Later he returned, spoke briefly with veterans at the bar, went to the door, admitted six Boys’ Brigade captains and talked to them while Jenny served them half pints of shandy. This was their first time in the officers’ mess and they behaved with fitting dignity. Then Wat approached Tam, Rab and Davie and said quietly, “One last request, lads.”
“Request refused,” said Wardlaw, “What is it?”
“I’m making a speech from the porch roof and want you with me.”
“Ye want us for a balcony appearance, Colonel Dryhope?” sang Davie loudly, “Like the clique who stood about behind Hitler above the Potsdamstrasse? Or made Stalin look less lonely outside the Kremlin? An hour ago you frosted that window to shut out public eyeballs. I knew power corrupts but didnae know it corrupted that fast!”
“You don’t need our support, Dryhope,” said Tam Wardlaw sourly.
“O I do, I need all three of you,” said Wat, kneeling so that his face was level with theirs, “Our families want to be proud of Ettrick, no matter what Geneva says. That’s why folk of every sort except aunts and grannies are waiting outside. We can make them proud if we stand together. I’ll be out there with old Megget and Cappercleuch and Hartleap, veterans who fought at Ilkley and Kettering and Sunningdale. I’ll have captains of the Boys’ Brigade beside me, champions of the future. How can I inspire pride when the best soldiers to survive our hardest fight — three of the quorum who made me Colonel — sit girning in the shadows like sulky bairns while the rest of us stand in the sunlight trying to look brave? Ye dour lazy bitches, ye don’t even need to stand! You’ve nae legs! All ye need do is roll your chairs through the door ahint ye.”
“Does he persuade, Deuchar?” wondered Rab Gillkeeket, “If my glands were not disjaskit his rhetoric would get the adrenalin flowing, but does he persuade?”
“He appealed to our clan patriotism,” pondered Davie, “Then flattered, shamed and mocked. This blend of the pawkie, couthie and earthy was once thought characteristic of the Scottish peasantry but Wat isnae a peasant and we’re naething but wrecks. What says Wardlaw?”
Tam Wardlaw said violently, “We’ll do it and be done with it.”
Wat nodded, told them to be ready in five minutes then went to a table where Jenny had laid a tumbler of milk and plate of sandwiches, his first meal that day.
The starry film of frost vaporized and drifted up leaving the wall transparent. A section of it opened onto a roof garden over the porch. Wat sent the veterans and boys’ captains out with drinks in their hands to sit where they liked, then he and the cripples followed, wending through the tables to the rail that served as parapet. He put a chair between Wardlaw and Deuchar and sat with arms folded on the rail, waiting.
This informal arrival drew little attention. The cloud had broken letting afternoon sunlight through. The crowd, much bigger than when he arrived, was now in a holiday mood. Picnic parties sat chatting on the turf; groups surrounded fiddlers, wrestlers, singers, debaters. The kind of alcohol and snuff no housemother would synthesize was being traded by gangrels in return for wristcoms and items of clothing. Some people in bright outlandish garb were advertising the cloud circus. He noticed a woman on twenty-foot-tall stilts covered by red and white striped trousers. She wore a star-spangled top hat and tail coat, and stepped about over the heads of the crowd waving in a comically threatening way a parasol shaped like a nuclear bomb cloud. Children on the verge of the crowd raced ponies through bracken and heather. The only solemn touches were groups of horsemen who had been waiting since morning, some mounted, some standing at their animals’ heads. One thing that worried him was a public eye a yard from his face. No open-air meeting as big as this had met in peacetime for a century so public eyes would intercut his speech with film of leaders haranguing huge crowds in the late historical era. Since he and his comrades were not standing in formal groups he would look, as well as sound, very different. He glanced at the tiny microphone on his chest and decided to speak seated, with folded arms.
Suddenly he noticed part of the crowd he had overlooked. On the ground before the porch the Boys’ Brigade stood in six straight ranks. Feet apart, arms clasped behind them, faces tilted up toward Wat, the exact stance of each one made him a childish replica of the rest. Captainless, ordered outside by a servant to hear the new colonel’s speech, they had chosen this way to show the discipline that divided them from civilians. Wat stood up, smiling, and bent toward them. He muffled the microphone with one hand, saluted with the other and called down, “Break ranks, men, this — ”
He had been going to say is not a military occasion but a huge hollow woofing drowned his words: the microphone was more sensitive than he had known. He stood erect and saw everyone was now attending; the only sound was the fading drone of a bagpipe and the rustle of folk turning or standing to see him more clearly. He said quietly, “This is Wat Dryhope about to speak to friends. Will the public eye please shift from between us?”
The eye moved slightly aside. His voice had carried to the back of the crowd without manic-sounding reverberations but he sensed an immediate excitement, a hunger for the emotional unity that had greeted his descent from the hillside. This excitement gave him a feeling of righteous power because, unlike dark-age politicians, he was going to dissolve that mindless unity by the calm delivery of sensible information. He said, “I havenae much to say but most of you have been waiting here for hours so I’ll sit here and say it. If you’ve any sense you’ll follow my example — that’s a suggestion. The junior cadets will meanwhile break ranks and sit on the ground — that’s an order.”
He sat down with arms folded on the railing. The Boys’ Brigade did as he commanded. With a murmur suggesting amusement all but the horsemen followed their example. Wat gave his speech.
“I suppose you’ve come here to learn things you might not get from the public eye, which exists to make entertainment out of serious war games. Here are the straight facts. Colonel Tam Wardlaw here has given me his job because I’m the only soldier in Ettrick with two arms, two legs and no internal injuries. I am in this healthy state because General Craig Douglas ordered me to lead the vanguard, which was the safest job in our last battle. Our whole army was organized to get me safe to the cliff top where I did my wee trick with the standard. While getting me there our army was almost wholly destroyed but I’m all right. No wonder Geneva condemned that tactic.
“My present health is also due to me rolling off the cliff when the massacre started, and to a bush that caught me after I’d done that, and to General Shafto of Northumbria who pulled me off it. Less than an hour ago I spoke to General Shafto and told him we feared that North Sea currents might wash our old pole out of reach. He is sending divers from Whitby to locate it and attach a buoy. Tomorrow we can recover it when we like. Good men, the Northumbrians.
“What of the future? As Geneva says, ten years must pass before we can breed and train another professional army so there is no urgent need to elect a new general. Our wounded officers will recover, though we cannot say how completely. Some of our veterans may return to active service. In three or four years young captains beside me here will be old enough to fight. There are potential generals on this platform, and standing among you, and many more at home with their aunts. Building an army comes before choosing a general. Luckily our neighbours on the banks of Tweed and Leader, Teviot and Esk will lend officers to train youngsters and new recruits.”