The British troops and cavalry took 5 days to disembark. Many of the men were sick with cholera and had to be carried off the boats. No facilities for moving equipment overland existed, so parties had to be sent out to steal carts and wagons from the local Tatar farms. The only food or water for the men was the three days' rations they had been given at Varna. No tents or kitbags were offloaded from the ships, so the soldiers spent their first nights without shelter, unprotected from the heavy rain or the blistering heat.