At 4 a.m. we were away again. We walked half a mile, then rested. After an hour or two of this the pace got slower and troops began to fall out and sit down. More than one dusky warrior unconsciously depicted the Dying Gladiator. We spoke kind words to them and where possible gave them a lift. Many mules were shot as their strength gave out. I ate my biscuit and gave Don a pocketful of hay I had kept for him. He rubbed his nose on my cheek and wished he were back in his excellent stable at Hyderabad. Once this day my General's horse nearly unseated him as we crossed a nullah where a camel was lying stretched out. "Come on," he shouted to me. "It's dead, and won't bite." Don hates camels, and was rearing up in fine style. Therein he showed judgment more correct than did the General, for, in answer to my spur, he had no sooner drawn level with the beast than the "dead" camel swung its long snaky neck round upon us and opened eyes and mouth simultaneously. Don jumped the bank and the whole staff of telephonists and landed almost on top of General Smith, whose horse objected considerably. I laughed until the general restrained my humour. The horses were awfully done, and in the batteries could just move the guns at the slowest walk. We did about a mile an hour. About 3 p.m. General Townshend shouted to General Smith that one of our batteries was shelling our own transport which appeared round the head of the river, miles ahead. My general apparently forgot me, and went off on his old charger. The transport could not have been saved by the time he got up to the guns. I put Don at a ditch and, racing up a knoll close by, blew on my long sounding whistle "cease fire," and held up my hand. The battery commander saw it, and when I galloped up I apologized for interrupting his shooting, and explained. They had bracketed the transport and a shot was in the breech of the gun, so my whistle had just got them in time. A splendid fellow is the commander of that battery, Major Broke-Smith, an excellent soldier and cheerful friend. Unperturbed, he said, "Well, if I'm to shell all Arab bodies, and the river will wind so----" And when I got back General Townshend thanked me, at which I was much elated. In the afternoon we halted for two and a half hours to enable the straggling crowds to catch up. I rode miles trying to find our transport cart with the stores, but it had got somewhere in the front several miles off. Some one produced a cube of Oxo, and we had that divided and a whisky peg each. "G. B." slept, and I saw the horses watered and unsaddled. The general had some biscuits given him, and some signalling officer--whom the gods preserve!--gave me a sausage, which I ate before considering whether it would divide or not.