Friday 28th June 1940

A hell of a day. We returned from the guard room to the compound at about 6:20a.m to find that nearly all of us were in the moving party. We had to have all our kit packed and ready for loading by 7:15a.m. and were to parade ourselves at 7:45 for moving off. In addition to packing (absolutely none had been done, of course) we had to wash, shave, change and have breakfast. Somehow, we did it all. Surprising how used to this sort of thing we are becoming.

Cold morning; dark clouds hiding part of Jebel Ebal when the convoy droned slowly out of Nablus. I looked around and felt rather sad. Strange how quickly Nablus and it's surrounding hills became home...

“Aye, you can't sleep here!” said my driver, nudging me into wakefulness.
“Sorry, why not?”
“I'm afraid you'll fall out!”
“Well, you can stop and pick me up if I do"
“Yeah, I'll jack up the lorry and get you from under the wheels”

However, I dozed off, undisturbed, a couple of miles further on and awoke in Tulkarim to see Underhill, in the back of the next lorry ahead, laughing at me.

Tent pitching in ragged ARP formation near our previous site at Nathanya. Hell of a job, I felt like a bag of shit and slacked as much as possible. Bivouac tents this time. I found the kits of Hadlow and Gayler (Cartwright is on holiday) and put them in a tent, with mine. Went to bed at 9:30p.m. slept at once.