sted that we did not care
for anything any more. Whether we got wet or dry was quite immaterial to
us.

I was so conscious of my utmost exhaustion that I felt I could not now
last much longer under that heavy strain. Every fifty or a hundred metres
I collapsed under my load, and had the greatest struggle to get up on my
feet again. Those marches were most tragic, my men being, if possible, in
a worse condition than me, they, too, collapsing every few steps. Thus in
a day we each collapsed dozens of times. That was the thirteenth day we
had had no food whatever, barring perhaps a grain of salt from the
fraudulent anchovy tin, which I had preserved in a piece of paper.

I felt no actual pain, only great emptiness in my inside, and a curious
feeling of nausea, with no wish whatever to eat or to drink. Although
water was plentiful we hardly touched it at all--only a few drops to
moisten our feverish lips. That fact interested me greatly, as it was
absolutely contrary to people's notions of what happens when you are
starving. All I experienced was indescribable exhaustion. I felt myself
gradually extinguishing like a burnt-out lamp.

Benedicto and Filippe had dreadful nightmares during the night, and
occasionally gave frantic yells. That night Filippe all of a sudden
startled us crying out for help; a moment later he collapsed in a faint.
When he recovered I asked him what was the matter; he said in a dazed way
that there were people all round us bringing plenty of food to us--an
hallucination which was soon dispelled when he returned to his senses.

On September 17th we had another painful march without finding a grain of
food to eat. Again we started our day with a severe thunderstorm, the
water coming down upon us in bucketfuls. Benedicto and Filippe were
fervently praying the Almighty to strike them down by lightning so as to
end the daily torture.

The strain of leading those fellows on was getting almost too much for
me. The greatest gentleness had to be employed, as an angry word would
have finished them altogether, and they would have laid down to die.

The rain came down in such torrents that day, and we were so soaked, that
we had to halt, we three huddling together to try and protect ourselves
under the waterproof sheet which I used at night as a hammock. When we
went on I noticed a cut in a tree which had been made some years before.
I soon discovered the tracks which had been followed by the person who
had