of duty we might expect to be called upon to perform, and the ignorance
of the Staff as to the nature of the country through which we were to
operate was simply sublime. Added to this, most of the new material with
which we were fitted was quite useless for our purpose. Those things
which had been collected on the first notice of movement in 1917 had
been dispersed, and the difficulty of securing others at short notice
was quite insurmountable.

The voyage was not remarkable except that one typhoon crossed our track
not ten miles astern, and for eighteen miles we travelled alongside
another, the heavy seas striking the ship nearly abeam, and causing her
to roll in a very alarming manner. The troops had a very uncomfortable
time, and were glad to sight the coast of Korea and the calm waters of
the Sea of Japan.

At Hong-Kong many of the men, including myself, had suffered much from
prickly heat, which had developed in many cases into huge heat boils. It
was very strange how rapidly these irruptions cured themselves directly
we reached the cool, clear atmosphere of the coast of Japan.

Elaborate preparations had been made for our reception, insomuch that we
were the first contingent of Allied troops to arrive at Vladivostok. Two
Japanese destroyers were to have acted as our escort from the lighthouse
outside, but they were so busy charting the whole coastline for future
possibilities that they forgot all about us until we had arrived near
the inner harbour, when they calmly asked for our name and business.
Early next morning, August 3, they remembered their orders and escorted
us to our station at the wharf, past the warships of the Allied nations
gaily decorated for the occasion.

At 10 A.M. a battalion of Czech troops, with band and a guard of honour
from H.M.S. _Suffolk_, with Commodore Payne, R.N., Mr. Hodgson, the
British Consul, the President of the Zemstrov Prava, and Russian and
Allied officials, were assembled on the quay to receive me. As I
descended the gangway ladder the Czech band struck up the National
Anthem, and a petty officer of the _Suffolk_ unfurled the Union Jack,
while some of the armed forces came to the present and others saluted.
It made quite a pretty, interesting and immensely impressive scene. The
battalion at once disembarked, and led by the Czech band and our
splendid sailors from the _Suffolk_, and accompanied by a tremendous
crowd of people, marched through the town to a saluting point