ld be content for ever. But
are we, my friends? I fear not.

One cannot help feeling that the comparison made with the performances
of regular battalions in the heat of India before the war, are unfair.
These were trained men, caught young and developed to a high standard of
physical fitness, marching along the excellent Indian roads, with a
certainty of a good water supply at their night's camping place, and
accompanied in many cases by travelling canteens and soda water
machines. In our ranks were to be found many men of middle age, unused
to active life, and many boys whose physique had not had time to respond
to military training. Some had but recently joined us and were not
acclimatised, others had not recovered their strength after the
dysentery of Gallipoli. Roads or canteens there were none. Of course
British troops have often found themselves in such conditions and worse
on active service. But it is interesting to find that that fine old
soldier R.S.M. Mathieson, always said that he personally never suffered
from thirst to anything like the same degree during the Egyptian
campaign of 1882.

We left the Battalion moving off S.E. from the camp for the Brigade
rendezvous. Here we received orders to attack a "hod" named Abu Hamrah,
which lay between us and Katia. The distance was not great, hardly six
miles as the crow flies, but we were not crows and had to adopt less
direct as well as more laborious methods. The Battalion was on the right
in support to the 7th H.L.I., and the march continued with but short
halts till 4 p.m., when we had a somewhat longer pause, and a chance to
reinforce our early breakfasts. Few men, however, can eat either bully
beef or biscuit when they are thirsty, and that was all we had. It
always seemed strange that we should not have made more use of food more
suitable to the climate. Later on dried figs and occasionally little
dried apricots were issued with the mobile ration. Doubtless these are
not very sustaining, but they are the fruit of the country, and it is
better to have a little you can eat than a full ration that you cannot,
whatever the decrease in caloric value may be.

There was neither sound nor sign of enemy opposition, and the advance
was resumed in artillery formation in an hour or so. Darkness began to
fall and great difficulty was experienced in keeping touch with the
battalion in front and even between the different companies, a
difficulty increased by the first li