But the journey was soon over. A little after midnight, on the 17th of December, the Regiment arrived at a siding near their camp: “It was bitterly cold, with a white frost and icy wind, and we had to turn out, detrain, and load up all our kit, saddles, and arms on to motor lorries, and then march, leading our horses six miles out to our camp here in pitch darkness.... We left the station about 2.45 A.M., and reached camp about 5 A.M., and groped about till we somehow got our lines down.” It was not a pleasant beginning to their soldiering in France, a curious contrast to the heat of the Red Sea--“the worst and coldest camp, I think, I have ever seen, about six inches deep in liquid mud, on the top of an exposed hill, with a bitter wind blowing. We are in tents, V.[10] and I sharing an 80-lb. one. We are very warm and comfortable, lots of warm straw on the ground, and our valises on top of it, and the men are in tents too, but the poor unfortunate horses are having a terrible time.... They stand always in a bog. The watering-place, about three-quarters of a mile away, is literally up to your knees nearly in liquid mud.” Lance-Corporal Bowie’s diary says of the arrival at Orleans: “Here we detrained at once in the midst of a terrific hailstorm, afterwards saddling up and leading our horses through the city to the village of La-Source, a distance of nine miles. Our stay at this camp proved to be a very severe test for both men and horses, as we were still clothed in our Indian khaki; at the same time it rained heavily for hours, and was also bitterly cold. The place in which the rough water-troughs had been fitted up, being in a valley, became practically a sea of mud, in places reaching up to our horses’ bellies.” At this camp the Regiment found some more of their officers awaiting them, which brought them up to full strength again.