'The General Danced at Dawn' - G. MacDonald Fraser Quiz

Answer: Birds and bees

'Birds and bees' would have been normal. Dand wrote down 'Grable' (Betty Grable, an actress and pin-up girl renowned for her beautiful legs), then panicked and crossed it out and wrote 'Freud' (known for his interesting psychoanalytic theories about sex and repression), then panicked again and wrote 'Lamour' (Dorothy Lamour, an actress renowned for the Hope & Crosby 'Road to..' films).

At this point he became aware that one of the examiners was staring at his answers... Obviously he had fallen behind by then and when they eventually flashed 'Freud' up Dand's reaction may have been 'Father Grable', which, as he points out 'must have made them think'.

Answer: The loss of McNeill's pants/trousers

Initiative, leadership, ingenuity, intelligence and cheerfulness are what they should have shown - throughout the board, after a series of mishaps, what they did show was 'lacking in initiative, deficient in moral fibre, prone to recrimination, and generally un-officer-like'. Guts is what the C.O. and the rest of the examiners thought they had shown on the assault course when they tried valiantly (but failed) to finish the course.

It wasn't until they were alone that McNeill explained the reason he would not budge out of the last ditch and over the last obstacle (though doing as much as possible to look as if he was trying) was that his trousers had come off while wading through the ditch and Dand 'was not going to appear soaked and in his shirt-tail before all the board and candidates, not for anything'. So although they probably got through for showing 'grit, determination and endurance', what really got them through was the loss of his pants!

Answer: Leishmann - 'Chick'

Leishmann's nickname was 'Soapy' - 'Chick' was Dand's batman (a soldier servant who acts as a sort of valet to an officer) McGilvray.

Answer: Dand, having forgotten a mess meeting, had been given a week's orderly officer and was confined to barracks. While in disgrace, some of his platoon came and drank with him in his room.

Because Dand is in trouble, McGilvray, Brown, Fletcher (the platoon dandy), Forbes and Leishmann visit him in his room with beer and whisky. It occurred to Dand that 'the penalty for an officer drinking in his own billet with enlisted men was probably death, or the equivalent, but frankly, if Montgomery himself had appeared in the doorway I couldn't have cared less'.

They have a few beers, a few cigarettes, a couple of whiskies and Dand realises that his platoon accepts him. He had previously decided that he wasn't the 'Tiberius type ("Let them hate me as long as they fear me") and had got over wanting a transfer. Hogmanay is the Scottish New Year (despite a player in my quiz team once trying to convince me that the meaning of hegemony (the predominant influence in a society) was 'what the Scots call New Year'!)

Answer: Samuels

Samuels was a black-hearted man indeed. When he learnt how good the team was, he wanted to make a killing by betting on them and passing them off as the ship's crew. Dand stops him as soon as he finds out what he is up to, but Samuels carries on trying to make money off them in betting scams. 'Pongo' is a derogative name used by the Navy and Air Force about the Army. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is a name of a Welsh village and is the longest name in Britain - it means 'St. Mary's Church in the hollow of the white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio of the red cave'.

It also has a web page - Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.co.uk, which they claim as the longest url on the web.

Answer: He set fire to his sporran, roared aloud, dropped cigarettes, case and matches, and scrambled on his knees along the floor of the box trying to beat the flames out

By the time Dand had put himself out 'the box was full of smoke and a most disgusting stench' and 'one of the Admiral's aides was looking round and muttering that expressions of triumph were all very well, but the line should be drawn somewhere'. The evil Samuels had put a bet on the team before he knew they were playing the Navy, using not only his money, but the ship's crew and the Jocks' pay as well.

However, he didn't triumph, because McAuslan, obeying Dand's instructions to fraternise with the crew, had got the man detailed to spend the bet on drink and Samuels lost out.

Answer: While in hospital he got drunk, petrified the nurses, got out on the roof where he sang 'The Ball of Kirriemuir' (all seventy-odd verses), broke a Military Policeman's jaw when they tried to get him in and then fell off the roof and got concussion

When he was found, Wullie had been marching for at least two days, his face was black and he was nearly dead with thirst, but he had to be stopped physically because he would have marched forever, prepared to risk his life for an enemy. He probably would have been awarded a medal had it been a comrade.

The 'Ball of Kirriemuir' is an extremely rude song, much beloved of the military and rugby clubs. All the wrong answers were also Wee Wullie exploits.

Answer: Ninette de Valois

The pipe-sergeant is a technically perfect highland dancer who has performed in front of royalty. Twice a week the officers have to get up at five thirty in the morning and dance in the MT shed. The pipe sergeant keeps up a running commentary to 'rebuke, encourage and commend'. '..Observe the fine feet of Captain MacAlpine.

He springs like a startled ewe' 'Boldly, proudly, that's the style of the masterful Mr Cameron: his caber feidh is wonderful, it is fit to frighten Napoleon' 'how he knacks his thoos, God bless him'.

The colonel used to think that the pipe-sergeant must drink solidly from three a.m. to 'get into that elevated condition'. Now he just thinks the man's 'bewitched'. Dame Ninette de Valois was a dancer, choreographer and founder of what became the Royal Ballet. All the wrong answers are also famous as dancers.

Answer: The regiment made a hash of the Highland dancing

Also a fire had broken out in the cookhouse, a bren-gun carrier had broken down and litter was found in 'B' company's garden. In short, everything that could have gone wrong, had. So although the General was expecting to see the dancing go wrong, it was really good stuff.

Answer: Some say that a one hundred and twenty-eightsome reel was danced on the parade ground that night, General Sir Roderick MacCrimmon presiding and that it was danced to a conclusion, all figures

Some say it happened - all Dand remembers is 'a heaving rushing crowd, like a mixture of Latin Carnival and Scarlett's uphill charge at Balaclava, surging ponderously to the sound of the pipes'. But Dand also distinctly recalls one set 'in which the General, the pipe-sergeant, and what looked like a genuine Senussi in a burnous, swept by roaring 'one, two, three' and also that he, Dand, personally, was part of a swinging human chain in which his immediate partners were the Fusiliers' cook-sergeant and an Italian cafe proprietor from down the road'. Dand's memory tells him that it 'rose to a tremendous crescendo just as the first light of dawn stole over Africa'. Nobody remembered the General's departure, but the Colonel thought he had been there and the General cried with emotion.

The inspection report congratulated not only the battalion, but also highly commended the pipe-sergeant on the standard of the officers' dancing - which the pipe-sergeant found a mixed blessing, as 'the night's proceedings had been an offence to his orthodox soul'.

Answer: 'unatural conduct of a cruel kind, in that he threw a cat against a wall'

The military finds work for idle hands and Dand was sent on Troop Train 42 to Jerusalem while waiting for a court of inquiry as to why he'd missed a flight. On the journey he went in for 'insubordination, permitting a prisoner to escape, countenancing illegal trafficking in currency, threatening a superior, conduct unbecoming an officer in that he had upbraided a clergyman' - and probably a few other assorted offences.

He also changed his first nappy! Dand was given three days Orderly Officer by his CO (mostly for forcing the CO to read the inquiry report) but the other exploits never came to light.

Answer: sergeants

As Dand explains, 'the ignorant or unwary would probably choose the officers'. not necessarily from reasons of snobbery, but from the idea that 'the standards of cuisine, comfort and general atmosphere would be higher'. The story goes on to explain that there is generally a mix of youth and age in an officers' mess, but the sergeants are more similar, of young-middle-aged men.

It also explains that the sergeants 'look after their creature comforts with an expertise born of long service in hard times'. I don't know whether this is still true nowadays, but it certainly was twenty odd years ago - and even more so in the 'arid post-war years'.

Answer: One kilt buckle snapped, he hadn't done the other one up, and his kilt fell down in front of royalty

All the wrong answers did indeed happen to McAuslan (the RSM managed to remove the live rounds before 'ease springs'!), but it was Dand who nearly became known as 'the Man Whose Kilt Fell off in Front of Royalty at Edinburgh Castle'. He had to hold his kilt up with his saluting hand, so he turned smartly about, arm akimbo (giving a Rupert of Hentzau touch), marched up to the saluting base, saluted left-handed, turned about and marched through the Castle gateway.

When Dand told the Colonel why he was 'standing like a blasted ballet dancer' at the end, the Colonel 'went green, then white, and then he sat down on a bench and began to make little moaning sounds'. 'Guard at the Castle' was made into a BBC Comedy Playhouse in 1972, which is where I discovered McAuslan for the first time.

Answer: Shylock

At least he wouldn't get mathematical jokes. Einstein looks to Dand like a villain, and spends his time swilling whisky and being a shark on the snooker table. However, he is as brilliant as his namesake and gets McAuslan off with an extremely unexpected last-minute witness.

Answer: The RSM explained to the Duchess, in a whisper audible throughout the audience 'He is saying "Thank you very much", Your Highness. In Gaelic'

The Duchess's smile did not falter for an instant, and she said as little Donnie trotted away (looking rather like a cute little Highland bull) 'How very nice of him. How awfully nice'.