d and maintained, which meant, amongst other
things, a constant carting of telegraph-poles out to unlikely spots in the
desert, and dumping them there for "Signals," who immediately decided they
would like them taken somewhere else even more remote and inaccessible.

Then, too, we were almost our own A.S.C. In the first place stores had to
be brought by boat from Alexandria to Mersa Matruh, and the harassed and
long-suffering troops were told off as unloading parties. At rare intervals
a consignment of canteen stores would arrive, on which occasions the
unloading party would be at the beach bright and early; things get lost so
easily.

There were some crates of oranges once....

Two things the authorities at the base never troubled to send: clothes and
boots. Apparently they were under the impression that we had taken to
troglodytic habits and required none. Almost every man wore a patch; not
like the tiny, black ornament worn on the face by ladies in the old
Corinthian days, but a large, comprehensive affair more or less securely
sewn on the shirt or the seat of one's riding-breeches. The
quartermaster-sergeant complained bitterly over a shortage of grain-sacks:
the reason for it was walking about before his eyes all day long.

It was dreary work at best, however, with only these uninspiring and
never-ending fatigues to occupy our time. Even our little social haven, the
canteen, did not stay the urgent need for something more active. The
appalling thought came that we had been dumped down in this lonely desolate
spot and left there, utterly forgotten, like Kipling's "Lost Legion."

There came a day, however, when our fears were dispelled by an urgent order
to trek back to Alexandria. Apparently the war had broken out in a fresh
place, and there was work to be done after all. Whatever the reason, there
was joy in the camp. Tents were quickly struck and incinerators soon were
working double shifts, for it is astonishing how things accumulate, even in
the desert. Moreover, the army insists--and rightly--that camps be left
clean and free from rubbish.

Rations, forage and water were the chief things to be considered--or
rather, the problem of packing them on to limbers and in waggons--for they
had to last us to railhead, some days' march away. Officially, once a unit
is on the move, it ceases to exist till it reaches the next place on the
time-table; and if rations or water are lost in the desert you go hungry,
and, w