McAuslan in the Rough. George Fraser MacDonald
tell me, sir. What’ll folk think, if they see our pipe-band some day, on Princes Street, and him as black as the ace o’ spades, oot front, in a kilt and bunnet, blawin’ away?”
I could pretend that I rejected this indignantly, like a properly enlightened liberal, but I didn’t. I saw his point, and I’d have been a hypocrite if I’d tried to dismiss it out of hand. Anyway, there were more practical matters to consider. What would the pipe-major say? What, if it came to that—and it would—would the Colonel say?
The pipe-major, returning on Monday, was in no doubts. He wasn’t having a black piper, not if the man was the greatest gift to music that God ever made. The pipey, genuinely distressed, for he was torn between his sense of fitness on the one hand, and an admiration for Crombie’s ability on the other, asked the pipe-major to give the lad an audition. The pipe-major, who didn’t want to be seen to be operating a colour bar, conceived that here was a way out. He listened to Crombie, told him to fall out—and then made the mistake of telling the pipe-sergeant he didn’t think the boy was good enough. That did it.
“No’ good enough!” The pipey literally danced in front of my table. “Tellin’ me, that’s been pipin’—aye, and before royalty, too, Balmoral and all—since before Pipe-Major MacDonald had enough wind to belch oot his mither’s milk, that my judgement is at fault! By chings, we’ve lived tae see the day, haven’t we chust! No’ good enough! I’m tellin’ you, Mr MacNeill, that young Crombie iss a piper! And that’s that. And fine I know MacDonald iss chust dead set against the poor loon because he’s as black as my boot! And from a MacDonald, too,” he went on, in a fine indignant irrelevance, “ass if the MacDonalds had anything to hold up their heids aboot—a shower of Argyllshire wogs is what they are! And anither—”
“Hold on, pipey,” I said. “Pipe-Major MacDonald is just taking the line you took yourself—what’s it going to look like, and what will people think?”
“Beside the point, sir! I’m no’ havin’ it said that I cannae tell a good piper when I hear one. That boy’s good enough for the band, and so I’ll tell the Colonel himself!”
And he did, in the presence of Pipe-Major MacDonald, myself (as Crombie’s platoon commander), the second-in-command (as chief technical adviser), the Regimental Sergeant-Major (as leading authority on precedent and tradition), and the Adjutant (as one who wasn’t going to be left out of such a splendid crisis and scandal). And the pipe-major, who had the courage of his convictions, repeated flatly that he didn’t think Crombie was good enough, and also that he didn’t want a black man in his band, “for the look of the thing”. But, being a MacDonald, which is something a shade craftier than a Borgia, he added: “But I’m perfectly happy to abide by your decision, sir.”
The Colonel, who had seen through the whole question and back again in the first two minutes, looked from the pipe-major to the pipey, twisted his greying moustache, and remarked that he took the pipe-major’s point. He (the Colonel) had never seen a white man included in a troop of Zulu dancers, and he’d have thought it looked damned odd if he had.
The Adjutant, who had a happy knack of being contentious, observed that, on the other hand, he’d never heard of a white chap who wanted to join a troop of Zulu dancers, and would they necessarily turn him down if one (a white chap, that was) applied for membership?
The Colonel observed that he, the Colonel, wasn’t a bloody Zulu, so he wasn’t in a position to say.
The second-in-command remarked that the Gurkhas had pipe bands; damned good they were, too.
The Colonel looked at the R.S.M. “Mr Mackintosh?”
This, I thought, would be interesting. In those days few R.S.M.s had university degrees, or much education beyond elementary school, but long experience, and what you can only call depth of character, had given them considerable judicial wisdom; if I were on trial for murder, I’d as soon have R.S.M. Mackintosh on the bench as any judge in the land. He stood thoughtful for a moment, six and a quarter feet of kilted, polished splendour, and then inclined his head with massive dignity towards the Colonel.
“It seems to me, sir,” he said carefully, “that we have a difference of expert opeenion. The pipe-sergeant holds that this soldier is a competent piper; the pipe-major considers he is not. But, not bein’ an expert mysel’, I don’t know what standard is required of a probationary piper?” And he looked straight at the pipe-major, who frowned.
“The boy’s no’ that bad,” he conceded. “But … but he’ll look gey queer on parade, sir.”
The second-in-command said that you couldn’t put a square peg in a round hole. Not unless you forced it, anyway, in his experience.
The Adjutant said someone would be sure to make a joke about the Black Watch. Which, since we weren’t the Black Watch, would be rather pointless, of course, but still …
The Colonel said the Adjutant could stop talking rot, and get back to the point, which was whether Crombie was or was not a fit and proper person to be admitted to the pipe band. It seemed to the Colonel that, in spite of the pipe-major’s reservations about his proficiency, there was no reason why Crombie couldn’t achieve a satisfactory standard …
The second-in-command said that many black chaps were, in point of fact, extremely musical. Chap Armstrong, for example. Not that the second-in-command was particularly partial to that kind of music.
The Adjutant opened his mouth, thought better of it, and the Colonel went on to say that it wasn’t a man’s fault what colour his skin was; on the other hand, it wasn’t anyone’s fault that a pipe band was expected to present a certain appearance. There he paused, and then the pipe-sergeant, who had held his peace until the time was ripe, said:
“Aye, right enough. Folk would laugh at us.”
The Colonel, without thinking, said stiffly: “Oh? Who?”
“Oh … folk, sir,” said the pipey. “People … and ither regiments … might …”
The Colonel looked at him, carefully, and you could see that the die was cast. It wasn’t that the Colonel could be kidded by the pipey; he wasn’t the kind of simpleton who would say “Damn what other people and other regiments think, Crombie is going to play in the pipe band, and that’s that.” But if he now made the opposite decision, he might be thought to be admitting that perhaps he did care what other people thought. It was a very nice point, in a delicately balanced question, the pipey had just made it a little more tricky for him, and both the Colonel and the pipey knew it.
“Mr Mackintosh?” said the Colonel at length, and everyone knew he was looking for confirmation. He got it.
“The pipe-major, sir, describes Crombie as nott bad,” said the R.S.M. slowly. “The pipe-sergeant says he is good. So I take it he can qualify as a probationary piper. That bein’ so—we’ve taken him as a soldier. Whatever work he’s suited for, he should be given. If he’s fit to march in a rifle company, I’m poseetive he’s fit to march in the pipes and drums.” And again he looked at the pipe-major.
“Good,” said the Colonel, and because he was an honest man he added: “I’m relieved. I’d not have cared to be the man who told Crombie the band couldn’t take him. I’ve no doubt he knows exactly how good a piper he is.”
And Crombie played in the pipe-band—having been admitted for all the wrong reasons, no doubt. I’m perfectly certain that the Colonel, the pipe-major, and the pipe-sergeant (in his own perverse way) wished that he just wasn’t there, because he did look odd, in that day and age, and there’s no use pretending he didn’t. Although, as the second-in-command remarked, some people probably thought that a pipe-band looked a pretty odd thing in the first place; some people thought it sounded odd, too—not as odd as those bands one saw at the cinema, though, with the chap Armstrong and fellows called Duke and Earl something-or-other. Probably not titled men at all, he suspected.
Personally, I was glad about Crombie. It wasn’t just that I felt the same way