Free The Complete McAuslan by George MacDonald Fraser Page B

policeman, which meant that he might well be court-martialled – which, inevitably, for a man with a record like his, would mean a long stretch in the glasshouse at Cairo.
    ‘He’ll no’ get away wi’ it this time, poor loon,’ said McGarry. ‘It’ll be outwith the battalion, ye see. Aye, auld Wullie, he’ll be the forgotten man of Heliopolis nick if the redcaps get their way.’ He added, apparently irrelevantly, ‘For a′ the Colonel can say.’
    I left the guardroom and walked across the starlit parade ground through the grove of tamarisks to the white-walled subalterns’ quarters, wondering if this was really the finish of Wee Wullie. If it was, well, the obvious thing to do would be to thank God we were rid of a knave, an even bigger battalion pest than the famous Private McAuslan, the dirtiest soldier in the world, an Ishmael, a menace, a horrible man. At the same time . . .
    All that was really wrong with Wee Wullie was his predilection for strong drink and violent trouble. He was drunk the first time I ever saw him, on a desert convoy passing under Marble Arch, that towering monument to Mussolini’s vanity which bestrides the road on the Libyan border. I had noticed this huge man, first for his very size, secondly for his resemblance to the late William Bendix, and lastly for his condition, which was scandalous. He was patently tight, but still at the good-humoured stage, and was being helped aboard a truck by half a dozen well-wishers. They dropped him several times, and he lay in the sand roaring. I was a green subaltern, but just experienced enough to know when not to intervene, so I left them to it, and eventually they got him over the tailboard. (It is astonishing just how often an officer’s duty seems to consist of looking the other way, or maybe I was just a bad officer.)
    In the battalion itself he was a curious mixture. As far as the small change of soldiering went, Wullie was reasonably efficient. His kit at inspections was faultless, his knowledge and deportment exact, so far as they went, which was just far enough for competence. In his early days he had been as high as sergeant before being busted (I once asked the Adjutant when this had been, and he said, ‘God knows, about the first Afghan War, I should think’), but in later years the authorities had despaired of promoting him to any rank consistent with his length of service. Occasionally they would make him a lance-corporal, just for variety, and then Wullie would pick a fight with the American Marines, or tip a truck over, or fall in alcoholic stupor into a river and have to be rescued, and off would come his stripe again. He had actual service chevrons literally as long as his arm, but badges of rank and good conduct he had none.
    Yet he enjoyed a curiously privileged position. In drill, for example, it was understood that there were three ways of doing things: the right way, the wrong way, and Wee Wullie’s way. His movements were that much slower, more ponderous, than anyone else’s; when he saluted, his hand did not come up in a flashing arc, but jerked up so far, and then travelled slowly to his right eyebrow. On parade, there was some incongruity in the sight of a platoon of wee Gleska keelies and great-chested Aberdonians (who run to no spectacular height, as a rule) with Gargantua in their midst, his rifle like a popgun in his huge fist, and himself going through the motions with tremendous intensity, half a second behind everyone else. There was almost a challenge in the way he performed, as though he was conscious of being different, and yet there was about him a great dignity. Even the Regimental Sergeant Major recognised it, and excused much.
    This was when he was sober and passive. Even then he was withdrawn and monosyllabic; only when he was slightly inebriated could he be described as sociable. Beyond that he was just outrageous, a dangerous, wickedly powerful ruffian whom only the redoubtable McGarry could manage