From the beginning of the year 1915 the training had become more and more strenuous. There were long marches in the desert—occasionally very long ones—in full marching order, through native villages in which the many odours were only excelled in numbers, variety, and offensiveness by the yelping curs that were stirred into noisy activity by the tramp of the battalions. The Khamsin wind was sickly in its heat, the atmosphere heavy and laden with sand, the glare of the sun pitiless, the only shade available while resting being the very inadequate shelter provided by a blanket stretched on rifles. But the men were physically fit—they had to be, for only fit men were needed. The amateurs had become _soldiers_. The days were past when the colour-sergeant’s whispered order to the right-flank man of a company in extended order for “two scouts” would reach the left-flank man in the form of “the colour-bloke wants a couple of stouts.” In spite, however, of good physical condition and a fine spirit, it could not truthfully be stated that the Suez road, with its five-mile towers, and the Virgin’s Breast had endeared themselves to Lancastrians. Familiarity had bred not contempt but a whole-hearted loathing for that accursed highway and that distant mound. The Third Tower was the usual goal, the advance ceasing just beyond it. How the troops hated the sight of this detestable pile which, in the dust and glare, seemed to recede mockingly as they tramped towards it! On the homeward march one very hot day, while the men were cursing the dust and sand, a party of natives passed, all being mounted on asses. A bulky and perspiring Salford Fusilier regarded them enviously, and growled: “They say those blighters ain’t civilized. But _they_ don’t ⸺ well walk!” There were night operations and marches, during one of which, after a battalion had been wandering for hours in pitch darkness along the numerous roads in and around Helouan, the company humorist suggested to his Captain that they had lost their way. On being asked why, he replied, “Well, we’ve just passed a road that we haven’t been down.”