George Fraser - The Complete McAuslan

“Take it easy,” I said, nonplussed, to coin a phrase. “Er, corporal, I think they’d better all move into the corridor …”

“Into the corridor!” “We can’t stay there all night.” “We’re entitled to a compartment”—even in the A.T.S. they had barrack-room lawyers, yet.

“… into the corridor until I get you fixed in other compartments,” I said. “You can’t stay here.”

“Too right we can’t.” “Huh, join the A.T.S. and freeze to death.” “Some people.” Mutters of mutiny and discontent while they gathered up their belongings.

I trampled out, told the corporal to keep them together, and, if possible to keep them quiet, and headed up the train. There was a compartment, I remembered, with only two officers in it. I knocked on its door, and a pouchy eye looked out at me.

“Well, what is it?” He was a half-colonel, balding and with a liverish look. I explained the situation.

“I thought you might not object if, say, four of the girls came in here, sir. It’s one of the few compartments that isn’t full.” Looking past him, I could see the other man, a major, stretched out on a seat.

“What? Bring A.T.S. in here?”

“Yes, sir, four of them. I can get the other four placed elsewhere.”

“This is a first-class compartment,” he snapped. “A.T.S. other ranks travel third.”

“Yes, I know, but their compartment hasn’t got a window …”

“Then I suggest you find them one that has.”

“I’m afraid there isn’t one; they’re all full.”

“That is your business. And I would point out that you have no right to suggest that they move in here.”

“Why not, for Pete’s sake? Look,” I said, trying to sound reasonable, “they have to go somewhere …”

“Don’t address me in that way,” he barked. “What’s your name?”

“MacNeill.”

“MacNeill what?”

He had me there. “MacNeill, sir.”

He gave me a nasty look. “Well, MacNeill, I suggest that you study the regulations governing the movement of troop trains. Also the limitations of authority of damned young whippersnappers who are put in charge of them, but are not, strange as it may seem, empowered to address their superiors in an insolent manner, or request them to vacate their compartments in favour of A.T.S.”

“I didn’t ask you to vacate your compartment, sir,” I said, my voice shaking just a little, as it always does when I’m in that curious state halfway between backing down shamefaced and belting somebody. “I merely asked, since they are women …”

“Don’t dam’ well argue,” said the man lying on the seat, speaking for the first time.

“No,” said the pouchy half-colonel. “Don’t argue, if you know what’s good for you.” And he shut the door.

I stood there, hesitating. The choice was clear. I could fling open the door and give him a piece of my mind, taking the consequences, or I could creep off towards my own compartment. Eventually I compromised, creeping away and giving him a piece of my mind as I did so, in a reckless whisper. Not that it helped: the A.T.S. were still homeless and had to be fitted in somewhere.

I needn’t have worried. When I got back to the corridor where I had left them it was empty, but shrieks of female laughter led me to the primitive restaurant car, where they had found refuge with a mixed company of R.A.F. and our gallant Australian cousins. From the way these two branches of the service were looking at one another it was obvious that the A.T.S. were safer than they would have been in a convent; jealousy would see to that. Both sides were making heavy running, one big lean Aussie explaining to three of the A.T.S. what a didgery-doo was, and offering them sips from his hip-flask, while my Biblical flight-lieutenant was leading the remainder in the singing of “Bless ’em all”, the revised version. I just hoped the padre was a sound sleeper.

Thereafter things were fairly uneventful for about an hour. A fight broke out in one compartment because somebody snored; the soulful-looking A.T.S. girl was sick — as a result, she insisted, of what the Australian had given her from his hip-flask; she hinted darkly that he had wanted to drug her, which seemed unlikely—a kitbag mysteriously fell from a window and the owner was only just prevented from pulling the communication cord, and one of the Arab Legion got locked in the lavatory. These things I observed on my hourly tour of the train; the Arab Legionnaire’s predicament I came on after pushing through a small group of well-wishers singing “Oh, dear, what can the matter be?” I scattered them, and watched with interest while Sergeant Black painstakingly shouted orders through the locked door. It did no good; the entrapped one alternately bawled dreadful Arabic words and beat the panelling, and sent out a keening wail which was probably a lament that T. E. Lawrence hadn’t minded his own business in the first place. Finally Black lost his temper and upbraided the man in purest Perthshire, at which the door flew open and the occupant, his face suffused, emerged with his rifle at the trail—why he had it with him he alone knew.

I congratulated Black and strolled back towards my compartment, speculating on whether there was an affinity between Arabic and the Crieff dialect, or whether the Arab had finally found how the bolt worked. I was pondering this in the corridor and listening to the rumbling ring of the wheels and looking through the window at the scrub-studded desert, black and silver in the moonshine, when the compartment door nearest me opened and a dishevelled young captain emerged, clutching a bundle. Beyond him a young woman was sitting with another bundle over her knees; both bundles were wailing plaintively and the compartment, which was otherwise unoccupied, was littered with clothes, towels, small clothes, utensils, and all the paraphernalia that an ignorant young bachelor associates with children.

“Yes, dear, I’ll try,” the man was saying. “There, there, Petey-Petey, all right, all right.”

“And it must be sterilised,” called the young woman, agitated. “They must have some boiling water, somewhere. Yes, yes, Angie dear, mummy’s going to fix it as soon as she possibly can … Do hurry, dear, please!”

“Yes, darling, I am hurrying, as fast as I can. What shall I do with Petey?”

“Not on that seat!” cried the mother. “He’ll roll off!”

“Oh, God!” said the man, wild-eyed. He saw me. “Have you any idea where there’s boiling water?”

Some questions are best answered with a helpless gape.

“Please, Charles, hurry! Oh, no, Angela, did you have to?”

“She hasn’t!” said the man, aghast.

“Oh, she has. Again. And I’ve only got a few clean ones left. Oh, Charles, do go for that water. It’s past feeding-time. Oh, Angela.”

“Right, dear. What shall I …?” He wheeled on me. “Look, can you hold Petey for a moment? I shan’t be an instant.”

“Why, er …”

“Good man.” Harassed, he very gently passed the tiny bundle to me. It was stirring manfully, and letting out a noise that my toilet-locked Arab would have envied. “Got him? Just like that: marvellous. I’m going, darling; this gentleman …”

“What? Oh, Angela, you little horror! Oh, really, I never knew babies could be so foul!”

“I’m leaving Petey with this … this officer,” cried the man. “With Mr, er …”

“MacNeill.”

“Mr MacNeill. How d’ye do? My name’s Garnett. This is my wife …”

“How do you do?” I said, clutching Petey tenderly. “Charles! Please!”

“Yes, dear.” He grabbed a feeding-bottle and fled. Two seconds later he was back. “Darling, where will I get the water?”