At Ballinasloe there were some soldiers on the platform looking for
places. The sailor in our compartment had a dispute with one of
them, and in an instant the door was flung open and the compartment
was filled with reeling uniforms and sticks. Peace was made after a
moment of uproar and the soldiers got out, but as they did so a pack
of their women followers thrust their bare heads and arms into the
doorway, cursing and blaspheming with extraordinary rage.
As the train moved away a moment later, these women set up a frantic
lamentation. I looked out and caught a glimpse of the wildest heads
and figures I have ever seen, shrieking and screaming and waving
their naked arms in the light of the lanterns.
As the night went on girls began crying out in the carriage next us,
and I could hear the words of obscene songs when the train stopped
at a station.
In our own compartment the sailor would allow no one to sleep, and
talked all night with sometimes a touch of wit or brutality and
always with a beautiful fluency with wild temperament behind it.
The old men in the corner, dressed in black coats that had something
of the antiquity of heirlooms, talked all night among themselves in
Gaelic.
