Private McAuslan, J. – the Dirtiest Soldier in the World (alias the Tartan Caliban) – demonstrates his unfitness for military service in this first volume of stories of life in a Scottish regiment. Unkempt, ungainly and unwashed, civilian readers may regard him with shocked disbelief. But generations of ex-servicemen have hailed him with delight as a familiar friend – because every old soldier can remember a McAuslan!
McAuslan first shambled into public view – manfully swinging his right arm in time with his right leg – in George MacDonald Fraser’s THE GENERAL DANCED AT DAWN in 1970. Greeted with laughter and great affection (and spawning two sequels and a TV adaptation), these hilarious memoirs of life in a Highland regiment after the last war capture the exploits and misadventures of life in the British Army.
Based on MacDonald Fraser’s own experiences in the Border Regiment and the Gordon Highlanders, which took him to India, Africa and the Middle East, these stories demonstrate the celebrated author of the swashbuckling FLASHMAN series at his hilarious best.
Best known as the author of the famous Flashman Papers, George MacDonald Fraser (1925-2008) served in both the Border Regiment in Burma during the war and in the Gordon Highlanders. After the war he worked on newspapers in Britain and Canada, and became deputy editor of the Glasgow Herald. In addition to his novels and works of non-fiction, he wrote numerous screenplays, most notably The Three Musketeers, Royal Flash and the James Bond film, Octopussy, and worked on scripts including Force 10 from Navarone and Superman II.