Saturday 16th January 1943

At Bir As Huj after a weary and monotonous crossing of the Sinai. At any rate we're out of Egypt now, even if we are in a pretty deadly part of southern Palestine. We've cleared out some of the furniture and I'm now in the lamp-lit, warm, windless interior of A7.

It was worth the extra work, this morning! We got up at 5a.m. instead of 5:45a.m., lit the lantern, packed our beds and got dressed, then lit the primus for some hot washing and shaving water. Whilst we were reloading A7 half an hour later, everyone else was struggling out of dew damp blankets, shuddering in the chill air, or getting washed in ice-cold water. We were first at breakfast too; an excellent start to the day. Let's hope that things go equally according to plan tomorrow.