TCD MS 3414 folio 37 recto
[September 1915]
Chapter 5 The Advance on Sunnaiyat
The Division arrived at Ali-el-Gherbi on the 9th of September, and encamped employing it’s full allowance of tentage to avoid as much as possible the intense heat. We were here for days, and during that time experienced excellent sport sand grouse shooting; there were thousands of these birds and if one lined the river bank between the hours of 3 & 4 in the afternoon, one was almost certain to get a good bag of them as they made their way down to water. They are not unlike a partridge, they fly fast and high and are an excellent game bird. A day before the advance to Sannaiyat I joined the Royal Flying Corps leaving the old 43rd [insert from last page].
My first days duty with the RFC I spent in making a ramp down the steep bank to the waters edge to facilitate the landing of the machines that had recently arrived. Lieut Fulton carrying Capt Atkins had reduced the Morris Short horn to a shapless mass of debris while landing, but luckily they themselves had escaped injury. While attempting to start on a reconnaissance in a