At 3:30 am I warned the detachments to stand by and dismissed then at 6:30 as all was well, and came back to camp for breakfast.
At seven o’clock the major, Franklyn, and I rode off on a reconnaissance. We started off along the edge of Lake Bardawil. The bed of the lake is quite dry, it is like gypsum; it looks just like a glacier and is as hard as a rock. We reconnoitred all the ground very carefully to find the best going for the guns if a section has to go out. We rode on past Blair’s Post and up onto Hill 100 where we had a good view of all the country round El So– and Bir Abu Ha– two small oasises on the edge of Sabkhet El Romani, and away to Katia in the distance. We never saw a sign of a Turk or a Bedouin all the time. We saw several jackal tracks, and some large ones which were probably hyenas as there are said to be plenty of them round this district.
At work on the gun emplacements into this evening.