ng collected all the stores and camp equipment we could
lay hands on, and after the usual circus in entraining the horses, we
started for Suez. Incidentally, this was the last time we boarded a train
as a complete unit for more than two years.

With Suez the last vestige of green was left behind us, and turning south
after crossing the canal we entered upon that vast desert trodden by the
Israelites thousands of years ago when they fled from the persecuting hand
of Pharaoh.

It is to be admitted that we failed to observe, till later, the undoubted
grandeur of the scene, for we were mainly concerned with getting our guns
and overloaded vehicles along. Time after time they sank almost up to the
axle-trees in the heavy sand and time after time did the sweating horses
pull them out and struggle on again. One G.S. waggon, laden till it
resembled a pantechnicon, was soon in dire straits. Originally starting
with a six-horse team it acquired on the journey first one extra pair, then
another--with a spare man mounted on each of the off-horses--and finally
arrived in camp at the gallop with twelve horses and eight drivers.

Nobody saw anything funny in it. When you are dog-tired, hungry, and, worse
still, when you arrive after dark in a new camp, nothing short of a cold
chisel can gouge humour out of anything. All you want is a large and
satisfying meal, after which your blankets.

In the morning we found that our usual fate had overtaken us: we were again
pioneers in a new land. There it was, just our allotted square on the map,
as flat and bare as a billiard-table.

Yet the country was not unimpressive. A thousand yards away to our right
were the tamarisks of Moses' Grove, the only spot of verdure in sight; far
in our rear and to our left ran range upon range of low, even-topped hills
of unimaginable barrenness, the approach to which lay over a vast plain,
broken by innumerable smaller hills, grand in its utter desolation; and in
front of us stretched a level, shimmering expanse of sand as far as the
silvery ribbon of the Gulf of Suez, beyond which, and dominating the whole
scene, the gaunt, black mass of Gebel Atakah (Mountain of Deliverance)
thrust its mighty pinnacle into the sky.

Such was the place destined to be our home for six torrid months; and we
had to transform it into a fortified camp! Small wonder that we quailed at
the prospect of work more punishing than any we had yet known, for
literally everything had t