Some of the party walked on top of the embankment and some went along the narrow ledges at the side. At one point, where the surface of the embankment was particularly treacherous, a certain officer (curiously enough the most notoriously dirty man in Camp 203) decided to join those on this side ledge. He took a full stride down the bank, which looked solid, and found that its rich red mud was of the consistency of snow. He, with all his kit, sank slowly right into it, very nearly completely disappearing, and was unable to move an inch. We had literally to haul him out bit by bit, and he stood up a dripping man of mud, coated in it inches thick from the neck to the heels.

Then the camp came in view, bounded by a bamboo fence on the railway side and by the river on the other. It was a long strip of a camp, 300 to 400 yards long, and we walked to the far end to enter by the only gate, where the Nip Guard Room was. We assembled on the square for checking, and the senior officer in command of our party ordered the officers for the Officers Working Battalion to fall out in order to go up to the Fit Camp.

Luckily, the 206 Camp Adjutant was an acquaintance of mine whom I’d known in Scotland, and a man with a mind of his own. When he saw me lame and barefooted, though not senior in rank himself, he didn’t hesitate to say that it was a damned disgrace to send up such a man to a Working Battalion, and Gus and I, instead of going off with the six other unfortunates, were sent to report to Colonel Finch, who commanded the sick officers of the battalion who were all lying in this camp. Gus and I went cautiously down in the steady rain to the hollow where the Colonel’s tent lay, for the mud was washed smooth everywhere and in bare feet was incredibly slippery. We put our kit down outside and announced ourselves to the very pleasant, open-looking Irishman, Colonel Finch himself.