nt it had
welcomed to defend its Frontiers a year before, and which was now
en-route to defend and fight for the honour of the Allied cause three
thousand miles away. And so on December the 6th, it was 'Good-Bye' to
the pleasant land of France, and the Regiment embarked on the
Transport nine hundred and fifty strong. Having suffered heavy
casualties on the Western Front, few of the original number left
France, bound for Basrah _via_ the Suez Canal.

Before leaving, in appreciation of the stubborn fighting in the battle
of Loos by the 2nd Battalion, the Cross of the Legion of Honour was
conferred on the Commanding Officer, Colonel A. G. Wauchope, D.S.O.
Never was an honour more richly deserved, never was the conferring of
one more popular. No one who has not served in the Regiment can
possibly be aware of what the Colonel has done to make his Battalion
one of the most efficient in Mesopotamia. I was very interested in
listening to a story told me by a brother officer who was standing
alone in a traverse of a trench. Two Staff Officers were talking in
the next traverse and he heard one remark: "Of course, out here at the
present the Regiment is Wauchope, and Wauchope is the Regiment." It is
a name most closely connected with the fortunes of the ---- Regiment.

[Illustration: At The Base. Scene on a creek below Basrah.]

[Illustration: Colonel A. G. WAUCHOPE, C.M.G., D.S.O., Commanding The
2nd Battalion ----.]

The journey was a pleasant one; the wonderful change from the damp
depressing dug-out to a comfortable cabin was appreciated by the
officers, and a dry and comfortable place to sleep in, instead of
trying to sleep in the mud of a fire trench was welcomed by the men.

The usual stay at Port Said after successfully evading the submarines,
where the wily Arab fleeces the unsuspecting Tommy, was not without
interest. The Padre tells an interesting story about how, when he was
returning from home leave to the Regiment in India in 1913, he had his
fortune told by one of the many fantastic liars that fatten on the
stories they weave in this Eastern cesspool. The Fortune-teller told
him that within a year he would be returning to Europe by the same
canal. In those piping days of peace he never suspected that it would
be with the regiment on Active Service but when almost to the day and
within the year, he passed through Port Said on his way to France,
this one saying at least of the Fortune-teller was forcibly brought