Having eventually sorted out his cover problem by wrapping both sheet and blanket tightly around him, Dan had contorted himself back onto the bunk and eventually fallen into a fitful sleep. It seemed like only ten minutes before there was a sharp rap at the door. The tractor salesman slept peacefully on, so it was left to Dan to reach up and open the door to the attendant.

“Glasgow in half an hour,” the thin, waistcoated man said, his breath staled by cigarettes, as he thrust a small tea tray into Dan’s hand.

“It’s not for—”

But the attendant was obviously working to a tight schedule because he was already banging on the next door before Dan could finish his dozy remonstration.

There could be few more awkward situations in life than to be starved of sleep, then handed a tray that contained boiling hot tea whilst lying prostrate on the bottom of two shelves and wrapped in swaddling clothes. Fixing his sandpapered eyes on the level of the tray, Dan first tried sitting up, but his upper body had only reached an angle of forty-five degrees before his head came into contact with the top bunk. He then tried lifting his legs but only managed to hold the position of a bent banana for a few seconds. After a moment’s intensive thought, he decided to attempt a rolling action, but again was thwarted when the teapot slid precariously to the edge of the tray. It was only that near disaster that shot a bolt of adrenaline into his befuddled mind and enabled him to engage a small measure of lateral thought. He found beside him the small shelf that was specifically designed for the purpose of holding the tray, and having rid himself of the element of danger, he was able to unravel himself from his bedclothes and stand up.

Dan gave the man a friendly shove. “Excuse me, but it’s time for you to get up.”

The tractor salesman grunted and somehow managed to turn his overweight body around on the plank-sized bunk. Had Dan not ducked to retrieve the tray at that precise moment, he would probably have been knocked senseless because the man’s arm flailed out across the open floor space.

“Whassamatter?”

That was when Dan lost his cool. He stood on the bottom rung of the ladder, unclipped the shelf above the man’s head, and thrust the tray upon it. “It’s time for you to get your fat arse out of that bed, mate. The train will be stopping in Glasgow in five minutes.”

The man woke immediately and stared wide-eyed at Dan. “All right, laddie. Keep your hair on,” he whined defensively.