1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [218]
The sight of the statue so unceremoniously cast down caused many sniggers and ribald remarks in the ranks of U Company whose spirits were never cast down for long. They were a light-hearted lot. Although officially Territorials of the 4th Gordon Highlanders, ‘U’ stood for University and they were all undergraduates of Aberdeen whose studies had been abruptly interrupted by the war. Although they had been soldiering more or less in earnest for the best part of a year they still considered themselves to be students rather than soldiers and claimed licence accordingly whenever they could get away with it. The officers, all graduates who not so long ago had been students themselves, were remarkably tolerant.
Lt. J. D. Pratt.
On parade – discipline all the time – you addressed an officer as ‘Sir’. Off parade you could call him ‘Jimmy’ or ‘Jock’ or whatever his name was. There was no ceremony.
The senior officer was Colonel Ogilvie, and Tommy Ogilvie was, I think, a solicitor. He was a very human individual, hail – fellow-well-met, and he was the life and soul of the party in the mess when we were at camp in peacetime. Freddie Bain, who later was Sir Frederick Bain and who died a good many years ago when he was chairman designate of ICI, he was sergeant of the guard, and Tommy Ogilvie was Captain of the Day. So Tommy went down to the guard tent and said, ‘Sergeant, anything to report?’ So Freddie said, ‘Yes, sir, I’ve got a prisoner.’ Oh, what’s the trouble?’ ‘Oh,’ he said ‘he’s drunk.’ Tommy said, ‘Let me see the prisoner.’ So he went into the tent and there was a fellow lying completely helpless, completely blotto. So Tommy stood swaying backwards and forwards, looking down at the fellow, and he said, ‘Sergeant, that man isn’t drunk. I saw him move!’ That gives you the idea of Tommy! But when we mobilised and he became Commanding Officer he cut the whisky bottle right out, and he cut down very heavily on his officers drinking in the mess. Complete change.
Our own Company Commander who commanded U Company was Captain Lachlan McKinnon. He’d been a student – a law student – and he’d graduated about three or four years before. He was a tall, awkward-looking fellow, a little hunchbacked, but terribly conscientious, and he had absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever. That was his great weakness. Well, we did this joke on him. He issued an order that there was to be no smoking of cigarettes on parade. On the first morning after that we marched off from our billets and after a few hundred yards he said, ‘March at ease.’ So with one motion every member of U Company took out a clay pipe and lit it up. I was Company Sergeant-Major at the back. He came back to me and said, ‘Sergeant-Major, do you see that? Do you see that? Members of U Company smoking pipes like ordinary council workmen. What will people think about my university men if that’s how they behave?’ So I said, ‘Well, I’m terribly sorry but, after all, you know, you barred smoking of cigarettes on parade but you didn’t say anything about clay pipes.’ Anyhow the order was countermanded. Poor old Lachie!
He was going round the cookhouse one day and there was a fellow called Chatty Donald – who I may say, when he died, was a Harley Street brain specialist and a Brigadier in the Territorials, and Lachie said to Chatty, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m cooking the spuds.’ ‘Well,’ Lachie said, ‘how do you know when they’re properly cooked?’ ‘Oh,’ said Chatty, ‘that’s easy. You take one up, you biff it against the wall and if it sticks it’s cooked and if it bounces back, it isn’t!’ The Company Commander didn’t know what the bloody hell to do, or whether his leg was being pulled or what. In fact, it’s a very good rough test!
Looking back now, U Company should have been a reservoir – a first-class reservoir – for officers. Because when we mobilised, I myself, as Colour Sergeant, had two honours degrees and all my sergeants had degrees – some of them honours – and we had about a dozen fellows in the ranks who had degrees and had already