by Evelyn Waugh
‘What’s his particular line?’
‘Well, nothing particular, I think.’
‘A specialist in damn-all?’
‘He seems a fairly adaptable chap. He might make himself generally helpful, Colonel Tommy thought.’
‘He can have the sappers if he wants them.’
‘Do you think that’s a good thing?’
‘I think it’s a bloody silly thing. I had a perfectly good chap. Then the CO sent a sort of human ape with orders to break his neck. Since then I’ve barely seen the sappers. I don’t know what they do. I’m sick of them. McTavish can have them.’
Thus, Trimmer first set foot upon the path to glory, little knowing his destination.
That afternoon Tommy left the island once more on a summons from London.
A few days later Jumbo said to Guy: ‘Busy?’
‘No.’
‘It wouldn’t be a bad thing if you went up to the Castle. Colonel Campbell has been writing again. Always keep in with the civilian population if you can.’
Guy found the laird at home, indeed in carpet slippers, and in a genial mood. They sat in a circular turret room full of maps and the weapons of sport. He maundered pleasantly for some minutes’ about ‘a ranker fellow!… Not a Scot at all… Nothing against rankers except they will stick by the book … Nothing against English regiments. A bit slow to get moving, that was all… Have to give commissions to all sorts now of course… Same in the last war… Met him when he first came to the island…. Didn’t think much of him … Didn’t know he was one of yours. Not a bad fellow when you got to know him …’ Until gradually Guy realized that the laird was talking of Trimmer.
‘Had him up after lunch yesterday.’
To bring matters to the point Guy said: ‘McTavish now commands the demolition squad.’
‘Exactly.’
Mugg rose and began fumbling under his writing-table. At length he produced a pair of boots.
‘You know what we were talking about the other evening. I’d like you to come and see.’
He donned his boots and an inverness cape and selected a tall stick from the clutter of rods, gaffs and other tall sticks. Together he and Guy walked into the wind until they stood on the cliff half a mile from the house, overlooking a rough shore of rocks and breakers.
‘There,’ Mugg said. ‘The bathing beach. McTavish says it may be a long job.’
‘I’m no expert but I should rather think he is right.’
‘We have a proverb here, “What’s gone down has to come up.”’
‘In England we have one like that only the other way round.’
‘Not quite the same thing,’ said Mugg severely.
They looked down on the immense heap of granite.
‘It came down all right,’ said Mugg.
‘Evidently.’
‘It was rather a mistake.’
An odd look, a Mona Lisa smirk under the moustache, came into the laird’s weather-beaten face.
‘I blew it down,’ said the laird at length.
‘You, sir?’
‘I used to do a lot of blowing,’ said the laird, ‘up and down. Come over here.’
They walked back a quarter of a mile along the headland in the direction of the castle and looked inland.
‘Over there,’ said the laird. ‘It’s hard to see in the snow. Where there’s that hollow. You can see thistle tops round the edge. You’d not think there had been a stable there, would you?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Stabling for ten, a coach-house, harness-rooms?’
‘No.’
‘There was. Place wasn’t safe, woodwork all rotten, half the tiles gone. Couldn’t afford to repair it and no reason to. I hadn’t any horses. So up it went. They heard the bang at Muck. It was a wonderful sight. Great lumps of granite pitching into the sea and all the cattle and sheep on the island stampeding in every direction. That was on 15 June 1923. I don’t suppose anyone on the island has forgotten that day. I certainly haven’t.’ The laird sighed. ‘And now I haven’t a stick of gelignite on the place. I’ll show you what I have got.’
He led Guy into the crater to a little hut, hitherto invisible. It was massively built of granite.
‘We made that from part of the stable which didn’t go up for some reason or other. The rest of the stone went on the roads. I sold it to the government. It’s my only explosion so far that has shown a profit. Something very near £18 after everything was paid, including the labour on the magazine. This is the magazine.’
The snow, which had drifted high round the hut, had been dug clear to make a narrow passage to the door.
‘Must have ready access. You never know when you’ll need a bit of gun-cotton, do you? But I don’t bring many people here. There was a sort of inspector from the mainland came last summer. Said there had been a report that I was storing explosives. I showed him a few boxes of cartridges. Told him to look anywhere. He never found the magazine. You know how reports get about in a small place like this. Everyone knows everyone and then you get grudges. My factor has grudges with almost everyone on the island, so they try and take it out of him by making reports. Let me lead the way.’
The laird took a key from his pocket and opened the door on a single, lightless chamber. He lit an end of candle and held it high with the air of an oenophilist revealing his most recondite treasure. There was in fact a strong resemblance to a wine-cellar in the series of stone bins which lined the walls – a cellar sadly depleted.
‘My gelignite once,’ said the laird, ‘from here to here… Now this is gun-cotton. I’m still fairly well-off for that, as you can see. That’s all that’s left of the nitro-glycerine. I haven’t used any for fifteen years. It may have deteriorated. I’ll get some up soon and try it out. … This is all empty, you see. In fact, you might say there’s nothing much worth having now. You have to keep filling up, you know, or you soon find yourself with nothing. My main shortages are fuses and detonators…. Hullo, here’s a bit of luck.’ He put his candle down so that huge shadows filled the magazine. ‘Catch.’
He tossed something out of the farther darkness into the darkness where Guy stood. It passed for a moment through the candle light, hit Guy on the chest and fell to the ground.
‘Butter fingers,’ said the laird. ‘That’s dynamite. Didn’t know I had any left. Throw it back, there’s a good fellow.’
Guy groped and at last found the damp paper-wrapped cylinder, he held it out cautiously.
‘That won’t hurt you. Thousand-to-one chance of trouble with dynamite. Not like some things I’ve had in my time.’
They turned to the door. Guy was sweating in the bitter cold. At last they were in the open air, between the walls of snow. The door was locked.
‘Well,’ said the laird, ‘I’ve let you spy out the poverty of the land. You understand now why I’m appealing for help. Now let me show you some of the things that need doing.’
They walked for two hours, examining falls of rock, derelict buildings, blocked drains, tree stumps and streams which needed damming.
‘I couldn’t get the ranker fellow really interested. I don’t suppose he ever caught a fish in his life.’
For every problem the laird had a specific, drawn from a simple range of high or slow explosive.
When they parted the laird seemed to wait for thanks, as might an uncle who has been round Madame Tussaud’s with a nephew and put himself out to make the tour amusing.
‘Thank you,’ said Guy.
‘Glad you enjoyed it. I shall expect to hear from your Colonel.’
They were standing at the Castle gates.
‘By the way,’ said the laird.’ My niece, whom you met the other evening. She doesn’t know about the magazine. It’s not really any business of hers. She’s just here on a visit.’ He paused and regarded Guy with his fine old blue, blank eyes and then added, ‘Besides, she might waste it, you know.’
But the prodigies of the island were not yet exhausted.
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As Guy returned to the hotel, he paused to observe a man with a heavy load on his back who stood on the edge of the sea, bent double among the rocks and clawing at them, it appeared, with both hands. He rose when he saw Guy, and advanced towards him carrying a dripping mass of weed; a tall wild man, hatless and clothed in a suit of roughly dressed leather; his grey beard spread in the wind like a baroque prophet’s; the few exposed portions of skin were as worn and leathery as his trousers; he wore gold-rimmed pince-nez and spoke not in the accents of Mugg but in precise academic tones.
‘Do I, perhaps, address Colonel Blackhouse?’
‘No,’ said Guy. ‘No, not at all. Colonel Blackhouse is in London.’
‘He is expecting me. I arrived this morning. The journey took me longer than I expected. I came North on my bicycle and ran into some very rough weather. I was just getting my lunch before making myself known. Can I offer you some?’
He held out the seaweed.
‘Thank you,’ said Guy. ‘No, I am just going to the hotel. You must be Dr Glendening-Rees!’
‘Of course.’ He filled his mouth with weed and chewed happily, regarding Guy with fatherly interest. ‘Lunch at the hotel?’ he said. ‘You won’t find hotels on the battle-field, you know.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘Bully beef,’ said the doctor. ‘Biscuit, stewed tea. Poison. I was in the first war. I know. Nearly ruined my digestion for life. That’s why I’ve devoted myself to my subject.’ He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of large limpets. ‘Try these. Just picked them. Every bit as agreeable as oysters and much safer. There’s everything a man can want here,’ he said, gazing fondly at the desolate fore-shore. ‘A rare banquet. I can warrant your men will miss it when they get inland. Things aren’t made quite so easy for them there, particularly at this time of year. Not much showing above ground. You have to grub for it and know what you’re looking for. It’s all a matter of having a flair. The young roots of the heather, for instance, are excellent with a little oil and salt, but get a bit of bog myrtle mixed with them and you’re done. I don’t doubt we can train them.’
He sucked greedily at the limpets.
‘I’m attached to headquarters. We heard you were coming. The Colonel will be very sorry to miss you.’
‘Oh, I can start without him. I have a schedule prepared. Now don’t let me keep you. Go along to your hotel lunch. I shall be a little time here. One of the lessons you will have to learn is to eat slowly in the natural, rational way. Where shall I find someone in authority?’
‘At the hotel’ – it was not a word to placate Dr Glendening-Rees – ‘I’m afraid.’
‘There were no hotels in Gallipoli.’
Some two hours later, when he had completed his natural and rational luncheon, Dr Glendening-Rees sat opposite Jumbo and Guy in the regimental office, explaining his plan of action.
‘I shall want a demonstration squad from you. Half a dozen men will be enough at this stage. Pick them at random. I don’t want the strongest or the youngest or the fittest – just a cross-section. We will be out five days. The essential thing is to make a thorough inspection first. My last experiment was ruined by bad discipline. The men were loaded with concealed food. Their officer even had a bottle of whisky. As a result their whole diet was unbalanced and instead of slowly learning to enjoy natural foods, they broke camp at night, killed a sheep and made themselves thoroughly sick. The only supplement they can possibly need is a little olive oil and barley sugar. I shall keep that and dole it out if I detect any deficiency in the roots. At the end of five days I suggest we hold a little tug-of-war between my squad and six men who have been normally victualled and I’ll guarantee my men give a good account of themselves.’
‘Yes,’ said Jumbo. ‘Yes. That should be most interesting. A pity the CO isn’t here.’
‘No doubt he will be here to see the tug-of-war. I’ve been studying the map of Mugg. It is ideal for our purpose. On the west coast there is a large tract that seems quite uninhabited. There will be no temptation for them to pilfer from farms. Eggs, for instance, would be fatal to the whole conception. I have a full training routine worked out for them – marching, PT, digging. They will get invaluable experience in making a snow bivouac. Nothing more snug if you go the right way about it.’
‘Well,’ said Jumbo. ‘The thing to do is just to stand by, eh? The CO will be back tomorrow or the next day.’
‘Oh, but I’ve got my orders, direct from HOO HQ. I’m to start “forthwith”. Didn’t they notify you?’
‘We had a chit to say you were coming.’
‘This, was it not?’ The doctor produced from his fleecy bosom a carbon copy of the letter that lay in the pending tray. ‘Correct me if I am wrong, but I read that as a direct order to give me every facility for my research.’
‘Yes,’ conceded Jumbo.’ It could be read in that sense. Why not go out and make a recce on your own? I’ve never been across to the west coast. Map may be out of date, you know. Often are. I daresay the whole place has been built over now. Why not take a few days off and make sure?’
Jumbo was replete with unnatural and irrational foods; he was drowsy and no match for an opponent exhilarated with rare marine salts and essences.
‘That’s not how I read my orders,’ said the doctor, ‘or yours.’
Jumbo looked anxiously at Guy. ‘I can’t see any of the troop leaders playing on this one.’
‘Except Major Graves.’
‘Yes, it’s a case for the Specialists, plainly.’
‘For Trimmer and the sappers.’
‘They constitute a cross-section?’
‘Yes, Dr Glendening-Rees. I think that would be a very fair description.’
Major Graves seemed to take a fierce relish in relaying these instructions.
‘From tomorrow you cease to be under my command. Your section will report in full marching order to a civilian medico, under whose orders you will remain until further notice. You will live in the open on heather and seaweed. I can tell you no more than that. HOO HQ has spoken.’
‘I take it, sir, that I shall not be required to go with them?’
‘Oh yes, McTavish. There’s a job of work for you, quite a job. You have to see that your men get nothing to eat, and of course set them an example yourself.’
‘Why us, sir?’
‘Why, McTavish? Because we aren’t the Guards or the Green Jackets, that’s why. Because we’re a troop of odds and sods, McTavish. That’s why you are here.’
Thus with no kind word to speed him Trimmer led his detachment into the unknown.
10
‘A familiar sight surely?’ said Ivor Claire.
Guy examined the yacht through his field-glasses.
‘Cleopatra,’ he read.
‘Julia Stitch,’ said Claire. ‘Too good to be true.’
Guy also remembered the ship. She had put into Santa Dulcina not many summers ago. It was a tradition of the Castello, which Guy rather reluctantly observed, to call on English yachts. He dined on board. Next day the yacht-party, six of them, had climbed up to lunch with him, lightly, hyperbolically, praising everything.
A large dish of spaghetti had been fomented. A number of fleshless fowls had been dismembered and charred; some limp lettuces drenched in oil and sprinkled with chopped garlic. It was a depressing luncheon which even Mrs Stitch’s beauty and gaiety could barely enliven. Guy told the story of the romantic origin of the ‘Castello Crauccibac’. The vino scelto began its soporific work. Conversation lapsed. Then as they sat rather gloomily in the loggia, while Josepina and Bianca were removing the meat-plates, there rose from above them the wild tocsin: ‘C’e scappata la mucca.’ (‘The cow has got out.’) It was the recurring drama of Santa Dulcinese life, the escape of the cow, more pit-pony than minotaur, from her cellar under the farm-house.
Josepina and Bianca took up the cry: ‘Accidente!’ ‘Porca miseria. C’e scappata la mucca,’ dropped everything and bounded over
the parapet.
‘C’e scappata la mucca,’ cried Mrs Stitch, precipitately following.
The dazed animal tumbled from low terrace to terrace among the vines. Mrs Stitch was up with her first. Mrs Stitch was the one to grasp the halter and lead her back with soothing words to her subterranean stall.
‘I was on board once,’ Guy said.
‘I sailed in her. Three weeks of excruciating discomfort. The things one did in peace-time!’
‘It seemed a lap of luxury to me.’
‘Not the bachelors’ cabins, Guy. Julia was brought up in the old tradition of giving hell to bachelors. There was mutiny brewing all the time. She used to drag one out of the casino like a naval picket rounding up a red-light quarter. But there’s no one, no one in the world I’d sooner see at the moment.’ In the weeks of their acquaintance Guy had never seen Claire so moved with enthusiasm. ‘Let’s go down to the quay.’
‘Can she know you’re here?’
‘Trust Julia to keep in touch with chums.’
‘No chum of mine, alas.’
‘Everyone is a chum of Julia’s.’
But as the Cleopatra drew alongside, a chill struck the two watchers.
‘Oh God,’ said Claire, ‘uniforms.’
Half a dozen male figures stood at the rail. Tommy Blackhouse was there beside a sailor deeply laced with gold; General Whale was there; Brigadier Ritchie-Hook was there. Even, preposterously, Ian Kilbannock was there. But not Mrs Stitch.
The newcomers, even the Admiral, looked unwell. Guy and Claire stood to attention and saluted. The Admiral raised a feeble hand. Ritchie-Hook bared his teeth. Then, as if by previous arrangement, the senior officers went below to seek the repose which had been denied them on their voyage. The Cleopatra rudely commandeered, had taken her revenge; she had been built for more friendly waters.
Tommy Blackhouse and Ian Kilbannock came ashore. Tommy’s servant, grey ghost of a guardsman, followed with luggage.
‘Is Jumbo in the office?’
‘Yes, Colonel.’
‘We’ve got to lay on that exercise for tomorrow night.’
‘Shall I come too?’
