Although he had a military pedigree that stretched back four generations, few people can have been less suited to army life than the writer Julian Maclaren-Ross (1912–64). He was a truculent maverick, an exhibitionist with a taste for sartorial eccentricity, and a liability on the parade ground owing to a childhood accident that had severed the tendon in his left knee. In June 1940 Maclaren-Ross was nonetheless conscripted into the Essex Regiment as a private.

This could not have come at a worse moment for him. After years of bohemian poverty and thwarted ambition, he had just become a published writer. His debut short story, featured in Horizon, had prompted Rupert Hart-Davis, a director of the publishing firm of Jonathan Cape, to offer him a contract for a collection of stories. But Maclaren-Ross had been summoned by the army before the proposed book could be written.

He had reason to feel resentful, yet he accepted his fate with equanimity. As his old friend C. K. Jaeger recalled, “he thought he could handle any situation in which he found himself”. That confidence, which disguised his vulnerability, was reinforced by the persona he had cultivated: a persona modelled on his tough and resourceful fictional heroes, among them Ned Beaumont, protagonist of Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key.

Less than a month after Maclaren-Ross had joined the army, his unrealistic self-image was put to the test. For someone with such a flimsy physique, strenuous military training cannot have been easy, yet the test turned out to be psychological rather than physical. It began when his ineptitude on the parade ground led to his hospitalization, enmeshing him in what he described as “the nightmare fly-trap of a Kafkan bureaucracy”. Eventually reassigned to clerical duties in Felixstowe and then Southend, he used his spare time to write short stories about his army experiences, focusing on red tape and incompetence. These stories soon won him an enthusiastic readership in many of the literary magazines that flourished in wartime conditions: Horizon, Lilliput, Penguin New Writing, Tribune and others.

While the army gave him the material with which he established himself as a rising star of the English literary scene, it also left him frustrated and unhappy. Around the end of 1942, those feelings intensified when he discovered that he was about to be transferred yet again, possibly to a Maritime Anti-Aircraft Battery where he’d “have to go sick a million times before they found out he was useless to them on account of [his] leg”. Desperate to avoid this or any of the other likely scenarios, he spent his next leave visiting the Ministry of Information and the War Office in search of a more satisfying and appropriate use of his talents, which included fluent French. The problem was that he persisted with his quest for a fresh assignment after his leave had ended.

On February 2, 1943, he set aside his job hunt and wrote a detailed statement justifying his desertion. He titled it “I Had To Go Absent”, an allusion to one of his recent short stories, “I Had To Go Sick”. In the hope of publicizing his case and, perhaps, shaming the authorities into giving him the type of job he craved, he offered the piece to Tom Hopkinson, the editor of Picture Post, who agreed to print it. Before Maclaren-Ross could deliver it, however, he was arrested and taken to the Regimental Gaol at Southend.

His arrest warrant had, coincidentally, been signed by Hart-Davis, his would-be publisher, now a senior Coldstream Guards officer. Distraught at the prospect of facing a court martial, Maclaren-Ross asked Hart-Davis to defend him. When Hart-Davis visited the Regimental Gaol several days later, Maclaren-Ross handed him the crumpled nineteen-page manuscript of “I Had To Go Absent”. A short time afterwards, following what seems to have amounted to a mental breakdown, Maclaren-Ross was sent for evaluation at a Military Psychiatric Hospital on the outskirts of Birmingham. His incipient paranoia nourished by the machinations of the military bureaucracy, he became convinced that there was a plot to have him certified insane and prevented from writing. In fact, he was sentenced to twenty-eight days in a military prison before being discharged from the army in August 1943.

Even though he had escaped from the “crazy, petty atmosphere of army life”, Maclaren-Ross could not evade its baleful influence. For years afterwards he brooded on what had happened, never entirely suppressing the anxiety and resentment kindled by his ill-fated period in uniform. His failure to live up to his hardboiled self-image, moreover, was an enduring source of humiliation. In many respects the war made him as a writer, yet it irreparably damaged him as a man. “I Had To Go Absent” is published for the first time here.

PAUL WILLETTS

Paul Willetts is the author of Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia: The strange lives of Julian Maclaren-Ross, 2003

‘I Had To Go Absent’

I was on leave at the time and a lance-corporal. I had not been a lance-corporal for long. I had to make a frightful fuss before being made one. Not that I cared much about having a stripe. It was just that I thought I should be earning more than 4/9 a day for the work I was doing in the orderly room as a clerk. Everybody including the authorities, agreed that I should be earning more but they did not do anything about it. They had not even granted me trade-pay.

I’d been in the army two years and six months. The first three months I spent on light duties awaiting medical boards. I tried to make myself useful in the Coy [Company] Office but my Company Commander soon put a stop to that. So then I did nothing. It seemed to be a satisfactory situation to all concerned except myself. They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t contented. “You’re cushy, aint you?” they said.

On the contrary. I did not join the army to be cushy, otherwise I would have made some attempt to get out of it, instead of allowing myself to be absorbed in a stream of conscripts.

Of course, when I first enlisted, I imagined myself to be A-1 [Fit for all duties]. The doctors who passed me as such helped me in that belief. But in the army things are different and I was not A-1, oh no.

At last I had a medical board. It took place at the hospital where I stayed for three weeks awaiting it. But something went wrong with the proceedings. In other words, a mess-up.

I was drafted to another training centre to await another medical board which would not be a mess-up or at any rate less of a mess-up than the other.

Meanwhile I at last started my training. They discovered at once that I couldn’t do drill. My left knee, apparently, without a tendon through being knocked down by a bicycle at the age of twelve, would not allow me to even perform a correct about-turn. My platoon-sergeant was an extraordinarily decent chap. So were all the other NCOs [Non-commissioned officers]. They spent endless time and trouble on me, and the other members of the awkward squad. At the same time to be in the awkward squad at all was humiliating.

Even more humiliating were the periodical interviews with the MO [Medical Officer], a man who’d taken a dislike to me on sight and moreover believed me to be a malingerer. So much humiliation combined to lower my spirits. I asked for leave.

They said, You haven’t done your training yet.

I said, I’ve been in six months. The others are all going on leave.

They said, They’ve finished their training.

I said, I’d have finished mine if I hadn’t been messed about by these medical boards.

They said, Have you had a board yet?

No, I said.

Then you can’t go on leave, they said.

When can I go? I said.

When you’ve finished your training, they said. And anyway leave’s a privilege.

I said, It’s a privilege that seems to be granted to everyone except me.

You’re a perfect lawyer, they said.

I’m a writer not a lawyer, I said.

Well if you write about this we’ll drop you in the drink, they said. Now scram.

It’s a free country, I said.

You’re a bolshie, they said. Insolent to boot.

I hadn’t meant to be insolent, so I was abashed. I returned to my barrack room and wrote a letter to the Coy Commander asking whether I could apply for a commission. I felt I had to do something.

The Coy Commander was doubtful at first. He knew I wasn’t good on drill. On the other hand, my grandfather had been an Indian army colonel. He passed me to a board of officers. They passed me to the CO.

This took some time and meanwhile I’d been transferred to another Company, where the platoon sergeant could not by any stretch of imagination be described as a decent chap. He was in fact a pervert and a sadist.

As I was an OCTU [Officer Cadet Training Unit] candidate and excused marching, he used to stand me at the side of the square to take the salute from the platoon when the recruits were on saluting drill. He also put me on wiring [Laying coils of barbed wire] with bare hands.

As for leave: Never ’eard of it, he said.

Meanwhile I saw the CO.

What’s your medical category? he said.

Awaiting a board, sir, I said.

Oh well, come back when you’ve had it.

In about another fortnight I had the board. B-2. I returned for interview with the CO.

No vacancies for B-2 officers except in the Pay Corps and that’s full up, he said. Pity.

Yes sir, I said.

But next day the adjutant sent for me. There was a job going abroad, hush-hush, but a good one, and they needed an intelligent man. Would I volunteer?

I did so at once. I waited another three months, during which I had my leave.

Things don’t happen at once of course, they said.

They were right. But perhaps things would have happened eventually if I had not contracted pleurisy and pneumonia.

I was in hospital and a convalescent home and on returning to the Depot they said Sorry, the job abroad is filled. How would you like one in the orderly room?

I said yes.

Will you start now? they said.

Yes, I said, although my leave was again well overdue.

In the orderly room they said, Do this job for a fortnight and then we’ll give you a trade test.

All right, I said.

There was a heat wave on; it was July 1941 and I’d been in the army a year. Three of us sat typing in a room so small that both the others had to stand up if the third one wished to go out. The heat was such that in my weak condition, still convalescent, I almost passed out at my typewriter. The sun came in through the tiny window and melted the wax sheets on which we typed Depot Orders.

The fortnight passed and I said what about this trade test.

Oh, they said, not yet, but the ATS [Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women’s branch of the British army] next door is due for a fortnight’s privilege; will you put yours off till she comes back?

All right, I said.

Then we’ll give you the test, they said.

So I typed and typed and the wax sheets melted; something about sausages was secret and you had to destroy whole stencils if you made a typing error because the CO was very particular.

Two more weeks and the ATS came back.

What about the test? I said.

They said, Better have your leave first otherwise you’ll never get it.

All right, I said.

So I had my leave now two months overdue and when I came back they said No test because you’re being posted.

I thought this job was permanent, I said.

You can’t count on nothing permanent in the army, they said.

Where am I being posted to? I said.

It’s secret, they said.

So I got in a train with some other fellows, all NCOs except me, and we went to a town where there was a Young Soldiers Battalion and I was to work in the Orderly Room.

What about a trade test, I said.

Nothing doing, they said, no vacancies on establishment.

All the other clerks had been trade-tested already. We’re cushy, they said. So who cares.

I had letters from friends, some of whom were editors.

Why aren’t you writing anything? they said.

I am, I said, a novel.

About the army?

No not about the army.

They were disappointed.

I wasn’t writing a novel. I had been writing one but I stopped. I was dissatisfied with not being able to do something more in the army. Nobody could understand this.

You have time to write, they said, a cushy billet. What more do you want?

Then I was shifted as PRI’s [President of the Regimental Institute] clerk to a seaside town nearby, where the recruits were being trained. The recruits were always going absent.

Many of them, although only about eighteen, had been burglars in civilian life and even civvy gaol appeared to them more like home than army discipline. [This Young Soldiers training unit was so notoriously indisciplined that the regimental magazine speculated on whether the regimental gaol was large enough to accommodate the entire unit.] They used to avoid the detention barracks by committing some civil offence when they felt they could not hold out any longer without being apprehended. Some remained at large for over a year. Some were never caught. I could quote you cases.

Take Cassidy, for instance, the one they used to call Texas – don’t ask me why. He broke the regimental gaol eight times. Was finally nabbed and given a stretch at Chatham. Came back, was granted leave. The CO, I believe, shook hands with him. I don't know: he said so. Cassidy anyhow became a good soldier forever afterward. He’d been given to understand he was a human being. Our CO was a very intelligent man, although a regular army officer. You see?

I, on the contrary, never having been absent, was imposed upon right and left, expected to work all hours while NCOs and warrant officers drew pay for the work I was doing. I wouldn’t have minded the long hours, the fact that they took it for granted I never wanted any time off, if the work had been important. It wasn’t. It was footling work, typing, copying letters, even drawing posters for battalion sports. Anybody could have done it.

Well somebody has to, they said when I protested.

But why me? I said.

Why not? they said. Think you’re better than anybody else? You’re a private same as they are.

Maybe. But at the same time I was doing a job usually held by an NCO: all the other clerks were at least lance-corporals. Also I had to control a staff of seven runners, who were supposed to take orders from me.

Two of my runners suddenly became lance-corporals. One could play cricket; the other had gone in for boxing and had his nose broken. Hence the stripes.

I remained a private. I wasn’t envious, but I was a little amused.

The other runners then became for a short while out of hand and I had to apply for a stripe.

No good, they said. Why, you can’t do drill?

I’m not employed here to do drill, I said.

Can’t have a stripe unless you’re good on drill, they said.

Then one of the subalterns said, Why don’t you apply for a commission?

No good sir, I said. I’m B-2. I’ve already been rejected.

Plenty of vacancies now for B-2 officers, he said. Things have changed.

At first I said no. I was fed up. It seemed as though there was no place in the army for me. If they don’t want me why the hell should I try. Then I thought perhaps I haven’t tried hard enough. So I wrote out another application.

Within three days I had a board.

B-2, they said, H’m. Where were you educated?

France, I said.

Do you speak French?

Fluently, sir.

H’m. Of course French isn’t required much nowadays. What d’you do in civil life?

I’m a writer, sir.

Stories? Books?

Stories and radio plays so far.

Better put in for the pioneer corps, they said. Not much use in the army for a man who writes stories, ha ha.

Two boys of nineteen who had both been about three months in the army were interviewed at the same time as me. Both were subsequently made lance-corporals. I was not made a lance-corporal.

Later we had to write essays and I corrected the spelling of the two lance-corporals for them. But an officer, I was told, doesn’t have to spell to be a good officer: one of our subalterns was always coming to me asking how to spell loofah, and he was a very good officer. That is, he was good on drill.

Later still I went before a War Office Selection Board. There was only one other private there. Most of the candidates were sergeants.

Among other tests they gave me a paper and said, Write what effect the army has had on you and what you think of it. Tell the truth.

I told the truth; they sent me to the psychiatrist.

I don’t know what he thought about me at all. Next I saw the President.

He said, What kind of commission would you like?

I said, I want to go to Madagascar, sir.

Madagascar? Whatever for.

As a liaison officer, sir. After all I was brought up in France.

Oh, he said. Well how would you like a commission in the Pioneers?

No sir, I said.

You wouldn’t like it?

No.

The President was puzzled. After a while he said, Could you do administrative work d’you think?

I thought of the administration of the battalion I was in and said Yes.

The President said, A writer doesn’t necessarily make a good administrator you know.

I said, He doesn’t necessarily make a bad one either, and the President bowed. The interview was over.

I didn’t get any commission. I was returned unsuitable. There had been one or two physical tests that on account of my leg I had been unable to pass, but I’m sure that these made no difference to the Board’s unfavourable decision. In fact I’m sure that the test itself was fair in every way. Perhaps after all I was not cut out to be an officer.

At the same time, looking around me at some examples, dispassionately and without malice, I could not entirely believe this. Surely in some way I could be more useful to the army than I was being in the battalion office.

I did my work as usual; the Padre, a very nice man, came in to have a chat. He was worried. Knowing something of my case he thought I might be bitter about being rejected if I were not given some local promotion or other.

I believe he had a talk to the CO about giving me a stripe, but the CO apparently felt he had to draw the line somewhere.

The sword in this case is mightier than the pen, he said.

Meantime there was Tobruk and the battalion sports became increasingly important. Cricket especially was de rigueur.

I typed and typed: mainly sports programmes, and in the evenings I wrote. I had begun now to write about the army, and in a space of two months I had written seventeen short stories, which immediately began to appear in various reviews and magazines. Some of them are still doing so. Horizon, English Story, Selected Writing, Modern Reading, Lilliput, Bugle Blast, Tribune, New Writing, etc. all accepted more than one apiece.

As a writer I was now doing better than I had ever done in peace-time, but I was dissatisfied and unhappy. I saw the war going on and all I did was type sports programmes and write short stories.

Everyone said, What the hell are you worrying about? You’re cushy.

Then suddenly the battalion moved and I was posted to another depot. At last, I thought, a more important job.

On the contrary. It was a job in the orderly room, much the same, with slightly longer hours. I was told it was permanent.

I said, what about a trade test?

They said at first, NBG. [No bloody good: one of numerous acronyms popular in wartime Britain.]

Then later, after a lot of this, All right, you’ll get a test.

I didn’t get a test. What I did get was a paid lance-stripe. I’m afraid it didn’t make any difference. My stories came out right and left and they didn’t make any difference either.

I wanted a job where I could use some intelligence. Looking around, I seemed to be the only writer of my particular kind who was not either an officer entrusted with something he could do without despising himself, or else out of the army and doing work of national importance.

It wasn’t a matter of personal ambition – if I had wanted to be an army officer surely I could have, as a boy, fallen in with my father’s suggestion that I should be one. Nor do I share the snobbery of those who believe that a commission makes a difference to one’s social position. It does, of course (the enclosure at the All Ranks Dance; “Whiskey reserved for officers”; the fact that most girls of the so-called upper-class will only be seen out with a pip). But I am not a social person. And I have been happy in the ranks. I would not want to leave them but for the fact that I know the more important jobs, where I could use for the war effort what talents I possess and which are now being wasted, usually carry a commission with them.

Personally, I should be better off where I am, writing stories in my spare time and preparing a novel. But I did not join the army to continue my career as a writer. I am perfectly prepared to sacrifice this if a job of national importance could be given me which absorbed all my time.

I had nine days leave and through friends obtained a War Office interview.

It was a major and he was sympathetic. At the same time he didn’t know what to do with me. I had no technical or mathematical ability and I wasn’t a photographer.

I could do filmscripts, I said.

Oh yes, he said. And what about pamphlets.

I said, I could do pamphlets.

A staff captain came up and was invited to participate in the interview.

What qualities d’you think he’s got? the major asked.

The captain said, after a long pause, Intelligence and imagination.

No good to the army, the major said.

No, the captain said gloomily.

And hope of getting out of the army? I said. One of the Ministries?

Not the faintest hope, they both said.

In the end I was given a cup of tea and the promise that something would be done sometime, if humanly possible.

Nothing was done. I wrote a long statement of my case and received no reply. Not surprisingly, because apparently the major and all his staff were shifted for some reason shortly after my interview with him.

Anyhow another three months passed and the New Year and meantime I heard that all category clerks at the Depot were to be shifted and replaced by ATSes. Which meant that I should be drafted as a private to some other unit and probably return to my old occupation of naffy-sweeping. [Slang version of NAAFI – Navy, Army and Air Force Institute, whose establishments included canteens for use by the military.] Clerical work in the army being all that my disability allows me to do, if that were closed to me, I should go back doubtless to the awkward squad, learning new drill movements which have surely been invented since I finished my training.

I wasn’t going to let that happen. I felt I should go crazy if it did.

My leave was again due and I determined to pass it trying to find a job or someone who would take an interest in my case. I found plenty of the latter, but interest was as far as it went. With the best will in the world they could do nothing. Either they have no influence or the influential persons they knew were themselves handicapped by red tape or other obstructions.

However, I went on trying. I had a long list of contacts and I had not nearly exhausted these by the time my nine days were up.

So I made a decision to overstay my leave. I had always disapproved of absence having in the YS [Young Soldiers] Battalion seen so much of it, but it was the only thing to do. I refused, and still refuse, to believe that there were no intelligent people influential enough to procure my release from the army to a job where I could be of real use. (Apparently all the jobs where my gifts as a writer could really be employed to the best advantage are outside the army.)

If I had wanted to desert before, or just get out of the army, surely I would have tried before? I don’t mean to desert now: when I have exhausted every possible avenue, then I will return to my unit to take my punishment as an absentee.

I merely want to satisfy myself that an intelligent man of thirty-one, travelled, educated abroad, sophisticated and an anti-fascist, a writer who can write over seventeen stories in spare time and get them published, cannot be utilised, owing to his medical category, in any better capacity than an office boy in an orderly room.

I don’t want to think that. But it will be worth any punishment to know that it is so, and if it is so, that the fault does not lie with me.

I’ve done my best, at any rate. I can’t do any more. Except CB [The punishment of being confined to barracks].

J.M.R.

“I Had To Go Absent” is included in Julian Maclaren-Ross: Selected Letters, edited by Paul Willetts, published this week.

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