LITMIR.BIZ

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hands on his hips, in a Highlander’s pose.

      ‘We were just beginning to enjoy ourselves, Colonel.’ It might have been a reasonable enough thing to have said, but Jackson had once before spoken out too boldly.

      The Colonel checked himself, and everybody waited again. Jock was now grinning openly. Slowly the Colonel turned his head.

      ‘Who said that?’ And he knew perfectly well.

      ‘I did.’

      ‘Adjutant!’

      Jimmy was trying to steady everybody. He nodded and moved up to the Colonel.

      ‘Not now,’ he whispered, but the Colonel braced his head back.

      ‘Do as you’re told. Take his name. Take that officer’s name.’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ Jimmy said. Of course he knew the name, so he did not move and two or three people in the room began to giggle. Jackson, for all his impudence, was looking very white himself now and he stared at the Colonel unblinkingly. The onlookers were fascinated by the scene, and apart from the two women who giggled, they were petrified by it. In the hall, they stood quite still. But in the doorway through to the ante-room people were shoving and craning their necks to see better. Just in the same way that speeches are passed back in a crowd too large, a commentary of the scene was passed as far as the billiards room and the dining-room where some of the servants stood, their heads on one side, to hear more clearly.

      But it was all over. The Colonel turned quickly away and walked towards the cloakroom, while some of the others went up to talk to Jock and Jackson. Jock laughed and shook his head, but Jackson was still very white. As some of his cronies congratulated him he stuck out his chin a little further.

      ‘I was in my rights,’ he said, then he swore a little, but he did not relax enough to smile. In a moment when they were still standing about the hall the Colonel reappeared again, with his coat and bonnet on. He stopped by the front door, and putting on his gloves, he lifted his head and said:

      ‘Good-night, all.’

      One or two replied ‘good-night’, but the door had not closed behind him when the laughter began to ring round the room. Jimmy was sweating now: he was suddenly angry, and he tried to shout them down, but Jock was leading the laughter, and they paid no attention to him. They laughed all the louder when Jimmy grabbed his bonnet and ran out after the Colonel.

      EIGHT

      HE JUMPED INTO the jeep beside the Colonel just before he drove off, and the Colonel said nothing to him. Instead, he let in the clutch and accelerated fast. He changed his gears swiftly, like an expert, and he took the corners round the square as if he were racing. He braked hard at the gate and Jimmy shouted ‘Colonel’ to the sentry, who stood aside. By the time he had presented arms, the jeep was clear of the barracks.

      In the Mess, the remainder – to use Mr Riddick’s term for any party which had lost some of its members, the remainder moved to the billiards room where the drink was handy on the table, and as they drank, each one of them grew more like himself. Jock began to sweat. Douglas Jackson grew harsher until he had no time for any man or any idea except stern discipline. Rattray grew more vehement about Barrow’s English accent, and the need for a Gaelic revival. Dusty Millar told story after story. The doctor was sitting on the step by the leather bench, like a mouse with a lot of hair. He said, ‘It’s surely significant that the quarrel should have revolved round such a primitive thing as folk dancing.’

      This united them.

      ‘Och, chuck it, Doc,’ Jock said irritably.

      ‘You and your Freud and all that Sassenach cock,’ Rattray said, and Dusty Millar echoed Jock.

      ‘Aye, chuck it, Doc. For chuck’s sake chuck it.’

      ‘What’ll I say the morn, eh?’ Jock said. ‘What’ll I tell him?’ and they began to make suggestions.

      * * *

      The Colonel drove for several miles and the cold night air rushing into the jeep did not leave Jimmy breath for any words of comfort. They drove fast out on the south road, which is wide and straight. But in the dips there were patches of fog, and two or three times Jimmy was sure they were bound for the ditch. A wisp appeared in the yellow light of the headlamp, another, then they were driving through a yellow wall. In a second they were clear again and Jimmy sighed and folded his arms to try and protect himself from the bitter cold. At last, quite suddenly, Barrow took his foot off the accelerator and the jeep slowed down; then, out of gear, it glided to rest at the side of the road. Barrow eased himself back in the seat.

      ‘What a childish thing to do,’ he said and he closed his eyes.

      His eyelashes were long and they came to rest on his cheek with a peculiar softness.

      Jimmy said, ‘Och, I don’t blame you. It’s one way of getting something out of your system. Though if I’d known the speed you were going to travel I’m not so sure I’d have come for the joy-ride.’

      The Colonel smiled faintly. ‘Childish.’

      ‘That fog’s nasty. But you can certainly drive a jeep.’ The compliment did not encourage the Colonel. He sat still, with his eyes shut, and Jimmy went on. ‘And it’s bloody cold too. You’ve got a coat on but I’m frozen stiff. With this kilt blowing about I’m not sure I’m all here, any more.’ He went on talking for a moment or two, saying nothing, but speaking in a voice of persuasive comfort and complete normality. At last the Colonel opened his eyes, and he began to move out of the jeep.

      ‘You drive,’ he said. ‘I’m in no state to drive.’

      ‘Have you had a couple?’ Jimmy said, moving into the driver’s seat as Barrow walked round to the other door.

      ‘It takes more than a couple to make a man of my age make a fool of himself.’

      ‘Och, people always do bloody silly things at Mess parties. It’s part of the tradition. I know somebody who once had …’

      ‘Not a Colonel.’

      ‘A colonel’s human, isn’t he? He has a heart?’

      ‘He shouldn’t have: only a complexion.’ Then he seemed to withdraw into his own world.

      ‘Drive on,’ he said at last. ‘Drive on.’ And taking it quite gently, Jimmy drove back to the cobbled streets. The street lamps had haloes round them like moons and there was no traffic on the road. But Jimmy never went in for dramatic gear-changing or fast cornering. He obeyed the law, and in the town they drove at under thirty miles an hour. He glanced at the Colonel who was staring straight in front of him. His expression was the expression of a boy being driven back to a boarding school he hates.

      ‘I think we’d best drop into the Station and get a bite to eat.’

      Barrow nodded, and bit his moustache. Jimmy had run out of conversation now. He drew up in the big yard outside the hotel and switched off the engine. Then he saw that Barrow had pitched forward and he was holding his head in his hand.

      ‘Ridicule’s always the finish. You know that?’

      ‘Who said anything about ridicule?’

      Barrow wagged his head irritably, and Jimmy found more words.

      ‘For God’s sake, Colonel. They behaved bloody badly and you’d the sense to get out. What’s wrong in that?’

      Barrow seemed to like that idea. He clung to it, again childlike.

      ‘Is that how it looked?’

      ‘That’s how it was.’

      They climbed out and Barrow breathed in deeply as they walked to the hotel door. ‘I say, thanks awfully,’ he said.

      ‘For what?’

      ‘For coming along like this. You know …’

      ‘It’s part of

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