‘Aye. You’ve met Morag?’
The Colonel looked nervous. ‘Oh yes. Delighted.’ He waved his glass and nodded. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’ He picked his way through the crowd rather as if he were frightened of it. Two or three groups opened like a flower to let the queen bee land, but he hovered and moved on again, farther round the room. His face was the face of anxiety. But that again only endeared him to the ladies.
Sometimes, and all of a sudden, they felt that it was only right that he should be called Boy. In spite of the grey hair, he looked like a child at a party; looked as if he had lost his way. And that, to regimental women, is something very attractive: their own husbands are always so vehement in protesting that they know where they are going. When Jock saw one of these take him by the hand and draw him into a group, it sickened him.
‘Well, Father?’ He had said nothing to Morag.
‘A-huh. Well, you seemed to be talking with him very seriously.’
‘I was just warning him what a bear you are.’
‘Aye. What did you say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Well you looked bloody pleased about it. He’s no the Brigadier you know; he’s just another colonel.’
Morag looked angry. The muscle in her cheek moved and she looked down at her feet.
‘I meant no harm,’ she said. ‘For goodness sake.’
‘Look at them now: look at them. You know these are the same women that made such a bloody fuss over me in forty-five. But I couldn’t cope with them. You wouldn’t remember. I was bloody rude to them.’
‘I’m sure,’ she replied, tightly.
Because some of the best-behaved subalterns and their blonde partners asked him politely, if persistently like little children, the Colonel allowed them to dance in the main hall, and the pipers were duly organised. Most of the grown-ups left about then which, as things turned out, was a blessing for Barrow; but the rest of them really settled down to enjoy themselves. In the billiards room, one or two of the wives were all blouse and colour by now, and Dusty Millar was very drunk, but Jock and some of the others came through in a group, abreast, towards the dancing. Morag stayed until the pipers arrived. They both knew her and smiled politely, but in spite of Douglas Jackson’s grip on her arm, she stayed no longer.
The Colonel disappeared into the ante-room once again, when the dancing began. But later, as the noise in the hall increased, he grew more and more nervy and two or three times he ignored altogether remarks put to him by his guests. The noise from the hall grew in gusts and it was soon clear that the style of dancing was diverging very far from the lines laid down by the Pipe-Major at the early morning classes. Seeing the Colonel’s face, nobody in the ante-room could think of anything else and the whole Mess seemed to be shaking.
Suddenly Barrow could stand it no longer. It was as if he had known all along that the party was building up to this. He detached himself from the group by the fire and walked out of the room: then he checked himself. When he saw the scene in the hall he grew pale with anger, and the liquor circled even faster in his glass. There were two sets dancing the eightsome. The first was lively, but their behaviour was excusable at the end of such a party. That could not be said for the second. Jock, Douglas Jackson, Rattray, and a fourth who was a local farmer, were the men in the set, and they were hoping that the Colonel would come to watch. Three or four times Jimmy Cairns, dancing in the other set, had implored them to dance less noisily. But he had done so in vain.
Barrow’s lip twitched and he rubbed his thumb against the tips of his fingers. The whole floor was shaking, and the glass in the front door was rattling as the dancers leapt about the room swinging, swaying and shouting. When they saw the Colonel the noise increased, and a moment later Rattray inadvertently let go of the partner he was swinging vigorously so that she spun like a top across the floor, lost her balance, and fell. She fell at Barrow’s feet.
Corporal Fraser and the other piper stopped playing and the dance came suddenly to an end. The Colonel reached forward to help the girl and she shook her hair from her face. She was too uncertain of the look in Barrow’s eyes to say anything at all and Jock was the first to speak.
‘Are you all right, lassie?’
But it was Barrow who spoke next. His voice was low and clear.
‘Mr Rattray. I believe you owe this young lady an apology.’
‘Oh hell …’ she began. She was a student from St Andrews, this girl, and she knew all the words, but when she looked at the Colonel again her vocabulary failed her, and her voice died away. The Colonel stood very tensely. The gin in his glass was shaking so violently now that it splashed, and when Jock observed that a little of it had spilt he looked at the Colonel’s face, and he smiled a half-triumphant smile.
‘Have a drink, boy, have a drink,’ he said cordially; then he half turned towards the others. ‘Unless you’d like to join us. I’m sure Douglas here’ll stand out.’
Barrow’s voice was a pitch or two higher than usual.
‘Piper: this will be the last reel.’
‘Sir.’
The Colonel stood and watched as the pipers played again. He took a gulp of his drink to empty the shaking glass. The dance began quietly, to Jimmy Cairns’s great relief, and the girls soon adapted themselves to the style of it. They held their heads high and their backs arched: they placed their hands firmly with the palms downwards before them when it came to a swing. Barrow’s shoulders dropped an inch with relief.
But when it was Jock’s turn in the centre he let his bloodshot eyes rest on the Colonel by the door. For the first circle he behaved himself: he set to his partner and to the third lady, and he completed the figure of eight with reserved precision coming near to perfection. Then when they circled again he sprang off the ground, flung his hands high in the air and let out a scream to crack rock. The others followed his lead. The noise rose, the floor started to shake again, and the glass in the door rattled louder than before.
The Colonel’s voice rose above it all; and he was collected no longer.
‘Sinclair! Sinclair! Stop the dancing. D’you hear me, Piper? Stop at once!’
He looked sick. Hearing the commotion people emerged from the cloakrooms and the ante-room to witness a scene such as the Mess had not known in forty years. But Jock had never looked so foursquare. He stood in the middle of the dancers and there was still the suspicion of a smile lurking behind the bland expression of his face. Embarrassed by the silence, one or two people in a mumbling sort of way endeavoured to interrupt, but the Colonel snapped at them to keep silent. One of the girls who had spoken blushed with indignation.
Jock’s voice was low when he spoke.
‘You called me, Colonel?’
‘I did. I’ll see you tomorrow. Tomorrow. I’ll … Pipers, we’ve had enough of this. Quite enough.’ Barrow fidgeted as he spoke, and although Jock was just a few yards in front of him, he was shouting. Then there was quiet. The dancers moved, and the pipers marched smartly out of the frozen world. Corporal Fraser looked upset, almost guilty, as if he had seen those things which a good piper should not see.
Now, for the first time the Colonel looked around him and he looked afraid and bewildered as if he had awoken from a dream and found himself at his own trial. He sighed heavily, and stretched his fingers.
Jock stared at him quite steadily, with victorious calm. He did not quite have the audacity to say, ‘Are you going to rap me over the knuckles, Colonel?’ but he thought of doing so. Instead, he grinned openly at the dancers around him.
Barrow now turned to the guests. ‘The party’s over. It’s late. It’s very late. I’m sorry it should end like this.’
Jimmy