UNDERGRADUATE PAGE

Fragrance and Memories

By ANTHONY BARTLETT (Wadharn College, Oxford)

WHEN I was in the Air Force—what a pleasant sound the past tense of the verb has, to be sure—when I was, I repeat, in the Air Force, we had a recruiting campaign in Glasgow.

"You'll be in the shop in Renfrew Street," the adjutant told me. " Yes, sir," I said.

"You and Robertson. And one of you will sleep there." " Yes, sir," I said. "Do what ? "

- "Sleep there," emphasised the adjutant. "To guard it." "Guard what ? "

"The shop. And the Air Force property that will be in it. It is considered essential."

"How about the other shops ? " I asked respectfully. "Do all the shops in Renfrew Street mount guard at night ? Isn't there a police force in —" "The best thing to do," thundered the adjutant, "is to take it in turns. Night by night. All right ? "

"Very good, sir," I said.

Renfrew Street, in case you haven't been to Scotland's second city, lies in the heart of Glasgow's shopping-centre, between Sauchie- hall Street in the north and Argyll Street in the south. Our truck turned into it from Sauchiehall Street, and there we were. "Nice spot, eh ? " said Jake. He was on his way to another centre of operations. He leered at us out of the back of the truck.

" It's filthy," I said.

" Aye," said Jake. "It is. But ye've no got the trains bothering ye. Ah have."

" But look at it," said Bill Robertson. "Look at it ! " To right and left—shining, glinting emporia full of goods and bright with light in the winter afternoon. Straight ahead of us—a dirty, down- at-heel hovel, that had obviously been without a tenant since the Clyde was a rain-drop. - "Here's a brush," said Jake. "And another. And some dusters. We'll be back for ye in a couple of hours. And yer decorations and the adjutant will be here any minute." The truck slid away into the traffic.

I unlocked the door, and we gathered up the dusters and the brooms and wandered inside. Then we had a smoke. "It's pretty big," said Bill. He had strolled through to the back of the shop. "There's a wee office here we could sleep in." I walked through to join him. I sniffed the air.

"What does the smell remind you of ? " I asked.

• "Rats," said Bill. "And mice."

"And dust."

." Aye. It smells of decay." Breathing cautiously, we walked towards the front of the shop again. "There's a cellar here," Bill went on. He began to descend the stairs. If the shop was filthy— and the shop, indeed, was filthy—the cellar was squalid. It was a big cellar, vaulted in the tall ceiling, and from the vaulting hung long black spider-webs. In the corners lay heaps of the Glasgow University Rag magazine, left over from the year before. The garish covers were grey with dust. Somewhere there was a constant trickle of water. At the foot of the rocky wooden steps was a heap of broken bottles and torn paper. The smell was appalling. "This is the smell that's in the office," said Bill. He blew Woodbine smoke defiantly into the murk.

" Yes." I agreed. "It creeps up the stairs."

"And it's not the only thing that'll be creeping up the stairs," said Bill. He nodded towards the heaps of rubbish. " There'll be a lively enough population in there to keep us amused."

"Hallo, what ? " came a voice. We scrambled up the rotten steps. "You two don't seem to have done much all the time you've been here," said the adjutant, in greeting. "What's the matter with you ?."

"We've just been looking round, sir," said Bill.

" Good place, eh ? " said the adjutant. "Good position. We want results here. Results." He beamed at us. "Just telling these fellows, sergeant," he said to Sergeant Andrews, who was entering with an armful of bunting, "that we want results from this place." "Aye, sir," said the sergeant.

"Have you fixed up between you about the guard ? " the adjutant went on. "We only want one here."

Bill and I glanced at each other. "We thought it would be best if we both stayed, sir," said Bill. "Up to you, I suppose," said the adjutant. "Must press on. Lot to do. Carry on, sergeant."

"Aye," grunted Sergeant Andrews.

The adjutant galloped out to organise the next set of unfortunates. We all had a smoke. " It's-pretty filthy in here," said the sergeant. " Where are ye going to sleep ? " We showed him. "It's pretty filthy in here, too," he murmured. "What's the smell ? " We took him to see.

With true Air Force efficiency and dispatch we had the place apparently clean in three-quarters of an hour. We achieved this by transferring the dust from the floor on to our persons—the inevitable result of using an Air Force brush. Choking, we moved out to the pavement and had a smoke. "We'll be pretty busy here," said Sergeant Andrews. He eyed the citizens scrambling up and down the pavement.

" Good place," I said, imitating the adjutant. "Get results here, sergeant."

" Funny thing," said the adjutant. "Just what I was saying myself a little while ago." We leapt guiltily to attention. "Just letting the dust clear, sir," said the sergeant.

"Settle, you mean," said the adjutant. We all laughed heartily. "I've brought the machinery." We lugged bits and pieces of sec- tioned acro-engine out of the lorry and positioned them elegantly on various tables and draped bunting over them and round them, and fanned out pamphlets on the tables and stuck up happy photo- graphs of airmen receiving pay and airmen being airmen and airmen being civilians. "Hey, Jock," said a voice.

We were all standing about smoking. It was getting late and the lights were on in the shop and the exhibition looked quite pretty. "What do ye want, tad ? " said Sergeant Andrews.

"Are ye open ? "

"No," we said.

The urchin made a gesture, and vanished. We looked at each other proudly. "Catching their attention already," we told our- selves—and went for a cup of tea.

It was raining hard when we got back to Renfrew Street with our blankets, and we, and our blankets, were thoroughly damp by the time we had hauled everything from the back of the wagon and dumped it in the office. The wagon roared away. We were alone. Or were we ? There were scratchings in the walls and bumpings in the cellar—squeakings and scratchings and bumpings. "We'll be eaten alive! " said Bill.

" No, we won't! "1 said. Fortunately, we had plenty of pamphlets and some disinfectant. We blocked up all the holes with pamphlets and sprinkled disinfectant to try to keep the smell down and shut all the doors. By the time we had finished we couldn't hear the trams go by, only fifteen yards away. If marauders had come to the shop and removed it brick by brick, we should have been none the wiser. But the local marauders had more sense than to try.

We stayed there a week. In my memory is the sound of Glasgow voices asking questions that I was unable to answer; and urchin noses pressed against the glass ; Sergeant Andrews beating furiously on the front door at nine in the morning, trying to wake us; Sergeant Andrews, in his shirt-sleeves and R.A.F. braces, sweeping up as we emerged from our cell, sleepy-eyed, to have some break- fast in the town : a constant dustiness, and, above all, the smell. Oh, the shell—the brutal, horrid smelliness of it. A scent can bring back the memory of a glamorous night, so they say, and cer- tainly, every time I have a whiff of a pale, ordinary stench—the lion-house at the Zoo, for instance, or a particularly rank farmyard —1 am reminded of our Glasgow smell. I knew it intimately, and, looking back, I feel privileged to have known it. For I shall never meet anything like it again.

I hope.