Eventually, we got to the very doorway of Burma.
I can't remember what happened next. I was certainly allocated to a different Signals Group, and, yes… and we were taken by lorry along a newly built road, that we knew as the Burma Road it – actually wasn't the Burma Road, but it was known as the Burma Road because no-one could think of a better name, I suppose.
And when we got to Milestone 86, we were dropped off and there we stayed... Oh God, oh yes... the accommodation was miserable, and I was put into a tent that was already occupied by infantry. Infantry, of course, has vast contempt for Royal Signals. So I had to pitch my little... what did we call it? What was the word for bed? I've forgotten – anyhow, on the edge of the tent. And in the night, I fell off the edge into the nettles, and – miserable – but, I'll say this for these bastards of infantry, they did come and pick me up and stick me back in the tent.
And, to wash in the morning, they had got... I mean, the mountain stretched up and the mountain stretched down. The mountains that stretched up carried streams, and one of the streams had been induced to go into a vast black pipe, and it spewed its water out into a pool. And so, what you had to do was to strip off and go and stand in this absolutely freezing water! Oh, God! But that was the way of keeping clean.