The Complete Mcauslan

This volume collects the three sequences of stories narrated by Lieutenant Dand MacNeill about service with a Highland regiment immediately after the Second World War. MacNeill tries to perform routine military duties in North Africa, the Middle East and Scotland while commanding men whose improvisation, drinking, pride and misunderstanding repeatedly turn inspections, exercises and social occasions into disorder.

The most persistent source of catastrophe is Private McAuslan, remembered as the dirtiest soldier in the world but also as a man capable of surprising loyalty and courage. The stories are comic military fiction shaped by Fraser’s own post-war army experience, yet they also record the habits, class tensions and regimental culture of a force moving from wartime mobilisation into austerity and imperial withdrawal.