Some of those who had subscribed considered any attempt without previously obtaining a boat to be hopeless and, when the Greek never returned, the number who were keen to go was reduced to half a dozen. Much discussion followed as to the size of the party, whether there should be two parties and who should go in which, and what routes should be followed. Eventually only four of us prepared to start, the others promising to give us all the support they could. Our party now consisted of Captains R. J. Tipton, R.F.C., R. T. Sweet, 2/7th Ghurkas, Lieut. E. H. Keeling, and myself, both of the I.A.R.O. "Tip" had been taken in Egypt, while we three had all been in Kut. There were two possible ways of getting out of the camp, or rather away from the street in which we lived, and either seemed fairly easy to arrange. In order to get our provisions ready, we had to take one or two of the British orderlies into our confidence. We decided after much scheming that we would take 20 lb. of food each, consisting of 11 lb. of biscuits, 2-1/2 lb. of cheese, 2-1/2 lb. of smoked meat, 1-3/4 lb. of chocolate, 1-1/2 lb. of Horlick's Malted Milk and the remainder of soup squares, cocoa and sugar, with a box of tea tabloids. The biscuits were made of good white flour, for which we had at that time to pay an exorbitant price as it was almost unobtainable; butter and sugar, which were also appallingly expensive, were added. Some were made with raisins, all being baked as hard as possible to save weight. These, with raisins, proved much the most popular subsequently. Our mess cook, Gunner Prosser, R.F.A., made most of the biscuits and was very keen to do all he could to help us. In order to keep things dark we told as few people as possible, but several people must have suspected us before we finally took our departure. The all-important question of the food to be carried caused much discussion before the final schedule was drawn up. Some were for taking one solid lump of duff instead of biscuits, but the latter won the day as containing less water and being therefore of more value weight for weight. K. had a profound belief in Horlick's Malted Milk, which was fully justified by our subsequent experience. For some days prior to our departure a notice on the board, which was used by people who wished to exchange contents of parcels from home, informed all and sundry that Lt. K. could offer a very large variety of articles, ranging from honey to socks, in exchange for Malted Milk. This resulted in most of our supply being obtained. The question of meat was difficult, as tinned stuff received from home was too heavy and there was nothing to be got in the bazaar but smoked mutton, which was not very appetizing. Eventually, we decided on the mutton. We had a good many soup squares of different kinds, but on the journey we wished we had had more cocoa instead. We decided to pack as much food as possible in small bags, for which some puggaree cloth came in handy, and an old