The Moon’s a Balloon

by David Niven

  SIX

  Only seven stood by their beds but there seemed to be many other beds displaying kits laid out for inspection. ‘Why only seven, Sergeant Innes? I asked.

  ‘Four on Regimental Guard, sorr, six on Palace Guard, three on cookhouse fatigues, three on Regimental fatigues, two on Officers’ Mess fatigues, four awa’ sick wi’ sandfly fever and two doing sixty-eight days detention in Military Prison for attempted desertion, sorr.’

  Even my faulty mathematics could work out that my platoon was woefully under strength, but I swallowed my disappointment and inspected my meagre flock.

  They were a hard-faced lot and although they stared unblinkingly at some fixed point about two feet above my head, I was pretty sure that within thirty seconds of my having walked through the door they had all thoroughly inspected me.

  Foot regiments in the Regular Army consisted of two battalions; one of which was permanently on service abroad in different parts of the Empire, while the other, based in the British Isles, acted as a holding and training battalion for the one overseas which; perforce, had to be kept up to full strength.

  Back at ‘C’ Company office ‘Sixty’ Smith gently explained that for a young officer still in his teens, trained to the hilt, and pumped full of ambition and enthusiasm to find himself in a Home Service battalion of very diminished strength, trying to fulfil overseas garrison duties while completing its own training programme—and at the same time being constantly drained of its best men, the result was almost inevitable—deadening frustration. It didn’t descend on me like a cloud that very first day, but slowly like the damp of a disused house it bored its way into me during the next few months. Meanwhile so much was new, so much was exciting and everything was different.

  Nothing much else happened that morning. My company commander disappeared in his Lagonda at about eleven-thirty, two other subalterns of the company appeared briefly, peered at me and went about their business. The other subaltern and the second in command were away on leave so I hung about the company office till lunch time, not knowing what to do.

  Luncheon in the mess was a hazard. About twenty officers were present including the birdlike Colonel but nobody spoke to me except Mr. Gifford, the civilian steward employed by the officers’ mess. A charming Jeeves-like character, Mr. Giford was responsible for the catering and for keeping the officers’ mess bills. At dinner time, in white tie and tails, he acted as a glorified butler and at all times he was the supreme boss of Corporal Deans and two permanent mess orderlies. On guest nights or other highly charged occasions, a roster of officers’ batmen was also pressed into service and these too he ruled with a rod of iron.

  Mr. Gifford seated me at a long mahogany table, gleaming with hideous pieces of Victorian silver donated by retiring officers, horses and pheasants mostly, but also a profusion of cigar and cigarette boxes, lighters, ash-trays and menu holders.

  The menu displayed in the holders was extensive but my nerves were not quite up to it so I settled for something cold off a groaning sideboard, washed it down quickly with some beer, and fled to my room.

  Soon Private McEwan appeared. ‘Adjutant’s compliments, sorr, ye’ll be playing cricket fer the Battalion at fifteen hundred hours this afternoon.’ I must have looked a little dazed because he added, ‘We’ve a verra poor team just noo, but the lads all say, ye’ll be a big help, an we’re playing aginst the Gunners an’ they’re good.’

  ‘Christ,’ I said, ‘I haven’t played cricket since I left school—I can’t possibly play for the Battalion.’ McEwan smiled encouragingly, ‘Ye’ll be one o’ the best if ye’ve played at all, sorr.’ He was tactfully explaining that in a regiment recruited from Highland villages and the slums of Glasgow, cricket was almost unknown.

  At three o’clock that afternoon, I presented myself at the Marsa cricket ground. The heat was like a blast furnace. A jovial deaf major, the shape of an avocado called with heavy humour ‘Roundy’ by his contemporaries, greeted me and introduced me to the team, mostly elderly sergeants and young officers. They seemed a friendly and cheerful lot and I began to relax.

  Suddenly, an ear-splitting belch rent the air. I spun round and perceived a truly amazing sight. Trubshawe was approaching. Six feet six, with legs that seemed to start at the navel, encased in drain-pipe tight white flannels. He sported a blue blazer with so many brass buttons on it that he shone like a gypsy caravan on Derby Day; on his head a panama hat with M.C.C. ribbon; on his face the biggest moustache I had ever seen: a really huge growth which one could see from the back on a clear day. Part of it was trained to branch of and join the hair above his ears. It was in fact not so much a moustache as an almost total hirsute immersion.

  ‘My dear fellow,’ boomed this splendid apparition. ‘Welcome! I’m delighted to meet you.’ A row of very white teeth blazed out of the foliage as Trubshawe shook my hand. The sergeants, I noticed, were nudging each other and smiling with great affection in his direction but the officers tended to drift away and busy themselves with their cricket gear.

  ‘This, old man,’ said Trubshawe, tapping a brief case he was carrying, ‘is an invention of mine. It’s called the ‘dipsomaniac’s delight’.’ He flicked the lock and inside, set in green baize slots, I perceived a bottle of whisky, a soda water syphon and two glasses.

  ‘Come, let us drink to your most timely arrival with a glass of Scottish wine.’ In the heat of that blazing afternoon I downed what was to be the forerunner of many thousands of toasts in the company of this amazing and wondrous creature.

  Never in the history of human conflict has there been a more unlikely officer in a Highland regiment. Just for a start he was English—a felony which he compounded by not being Sandhurst-trained but by arriving via Cambridge University and the supplementary reserve of a smart cavalry regiment. He was also highly eccentric with a wild and woolly sense of the ridiculous, an unabashed romantic who had a grand piano in his room on which for hours he played sixteenth-century folk music and Peter Warlock’s haunting melodies. His reading matter was influenced by an old Cambridge chum, T.H. White. He was, in short, an Elizabethan with a hunting horn.

  I didn’t remember too much about that afternoon’s cricket but I believe I acquitted myself adequately. With the shortage of bowlers I was made to trundle down my slow off breaks for hours on end. The Royal Artillery gleefully dispatched these to various boundaries but I managed to take a few wickets—one a glorious catch on the boundary by Trubshawe who was not supposed to be there at all: he was easing his way back to be close to the ‘dipsomaniac’s delight’.

  I made a few runs and for a brief spell was joined at the wicket by Trubshawe. He was a fascinating sight, full of confidence, taking guard before each ball, patting nonexistent divots on the matting wicket and inspecting the positions of the fielders with an imperious and disdainful gaze. But something was very wrong with his timing for although each individual stroke was immaculate in style and execution, it was played so late that the ball was well on its way back to the bowler by the time he had completed his shot.

  The match was drawn but not because our team was of the same standard as the Gunners. Cook Sergeant Winters, who was extremely portly as befitted his station, had considerable difficulty in bending down while fielding, a shortcoming he gallantly overcame by stopping ground shots with his shins. A hard drive to mid-of had just connected with a horrible ‘crack’ just below his knee when a dispatch rider roared on to the field and gave ‘Roundy’ Cavendish a message. ‘Roundy’ gathered both teams together and sombrely told us to return to our barracks at once. The situation caused by the Italianinspired troublemakers, which Henry Hawkins had outlined on the day of my arrival, had deteriorated rapidly and we were to stand by for riot duty and for the guarding of important points against a possible ‘coup’.

  Back at Floriana Barracks, everything was hustle and bustle but I managed to locate Jackie Coulson and ask him what I should do. ‘Battle order, I should think, and report to your company office,’ he said
curtly over his shoulder, hurrying away. Private McEwan, already himself caparisoned like someone during the retreat from Mons, buttoned me into webbing equipment, water bottle, revolver, map case and steel helmet and with, admittedly, a certain number of Cabbage Whites in my stomach, I made my way across the Granaries. At the company office, the other subalterns were already waiting. ‘Sixty’ Smith was issuing them with revolver ammunition and maps. We all came to attention when Major Ross-Skinner strode in. Gone was the vague and bumbling sportsman and in his place was the fully efficient, calm, professional commander. As we stood in front of him, he quickly and lucidly issued his orders.

  I scribbled frantically as he laid down the duties of N° 3 Platoon, the positions to be occupied, the organization of rations and ammunition, the arrangements for communications, evacuation of wounded and numerous other pieces of vitally important information. He even included a brief resume of the political situation that had just come to a head: according to Ross-Skinner, the Maltese had been British subjects for a hundred and twenty years but somehow during that time, while English had become the official language of the Administration, Italian had remained the legal language used in all disputes. The local Strickland Government had lately fallen out with the island’s Church leaders. The Vatican had consequently become involved with the British Foreign Office and now it had mushroomed into a full showdown between Italy and Great Britain.

  It sounded complicated to me but when I recited it to my amazed platoon a few minutes later, it resembled one of the more unlikely plots by Gilbert and Sullivan.

  The platoon as presented to me that afternoon by Sergeant Innes had grown to more respectable proportions and I was relieved to note that our fighting strength was now about thirty. They were a tough-looking bunch—mostly Glaswegians, and when I first entered the barrack room, they were clustered round a highly nervous middle-aged Maltese in a sweat-soaked singlet. Like a man possessed, he was turning the heavy stone wheel of a giant knife sharpener. One of the Corporals stepped forward proudly. ‘He hoppened to be passin’, sorr, so I persuaded him tae come in wi’ his wee contraption and touch up the laddies’ bayonets.’

  We soon embarked in two local buses that had been commandeered for the occasion and were driven to the Customs shed on the St. Elmo side of the Grand Harbour—our responsibility till relieved. I made a quick reconnaissance with ‘Ginger’ Innes and issued my orders for the disposition of my troops. Later, Ross-Skinner arrived in his Lagonda and had a look round. To my great relief, he altered nothing, just made a few suggestions about drinking water and a better place to be used as a latrine.

  For hours nothing happened. Then some confused shouting around midnight heralded a half-hearted attack by a few hooligans, armed with stones and iron bars. A Jock standing next to me was hit on the steel helmet with a loud clang: ‘FOOK THAT!’ he roared and charged out with his bayonet flashing in the moonlight. That was the last appearance of any opposition and incidentally, the one and only piece of active service I was to take part in during four years with the Highland Light Infantry.

  The next morning, the platoon was withdrawn and the general order to ‘stand down’ was given. The crisis was over. The British Empire was intact. Trubshawe, always a mine of information on questions political, told me later that it had all been very simply arranged. The British Government had promptly suspended the Maltese Constitution, forbidden Italian as the official legal language and put His Majesty’s Governor in sole charge of everything, ‘thereby, old man, putting the whole place back at least a hundred and twenty years’.

  Once this little flurry of excitement was over, the battalion settled back into its dreary, soporific routine of garrison duties. Training programmes were issued but there were few men available to train.

  With the advent of the hot weather, the leave season moved into high gear and many officers headed for England.

  Aided by Trubshawe, whose period of incarceration in Fort Ricasoli was now ended and who had, much to my delight, appointed himself my guide and sponsor, my shaking-down period proceeded apace. First I had to make official calls on all the married officers. The routine was simple. First Private McEwan would find out from the batman at the quarters in question just when the people would be out and I would then slip a couple of calling cards on to the silver tray just inside the door. The wives had a nasty habit of testing the surface of these cards with their thumbs to make sure they were engraved: no ‘gentleman’, of course, would ever have printed cards. I had-also to make the rounds and sign my name in various visitors’ books, including the Governor’s at Government House and certain Admiral’s establishments.

  After a few weeks, one or two officers in addition to Trubshawe occasionally spoke to me. But it was a great joy when Trubshawe’s Company ‘B’ (Machine Gun) arrived at Floriana Barracks; things perked up a lot. The Major was ‘Tank’ Ross, a famous Army and Scotland Rugby footballer, the second in command a young Captain, R.E. ‘Wallard’ Urquhart. A serious soldier of great charm and warmth, he was unfailingly kind and helpful to me and his splendid qualities, from all accounts, were never seen to greater advantage than in 1944, when, as a Major-General, he led the daring air-drop on Arnhem.

  The first regimental guest night which I attended was, quite simply, a nightmare. As the newly joined subaltern, in a sort of travesty of welcome, I was ordered to sit at the Colonel’s right hand.

  About forty officers were present, including a few guests—Greville Stevens, A.D.C. to the Governor, an amusing pinkfaced, sandy-haired captain in the 60th Rifles, known locally as’the amorous prawn’; a brace of Admirals; an Air-Marshal, some assorted soldiers and two naval guests of Trubshawe’s, a Lieutenant Anthony Pleydell-Bouverie and a midshipman David Kelburn↓—two, incidentally, of the gayest and brightest men ever to put on naval uniform.

  ≡ Now Admiral the Earl of Glasgow.

  Round after round of drinks in the anteroom and finally just as I was headed for a most necessary trip to the lavatory, Mr. Gifford announced dinner. Like a lamb to the slaughter, I was led with bursting bladder to my chair next to my Commanding Officer. As he had still not spoken to me directly during my service, I was in no position to ask him if I might be excused, an unthinkable request as officers and gentlemen never left the table under any circumstances until the end of the meal when the King’s health had been drunk. Sweat broke out all over me as I contemplated the hours of agony ahead.

  I’ve long since forgotten who was on my right. Whoever he was, he too never directed a word in my direction.

  So I sat in miserable silence with crossed legs, perspiration trickling down inside my stiff shirt front, my stand-up wing collar wilting with pain.

  Cold soup (more strain on the bladder) was followed by other courses, each washed down by a different wine. I drank everything that was placed in front of me in the vague hope that something might act as an anaesthetic and reduce the torture.

  $y the time we arrived at the cheese, I was desperate, past caring. As far as I was concerned my career could end in a pool right there under the polished mahogany and the regimental silver, but succour was at hand. Mr. Gifford bent over and whispered in my ear, ‘With Mr. Trubshawe’s compliments, sir, I have just placed an empty magnum underneath your chair.’ Relief, when I heard his words, did not flow over me—it spurted out of me. In an apparently endless stream, but thanks to a firm grip on the bottle with my knees, I was able to aim with one hand and leave the other available to crumble, nonchalantly, a water biscuit. This proved just as well because suddenly the Colonel zeroed in on me and spoke to me for the first time. I was so unnerved by this sudden reversal of form that I nearly released my grip on the warm and by now heavy receptacle below the table.

  His words were few and his point was made with admirable clarity. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘fucked women of every nationality and most animals, but the one thing I cannot abide is a girl with a Glasgow accent. Pass the port’. He never spoke to me again.

  After the port comp
leted its circle, a toast was given to ‘The King’. Many of the glasses I noticed were ostentatiously passed over the top of a glass of water on their way to the lips in a rather juvenile gesture to show that Highlanders were still drinking to the exiled Stuarts—‘the King over the water’.

  After the toast, the Mess pipers filed in, eight in number. From the top drone of each instrument fluttered a heavily embroidered silken banner—the coats of arms of the senior regimental officers present. The eardrums of the diners, particularly those of the Sassenach guests, were subjected in the confined space of the dining room to a veritable barrage of sound. Round and round the table marched the pipers, and round and round the table went the port, brandy, Kummel and Drambuie.

  Finally, after the pipe major had played his solo pibroch, the haunting lovely Desperate Battle of the Birds’, the Colonel tottered from the room followed by the survivors who then indulged in a monstrous barging march, punctuated by wild cries, which passed for Highland reels. These in turn further deteriorated into a competition to see who, by using the furniture, could make the fastest circuit of the ante room without touching the floor. Trubshawe, Pleydell, Bouverie, Kelburn and I left in some alarm when a visiting air commodore ate a champagne glass whole, stem and all, and the majors decided to have a competition to see which one could pick up a box of matches off the floor with his teeth while balancing a bottle of champagne on his head.

  Anthony and David borrowed some civilian clothes and the four of us, now more suitably attired, Trubshawe in a strange green almost knee-length hacking jacket, made a memorable tour of the late bars of the Strada Stretta known to the Jocks as ‘the Gut’.

  At five in the morning after hoovering down ‘prairie oysters’, raw egg yolks mixed with equal portions of port and Worcestershire sauce in ‘Aunties’—a red plush establishment run by an enchanting elderly ex-whore from Leeds—I was sick at the top of the Marsamacetta Cliffs. In the months that followed, my military ambitions suffered a certain seepage as, slowly, but surely, it dawned on me that there was very little point in being a keen young officer. The Army list was kept in the Mess and the pages devoted to the Highland Light Infantry were grubby from the probing fingers that had endlessly traced the inevitable promotions that would come in the long, long years ahead.