The Complete McAuslan (13 page)

‘Very good, corporal,’ I said, sounding like Valentine Dyall with a heavy cold. ‘Show me the way, please.’

She bounced off, with me following. Her billet was two coaches behind, and as we entered the second one I glanced into a compartment and found the padre staring at me with a mistrustful eye. Quis custodiet, by gum, he was thinking, so to assure him that all was well I gave him a big smile and the O.K. sign, thumb and forefinger together, other fingers raised. A second after I did it, I realised that it was open to misunderstanding, but it was too late then.

There were seven other A.T.S. in the compartment, shivering, with the wind whistling through the boarded window. They emitted cries, and while the corporal told them it was O.K. now, because the O.C. train would fix it in person, I ploughed through their piles of kitbags, shoes, parcels, and general clutter to the window. There was a big crack in the boarding, but it looked as though it could be forced to quite easily.

‘Can you manage, sir?’ they cried. ‘Will it shut?’ ‘I’m freezing.’ ‘Help him, Muriel.’

I heaved at the board and the whole damned thing came loose and vanished into the Palestine night. A tremendous blast of cold night air came in through the empty window. They shrieked.

‘Oh, he’s broken it!’

‘Oh, it’s perishing!’

‘These Highlanders,’ said a soulful-looking A.T.S. with an insubordinate sniff, ‘don’t know their own strength.’

‘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 half-way 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 scrubstudded 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?’

‘Oh, darling, how do I know? The engine, or someplace. The train runs on boiling water, doesn’t it?’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, and fled again.

I sat down opposite Mrs Garnett. Angela, disrobed, was lying across her knees squealing blue murder, while her mother, frantically sorting among the litter on the seat, cried endearments and shocking threats in turn. I turned Petey as though he were made of eggshells; I like babies, and the feel of his tiny, squirming body was somehow delightful. So was the tiny red face, all screwed up and raging as it was, eyes tight shut, minute toothless gums showing, and little legs kicking under his dress. My delight was temporary; I became aware that all was not well with Petey.

‘Er,’ I said. ‘Er, I think Petey has . . .’

She seemed to see me for the first time. Normally she would have been a pretty, dark-haired young woman; now, clutching a nappy in one hand, and trying to steady her young with the other, her hair disordered and her manner disturbed, she looked like a gypsy wench preparing to attack a gamekeeper.

‘Of course he has,’ she snarled. ‘They always do it together. I had to have twins! Oh, Angela, please lie still. Still, dearest! Mummy’s trying to get you all comfy, you little monster! There, darling, Mummy has some nice, cool cream for iddums.’ She was trying to tuck the nappy under Angela’s midriff, and making rough work of it.

‘But,’ I said. ‘What . . . I mean . . .’ Petey was getting noxious. He suddenly changed gear in his screaming, taking up a new, intense note.

‘Oh, dear, Petey-Petey!’ She was distraught for her other young now. ‘Just a minute, precious! Lie still, Angela, dearest, blast you! Well, don’t just sit holding him! Do something!’ She spared a hand to hurl nappies across. ‘Change him, can’t you?’

Ask me that question today, and rusty as I am with lack of practice, you will see an efficient response. I know the drill: newspaper on the floor, up with the dress, child face down and lightly gripped with the left hand; rubber pants down to knee-level with two swift pulls either side, pins out and thrust into the upholstery convenient to hand, nappy drawn down cleanly as child is slightly raised with left hand to permit front of nappy to come away; pause and gulp, drop nappy on to paper and fold paper over it with foot, mop the patient, anoint with cream to accompaniment of some rhythmic chant, whip clean nappy on and, with encouraging cries, pin one side, up and under, pin the other, make sure child has not been transfixed in process, up with rubber pants, and congratulations. Thirty seconds if you’re lucky.

Today, yes, but this was many years ago, and all I knew of baby care was prodding them in the navel and saying ‘Grrrtsh’. Changing nappies was outside my experience, and the way little Petey was delivering I wanted it to stay outside. Yet the British soldier is meant to be capable of anything. Could Wellington have changed a nappy? Or Marlborough? Doubtful. Or Slim? Yes, I decided, Slim could have changed a nappy, and almost certainly had. So for the honour of XIVth Army I began painfully and messily to strip Master Petey’s abominable lower reaches, and in my innocence I sang him a lullaby at the same time – the old Gaelic one that goes ‘Hovan, hovan gorriago’ and relates how the fairies stole away a baby from a careless mother. Mrs Garnett said that was all right with her, and what would they charge for twins?

So we worked away, myself the brutal soldier humming and coo-cooing, and the gentle mother opposite rebuking her daughter in terms that would have made a Marine corporal join the Free Kirk. And I was just pausing before the apparently impossible task of slipping a nappy on to the tiny creature, and marvelling at the very littleness of the squirming atom, with its perfect little fingers and their minia are nails, and pondering the wonder that he would probably grow into a great, hairy-chested ruffian full of sin and impudence, when the lights went out.

Mrs Garnett shrieked; I just clamped my hands as gently as I could on Petey and held on. My first thought, naturally enough, was of terrorists, until I realised that we were still a good way from the border, and the train was still rattling on. I assured her that everything was all right, and that Petey was in great shape – he wasn’t, actually; he was at it again, spoiling all my good work – and presently the man Garnett came lumbering up the corridor, calling for directions and announcing that there was no hot water to be had, and what had happened to the lights.

It seemed to me I should be doing something about it, as O.C. train, so in the darkness I negotiated with him for the return of his infant, whom he accepted with exclamations of fatherly affection, changing to disgust, but by that time I was off roaring for Sergeant Black. I found him in the guard’s van, with a candle and a fusebox; he and an Arab in dungarees – who he was, heaven knows – were wrestling in the dark with wires, and presently the lights blinked on again.

‘Just a fuse,’ he said. ‘No panic.’

‘Is that right?’ I said. ‘You try grappling with an independent baby in the dark. Which reminds me, there’s a woman back there wants boiling water.’

‘In the name of God,’ said Sergeant Black. ‘Is she havin’ a wean?’

‘Don’t say that, even in jest,’ I said. ‘It’s about all that hasn’t happened on this bloody train so far. She wants to sterilise a feeding-bottle. How about it?’