"Men began to fall out before we reached the first village (or town as it happened to be). And as soon as the falling out began it continued without ceasing, only becoming more frequent the farther we got. I do think they began falling out too early. Every time a man fell out we subalterns had to drop behind with him and give him a chit. That naturally took time and one got right behind; then one would endeavour to catch up again; as soon as one was back with one's own platoon--generally before--one would come across more men of one's company who had fallen out, and so would get right back again. Thus it went on the whole time. It meant that we had double the walking to do that the men had; and we were loaded like Christmas trees just like them. Fortunately there was a mess cart with the Transport, containing still lemonade; so I had a drink now and then. It is an Army idea that one should not drink on the march: that it knocks one up much quicker. I say frankly, from experience, that it is nonsense. I drank as much as I could get hold of on the way (by no means as much as I could have drunk!) and though I was jolly tired I was as fresh as anybody else, and a good deal fresher than the majority, as you will see later. Well, after the first halt the falling out became dreadful; it was almost impossible for us to cope with the number of chits required; crowds must have been without chits at all. The whole roadside became one mass of exhausted men lying full length. Some were very bad indeed, some had sunstroke, some were sick, more than one were dying. At one time the padre and I were a long way behind, attending to these men. We hurried on to catch up the Battalion. The Transport, under Humfrey, were just behind the Battalion, so we followed along the Transport. When we got to the front end of it we saw nothing beyond! 'Where is the Battalion?' I asked Humfrey. He informed me that he had lost it. The Adjutant had, at the last turning, sent the Battalion one way and the Transport another; and he (Humfrey) had not the faintest idea where he was to go to! So he halted and got out a map. Then the Medical Officer (Adam) arrived on the scene too. We told him that the Battalion had disappeared. So we (Newman, Adam, Humfrey, and myself) sat down for about five minutes and discussed the situation. It struck us as being rather comical, though we wished that we were at the end of our journey instead of in a strange village and ignorant of which way we were to go. Humfrey decided to take his Transport the same way as the remainder of the Brigade Transport had gone; so we went on with him! We went across some very open country. The sun was simply burning down upon us. I felt very exhausted now; but I can stick almost anything in the way of a route march; no route march could, in my opinion, be as bad as that memorable Kidlington-Yarnton route march in March, 1916. The difficulty then was fatigue caused by