4.   With Evelyn Waugh In A Marine Commando, Or...“Brideshead Revisited”

In April, 1942, the naval lieutenant-surgeon with a marine commando was suddenly ill, and the War Office looked through their files to find a medical officer with commando training. My C.O. had a message to say that Capt. Kerr was to proceed at once to Paisley, near Glasgow, to join that unit, so well described by Evelyn Waugh in “Brideshead Revisited”. What a place and what a unit!

It was situated on the outskirts of town, about half a mile beyond the end of the tram-line, just past an insane asylum, with a wire fence surrounding it, through which the inmates would shout obscenities at us, or ask us how they could join the army. We had a collection of Nissen huts and a couple of buildings which should have been part of a housing development that stopped before the war.

Evelyn Waugh was one of the company commanders, and, of course, I told him how much I had enjoyed his stories, especially “Put Out More Flags”. He was an interesting character, quite solitary, always eating alone at his own table in the mess, and the other officers quite sure that he was listening in on the conversations to make notes for a new story. He had just been told that he would be dropped into Yugoslavia with Randolph Churchill to liaise with the communists, but everybody thought it was just a lark to get rid of Randolph for a while. In any event, I believe the plane actually landed, but was smashed a little.

The unit had been warned that they were to have an important exercise, although some thought it was going to be another raid on the French coast. We were told that the enemy might have some officers and men wearing British uniforms, so we had to identify anybody we didn’t know, by password or by seeing their identity cards. This led to one of my routine confrontations.

Not usually going far from my regimental aid post, I met a general and a brigadier. I introduced myself and asked if I could see their identity cards since I didn’t know them. The general said, “But you must know me, I’m the divisional commander!”  I replied that I was a Canadian on loan, not only to the British, but to the commando, so I didn’t know anybody. The general turned to the brigadier, and said, “I hope you have yours.”  The brigadier laughed, and pulled out his pocket-book. Fortunately, he had an I-card, so we all had a good laugh, shook hands and parted.

The exercise went off quite well, and it was decided to have a grand farewell party for Evelyn Waugh. I figured it would be pretty wild, and so begged off, saying that as the medical officer, I might be needed. I sneaked to my Nissen hut, and can’t remember whether I was asleep, but heard some drunks enter the hut very late. They were supporting Evelyn, with one on each side, directing him to the bed of the officer sharing the hut with me. He wasn’t a popular type, and they were trying to persuade Evelyn to pee into one of his boots. I must give Major Waugh credit. He said, “That wouldn’t be cricket, old boy”, and wouldn’t let them open his fly. So they took him out quietly.

I wished Evelyn “Bon Voyage” and hoped that he would enjoy getting away from the commando life, which he had led for some time, having been used in several raids, one to help the troops escape from Crete. Apparently, he knew Randolph Churchill quite well. In my chats with him, I hadn’t realized that he had been married, once to another Evelyn, whom his family called “the she-Evelyn” while he was called “the he-Evelyn”. He then became a Catholic, and after getting an annulment, re-married. Alec Waugh tells a lot about him in his clever book, “My brother Evelyn and Other Profiles”. Alec, being the older brother, should have inherited their ancient home in England, but being quite an American by then, generously had the inheritance pass to Evelyn.