C: Concupiscence. Coat-of-arms.
Concupiscence
To a 19 year old virgin (please don't snigger; it was the early 1950s) Bonfig's explicit revelations of sexual adventure were a world away from my experience, a little uncomfortable but exciting. I had only recently left an all-boys school and my weekend activity tended to be healthy and outdoor, mostly climbing in the Grampian Mountains. Even a midnight bivouac at 3,000 feet near the summit of Braeriach, snuggled under a groundsheet with Irene and a half-bottle of rum, failed to stir what I later came to recognize as a healthy response. I must have been at that time much younger than my years.
Bonfig's lurid tales, much relished in the telling, included his greenstick seduction by the family housemaid, his cuckolding of a fellow NCO and a brief affair with the wife of a well-known poet.
My reaction may have appeared calm and non-committal but only because I really didn’t know how to react. My affectation of coolness drove him to tease me with yet more erotic tales.
Coat-of-Arms.
Bonfig and I left our mark on the Bridge of Don Barracks.
‘Did you know, sir,’ he said one day to
the Company Commander, ‘that your
coat-of-arms above the square is painted in the wrong heraldic colours?’
‘How do you know?’ said Major
Brown. ‘Are you an expert on heraldry?’
‘As a matter of fact, I am, sir.’
‘In that case, you’d better get hold
of some paint, fix up some scaffolding and paint the damned thing right!’
Only later did Bonfig plead vertigo and
volunteer me for the job. So it was that
Sgt Ginger Ross and I did the jobbing painter work under Bonfig’s ground-level
supervision (no matter how odd that may sound), changing lions’ tongues from sanguine
to gules and carefully lettering the motto scroll. I hope subsequent painters followed the colours
we laid in so painstakingly.
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