But all this was long ago, and has nothing much to do with the story of Private McAuslan, that well-known military disaster, golfing personality and caddy extraordinary. Except for the fact that I suppose something of that great old lady’s personality stayed with me, and exerted its influence whenever I took a golf club in hand. Not that this was often; as I grew through adolescence I developed a passion for cricket, a love-hate relationship with Rugby, and some devotion to soccer, so that golf faded into the background. Anyway, for all my early training, I wasn’t much good, a scratching, turf-cutting 24-handicapper whose drives either went two hundred yards dead straight or whined off at right angles into the wilderness. I was full of what you might call golfing lore and know-how, but in practice I was an erratic slasher, a blasphemer in bunkers, and prone to give up round about the twelfth hole and go looking for beer in the clubhouse.
In the army there was less time than ever for golf, but it chanced that when our Highland battalion was posted back to Scotland from North Africa shortly after the war we were stationed on the very edge of one of those murderous east coast courses where the greens are small and fast, the wind is a howling menace, and the rough is such that you either play straight or you don’t play at all. This, of course, is where golf was born, where the early giants made it an art before the Americans turned it into a science, and whence John Paterson strode forth in his blacksmith’s apron to partner the future King James II in the first international against England. (That was a right crafty piece of gamesmanship on James’s part, too, but it won the match, so there you are.)
In any event, the local committee made us free of their links, and the battalion had something of a golfing revival. This was encouraged by our new Colonel, a stiffish, Sandhurst sort of man who had decided views on what was sport and what was not. Our old Colonel had been a law unto himself: boxing, snooker, billiards-fives, and working himself into hysterics at battalion football matches had been his mark, but the new man saw sport through the pages of Country Life. Well, I mean, he rode horses, shot grouse, and belonged to some ritzy yacht club on the Forth where they drank pink gin and wore handkerchiefs in their sleeves. To a battalion whose notions of games began and ended with a football, this was something rich and strange. But since he approved of golf, and liked to see his officers taking advantage of the local club’s hospitality, those of us who could play did so, and a fairly bad showing we made. Subalterns like myself plowtered our way round and rejoiced when we broke 90; two of our older majors set a record in lost balls for a single round (23, including five found and lost again); the Regimental Sergeant-Major played a very correct, military game in which the ball seldom left the fairway but never travelled very far either; and the M.O. and Padre set off with one set of clubs and the former’s hip flask – their round ended with the Padre searching for wild flowers and the M.O. lying in the bracken at the long fourteenth singing ‘Kishmul’s Galley’. It was golf of a kind, if you like, and only the Adjutant took it at all seriously.
This was probably because he possessed a pair of pre-war plus fours and a full set of clubs, which enabled him to put on tremendous side. Bunkered, which he usually was, he would affect immense concern over whether he should use a seven or eight iron – would the wind carry his chip far enough? should he apply top spin?
‘What do you think, Pirie?’ he would ask his partner, who was the officers’ mess barman but in private life had been assistant pro. at a course in Nairn and was the only real golfer in the battalion. ‘Should I take the seven or the eight?’
‘For a’ the guid ye are wi’ either o’ them ye micht as weel tak’ a bluidy bulldozer,’ Pirie would say. Upon which he would be sternly reprimanded for insubordination, the Adjutant would seize his blaster, and after a dozen unsuccessful slashes would snatch up the ball in rage and hurl it frenziedly into the whins.
‘It’s a’ one,’ Pirie would observe. ‘Ye’d have three-putted anyway.’
‘I can’t understand it,’ I once heard the Adjutant say in the mess bar, in that plaintive, self-examining tone which is the hallmark of the truly bum golfer. ‘I’ve tried the overlap grip, I’ve tried the forefinger down the shaft; I’ve stood up from the ball and I’ve crouched over it; I’ve used several stances, with my feet together, my feet apart, and my knees bent – everything! But the putts simply won’t go down. Pirie here will confirm me. I don’t understand it at all. What do you think, Pirie?’
‘Ye cannae bluidy well putt,’ said the unfeeling Pirie. ‘That’s a’ there is to it.’
Mess barmen, it need hardly be added, are privileged people, and anyway the Adjutant and Pirie had once stood back to back in an ambush on the Chocolate Staircase, and had an understanding of their own. It was something which the new Colonel would not have fully appreciated, for he had not served with the regiment since before the war, and was as big a stickler for military discipline as long service on the staff could make him. He did not understand the changes which six years of war had wrought, most especially in a Highland regiment, which is a curious organisation in the first place.
It looks terribly military, and indeed it is, but under the surface a Highland unit has curious currents which are extremely irregular. There is a sort of unspoken yet recognised democracy which may have its roots in clanship, or in the Scottish mercenary tradition, and which can play the devil with rank and authority unless it is properly understood. The new Colonel obviously was unaware of this, or he would not have suddenly ordained, one fine bright morning, that whenever an officer played golf he should have a soldier to caddy for him.
In feudal theory, even in military theory, this was all very well. In the egalitarian atmosphere of a Highland battalion, circa 1947, it was simply not on; our old Colonel wouldn’t even have thought of it. Quite apart from the fact that every man in the unit, in that Socialist age, knew his rights and was well aware that caddying wasn’t covered by the Army Act – well, you can try getting a veteran of Alamein and Anzio to carry golf clubs for a pink-cheeked one-pipper, but when that veteran has not only learned his political science at Govan Cross but is also a member of an independent and prideful race, you may encounter difficulties. However, the Colonel’s edict had gone forth, and after it had been greeted in the mess with well-bred whistles and exclamations of ‘I say!’ and ‘Name o’ the wee man!’, I was left, as battalion sports officer, to arrange the impressment of suitable caddies.
‘The man’s mad,’ I told the Adjutant. ‘There’ll be a mutiny.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘You could try picking on the simple-minded ones.’
‘The only simple-minded ones in this outfit are in our own mess,’ I said. ‘Can you imagine Wee Wullie’s reaction, for example, if he’s told to caddy for some of our young hopefuls? He’ll run amuck.’ Wee Wullie was a giant of uncontrolled passions and immense brawn whose answer to any vexing problem was usually a swung fist. ‘And the rest of them are liable to write to their M.P.s. You don’t know the half of it in Headquarter Company; out where the rest of us live it’s like a Jacobin literary society.’
‘Use tact,’ advised the Adjutant, ‘and if that fails, try blackmail. But whatever you do, for God’s sake don’t provoke a disciplinary crisis.’
In other words, perform the impossible, and the only normal way to do that was to enlist the Regimental Sergeant-Major, the splendid Mr Mackintosh. But I hesitated to do this; like a scientist on the brink of some shattering experiment, I was fearful of releasing powers beyond my control. So after deep thought I decided to confine my activities to my own platoon, whom I knew, and made a subtle approach to the saturnine Private Fletcher, who was the nearest thing to a shop steward then in uniform. We were soon chatting away on that agreeable officer-man basis which is founded on mutual respect and makes the British Army what it is.
‘Fletcher,’ I said casually, ‘there are a limited number of openings for Jocks to caddy for the officers when they play golf. It’s light work, in congenial surroundings, and tho
se who are fortunate enough to be selected will receive certain privileges, etc., etc. Now those loafers up in Support Company would give their right arms for the chance, but what I say is, what’s the use of my being sports officer if I can’t swing a few good things for my own chaps, so – ’
‘Aye, sir,’ said Fletcher. ‘Whit’s the pey?’
‘The pay?’
‘Uh-huh. The pey. Whit’s the rate for the job?’
This took me aback. It hadn’t occurred to me to suggest paying Jocks to caddy, and I was willing to bet it hadn’t occurred to the Colonel either. Fall in the loyal privates, touching their forelocks by numbers, would be his idea. But I now saw a way through this embarrassing problem; after all, I did have a sports fund at my disposal, and a quarter-master who could cook a book to a turn.
‘Well, now,’ I said, ‘we ought to be able to fix that easily enough. Suppose we say about a shilling an hour . . .′ The fund ought to be able to stand that, under ‘miscellaneous’.
‘Aw, jeez, come aff it, sir,’ said Fletcher respectfully. ‘Two bob an hour, an’ overtime in the evenin’s. Double time Setterdays an’ Sundays, an′ a hardship bonus for whoever has tae carry the Adjutant’s bag. Yon’s a bluidy disgrace, no kiddin’; the man’s no fit tae play on the street. Ye′ll no’ get anyone in his right mind tae caddy for him; it’ll have tae be yin o’ the yahoos.’ He fumbled in his pocket. ‘I’ve got a wee list here, sir, o’ fellas that would do, wi’ the rates I was mentionin’ just now. Wan or two o’ them have played golf theirsel’s, so they mebbe ought tae get two an’ six an hour – it’ll be kinda professional advice, ye see. But we’ll no’ press it.’
I looked dumbly at him for a moment. ‘You knew about this? But, dammit, the Adjutant only mentioned it half an hour ago . . .’
He looked at me pityingly as I took his list. Of course, I ought to have known better. All this stuff about Highlanders’ second sight is nonsense; it’s just first-class espionage, that’s all.
‘Well,’ I said, studying the list, ‘I don’t know about this. I’m sure it’s all very irregular . . .’
‘So’s the employment o’ military personnel ootwith military duties,’ said Fletcher smugly. ‘Think if somebody frae the Daily Worker wis tae get word that wee shilpit Toamy frae the Q.M. store – him wi’ the bad feet – wis humphin’ the Adjutant’s golf-sticks a’ ower the place. They might even get a picture of him greetin’ – ’
‘Quite, quite,’ I said. ‘Point taken. All right, two bob an hour, but I want respectable men, understand?’
‘Right, sir.’ Fletcher hesitated. ‘Would there be a wee allowance, mebbe, for wear an’ tear on the fellas’ civvy clothes? They cannae dae the job in uniform, and it’s no fair tae expect a fella tae spile his glamour pants and long jaicket sclimmin’ intae bunkers – ’
‘They can draw white football shirts and long khaki drills from the sports store,’ I said. ‘Now go away, you crimson thief, and see that nobody who isn’t on this list ever hears that there’s payment involved, otherwise we’ll have a queue forming up. I want this thing to work nice and smoothly.’
And of course it did. Fletcher had picked eight men, including himself, of sober habit and decent appearance, and the sight of them in their white shirts and khaki slacks, toting their burdens round the links, did the Colonel’s heart good to see. It all looked very military and right, and he wasn’t to know that they were being subsidised out of battalion funds. In fact, I had quietly informed the Adjutant that if those officers who played golf made an unofficial contribution to the sports kitty, it would be welcome, and the result was that we actually showed a profit.
The Jocks who caddied were all for it. They made money, they missed occasional parades, and they enjoyed such privileges as watching the Adjutant have hysterics while standing thigh-deep in a stream, or hearing the Padre addressing heaven from the midst of a bramble patch. It was all good clean fun, and would no doubt have stayed that way if the new Colonel, zealous for his battalion’s prestige, hadn’t got ambitious.
He didn’t play golf himself, but he took pride in his unit’s activities, and it chanced that on one of his strolls across the course he saw Pirie the barman playing against the better of our elderly majors. The major must have been at his best, and Pirie’s game was immaculate as usual, so the Colonel, following them over the last three holes, got a totally false impression of the standard of golf under his command. This, he decided, was pretty classy stuff, and it seems that he mentioned this to his friend who commanded the Royals, who inhabited that part of the country. Colonels are forever boasting to each other in this reckless way, whereby their underlings often suffer most exquisitely.
Anyway, the Colonel of the Royals said he had some pretty fair golfers in his mess, and how about a game? Our Colonel, in his ignorance, accepted the challenge. I privately believe that he had some wild notion that because we had caddies in nice white shirts we would have a built-in advantage, but in any event he placed a bet with the Royals’ C.O. and then came home to tell the Adjutant the glad news. We were to field ten players in a foursomes match against the Royals, and we were to win.
Now, you may think an inter-regimental golf match is fairly trivial stuff, but when a new and autocratic Colonel is involved, puffed up with regimental conceit, and when the opposition is the Royals, it is a most serious matter. For one thing, the Royals are unbearable. They are tremendously old, and stuffed with tradition and social graces, and adopt a patronising attitude to the rest of the army in general, and other Scottish units in particular. Furthermore, they can play golf – or they could then – and of this the Adjutant was painfully aware.
However, like the good soldier he was, he set about marshalling his forces, which consisted of making sure that he personally partnered Pirie.
‘We know each other’s game, you see,’ he told me. ‘We blend, as it were.’
‘You mean he’ll carry you round on his back,’ I said. ‘You don’t fool me, brother. You see that partnering Pirie is the one chance you’ve got of being in a winning pair.’
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to work with the Colonel; I see him every day, don’t I? I’ve got to salvage something from what is sure to be a pretty beastly wreck. Now, how about the second pair? The Padre and the M.O., eh? They always play together.’
‘They’ll be good for a laugh, anyway,’ I said. ‘Unless the Royals go easy on them out of respect for the clerical cloth, or the M.O. can get his opponents drunk, they don’t stand a prayer.’
‘Then there’s young Macmillan – he’s not bad,’ said the Adjutant hopefully. ‘I saw him hole a putt the other day. You could partner him yourself.’
‘Not a chance,’ I said .‘The best he’s ever gone round in is 128, with a following wind. Furthermore he giggles. I want to succumb with dignity; either I partner the R.S.M. or you can get yourself another boy.’
‘Old man Mackintosh, eh?’ said the Adjutant. ‘Well, he’s a steady player, isn’t he? Can’t think I’ve ever seen him in the rough.’
‘That’s why I want him,’ I said. ‘I want to play a few of my shots from a decent lie.’
‘You’ve got a rotten, defeatist attitude,’ said the Adjutant severely.
‘I’m a rotten, defeatist golfer,’ I said. ‘So are you, and so are the rest of us, bar Pirie.’
‘Ah, yes, Pirie,′ said the Adjutant, smirking. ′He and I should do not too badly, I think. If I can remember not to overswing; and I think I’ll get the pro. to shave my driver just a teeny fraction – for balance, you know – and get in a bit of practice with my eight iron . . .′
‘Come back to earth, Sarazen,’ I said. ‘You’ve still got two couples to find.’
We finally settled on our two elderly majors, Second-Lieutenant Macmillan, and Regimental Quartermaster Bogle, a stout and imposing warrant officer who had been known to play a few rounds with the pipe-sergeant. No one knew how they scored, but Bogle used to say off-handedly that his game had rusted a wee bitt
y since he won the Eastern District Boys’ Title many years ago – heaven help us, it must have been when Old Tom Morris was in small clothes – and the pipey would nod sagely and say:
‘Aye, aye, Quarters, a wee thing over par the day, just a wee thing, aye. But no’ bad, no’ bad at all.’
Personally I thought this was lying propaganda, but I couldn’t prove it.
‘It is,’ admitted the Adjutant, ‘a pretty lousy team. Oh, well, at least our caddies will look good.’
But there he was dead wrong. He was not to know it, but lurking in the background was the ever-present menace of Private McAuslan, now preparing to take a hand in the fate of the battalion golf team.
He was far from my mind on the afternoon of the great match, as the R.S.M. and I stood waiting outside the clubhouse to tee off. Presently my own batman, the tow-headed McClusky, who was caddying for me, arrived on the scene, and shambling behind him was the Parliamentary Road’s own contribution to the pollution problem, McAuslan himself.
‘What’s he doing here?’ I demanded, shaken.
‘He’s come tae caddy,’ explained McClusky. ‘See, there’s only eight caddies on the list, an’ ten o’ ye playin’, so Fletcher picked anither two. Him an’ Daft Bob Broon.’
‘Why him?’ I hissed, aware that our visitors from the Royals were casting interested glances towards McAuslan, whose greywhite shirt was open to the waist, revealing what was either his skin or an old vest, you couldn’t tell which. His hair was tangled and his mouth hung open; altogether he looked as though he’d just completed a bell-ringing stint at Notre Dame.
‘Fletcher said it would be a’right.’
‘I’ll talk to Master Fletcher in due course,’ I said. ‘But you ought to have known better, at least. Well, you can darn your own socks after this, my lad.’ I turned to McAuslan. ‘You,’ I hissed, ‘button your shirt and try to look half-decent.’