Between the 28th of August and the 17th of October the whole contingent embarked at Cape Town for England. The Infantry numbered 160 officers and 5,648 other ranks; the Heavy Artillery, 34 officers and 636 other ranks; and the Signal Company, 6 officers and 198 other ranks. By the beginning of November all the services were safely established on English soil—the Infantry being quartered at Bordon, the Field Ambulance at Fleet, and the Heavy Artillery at Bexhill. For two months the units were busy with their training, varied by the customary inspections. On 3rd November the Brigade was reviewed by General Sir Archibald Hunter, the G.O.C. Aldershot Command, and on the 19th the same officer, accompanied by the Duke of Atholl, visited the 4th Battalion. On the 9th the South Africans furnished a detachment for the Lord Mayor’s Show. On the 21st the senior officers went to France for three days’ duty with the army in the field, and on 2nd December the Brigade was reviewed by the Queen. [Sidenote: _Dec. 30._] It was an obscure and critical moment in the war. The great Russian retreat had come to an end, but Mackensen had overrun Serbia and driven the Allies back to the entrenched camp of Salonika. Gallipoli was about to be evacuated. The ambitious attacks of Loos and Champagne had achieved no decision. The first instalment of the new British levies had taken the field; Sir Douglas Haig had replaced Sir John French as the British Commander-in-Chief, and had begun that elaborate system of training which was to make his army in two years the most formidable in the world. The early hopes of the Allies had been dashed, and men were slowly recognizing that the war was a longer and grimmer business than they had foreseen. Already there were mutterings of that storm in the west which in two months time was to break around Verdun. The South African Brigade was at first attached to the 16th (Irish) Division, and it was expected that the middle of December would see it in France. But on 7th December the plans were altered. For its first taste of war the Brigade was to retrace its course, and return again to the continent which it had left. On 30th December the four battalions embarked at Devonport for Alexandria. CHAPTER II. THE CAMPAIGN IN WESTERN EGYPT. (January-April 1916.) The Position in Egypt at the close of 1915—The Western Frontier—Trouble with the Senussi—General Wallace’s attack on Christmas Day—The Arrival of the South African Brigade at Alexandria—The Battle of Halazin—The Battle of Agagia—The March upon Sollum—The exploit of the Armoured Cars—The Brigade leaves for Europe.