Suddenly, some time after sunset, we were just preparing to settle down by the station for the night when a train drew up. With some other subalterns I found a small place for a bed in a truck. There was a space of four feet by two for each of us. We stuffed our legs anywhere and slept. The train started and we awoke. The doors of the truck were open. We watched the desert go by, thankful beyond expression, mystified at this extraordinary change, the conveyance of dying men without their own effort. The terrible bumps and the state of the trucks were nothing. It was a train. Some time in the early morning we crossed the Euphrates, near where stood the site of ancient Jarabolis. The archæologist of the party told of the excavations here, and, somewhere to the north, of Karkemish the Hittite capital in the twilight of history. About 10 a.m. we arrived at Mouslemie, the junction of Aleppo, some half-hour off by train from that city, whither were sent most of the sick rank and file that had accompanied us, including all our servants. Only one batman for four officers was allowed us. To my dismay I had to part with poor Graoul, otherwise Holmes, to whom I gave half my rations the Germans had given me and my last kron. I found afterwards more than one had "wangled" an extra servant. Padre Spooner asked me to share with him and a subaltern nicknamed Hummerbug, in order to keep a sick servant he had with him. This meant we had to move our own luggage. The prospect was appalling, as I was too sick and weak to walk far without sitting down. We had no food and no money, not having been paid since Mosul. Father Mullan, our kind Catholic padre, gave me a piastre. With it I bought a piece of bread, and shared it with another subaltern. Other officers were too poor to pay the small debts they owed. At five we stopped near a German train bound for Ras-el-Ain. A trooper aboard it was trying to buy gold signet rings at a tenth of their value. He showed us several he had got from other unfortunates. He advised our getting supplies at once, as at the mountain stop there was nothing to be had. An hour later we proved it true enough. The place was called Islahie--merely a station with two or three new houses where a German Staff dwelt, and some skin and brushwood shelters where sick British soldiers lay--all under the shadow of wooded heights. An awful Turkish brute followed me as I tried to drag our kits over the country to the camping place. Cholera was supposed to be raging here, and we were kept apart from the others. Excellent water was brought us in a water-cart. I missed my orderly Graoul. The padre and a subaltern nicknamed Hummerbug and I now messed together. His servant I afterwards found was too sick to do much.