TAKING OVER
By PAUL F. JENNINGS IT is our first week with our new company, and we are engaged in taking over the barracks for it.. This is more complicated than it sounds, because taking over barracks in India is always an amazing triangular squabble between the people who had them before, your- selves and some people called the M.E.S. This is an institution found in every cantonment. To some, the letters stand for Mechani- cal and Electrical Services ; to others, for' Magnificent Evasion Society, because, although the M.E.S, always has a perfectly enor- mous yard full of broken beds and .boxes, and to get in this yard you practically have to have a photograph of yourself and the Garri- son Engineer embracing each other, the M.E.S. never actually does' anything. There is, of course, an immense cloudy theoretical business about its having buildings and taps and trees and things " on its charge." But suppose you apply to it for men to come and put mud on the roof of your company stores. (This the M.E.S. quaintly imagines to be a good way of keeping out the rain.) By the time it has got the permission of Sub-area and Area and Command and, for all I know, the Master-General of the Ordnance (India), and made Its mud, you have always gone ; so it relaxes. This morning the Major says I have to go round with the man from the M.E.S. gpsl,the Jemadar Quartermaster from Eight Bat- talion (the previous occupants) and take over. I do not look forward to this. I shall feel a little foolish going round the lines again. I have already been round and made a list of the broken windows. I have been round for cracks in the walls and white ants. I have been round and 'counted the beds. I had to do this again on discovering at the end that the count was supposed to include kit-boxes too. Then I went round again, after that, because in each room the lance-naik Called everybody to attention and gave me a crashing salute. I don't know the Urdu for; carry on," and I was ashamed to walk up and down merely counting beds ; so I stood in the centre' 6f each room and tried to memorise it, sweeping it with an expert eye and hoping that the rigid figures would think I was working out some problem in roof strains. But when I got outside I could never remember how many beds there welrce. So I went round again with a havildar and a notebook, and I used to mumble to him out of the corner of my Mouth "Twenty., qte,broken." I thought this looked impressive. Moreover I am, not sure (nor is anybody else) whether Eight Battalion should hand the lines over to the M.E.S. and then the M.E.S. hand them over to us, or whether we should take them over from Eight Battalion (although of course the M.E.S. has them all the time really). However, it is evident that I am going to take them over from som-ebody this morning, because outside the office there is waiting a deputation of five persons—our Q., the J.Q. from Eight Battalion, and three babus from the M.E.S. The two Q.s are already deep in an thdu argument in which the only words I can catch are "receipt voucher." The chief babu waves at the other two. "This man is Taps," he says, "and this one is Electricity." Full of specialists, the M.E.S. is. We move off and stop outside the first barrack-moth. Everyone looks at me expectantly so I turn to the chief babu acid say foolishly, " One building. Have you got that? " This seems to satisfy him, and he writes down " Building A/4. One no." Electricity is also scribbling furiously, although this building is lit by hurricane lanterns. Taps has disappeared, no doubt with his pencil twisting automatically in his hands.
When we get to the third building the Q. and the J.Q. break it up for a moment ancil the Q. appeals to me.- It is all about seventeen beds. It seems that Eight Battalion sent him a voucher for 217 beds, but the M.E.S. sent Eight Battalion a voucher for 200 beds ; so when he sent his Xoucher to the M.E.S. (for 257 Beds), the M.E.S. sent another voucher to Eight Battalion for seventeen more beds, and then Eight Battalion sent him a voucher for seventeen beds, thus (although this seemed a non sequitur to me) requiring him, to sign for 234 beds, whereas in fact there are only zoo, the other seventeen being M.E.S. beds anyway. (For the purposes of the argument ; you will_nderstand that they are all M.E.S. beds really.) I point out that the voucher for seventeen beds which Eight Battalion got from the M.E.S. is a receipt voucher for the difference between their (Eight Battalios) issue voucher for zoo beds and our receipt voucher for 257 beds and that Eight Battalion cannot therefore . . . cannot what? Good". Heavens! I realise that I haven't the slightest idea what Eight Battalion cannot do.. I must go to some cool place and think this out, with three wooden blocks. on the table in front of me representing Eight Battalion, the M.E.S. and ourselves.
Fortunately, howeNter, I am ,absolved from giving an immediate' judgement about the• seventeen beds, because at this point the Q. and the J.Q. discoverithat this babu is not the M.E.S. bed man, and that we are, in fact, merely counting buildings. They go off in a huff, because if there is one thing they love it is counting beds. Suddenly Taps reappears and thrutts a paper at me to sign. On it is written "Taps 6 nos. Stand Point z nos." "Is this a receipt or an issue voucher?" I say wisely. He looks hurt. " Sir, it is a Work Note. I am going to open your stand points." For some reason this makes me feel truculent. I have no idea what a stand point is, but we have been getting on all right with them closed ; so I say quite firmly, " I don't want them opened. I will only sign for the taps." When at last we get back to the office the Major says, " Ah, Tumpin, 'finished taking over? Oh, by the way, I've just had a call from the Adjutant of Eight Bamalion and he says we have seventeen of their beds or something. ;Will you go into that? And you might set about getting those stand points opened."
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