Our friends, watching, reported that this was the sergeant of the guard and we began to feel anxious. After another minute a tap came on the door. Our orderly had seen the sergeant safely into a small mosque round the corner, and everything was clear. We hurried out in single file, endeavouring to be quite silent but seeming to make an awful noise. I was wearing a pair of rope sole shoes and carrying my boots while the others had put old socks over their boots. In spite of our anything but noiseless departure we were not noticed. We scrambled up the hill and five minutes later were under cover in the graveyard. Here we put our rucksacks and coats on properly and prepared for an all-night trek. In order to look less like officers and more like local scallywags we had turned our coats inside out and also carried our packs in a blanket over one shoulder. We had decided to wear old khaki, so as to be able to prove we were really British if necessary in case of accidents or bad luck. After taking us a little further, our orderly friend shook hands with us all round, and with a quiet word of farewell and thanks for his invaluable assistance we set off on our adventure. We had to make a detour round the north of the town across the main valley to get out to the hills on the east. It was a clear, starry night, but even so it was extraordinarily difficult to recognize the hillsides which we knew quite well by daylight. Hardly had we gone a quarter of a mile before a dog began to bark on the main road a little way off. Later on, we did not pay much attention to dogs, as we generally started at least one every night by walking near a village or too close to houses; but this animal, being the first and so near to the town, was anything but pleasant to listen to. We scrambled down a steep bank across a nullah and up a gully running into a hill which we had to climb. The main nullah we had just crossed ran down towards the road passing the magazine, where by day there was always a guard. However, the dog soon ceased his complaint and quietness reigned. We were already beginning to feel the weights of our packs and, as the night was warm and our direction led up the stony, pathless side of a steep hill, we soon had to call a halt. In fact, although we did not admit it to each other, these moments were really almost the worst of our whole trip and each secretly thought what an idiot he had been ever to start. Having started, however, there was nothing for it but to continue and after a few minutes' rest we trudged on. A little further brought us out on the top, where we were annoyed to find that the moon was already well up, whereas we had reckoned on at least another half-hour of darkness. During the last few days, we had carefully timed the moon's rising, and endeavoured to foretell the time for the night of our venture from comparisons with last year's almanac, which was all we had to go upon.