We travelled in style this time -- to start with. After WWI two Australians, seeing the potential, had acquired some vehicles and started a company, Nairn Transport, to carry passengers and freight across the Middle East and our party was put on two of their air conditioned coaches to travel from Baghdad to Damascus. The routes had been well established by this time and the coaches left the metalled roads and went across the desert in a fairly straight line from point A to point B. I was in the second coach following the leader and for a while all went well; we kept a reasonable distance between us because our passage stirred up a whirl of loose sand. Of course it had to be our coach that eventually broke down; our driver honked and honked until he got the attention of the leader; consultations followed. By-and-by a tow chain was hitched to one of our front spring shackles and off we went. With no power we had no air conditioning and the heat became unbearable so we opened the windows. This was not a good idea because we were following close, a tow chain's length, behind the other coach and we were in the minor sandstorm of its wake. Soon our sweaty bodies were caked with sand and the only respite came when the front spring shackle gave way and we ground to a halt. Repairs were made and the tow chain was re-attached, this time to the other front spring shackle. Many miles farther on this one also gave up the ghost and there were no more spare parts available for repairs, fortunately a small Arab settlement was close at hand. It was now night and we waited and waited until a relief coach reached us and took us uneventfully into Damascus. The next day we boarded the metre gauge railway train bound for Dar"a. My memory now fails me; I remember passing the southern end of Lake Tiberias and arriving at Haifa but I don't know how I got there. From Haifa we took a train along the coast into Egypt, crossing the Suez Canal at El Qantara, finishing up eventually at another desolate spot, No.2 Base Workshops at Tel-el-Kebir. TEL-EL-KEBIR I remember my father telling me when I was a youngster that the battle of Tel-el-Kebir was one of the last battles in which the British fought in red coats. I suppose that it stayed in his mind because it would have been still in the news when he was a child, the battle having taken place in 1882. No.2 Base Workshops was in that general vicinity but as usual it was in the wide open spaces; it was similar to Shaiba in size and content and served the same purpose. On one of my trips to Cairo I passed through the town -- or was it too small to be so called -- and I paused at the cemetery where the British dead of that battle were buried and my thoughts went back to my father's tales.