Early in October a very thorough course of musketry instruction under Fortress arrangements was begun, firing taking place on the Naval ranges of Ghain Tuffieha. The companies were thus employed as follows:--2 on detachment, 2 on musketry course, 3 on company training, and 1 finding all the duties at Battalion Headquarters, the whole being worked on a roster so that each company was kept for training and detachment purposes at its greatest possible strength. During the early days of the Battalion in Malta a few changes of distribution took place among officers as follows: Major R. J. J. Jackson was evacuated to Cottonera Hospital sick. He unfortunately remained in hospital until early in December 1914, when he was invalided to England. Command of F Company was taken by Lieut. F. C. Grimwade, and the Machine-Gun Section was taken over by 2/Lieut. T. I. Walker, Lieut. S. Elliott transferring to E Company. The Battalion was also joined by 2/Lieut. R. C. Kelly who, however, remained with the unit for a few weeks only, at the end of which time he was appointed to the Secret Service, and with this he remained until the end of the War. The middle of September, when the Battalion landed in Malta, found the hot season waning, and although the temperature remained high for some weeks the full intensity of the sub-tropical summer was not experienced. In the early part of October, however, the scirocco, a warm south-westerly wind which originates in the Sahara, followed, with all its usual enervating effects, which were indeed quite as trying as the intense heat of the sun had been. Towards the end of the same month the wet season set in in earnest, and from that time until the early part of December the camping ground at Ghain Tuffieha was swept by tropical rains and sand storms of considerable violence, which from time to time caused a certain amount of material damage and not a little discomfort to the troops. The memory of suddenly having to turn out and clear blocked drainage trenches and lay on to straining tent ropes in the--sometimes--vain endeavour to prevent one's temporary home from vanishing into thin air, and to rescue one's kit from a mud bath, is now sufficiently remote to be contemplated without acute distress, but the feelings which these encounters which the elements evoked at the time were by no means so calm! During the worst phase of the Malta climate the Battalion remained under canvas, and it is of some interest--though admittedly of little consolation--to remark that no battalion had previously spent the winter in Malta in other than permanent barracks. Thanks to the untiring efforts of the Battalion Medical Officer, Major J. F. F. Parr, the bill of health during these marked variations of climate remained extraordinarily clean, and in spite of its exposed situation the Battalion suffered less from sickness than the others of the Brigade which were accommodated in modern barracks.