Consequently they had to load kits, etc., and embark on empty
stomachs.

Well, hungry but punctual, we embarked at 10 a.m. It was 102° in my
cabin, so you can imagine what the heat and glare of 150 men in an
open barge was. Having got us into this enviable receptacle, they
proceeded to think of all the delaying little trifles which might have
been thought of any time that morning. One way and another they
managed to waste three-quarters of an hour before we started. The
journey took six minutes or so. Getting alongside this ship took
another half hour, the delay mainly due to Arab incompetence this
time. Then came disembarking, unloading kits and all the odd jobs of
moving units--which all had to be done in a furnace-like heat by men
who had had no food for twenty hours. To crown it all, the people on
board here had assumed we should breakfast before starting and not a
scrap of food was ready. The poor men finally got some food at 2 p.m.
after a twenty-two hours fast and three hours herded or working in a
temperature of about 140°. Nobody could complain of such an ordeal if
we'd been defending Lucknow or attacking Shaiba, but to put such a
strain on the men's health--newly arrived and with no pads or glasses
or shades--gratuitously and merely by dint of sheer hard muddling--is
infuriating to me and criminal in the authorities--a series of
scatter-brained nincompoops about fit to look after a cocker-spaniel
between them.

Considering what they went through, I think our draft came off lightly
with three cases of heat-stroke. Luckily the object lesson in the train
and my sermons thereon have borne fruit, and the men acted promptly
and sensibly as soon as the patients got bad. Two began to feel ill on
the barge and the third became delirious quite suddenly a few minutes