The Moon’s a Balloon

by David Niven

  ‘If you want something,’ said Coulson to me, ‘order it yourself. We don’t stand drinks in the Mess.’

  ‘Same, please,’ I said faintly.

  Nothing much happened till the drinks arrived, the two mauve men returning to their interrupted conversation about Maltese priests.

  ‘Not a bad job, really,’ said the most mauve man, ‘if some woman can’t have a baby, she sends for the priest and he has a go to help things along in the name of the Church.’

  ‘Always remembering to hang his umbrella on the doorknob to warn the husband to stay away till he’s finished,’ said the least mauve man. Knowing winks and chuckles followed this exchange.

  Coulson led me to a far corner of the anteroom and in subdued whispers, or at least in subdued shouts against the clamour of the Sunday evening bells, proceeded to bring me up to date. No one could have described Coulson as a warm and friendly man but he was better at first sight than the two highly coloured gentlemen on the bum-warmer. He was thin, sandy and weedy. He exuded an aura of defeat.

  ‘Malta is a sod of a place,’ he said, ‘you’ll hate it. Nobody knows how long we’ll be here. The second battalion is in India and we were supposed to be on home service for the next ten years but they suddenly winkled us out of Aldershot and shipped us out here a couple of years ago. It’s a bloody mess being a home battalion on service abroad, they don’t even give us tropical kit. Just wait till you have to wear full mess kit with a stiff shirt and waistcoat in August when the sirocco is blowing…Christ, you’ll melt!’

  ‘Who are those officers?’ I asked, nodding at the other occupants of the room.

  ‘McDougall and Galt,’ said Coulson. ‘Subalterns both in D Company.’

  ‘Subalterns’—I was amazed.

  ‘Both subalterns,’ said Coulson, divining my thoughts, ‘about halfway up the list. Nobody ever gets promoted in the regiment. It takes at least ten or twelve years to become a captain.’

  ‘Twelve years!’ I gasped—my dream of becoming a general fading rapidly. ‘At least,’ said Coulson, ‘and then it will be another seven or eight till you have a chance of commanding a company and if you ever get that and become a major, it will be four to one against you ever commanding a battalion. So the chances are that at the age of forty-five you’ll be out on your arse with a pension of a hundred and eighty pounds a year, after twenty-five years’ service!’

  I must have looked fairly shaken because he added almost kindly, ‘Well, we’re all in the same boat, aren’t we? Anyway if some silly bugger starts another war, we’ll get plenty of promotion tho’ it seems pretty quiet at the moment. In the meanwhile, you get two months’ leave a year; after you’ve completed a year’s service, you get about ten shillings a day pay and messing allowance but whisky we get in bond so that’s only six shillings a bottle.’

  Coulson morosely painted thumb-nail portraits of some of the senior officers and ended by giving the following advice—‘The only people you have to look out for are the Colonel, the Adjutant, your Company Commander and, of course, Trubshawe.’

  ‘Trubshawe?’

  ‘Trubshawe, look out for him—he’s nothing but trouble. If it hadn’t been for Henry Hawkins covering up for him, he would have been flung out months ago…he’s a disaster!’

  ‘Which company is Trubshawe in?’

  ‘B’ Company, thank God, and they’re over there on the other side of Grand Harbour in Fort Ricasoli. He’s confined to barracks anyway at the moment so he’s practically locked up and a good job, too!’

  Just as I was about to ask a few pertinent questions about this intriguing character my erstwhile shipmate, Jimmy McDonald, stormed in.

  ‘These fucking Malts!’ he said, addressing the bumwarmer, ‘they think they own the bloody island—said I had to go through Customs. Told ‘em where to get off, of course, but the head grease ball got quite offensive till I threatened to put him under close arrest.’ He jabbed the bell with his finger and ordered a double whisky.

  ‘Have a good leave, Jimmy?’ asked one of the mauve men.

  ‘Not bad, spent most of it at home. Nearly got married but managed to talk my way out of it. Any supper left?’ The three of them disappeared into the dining-room carrying their glasses.

  ‘Cold food on Sunday nights,’ said Coulson, ‘go on if you want anything…I’ve eaten.’

  I was very hungry but the thought of sitting alone with the three who had just gone in there filled me with alarm.

  ‘So have I,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll go and unpack.’

  Coulson showed me my room. ‘Your batman is McEwan. He looks like a decent sort of Jock. I’ll tell the Mess Corporal to send him over.’ He turned to go and then paused at the door.

  ‘Oh, you’ll need a mosquito net, did you bring one?’

  ‘No, nobody told me.’

  ‘Well, I have a spare one you can have. It’s never been used so you can have it for what I paid for it.’

  ‘Very good of you, thanks!’

  I’ve forgotten what I paid Coulson for his net but it was about double, I subsequently discovered, the going rate in Valletta.

  I looked around the room. It was on the ground floor, large, stone-floored and almost bare. The smell of horse, donkey, mule and goat dung which came through the window was very strong indeed. I was very depressed. ‘Private McEwan, sorr,’ said a voice behind me.

  I turned to find a stocky, fresh complexioned soldier of about my own age. ‘Corporal Deans sent me over tae help ye unpack.’

  My boxes and bags were in a corner and in silence we bent to the task. ‘I’ve no done this sort o’ work before, sorr—ye’ll have tae tell me what ye want me tae do.’

  ‘What are you supposed to do, McEwan?’

  The square bandy-legged figure stood up very straight. ‘Sorr, in time o’ war I’m yer runner. I carry yer messages tae the Platoon and see that ye have food and a place tae sleep…in time o’ peace, sorr, I look after ye as best I can.’ He paused and then added, ‘That’s what the Company Sarnt Major told me this morning.’ When the recitation ended, we continued the unpacking and I learnt a little more about Private McEwan.

  Like many others he had joined the Army because he was sick of being unemployed. A day labourer from the Glasgow slums, he had grown weary of standing in line in drizzling rain, week after week, waiting to collect the dole. A man of fierce pride and stainless steel integrity, as I was to learn during the four years he remained with me, for him it must have been a degrading experience. So one day, he and five cronies sauntered in to Maryhill Barracks and announced that they were joining the Highland Light Infantry.

  As was the custom, they were deloused, given a bath, a hot meal and a bed for the night. Next day four of the cronies disappeared before breakfast but McEwan signed on for five years with the Colours and two with the Reserve. His remaining chum opted for seven and five because he was wanted by the Glasgow police for housebreaking, assault and battery. Like many others in that tough town he had decided that the best way to avoid civil justice was to change his name, join the Army and disappear abroad. ‘Have ye no had yer supper, sorr? McEwan asked when we had got everything stowed away as best we could.

  Before I had time to answer he went on, ‘Corporal Deans said that maybe as this is yer first night in the Mess, yer’d like tae eat in yer room and he said tae tell ye that he has some cold grub and a bottle o’ beer for ye…I’ll go an’ get it the noo.’ When McEwan came back with this most welcome repast he also brought me the news that I was to report to my Company Commander at the Company Office at 0800 hours the following morning.

  ‘I’ll wake ye at seven o’clock, sorr, wi a cup o’ gunfire and then I can show ye the way to t’Office.’

  I slept fitfully and during the long periods I was awake, I became increasingly excited at the prospect of taking over my Platoon. In the morning I avoided the Mess as I was extremely apprehensive of meeting brother officers on an empty stomach and, fortified by ‘gunfire’,↓ I was escorted
across the granaries by McEwan, past the guardroom, across the Barrack Square and deposited outside the door marked ‘C’ Company Office.

  ≡ The very strong, very sweet tea the Jocks made.

  Company Sergeant Major ‘Sixty’ Smith was the sole occupant, arranging papers on a trestle table covered with a grey Army blanket. He sprang to attention as I came in and I caught a glimpse of the medal ribbons of the D.C.M. and M.M. on his chest. A rather portly figure with a friendly and revealing smile—revealing the absence of four front teeth. He had spent his whole life in the regiment, having joined as a band boy aged fourteen.

  ‘You’ll be Mister Niven, sorr? The Company Commander will be here in a wee while. Welcome to ‘C’ Company, sorr.’

  ‘Sixty’ Smith was a regimental character recommended for the Victoria Cross in 1917. He was renowned for his toughness and the fact that his Company Commander was hardly ever called upon to deal with small ‘offences’ was not so much a measure of the high standard of discipline in ‘C’ Company, as a tribute to the strong right arm of ‘Sixty’ meting out his own brand of punishment behind the latrines with a big leather belt.

  ‘Company Commander crossing the Barrack Square, sorr.’

  I looked out of the window with interest well mixed with apprehension. For the foreseeable future the officer approaching would be both my boss and my judge; answerable only to the Commanding Officer, it would be in his hands alone to make my life pleasant or very unpleasant, interesting or deadly dull. I saw a long sleek Lagonda swing up to a stop outside the Company office. The morning sun was beginning to beat down and the glare from the parade ground hurt my eyes. Dust from the sudden stop billowed up around the car. From the driver’s seat a tall and powerfully built figure emerged. Major Harry Ross-Skinner was a man of about forty-five—on his chest his bravery, D.S.O. and M.C., in his hand, a battered briefcase, on his head, nothing.

  He unhurriedly addressed a well-turned out soldier who was sliding over behind the controls—‘Wash the car, then pick up my wife at 11 o’clock, and take her shopping. At noon be back here for me and don’t forget to tell them at the stables that I’ll be playing six chukkas this afternoon.’ He picked up Glengarry, Sam Browne belt and swagger cane from the back seat, and ambled towards the door. As he entered, silhouetted against the fierce glare from outside, he was even larger than I had first thought. His complexion was florid; his eyes, bright blue; his hair and rather large moustache sand and salt. He gazed at me with vague alarm as I snapped off my best Sandhurst salute. ‘Oh hullo,’ he said amicably, ‘what can we do for you?’

  ‘Niven, sir…posted to ‘C’ Company!’

  ‘Well, that’s nice,’ he said, ‘who told you so?’

  ‘The orderly officer, sir, Coulson.’

  ‘I wonder why nobody told me.’ He raised his voice very slightly, ‘Sixty!’ The Company Sergeant Major could only have been out of sight by a couple of feet. He shot round the door and stood to attention. ‘SORR?’

  ‘Do we know anything about this?’

  ‘Yessir, it was in Battalion Orders last week and the Adjutant sent you a personal memo two days ago.’

  ‘Oh, I see…well splendid…do you play polo?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t think I could afford it, sir.’

  It seemed to take an appreciable time for this to sink in.

  ‘Which platoon have we given him?’

  ‘Yer said N° 3, sorr,’ said ‘Sixty’ Smith gently.

  ‘Ah, yes…well he can have that or N° 2 or N° 4 whichever he likes…’

  He brushed up his moustache between the forefinger and thumb of his left hand and looked down on me…’Any preference?’

  ‘Er…no, sir…er, anything will do.’

  ‘All right then, N° 3…let’s see, ‘Sixty’, who’s the Platoon Sergeant of N° 3?’

  ‘Sarnt Innes, sorr.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course.’ Ross-Skinner was putting on his belt and cap during this conversation.

  ‘Anybody for Company Office?’ he asked.

  ‘No charges today, sorr, but the storeman has reported the loss of seven blankets and a pickaxe. He thinks he can make them up before the next Quartermaster’s Inspection.’

  ‘How’s he going to do that d’you suppose?’

  Sixty chuckled. ‘Best not ask, sorr.’

  Ross-Skinner took off his belt and bonnet again and sat down behind the table with a sigh. Then he opened his briefcase and spread out on the grey blanket some saddlery catalogues. A solidly built old soldier appeared in the doorway with a great stamping of feet.

  ‘Adjutant’s compliments, sorr,’ he bellowed towards the ceiling. ‘Commanding Officer wants to see Mister Newton.’ He made this statement with such tremendous authority that it was a moment before I realised that he was referring to me.

  ‘You’d better cut along then,’ said Ross-Skinner. ‘Pity about the polo,’ he added.

  Across the barrack square, the old soldier set a rapid pace and between keeping up with him and proudly answering meticulously the first salutes ever thrown in my direction, I was bathed in perspiration by the time I arrived at Battalion H.Q. I was shown in to the Adjutant’s Office. Henry Hawkins smiled up from behind his desk—‘Shaking down all right? It’s very strange at first I know. Just let me finish signing all this bumph and I’ll take you in to meet the C.O.’ For a few minutes the scratching of his pen was the only sound in the warm office, then he spoke again.

  ‘Incidentally, when you were posted to us, some joker at the War Office sent us a memo about you, something about your preference for Regiment.’ My sweating increased a hundredfold. Hawkins never looked up, he continued signing documents.

  ‘It came directly to me and it is now locked up in the Adjutant’s confidential file. Nobody else can see it.’

  He looked up, put down his pen and smiled again.

  ‘Now…let’s go and see the Colonel.’

  This was an awesome moment. The Commanding Officer was seated behind his desk, that is to say like Ross-Skinner, Henry Hawkins and everyone else in Floriana Barracks who was seated behind anything, he was seated behind a trestle table on which was spread a grey army blanket.

  ‘Mr. Niven, Colonel,’ announced Henry Hawkins, loosing off a salute. I did the same.

  It took weeks for my Commanding Officer to address a word to me directly. I never discovered whether he thought it was impressive or whether he was shy or whether he just didn’t know what the hell to say, but for whatever reason, he preferred to address the junior officers of his battalion through an intermediary. Nobody had warned me of this and it came as something of a shock when he turned to the Adjutant and said, ‘Did he have a good trip?’

  ‘Yes, sir, very good,’ said Hawkins firmly.

  ‘I hate those bloody P. and O.s. They always smell of sick,’ said the Colonel…’What sport does he play?’

  Henry consulted with a file he had in his hand, ‘School Rugby XV and Cricket XI, School teams for Boxing and Swimming. Rugby Blue at Sandhurst, good horseman and passed for Hunting.’

  ‘Is he going to play polo?’

  Hawkins made a question-mark face in my direction.

  ‘I may not be able to, sir,’ I said now addressing Hawkins, ‘it might be a bit…er…too much for me.’

  ‘Well, tell him about the fifteen bobbers, Henry,’ said the Colonel, ‘and explain that people in the Navy always have ponies they want exercised…I think we can expect him down at the Marsa.’

  To show that the interview was now concluded, the Colonel rose from behind the desk. Unfortunately, he was so short that his head remained almost exactly the same distance from the floor. Sitting down in the darkened office he had seemed quite impressive—large brown eyes set in a deeply tanned face, dark hair= grey at the temples and at least three rows of medal ribbons—but when he walked to the window and displayed tartan trews that somehow managed to look both skimpy and baggy at the same t
ime, he looked like a little bird, a similarity that to my astonished eyes became more pronounced when, with his back to the room, he raised both arms high above his head with the palms flat and fingers extended…he reminded me instantly of a cormorant drying its wings.

  ‘Wait behind, will you, Henry,’ said the Commanding Officer over his shoulder. I saluted his strange back view and went out into the hot sunlight.

  Back at the Company Office, Sergeant Innes was waiting for me and a splendidly reassuring sight he was too. Strong as an ox, he was also comparatively tall, about five feet ten. Most of the men in the Regiment were much more stocky. He had bright red hair, very close cropped and a deep scar under his cheek bone which raised one corner of his mouth in a permanent grin. It was probably a razor slash. The Jocks had a great partiality for the razor as an offensive weapon and invariably had a couple of safety blades sewn just inside the peak of their Glengarrys. In a brawl, an adversary was well advised to stay out of range because with one quick movement, the bonnet was off and swinging in a wide arc held by the ribbons at the back.

  ‘Ginger’ Innes saluted. ‘I’ll take ye tae the Barrick Room, sorr, so ye can see yer platoon.’

  So this was it—the moment of truth! At last I was about to come face to face with the forty-odd professionals who would be under my command. This was the crunch. In a strange mood of exaltation, I marched confidently alongside Sergeant Innes. Outside a Barrack Room door, excitingly marked ‘N° 3 Platoon’, Sergeant Innes stopped—then flung it open. A stentorian bellow rent the sultry air.

  ‘STAND TAE YER BEDS!!’

  A sound of scuffling feet came from within. After that, silence. ‘N° 3 Platoon ready for yer inspection, sorr.’

  Proudly, I passed him to confront, for the first time, my long-awaited charges.

  Seven rather crestfallen soldiers in various stages of undress stood waiting for me beside their beds.

  ∨ The Moon’s a Balloon ∧