McAuslan in the Rough, is where Dand McNeill demonstrates McAuslin's total unfitness for the service in each of the stories. He shows how Pte McAuslan is so nkempt, ungainly and unwashed that civilian readers may regard him with shocked disbelief. But a generation ex-Servicemen have already hailed him with delight as an old familiar friend. The title story is taken from the time that McAuslan was caddy to that Caledonian eminence, the Regimental Sergeant-Major, in a golf game whose importance makes the British Open look like a seaside putting competition. This is McAuslan at his finest and funniest but not far ahead of the haunted Fort Yahuna, the Great regimental Quiz, the search for a deserter in a native quarter threatened by an epidemic, and McAuslan in love.

The Sheikh and the Dustbin continues the story of the great incompetent's career as he 'bauchles' (see the glossary) across North Africa and Scotland, swinging his right arm in time with his right leg and tripping over his untied shoelaces. His admirers already know him as a court-martial defendant, ghost catcher, star crossed lover and golf caddie extraordinary; here he appears as the unlikliest of batmen to his long-suffering protector and persecutor, Lt Dand McNeill, as guardroom philosopher to the leader of the Riff rebellion and even as Lance Corporal McAuslan, the mad tyrant of Three Section. Whether map-reading his erratic way through the Sahara by night or confronting Arab rioters, McAuslan's talent for catastrophe is as sure as ever. McAuslan as well as many of his mates in the Gordon's are from Glasgow and the glossary referred to above is sometimes necessary to translate the Glaswegian 'patter' that Fraser employs so well.

I was sad very when I finished the third of the series and I wrote to the author asking if perhaps we might hear more of the adventures of Dand and his 'cross to bear'. He replied -- "I've never denied that Dade McNeill and I were the same person; we are. My first book was published in 1969, but earlier I had recorded my encyclopedia-selling and other adventures in The Glasgow Herald (c. 1956-60); I've never thought of collecting them in book form, though." Too bad; but perhaps when I'm in the Mitchell Library next summer when I'm in Glasgow .... who knows what I may find there?

The Pyrates is a book about all the swashbuckling stories that ever were, rolled into one great Technicolored pantomine -- tall ships and desert islands, impossibly gallant adventurers and glamerous heroines, buried treasures and Black Spots, devilish Dons and ghastlly dungeons, plots, duels, escapes, savage rituals, tender romance and steaming passion, all to the accompanyment of ringing steel thunderous broadsidwes, sweeping film music, and prthe sound of cursing extras falling in the water and exchanging period dialog. Even Hollywood buccaneers were never like this. In an afterthought, the author admits that he has taken occasional liberties with the facts when real characters are 'press-ganged' into the story. But he points out that the reader was warned early in the book that such might take place as the story unfolds. He does go on to set the record a shade truer and provides an 'influential bibliography' of books and films from which he drew his inspiration. The cover painting is a clear warning of what awaits the reader.