in, but there was a general feeling
that if they fired, most of the trenches, which were only a few feet
away, would inevitably collapse. At Hill 70 Captain Wightman and Captain
Moir joined the Battalion, with very little to say in favour of the
Egyptian climate and obviously feeling the extreme heat.

Early in June astonishing rumours began to reach us about a "change of
air" camp at Alexandria, and soon it came to be known that the whole
Brigade were for a week's holiday there. The cynics scoffed, and the few
who were anxious to display the fruits of a classical education could
quote a line about "fearing the Greeks even when they bear gifts in
their hands," the Greeks to us being that inveterate foe of every
right-minded infantry man, until he gets a chance of putting up red tabs
himself,--the Staff. But for once the cynics were wrong, and on June
13th the 11th Manchesters arrived to relieve us, and we marched gaily
back to Kantara--at any rate if not gaily--it was getting on for 130 deg. in
the sun quite early in the day--still with a good heart. We were even
complaisant when we found ourselves crowded into one camp area with the
7th, and with most of the tents to put up. As the afternoon wore on--(we
had been up since 3 a.m. and were still hard at it in different
fatigues)--a tendency to disparage holidays was noticed in some
quarters, and when the next day we found ourselves in for a resumption
of training pending further orders, the cynics had their innings. It
lasted a fortnight--of crowded tents and extreme heat--the thermometer
failing to fall much below 90 deg. all night. Reveille was at 4 a.m. and
after three hours training, we came in for an eight o'clock breakfast,
drenched in sweat, and regarding salt bacon with loathing. To add to the
trials of the climate the entire Battalion was roused one night about
midnight with orders to make all tents as secure as possible, hammer in
tent pegs, etc., as the following message had just been received,
"Typhoon proceeding north passed Suez 9 p.m." Few if any of us had ever
experienced a typhoon and with thoughts of very shortly being blown here
and there like the sand we set to work with a will, but unnecessarily.
The great wind never came, and we learnt in the morning that the
"Typhoon" that passed Suez was a tramp steamer homeward bound. But the
optimists were not to be disappointed. On the 26th an advance party left
us, and on the evening of the 28th the whole Batt