Arrived at the top of the hill, we looked round hopefully for the promised rest camp. The sight was indeed depressing. A few dejected and battered-looking tents, one or two marquees struggling with the gale, and an odd hut or two, were the only signs of human habitation on this bleak and wretched moor. The temperature was several degrees below freezing, the wind swept over us in an icy gale, and daylight was rapidly failing. So this was active service, and how warm and comfortable those barracks at Woking were, and how strange that once we thought them cold and bare! Little time, however, was allowed for reflections. The Camp Warden was there to introduce us to the amenities of the place, and companies and platoons were soon struggling off to try to find shelter from the wind. Blankets had to be drawn and rations issued, and as darkness fell parties were still hurrying about in every direction, endeavouring to get things straight for the night. Presently our indefatigable Quartermaster arrived, having forced a lorry driver, apparently at the point of his revolver, to bring the mechanical transport up to the camp; but how it got up, and still more how it ever got back, are among the unsolved mysteries of the war. It now appeared that we had to entrain at Boulogne at 8 a.m. the next morning, and an early rise and breakfast were arranged. Few were sorry that our stay on this frozen mountain was to be short; most of us, indeed, regretted that we had ever to come there at all. Very early next morning all were astir. The misery of shaving with freezing water on an icy cold morning was a new experience, and no more pleasant on this than on the many subsequent occasions when it occurred. The officers were more fortunate; they had luckily secured a wooden hut, and also a good breakfast at the Church Army Hut, a veritable oasis in the desert. After some heated moments while the Commanding Officer inspected the men, who looked rather different from the spotless battalion of Woking--how distant, by the way, that place seemed!--the battalion proceeded down the hill. The descent, if less arduous than the ascent, was certainly more perilous. Even the "higher command" could not always control its feet, and the battalion descended in various postures, mostly in a sitting or prone position; while the clatter of equipment, the crash of falling rifles, and the curses of the victims, aroused the local inhabitants, who regarded us with unseemly mirth. On arrival at the station we found, to our surprise, that our train was in. It was of the usual kind, "Chevaux 8, Hommes 40," new to us then, but familiar to all the world now. Into this the battalion was sorted, the officers having a first-class carriage of an old-world aspect. Then we began to wait, a practice in which we were all greatly skilled, and about 9.30 a.m. we started off.