Spectacles: So Forget the Beatles

The sun may have already set on the British Empire; the spotlights may stay on forever. Last week under a galaxy of glare in Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden, there was a fanfare of trumpets, a thunder of drums, a skirl of bagpipes. And out trooped two bands of white-helmeted Royal Marines followed by the kilted pipers and bearskin-topped drummers of the Scots Guards and the Royal Scots Greys. Later in the evening, in sandals, scarlet tunics and saw-toothed white skirts (called sulus) came the 57-man band of Her Majesty’s Fiji Military Forces. The occasion, and a glittering one indeed, was the Royal Marines Tattoo, now touring North America.

For anyone who loves a parade the military spectacle has the spit and polish, precision, pomp and pageantry that only the British can bring off—an act that will still be burnished bright when the Beatles are balding, a martial display that could convert a Quaker. The near capacity opener in New York last week marked the sixth stop on a tour that would take in 33 more U.S. cities in the next nine weeks.

Doing the Mekes. Producer of the tattoo* is retired Brigadier Alasdair MacLean of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, who still wears his tartan trews and Glengarry cap, clings to his silver-topped swagger stick (“I’m sort of superstitious about the damned thing”). As reinforcements for his North American campaign, MacLean has added 18 feather-footed British Columbia Highland Lassies (all daughters of Canadian servicemen) and for Manhattan, 57 Fiji islanders, representing more than one-third of the crown colony’s present army. Mostly muscular six-footers as tall as their names (like Lance Corporal I. R. Maravunaqaraidakuwaqa), they stripped down to palm skirts and battle paint to demonstrate island war dances called mekes.

The din of jungle cries was nothing compared to an all-out battle royal between the Marine Commandos’ motorcycle team and that movie prop of the century, James Bond’s well-armed Aston Martin DB5. The Bondmobile, piloted by a U.S. racing driver, cornered so closely that it fluttered the bunting in front of the box seats and left tire rubber all over the arena—which was also littered with cartridge shells from the mock war.

Will Ye No Come Back? “We work hard and we play hard,” explained a Royal Marine. Between shows and rehearsals, there are boots to black, pith helmets to repaint, ostrich feathers and bearskins to comb. It is Silvo-Polish and elbow grease that keep the buttons blinding bright, treacle that caulks the bagpipe bags and keeps them from cracking. The shows are work too. One of the Scots Guards pipers blew so hard one night he had to be hospitalized with a suspected hernia, but gamely returned to action the next day’s matinee—fitted out in a truss.

After the show the men are out of uniform and on their own. Says the officer-in-charge of the marine contingent: “Nobody minds a man having a ball, as you Americans say, but if he gets a big head because of it, he’s expected to keep it under his helmet and do his job.” With an $84-a-week road allowance and more party invitations than they can shake a dirk at, the troops find that the helmets fit tightly at times. “We have reports of dancing and some roistering,” says Brigadier MacLean, but “touch wood,” there have been no complaints about the men’s behavior to date.

The U.S. audiences seem in no mood to complain. Advance sales and guarantees have already reached $500,000, and some of the profits will go toward the regiments’ band and uniform funds. So warm was the response that at the first-act finale the audience swung into a fervent refrain:

Will ye no come back again?

Will ye no come back again?

Better lov’d ye canna be,

Will ye no come back again?

* The term, dating back to a 17th century British campaign in Holland, is a corruption of a Dutch phrase meaning “turn off the taps.” Before it was blown up into a musical extravaganza, the tattoo was merely the nightly drum signal beaten through the streets to shutter the bars and steer the troops back to their quarters.