‘Yes,’ I said.
‘In the First World War everyone was so young. We were so ignorant. No one told us anything. We were very enthusiastic, you see. You recollect of course that there hadn’t been a really big war since the Napoleonic War. Of course there had been the Boer War and the Crimean War but these were side issues.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘You were in the Second World War yourself,’ he said, ‘so you will know.’
But as I had been in the Air Force that didn’t in his opinion count. And yet I too had seen scarves of flame like those of students streaming from ’planes as they exploded in the sky. I felt the responsibility of my job intensely. Though I was so much younger I felt as if I was the older of the two. I felt protective towards him as if it was I who was the officer and he the young starry-eyed recruit.
After Harrison had asked him his questions Morrison was quite happy again and could return to the First World War with a clear conscience. Then one day a parent came to see me. It was in fact Major Beith, a red-faced man with a fierce moustache who had been an officer in the Second World War.
‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ he asked me. ‘My son isn’t learning any chemistry. Have you seen his report card? It’s bloody awful.’
‘He doesn’t work,’ I said firmly.
‘I’m not saying that he’s the best worker in the world. The bugger watches TV all the time but that’s not the whole explanation. He’s not being taught. He got fifteen per cent for his chemistry.’
I was silent for a while and then I said,
‘Education is a very strange thing.’
‘What?’ And he glared at me from below his bushy eyebrows.
I leaned towards him and said, ‘What do you think education consists of?’
‘Consists of? I send my son to this school to be taught. That’s what education consists of. But the little bugger tells me that all he learns about is the Battle of the Marne.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I appreciate that. But on the other hand I sometimes think that . . . ’ I paused. ‘He sees them, I don’t know how he sees them. He sees them as the Flowers of Flanders. Can you believe that?’
His bulbous eyes raked me as if with machine-gun fire.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
I sighed. ‘Perhaps not. He sees them as potential officers and NCOs and privates. He is trying to warn them. He is trying to tell them what it was like. He loves them, you see.’
‘Loves them?’
‘That’s right. He is their commanding officer. He is preparing them.’ And then I said, daringly, ‘What’s chemistry in comparison with that.’
He looked at me in amazement. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘that I am on the education committee?’
‘Yes,’ I said, staring him full in the eye.
‘And you’re supposed to be in charge of discipline here.’
‘I am,’ I said. ‘I have to think of everything. Teachers have rights too.’
‘What do you mean teachers have rights?’
‘Exactly what I said. If pupils have rights so have teachers. And one cannot legislate for love. He loves them more than you or I are capable of loving. He sees the horror awaiting them. To him chemistry is irrelevant.’
For the first time I saw a gleam of understanding passing across the cloudless sky of his eyes. About to get up, he sat down again, smoothing his kilt.
‘It’s an unusual situation,’ I said. ‘And by the nature of things it will not last long. The fact is that we don’t know the horrors in that man’s mind. Every day he is in there he sees his class being charged with bayonets. He sees Germans in grey helmets. He smells the gas seeping into the room. He is protecting them. All he has is his stories to save them.’
‘You think?’ he said looking at me shrewdly.
‘I do,’ I said.
‘I see,’ he said, in his crisp military manner.
‘He is not like us,’ I said. ‘He is being destroyed by his imagination.’ As a matter of fact I knew that his son was lazy and difficult and that part of the reason for that was the affair the major was carrying on with a married woman from the same village.
He thought for a while and then he said, ‘He has only two or three months to go, I suppose. We can last it out.’
‘I knew you would understand,’ I said.
He shook his head in a puzzled manner and then left the room.
The day before he was due to retire Morrison came to see me.
‘They are as prepared as I can make them,’ he said. ‘There is nothing more I can do for them.’
‘You’ve done very well,’ I said.
‘I have tried my best,’ he said.
‘Question and answer,’ he said. ‘I should have done it in that way, but they didn’t know enough. One should start from the known and work out towards the unknown. But they didn’t know enough so I had to start with the unknown.’
‘There was no other way,’ I said.
‘Thank you,’ he said courteously. And he leaned across the desk and shook me by the hand.
I said that I hoped he would enjoy his retirement but he didn’t answer.
‘Goodbye for the present,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid I shall have to be away tomorrow. A meeting, you understand.’
His eyes clouded over for a moment and then he said,
‘Well, goodbye then.’
‘Goodbye,’ I said. I thought for one terrible moment that he would salute but he didn’t.
As a matter of fact I didn’t see him often after his retirement. It was time that chemistry was taught properly. Later however I heard that he had lost his memory and couldn’t tell his stories of the World War any more.
I felt this as an icy bouquet on my tongue. But the slate had to be cleaned, education had to begin again.
The Snowballs
‘The minister, the Reverend Murdo Mackenzie, and his son, Kenneth, will be visiting the school tomorrow,’ Mr Macrae told the boys of Standard Seven. ‘I want you to be on your best behaviour.’ They sat two to a seat in a room which was white with the light of the snow.
‘That is all I have to say about it,’ he said. He unfurled a map which he stretched across the blackboard. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘we will do some geography.’
The following day was again a dazzle of white. Mr Macrae took a watch from his breast pocket and said, ‘They will be here at eleven o’clock. It is now five to eleven and time for your interval.’ They rushed out into the playground and immediately began to throw snowballs at each other. They would perhaps have a longer interval today and then Mr Macrae would blow his whistle and they would form lines and march into the room.
Torquil shook his head as he received a snowball in the face and then ran after Daial, whom he hit with a beauty. The sky was clear and blue, and the snow crisp and fresh and white.
At eleven o’clock they saw a stout sombre man clad in black climb the icy steps to the playground, a small pale boy beside him. They stopped throwing snowballs for they knew this was the minister. He halted solidly in the middle of the playground and said,
‘This is my son Kenneth. I shall leave him with you for a while. I am going to see Mr Macrae.’ He had a big red face and a white collar which cut into his thick red neck. Mr Macrae was waiting for him at the door and they saw him bend forward a little as he welcomed the minister into the school.
‘Come on,’ said Torquil to the small pale Kenneth. ‘You can join in if you want.’ Kenneth seemed at first not to know what to do, and he stood uncertainly in the middle of the playground, while all around him the boys whirled and shouted and threw snowballs. Then he too began to throw snowballs and after a while he was enjoying himself hugely, and his pale face glowed with colour. He got a snowball in the back of the neck but he gave another one back, though he slipped once or twice being not at all sure on his feet. He ran almost like a girl with his hands in front of him. The interval passed quickly and then just at the momen
t that Kenneth had received another snowball, this time on the cheek, Mr Macrae and the minister appeared at the door.
They saw the minister stride wrathfully forward after saying something to Mr Macrae and still with the same uninterrupted stride descend the icy steps, his hand in his son’s hand, and disappear from view. Mr Macrae blew his whistle and they all lined up, still red and panting from their exertions. As they stood in line they saw that Mr Macrae was trembling with rage and his face was white.
His moustache bristled as he shouted,
‘So you threw snowballs at the minister’s son, eh? Eh? I will teach you.’ While they still waited in line he went furiously back into the school-room and emerged with a belt. ‘So that you will know what you are being belted for,’ he said, ‘you are getting it for throwing snowballs at the minister’s son. You have made me a laughing stock. The minister’s son is at a private school and is not used to such behaviour. You have shown yourselves to be hooligans, that’s what you have done.’
‘Hold out your hand,’ he said to Daial, who was at the head of the line. They heard the belt whistle through the air six times. ‘Now your other hand,’ said Mr Macrae. Torquil waited. He was sixth in line. He knew that the belt would be very sore on such a cold winter’s day. He spat on his two hands in preparation. Swish went the belt and the more he belted the more fierce became Mr Macrae’s rage.
While he was waiting to be belted Torquil said to himself, ‘Kenneth was enjoying the snowballing. Why are we being belted?’ But he knew that the belting didn’t have anything to do with Kenneth, it had to do with the minister, and perhaps not even with the minister but with Mr Macrae. Deep within himself he felt the unfairness of it: twelve of the belt for throwing snowballs, that was not right. Ahead of him he heard the Mouse whimpering quietly and saw him bending down, wringing his hands as if he were in unbearable pain. Mr Macrae now reached him and said, ‘Hold out your hand, boy,’ not ‘Torquil’ but ‘boy.’ He did so and the first stroke had a sting that made him wince. The second one was worse and by the time that the sixth one came he felt that his hand had been cut. He gritted his teeth as tightly as he could. ‘The other hand,’ said Mr Macrae, his small pale moustached face fierce and determined. The belt rose and fell, rose and fell. For one crazy moment Torquil thought of withdrawing his hand and then decided against it, even though he was as tall as Mr Macrae if it came to a struggle. Then it was all over and they were back in the classroom again.
They sat down in their seats and for a while Mr Macrae turned his back on the class, breathing heavily as if still not satiated.
Many of the boys were wringing their hands under the desks and the Mouse was still whimpering quietly.
‘That’s enough,’ said Mr Macrae and the Mouse stopped whimpering.
The boys opened their poetry books and they read round the class.
‘A wet sheet and a flowing sea
a wind that follows fast
and fills the white and rustling sail
and bends the gallant mast
and bends the gallant mast, my boys,
while like the eagle free
away the good ship flies and leaves
old England on the lee.’
Mr Macrae beat with his ruler on the desk as if it was a metronome.
‘There’s témpest in yon hórned móon,
and líghtning in yon clóud
But hárk the músic máriners
the wínd is píping lóud.’
Suddenly he seemed to have become jolly again and to have forgotten the belting and the snowballing.
‘The wind is píping lóud, my bóys,
the lightning fláshes frée,
while the hóllow óak our pálace ís,
our héritage the séa,
Torquil put his hand up.
‘What is it, Campbell?’
‘Please, sir, I want to go to the toilet.’
‘All right then, all right then,’ said Mr Macrae in the same jolly voice. Torquil left the room and went outside into the whiteness. It was snowing gently and the flakes broke like stars on his jacket and his white trousers. The toilet at the back of the school was cold and draughty, and there was no lock on the door. The water poured down the walls. He stood there for a while contemplatively peeing, his hands so raw and red that he had difficulty in unfastening and then fastening his fly.
After a while he left the toilet and went into the school again. As he was coming in the door he saw Mr Macrae standing there, while from the classroom whose door was shut he could hear the boys chanting in unison,
‘O for a sóft and géntle bréeze
I héard the fáir one cry
but gíve to ḿe the snóring bréeze
and wite waves héaving hígh.’
‘And white waves heaving high,’ said Mr Macrae jocularly. ‘So you will throw snowballs at the minister’s son.’ And he made to hit Torquil on the bottom with the belt, but Torquil slid away and was hit on the head instead. For a moment a phantom fighter turned on Mr Macrae and then he was back in the classroom again, sitting in his seat. Mr Macrae was now in a good mood and shouting,
‘And bends the gallant mast, my boys. Can’t you see it, boys, the ship with all sails set crowding across the ocean? The storm can do nothing to her for as we are told in the poem the good ship was tight and free. What is the hollow oak, Torquil?’ Torquil looked up at him out of the gathering swaying darkness into which he abruptly fell, the ocean closing over him.
‘Torquil,’ shouted the headmaster and then there was complete darkness. Later he felt himself being set on his feet. Cold water was streaming down his face. Mr Macrae was speaking to him nervously.
‘Are you all right, Torquil?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good, good. You can go home then. Did you hear me? You may go home. Tell your father I shall be along later.’ Torquil stood on the floor, no longer swaying.
‘Fine, fine,’ said Mr Macrae, ‘it was an accident, you understand.’
Torquil left the classroom and walked across the playground and down the steps and then turned left to go home. The snow was still falling, very lightly, on his jacket. Soon it would be Christmas, he thought.
When he went in the door his mother looked up. Her hands were white with flour.
‘I’m not going back,’ said Torquil.
‘What did you say?’
‘I’m not going back. Ever,’ said Torquil.
‘I am going for your father,’ said his mother, and she went into the byre where her husband was busy with harness.
‘Torquil has come home,’ she said, ‘and says he’s not going back to school again.’
Her husband raised his grave pale bearded face and said,
‘I will see him. Tell him to come in here.’
She went back into the house and told Torquil,
‘Your father wants to see you in the byre.’
Torquil went into the byre where his father was waiting. The smell of leather calmed him: he would like to learn how to plough. Next spring he would ask his father to let him.
‘What is all this?’ said his father. ‘Sit on that chest.’ Torquil sat down.
‘Well, then,’ said his father.
Torquil told him his story. He tried to tell his father that the worst part of it was not the belting but the difference between him and the minister’s son, but he couldn’t put into words what he felt. He put his raw hands under his bottom as he sat on the chest. His father didn’t say anything for a long while and then he said,
‘Mr Macrae is a good man. He is a good teacher.’
‘Yes, father,’ said Torquil.
‘The one before him was too slack.’ Then he stopped. ‘I will think about it.’ Then, ‘Mr Macrae is a good navigation teacher,’ he added as if this was as important. ‘Go inside now.’
At half past four Torquil saw Mr Macrae heading for the house on his bicycle, a small figure on which the snow was falling. Through the window, itself almost
covered with snow, he saw him approaching and then his father going to meet him. He couldn’t hear what Mr Macrae was saying but saw that he was gesticulating. His father stared at the ground and then shook his head. He seemed to be much calmer than Mr Macrae who was like a wasp humming about a bull. Then after Mr Macrae had talked a great deal, Torquil saw him get on his bike and ride away. After he had gone his father sent for him.
‘You are not going back to school,’ he said. ‘You will work with me on the croft. We will say no more about it.’
Torquil saw that his mother was about to say something but his father looked at her and she bent her head to the plate again.
That spring Torquil was allowed to help his father with the ploughing which was harder than he had thought. The plough refused to go in a straight line, the patient horse tugged and tugged. Seagulls flew about the sparse ground, and a fresh wind was in his nostrils. Sometimes as he walked along he could hear a voice in his head saying
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
while like the eagle free
away the good ship flies and leaves
old England on the lee.
The black earth turned and the blades were hit by stones. He felt as if he was captain of a ship, his jersey billowing in the breeze.
‘You’ll come on fine,’ said his father and then to his mother that night. ‘He’s coming along fine.’
When he was eighteen years old, because there was no employment, he decided to emigrate to Canada. He stood on the pier, his father and mother beside him. The ship’s sails swelled in the breeze.
‘You will be all right,’ said his father. ‘You have a good grounding in navigation. Mr Macrae saw to that.’
The Black Halo Page 31
