The Emir offered tea in his 'court'. He just wants prosperity for the Iraqis

Beaming with pride, the Iraqi railwayman gestured around the classroom at the tidy rows of desks, covered in an inch of sand after weeks of lying empty.

With similar relish, he unlocked the headmaster's office next door to show his visitors six pristine blackboards, removed from the classrooms to stop them from being stolen. "No Ali Baba," Hamid, 47, explained with a grin.

On the wall of the isolated railway town school hung the obligatory portrait of Saddam Hussein. Asked whether President Saddam was good, Hamid's face broke into a broad smile as he shrugged his shoulders and spread his palms outwards: "You may say that. I do not. I say nothing."

With the closure of the railway almost two weeks ago, the small town built around the station 30km south-east of Nasiriyah had its links with the outside world severed. Its school closed down and the army regiment billeted to guard the area deserted their posts as soon as Allied troops crossed into Iraq.

Yesterday, humanitarian workers from Army civilian military co-operation (Cimic) teams went into the town to distribute water. They were met with jubilant crowds of smiling children and adults, who swarmed around the trucks oblivious to the distant boom of artillery fire.

Little boys in T-shirts depicting everything from Tigger to the Brazilian striker Ronaldo called out "Hello, mister" to man or woman with cheeky grins and extended thumbs.

While the arrival of water was welcome in the searing heat of the day, the main aim of the 16 Air Assault Brigade Cimic team was to begin reopening the railway, which extends from Basra to Baghdad and on to Turkey and Syria.

The rusting hulks of 17 fertiliser containers and a locomotive stood stranded beside the platform. "We only found this place yesterday and identified a water shortage. There used to be 10 trains through here every day. The best way we can help them is to get it up and running again," explained Lieutenant-Colonel David Leigh.

The station was surrounded by modest mud homes inhabited by railway workers and fishermen who cast their nets in the nearby canals extending off the Euphrates. In the centre of the town stood an intricately woven reed building. Inside, an elderly man in traditional dress sat, oblivious to the festivities. Beckoning the strangers into the cool interior, he proffered tea while his son explained that he was the Emir and this woven building was his "court". Peering through the doors, his wife and children giggled with glee.

Friendly to the British troops who handed out bottled water, the old man refused to be drawn into any debate on allegiances.

In the school, Hamid's nephew Faleh, a 22-year-old teacher, explained that the youngsters were taught mathematics, Arabic, English, history and the Koran. Outside, a group of men obviously accustomed to being in charge marshalled the younger men in the crowd into collecting the boxes from the soldiers and stacking them in a room within the station, from where they would be distributed fairly.

Only a few women, far from cowed in the male-dominated society, feigned deafness and carried the water bottles away on their heads. But the vast majority obeyed the order to stand away and simply contented themselves with trying to communicate with the soldiers, and posing for photographs amid the jostling crowd.

Some asked for food and water but most seemed more intent on getting medical aid; a large number pointed to eyes blinded by infection or cataracts. When told that the Cimic team could not give a precise date for the supply of medical care, one old man smiled patiently and responded in Arabic: "God willing".