As might be expected in the army, government items that should be within the QM stores often found their way into other hands. Authorities found that the easiest way of dealing with this problem was to announce that on a particular time and day a kit inspection would be held, but that on the previous night the QM stores would be open and all illegally held items could be returned with no questions asked. The kit inspection would still be held but it would catch far fewer people and fewer charges would be laid. One fateful day the lieutenant and sergeant appeared at my bed and turned out my kit. "Ah, ha," said the lieutenant as he extracted a steel rule, "government property." Well he didn't actually say, "Ah, ha," but I gleaned that from the expression on his face. I assured him that it was my personal property but he would have none of it. I pointed out that it bore no bench mark or other mark identifying it as being government property but he said, "No, -- take his name and charge him, sergeant." They both passed on through the hut and later the sergeant came back to take particulars; in the meantime a thought struck me, I went through my wallet and as luck would have it I found what I wanted. I presented the sergeant with a bill of sale from a shop in Aldershot registering the purchase of a steel rule complete with its serial number. He viewed this, mumbled something and disappeared. Did I ever get an apology for being accused of stealing? Pigs might fly. Due to the very hot sandy dusty conditions in the country we were not supposed to spend more than two summers in Iraq and to ease things for us the army arranged that everyone would, at some time during that period, be sent on a two week compulsory leave to Beirut. Imagine, compulsory leave! The journey was taken in four stages and the transport was a small convoy of army lorries with Indian drivers and co-drivers. We drove only on metalled roads and our first overnight stop was at a place called Wadi Mahomadi where the only signs of habitation were our huts. After a good night's sleep we set off the next morning for Rutbah which lay on an oil pipe line guarded by Military Police but which seemed just as deserted. We stayed there for the night. Our lorries held about eight of us and we lolled around in the back; for comfort it was agreed that our army boots should be removed. Lafferty declined. Ingram, a member of our boxing team insisted. Lafferty's boots came off. At this point as our lorry started weaving we discovered that our co-driver was missing, there was only one man in the cab, the driver, and he was dozing off. Perhaps it had been this way ever since the start of the journey but we weren't very happy about the situation so we made the driver keep whistling; whenever the whistling stopped someone would lean out and reach round into the cab window and poke the driver to bring him round.