There was no sign of excitement there, yet no good news.

It was put in Orders of the Day that the Allies are doing as well as can be expected pending arrival of re-enforcements; and that is not the way winners speak.
Later, when we had left Aden behind, our officers came down among us and confessed that all did not go well.

We said brave things to encourage them, for it is not good that one's officers should doubt.
If a rider doubts his horse, what faith shall the horse have in his rider?
And so it is with a regiment and its officers.
After some days we reached a narrow sea--the Red Sea, men call it, although God knows why--a place full of heat and sand-storms, shut in on either hand by barren hills.

There was no green thing anywhere.
There we passed islands where men ran down to the beach to shout and wave helmets--unshaven Englishmen, who trim the lights.

It must have been their first intimation of any war.