Wednesday 19th February 1941

There was a well hard by our camp site, so last night I had a good wash and a hair shampoo in hot water. After our singing was done, the others kipped down in the lee of the lorry but I rolled myself in the blankets, beside the fire and went to sleep with my eyes on it's red glow.

This morning, Sid and I were up early and mashed a pot of tea. Later, before breakfast, we washed in two gallons of hot water. Qwise!

This morning we were travelling through fine, mountainous country until about 11a.m. when we descended rapidly right down to sea level, from the top of a magnificent precipice. Long zig-zags. (What a place to hold an Army! Why didn't they?)

Derna. Nearly every house had walls pitted with shrapnel. Some houses were in ruins. A colourful town of tropical trees and plants. After we reached the plateau above Derna, there was no more fertility. Gradually the scenery merged into that mish-qwise stony flatness of dust that we know so well.

We are now in bivouac 72 kilos from Derna, on the Gulf of Bomba. M1 stands at exactly the same spot as it did until we left here, on the 5th February, to start that awful march which ended at Solloch.