"From a ground-floor room at the end of one block shone a light. It came from a canteen. I saw others were busy while I was lowering a pint of shandy. I was so dry that I could not taste it-I could only just feel it. We felt better. Where there was beer there was hope." Alec Riley was a signaller in the British Army's 42nd (East Lancashire) Division. Egypt Diary 1914-1915 tells of the mobilisation of the division at the outbreak of war, and...