I forget how long we stayed there, maybe a week but then the draft was split up and dispersed and I was posted to Al Musayyib, some 40 miles south of Baghdad. However before I started the army wanted to get some useful work out of me and so with three others I acted as escort to an ammunition train going up as far as Mosul near the biblical city of Nineveh. We were supplied with canned and dry rations sufficient for the journey and joined the train in the evening with rifles, some ammunition for them, side arms and all our kit. An empty wagon served as our mobile quarters, empty that is except for straw or similar material to soften the hard wagon floor and we slept uncomfortably in shifts. On the first morning we awoke itching, sand flies had feasted on us as we slept fitfully; I think they really enjoyed fresh caucasian blood and we spent a while scratching and slapping. With the start of the day deficiencies were discovered in our equipment, while we had tea, sugar and dried milk we hadn't any water or the means of containing or boiling it. One difficulty was overcome when we bartered cigarettes for a petrol can from some railside Arabs. Funny really because it was once part of British stores; it was a tall square-sectioned metal can from which the top had been removed; at the top a wooden bar stretched from side to side to form a carrying handle; it appeared to be clean and we assumed that it was. The problem of boiling water was solved when we asked the locomotive driver to blow some out from his steed. I learned years later that this was definitely not recommended healthwise but that's what we did many times and we survived. The train stopped at various towns and villages on the way, As Samawa, Ad Diwaniyah, Baghdad, Samarra and lastly outside Mosul. At no stop did we venture far from the train we were guarding. The journey was interesting; except for the towns the land was light brown and mostly barren; in the open country flocks of sheep roamed with their attendant shepherds and this presented an almost biblical scene. To our western eyes there was one noticeable difference however, in the west the shepherd would be behind his flock, driving them but here he was in front, leading. Perhaps in this land of sparse vegetation the sheep relied on him to find the best grazing. We reached Mosul in the evening and our train drew up alongside an army camp, the lads there were enjoying a movie; the translucent screen lay between us and the audience and from our wagon we saw one hour of Mrs Miniver, back to front and soundless.