Seldom can a posthumous work have been so poignantly named, nor its re-publication more justified. The novels gathered here, and the last in particular, will confirm the efforts of critics in the 1980s to afford this mercurial literary talent his due place in the tradition of twentieth-century Scottish fiction as one of its most surprising innovators. That he would have found his assured place within the Scottish literary canon a source of amusement (at best) or irritation (at worst) is all the more reason why we should continue to read him. As the parameters of that canon continue to be debated, Kennaway, it is hoped, will be reassessed not just within the context of his contemporaries, but as a precursor: a novelist whose obsession with form and language, intensely stylised and cinematic narratives, and sharp epiphanies of the Anglo-Scottish turns of mind anticipate contemporary fictional talents as different as A.L. Kennedy, Alan Warner, and Candia McWilliam.
Gavin Wallace
NOTES
1. Trevor Royle, James & Jim: A Biography of James Kennaway (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing Ltd, 1983), p. 121.
2. Alan Bold, Modern Scottish Literature (London: Longman, 1983), p. 256.
for
G. St. Q.
ONE
THERE IS A high wall that surrounds Campbell Barracks, and in the winter there is often a layer of crusted snow on top of it. No civilian rightly knows what happens behind that grey wall but everybody is always curious, and people were more than ever curious one January a year or two ago.
The north wind had blown most of the snow to the side of the barrack square, and not a soul walked there; not a canteen cat. In the guardroom the corporal commanding the picket was warming his fingers on a mug of hot tea, and the metalwork on the sentry’s rifle was sticky with frost. In the bathhouse the Battalion plumber was using a blow-lamp on the pipes, and he had reached the stage of swearing with enjoyment. The sergeants were in their Mess, singing to keep themselves warm, and drinking to keep themselves singing. National Servicemen wished they were home in their villas, and horn-nailed Regulars talked of Suez; even the bandboys wished they were back at borstal. In the Married Quarters, the Regimental Sergeant-Major, Mr Riddick, was sandwiched between his fire and his television set.
But it was warm in the Officers’ Mess. Dinner was over, and the Queen had had her due. The long dining-room with the low ceiling was thick with tobacco smoke. The regimental silver cups, bowls and goblets shone in the blaze of the lights above the table, and from the shadows past colonels, portrayed in black and white, looked down at the table with glassy eyes. Two pipers, splendid in their scarlet, marched round and round the table playing the tunes of glory. The noise of the music was deafening, but on a dinner night this was to be expected.
The officers who owned ‘Number Ones’ were in their blue tunics and tartan trews. Sitting back from the table they crossed their legs and admired their thighs and calves. They moved their feet and felt the comfort of the leather Wellingtons that fitted closely to the ankle. Only one or two of the subalterns who could not rise to Number Ones were wearing khaki tunics and kilts. But, drunk to the stage of excited physical consciousness, they too crossed their legs and glanced with anxious pride at their knees. They had folded their stockings to make the most of the muscles of their legs, and they wore nothing under their kilts. Some were anxious that the dinner should finish early giving them time to visit their women. Others of a more philosophic turn of mind had resigned themselves by now. They had ruled out the idea of visiting a woman and they were now falling into a slow stupor. Both sets of officers would in the end return to their bunks, thoroughly dispirited, and breathless with the cold of three o’clock in the morning. The lover as likely as not, if he were still a subaltern, would be disappointed to the point of pain, and the philosopher, bowing patiently and bowing low to the inevitable, would be sick. And both would live to fight another day.
But it was at this point in the evening, when the pipers played, that the officers could see most clearly how the night would end. Their fate lay in the hands of the man sitting half way up the table, and in spite of the Mess President at the head, nobody could deny that the table was commanded by the unforgettable figure of Acting Lieutenant-Colonel Jock Sinclair, D.S.O. (and bar).
The Colonel’s face was big and smooth and red and thick. He had blue eyes – they were a little bloodshot now – and his voice was a sergeant’s. His hair, which was thin, was brushed straight back with brilliantine. It was not a bit grey. The Colonel did not look broad because he was also deep, and had the buttons on his tunic been fastened there would have been little creases running across his chest and stomach. But at times such as this he was inclined to unfasten his buttons. He had even unfastened the top two buttons of his trews this evening and his striped shirt protruded through the gap in the tartan. His trews were skin tight and it looked as if he need only brace his muscles to tear the seams apart. In his lap he nursed a very large tumbler of whisky, and he tapped his foot on the ground as the pipers played. He did not seem to find the music too loud.
From time to time he glanced round the table, and other officers when they caught his eye quickly turned away while he continued to stare. The look in his eye was as flat as the sole of his polished boot.
He had already made the pipers play three extra tunes that night, and as they played The Green Hills for the second time he hummed, and the music comforted him. He put his glass on the table when the room was silent again.
‘Get away with you,’ he said, surprisingly kindly, to the Corporal-Piper and as the pipers marched out of the room the officers applauded in their usual way: they banged their fists on the table and stamped their feet on the floor-boards. Jock sent orders that the pipers should be given double whiskies, then he leant back in his chair and groaned, while his officers talked. It was some minutes later when one of the younger subalterns at the far end of the table caught his attention. Jock tipped forward in his seat and put his clenched fists on the table. The flat eye grew narrow; the meat on his face quivered, and along the table conversation died on the lips. He made a suppressed sound which was still something of a shout:
‘MacKinnon, boy!’ Then he lowered his voice to a hiss. ‘For Christ’s sake smoke your cigarette like a man. Stop puffing at it like a bloody debutante.’ He moved his hand as though he were chucking away a pebble, and he spoke loudly again. ‘Get on with you; smoke, laddie, smoke …’
There was silence in the room as the young subaltern put his cigarette to his lips. He held it rather stiffly between two fingers and he half closed his eyes as he drew in the tobacco smoke. There was still a hush. He looked nervously at his Colonel as he took the cigarette from his lips. Even the movement of his wrist as he brought the cigarette down to the plate had something inescapably feminine about it, and this made Jock shake his fist. The boy’s mouth was now full of smoke and he sat very still, with his eyes wide open.
‘Go on then, laddie; draw it in, draw it in.’
MacKinnon took a deep breath which made him feel a little dizzy and he was glad that the Colonel could not resist a joke at this point. The sound of his little cough was drowned by the laughter that greeted his Colonel’s witticism. Jock looked from side to side.