtue: he tried. In a way he was something of a platoon mascot; the other Jocks took a perverse pride in his awfulness, and wouldn’t have parted with him.
Of all this I was happily ignorant at the time, and it gave me quite a start when I got my first view of him, crouched to attention in my doorway, eyeing me like a wary gargoyle preparing to wrestle; he always stood to attention like that, I was to discover; it was a gift, like his habit of swinging left arm and left leg in unison when marching. He appeared to be short in stature, but since he was never fully erect one couldn’t be sure; his face was primitive and pimpled, partly obscured by hair hanging over an unwashed brow, his denims would have disgraced an Alexandrine beggar (and possibly had), but the crowning touch was the filthy napkin draped carelessly over one forearm -1 believe now that he was trying to convince me that he had once been a waiter, and knew his business.
” 14687347Pr’iteMcAuslansah!” he announced. “Ah’m yer new batman, Sarn’t Telfer sez. Whit’ll Ah clean first?”
The smart answer to that would have been “Yourself, and do it somewhere else”, but I was a very new second-lieutenant.
“Ah brung ma cleanin’ kit,” he went on, fishing a repulsive hold-all from inside his shirt. “Oh, aye, it’s a’ here,” and he shook out on to the table a collection of noisome rags and old iron in which I recognised a battered Brasso tin, several bits of wire gauze and dried-up bianco, a toothbrush without bristles, and a stump of candle. (That last item shook me; was it possible, I wondered, that he performed his toilet by this illumination alone? It would have explained a lot.) It all looked as though it had been dredged from the Sweetwater Canal.
He made a sudden shambling pounce and snatched two rusted objects from the mess with a glad cry. “Aw, there th’are! Goad, an’ me lookin’ a’ ower the shop! Ah thought Ah’d loast them!” He beamed, wiping them vigorously on his shirt, adding a touch of colour.
“What are they?” I asked, not really wanting to know.
“Ma fork an’ spoon! They musta got in there that time I wis givin’ ma mess-tins a wee polish - ye hiv tae scoor them, sur, ye see, or ye get gingivitis an’ a’ yer teeth fa’ oot, the M.O. sez.” He peered fondly at the rusting horrors, like an archaeologist with burial fragments. “Here, that’s great! It’s been a dam’ nuisance bein’ wi’oot them at meal-times,” he added, conjuring up a picture so frightful that I closed my eyes. When I opened them again he was still there, frowning at my service dress, which was hanging outside the wardrobe.
“That’s yer good kit,” he said, in the grim reflective tone in which Sir Henry Morgan might have said: “That’s Panama.” He took a purposeful shuffle towards it, and I sprang to bar his way.
“It’s all right, McAuslan - it’s fine, it’s all clean and ready. I shan’t need it until five-thirty, for Retreat.” I sought for some task that should keep him at a safe distance from my belongings. “Look, why don’t you sweep the floor-out in the passage? The sand keeps blowing in… and the windows haven’t been washed for weeks; you could do them - from the outside,” I added hastily. “And let’s see … what else?” But he was shaking his matted head, all insanitary reproach.
“Ah’m tae clean yer kit,” he insisted. “Sarn’t Telfer sez. Ah’ve tae polish yer buttons an’ yer buits an’ yer Sam Broon an’ yer stag’s heid badge, an’ brush yer tunic, an’ press the pleats o’ yer kilt, an’ bell yer flashes wi’ rolled-up newspaper, an’ wash an’ dry yer sporran, and see the dhobi starches an’ irons yer shirts, an’ melt the bastard if he disnae dae it right, an’ mak’ yer bed …”He had assumed the aspect of a dishevelled Priest of the Ape People chanting a prehistoric ritual, eyes shut and swaying slightly, “… an’ lay oot yer gear, an’ bianco yer webbin’, an’ bring yer gunfire in ra mornin’, and collect yer fag ration, an’ fetch ye tea an’ wee cakes frae the Naafi for yer elevenses unless ye fancy a doughnut, an’ take ma turn as mess waiter oan guest nights, an’ …”
“Stop!” I cried, and he gargled to a halt and stood lowering and expectant. It was that last bit about being a mess waiter that had hit home -1 had a nightmare vision of him, in his unspeakable denims, sidling up to the Brigadier’s wife with a tray of canapés and inquiring hoarsely, “Hey, missus, ye want a sang-widge? Ach, go on, pit anither in yer bag fur efter …”
“We can discuss it tomorrow,” I said firmly. “My kit’s all ready for Retreat, and I’m on the range until five, so you can fall out until then. Right?”
It isn’t easy to read expressions on a face that looks like an artist’s impression of Early Man, but I seemed to detect disappointment in the way he blinked and drew his forearm audibly across his nose. “Can Ah no’ help ye oan wi’ yer gear?” he suggested, and I snatched my bonnet from beneath his descending paw in the nick of time and hastily buckled on my belt and holster. “Thanks all the same, McAuslan,” I said, withdrawing before he decided my collar needed adjustment - and he looked so deprived, somehow, that like a soft-hearted fool I added: “You can comb the sporran if you like … you better wash your hands first, perhaps, and be sure to hang it straight. Right, carry on.”
They say no good deed ever goes unpunished, but I could not foresee that in combing the big white horse-hair sporran he would drop it on the floor, tramp on it, decide that it needed rewashing, and then try to dry it over the cookhouse stove while the master-gyppo’s back was turned. They got the blaze under control, and probably only the gourmets noticed that the evening meal tasted of burned horse-hair. Meanwhile McAuslan, escaping undetected through the smoke, galloped back to my billet and tried to repair the charred remnant of my sporran by scraping it with my sgian dubh, snapping the blade in the process; he next tried daubing the stubble with white bianco, and dripped it on my best black shoes, which he then rendered permanently two-tone