The battalion’s destination—the port of sailing—was unknown, except to those in command, but in the early dawn of morning it became apparent to all, as we passed along the borders of Somerset and Dorset and on through Devon, that we were _en route_ to Plymouth. At 10 a.m. we drew up in Plymouth Docks, there to embark on H.M.T.S. _Neuralia_ (Glasgow). The day was spent in embarking the troops and baggage to their allocated stations on board ship; and in the depth of a pitch-black night, when all was ready, we cleared the docks and steamed slowly out of Plymouth Sound, in company with others of a convoy, and commenced our voyage “outward bound” to Africa. [Sidenote: ON BOARD A TROOPSHIP] There are times in all men’s lives when they go through experiences that remain for ever remarkable, either because they are so new and unexpected, or because they contain so much of pain and hardship. The men new to travel—and there were a number of them—who embarked on the good ship _Neuralia_ will remember, to the end of their days, their first experiences on board a troopship and their first voyage to the tropics; for it contained, for them, all the hardship of their new life of soldiering, and all the romance and pleasure of seeing a completely new and unexpected world. Conversation on board ship dealt largely with contrasts. Old pictures were compared with new and, in most cases, within the mind of the intelligent individual each fresh experience brought new expression and wide awakening. Young men who short weeks before, and all their lives, had enjoyed all the comfort and ease of home life were now feeling the first rigour of army service. Robson, an observant old soldier, heard much of his neighbours’ little troubles. It was common to hear the warm, soft, white-sheeted bed at home ruefully recalled by the men, when rolled in coarse grey blankets on the hard deck, or, chrysalis-like, bound in hammocks slung from the ceiling in the impure atmosphere below. Also to hear, when men viewed their portions of bare, often ill-cooked rations, fond recollections of Sunday dinners at home, or a lucid description of a favourite dish. Personal comparisons those, which would have in time become odious had they not usually evoked laughter from some buoyant spirit, and the request to “Shut up, you old Funeral!” It was much the same with everything of this new environment—the men’s clothes, their boots, their fatigue work (deck-scrubbing, etc.), all were of a rougher nature than that to which they had been accustomed in pre-war life. The process of securing and ensuring hardihood had begun, and, as time went on, the men, particularly the good ones, came to see the purpose of it and, generally, to laugh more than to “grouse” at their difficulties. Were they not, after all, starting out on the greatest adventure of all—the stern pursuit of a perilous quest—and was not a rough life part of the setting to be expected and contested?