Discharged from our escort duty we boarded a passenger train heading for Baghdad and enjoyed the luxury of slatted wooden seats. I was quite excited with the anticipation of what lay ahead and could hardly wait to see more of the mystic land of the Caliphs. The train drew into Baghdad and as it slowed we could see more of the city, fine buildings mixed with mud brick homes, the Ishtar Gate and the minarets of mosques, the strange clothes, music discordant to my ears, porters bent double with unbelievable loads on their backs and the smells. At that time I had to be content with a passing impression because I was bound for Al Musayyib, to No.5 Advanced Base Workshops. That designation in the middle of Iraq puzzled me and it was not until many years after the war that I discovered the reason for it and the reason for my being there. The workshops were some 40 miles south of Baghdad and a mile or so from the Arab town; the town was out of bounds to us but a metalled road from there passed between our camp and the workshops; we only ever saw military traffic on it. Both camp and workshop compound were separately surrounded with barbed wire, three coil dannert and apron was the official name for it. Individual shops were scattered within the compound, seemingly haphazardly and they contained equipment for which any contemporary British engineering firm would kill for. Accommodation within the camp consisted of huts similar in design to Nissen huts but were built of local materials with low brick walls and pre-cast arches supporting curved roofs of straw reinforced baked mud. The floors were of course bare earth. Outside the end doors of each hut stood a large urn of unglazed earthenware, a chatty, kept full of water laced with salt to make sure we took our daily dose to ward off heat exhaustion. The water was cooled by the evaporation of the small quantity of water that seeped through to the outside of the chatty and it was very pleasant to drink. Non-potable water for ablutions and laundry was brought in through underground pipes from a source unknown to me, the river Euphrates perhaps, anyway the pipes could not have been buried very far beneath the surface because in the summer the water was quite hot. Again, using local materials, the screens around the unroofed showers and latrines were made of woven palm leaves.