McAuslan in the Rough

McAuslan in the Rough is the second collection of short stories by George MacDonald Fraser featuring a young Scottish officer named Dand MacNeill. It is a sequel to The General Danced at Dawn and concerns life in a Highland regiment after the end of World War II.

It is slightly more comical in tone than that first collection. Some of the stories are set in North Africa; other in Scotland after the regiment's return to Scotland and the retirement of the old Colonel.

Bo Geesty. There has been some kind of military fortification at Fort Yarhuna since time immemorial. It stands at the junction of three trade routes across what once was grassland and now is desert. In turn, the fort has been garrisoned by Alexander's Greeks, Hannibal's Cathaginians, Scipio's Romans, Vandal patrols, proselytizing Arabs of the Caliphate period, Crusaders, Berbers, Mussolini's Italians, Rommel's Afrika Korps, and the 51st Highland Division. And now, on orders from GHQ, it is the first independent command of Lieutenant Dand MacNeill, who has two platoons under him. MacNeill has orders to maintain order in Yarhuna Village (which largely consists of leaving things be), and to attempt to find water in the Fort and drill a well there. He and his men comply; but when they commence their exploratory drilling, strange things start to happen. Are the Jocks just going sand-happy, or is Fort Yarhuna haunted?

Johnnie Cope in the Morning. In MacNeill's battalion, the custom is for the full battalion pipe band to blow reveille for the unit every Friday, carefully sneaking into position and opening with "Johnnie Cope" at full bore while standing outside the subalterns' quarters. MacNeill, exhibiting great panache in the face of this aural assault, makes friends with the pipe-sergeant, no small thing for a newly commissioned officer; and later brings the pipey a problem. A new man has been assigned to his platoon, and as is the rule in the battalion, specialty units have first call on a new man who possesses their special skills, such as an amateur radio operator going to SIgnals, or a qualified mechanic to the motor transport platoon. Crombie, the new man, is a qualified bagpiper and wants to join the battalion pipe band; but it's 1946, and he's as black as the ace of spades.

General Knowledge, Private Information. When a unit is in garrison and is paid but once a month, the troops cannot go to town every night. Thus, in-house entertainments are more important for boosting troop morale than they might otherwise be. In order to keep the troops happy and give them something to root for, the Colonel and the colonel of the Fusiliers sharing the post with the Highlanders work out the rules and scoring system for a general knowledge quiz competition on the order of the GE College Bowl or Information, Please. Each battalion will select a team to do battle for the honor of their battalion and a large box of Turkish delight. MacNeill is one of the battalion's contestants, the resident expert on general knowledge. The Padre handles religion, arts, music and literature; Sergeant McGaw, a former Communist organizer, politics; and Private Forbes, of Dand's platoon, questions on sports. The competition is fast, furious, and hard fought, but ends in a tie. As a tie-breaker, the following question is put up for anyone, including members of the audience: "In a game of association football, how is it possible for a player to score three successive goals without any other player touching the ball in between?" And Private McAuslan, heaven help us all, has the answer.