16.2.16
Dear May
A mail has just come in today & I got your letter written on Dec 27th. Strange to say the paper of the same date arrived last week. Evidently all our reinft letters were sent up to our last camp as the majority of our men are still there. A few of the regiments here were a few men short & they called for volunteers to be transferred & that has upset our postal affairs slightly for a while but I think all our correspondence will find us alright. Was rather surprised to hear that you had sent me a cable as it was the first, & last, I have heard of it. If it was properly addressed it must have been censored out of existence or else it has just gone astray. The one I sent was sent at “weekend’ rates hence the apparent delay. I handed it in on Tue night so that you did well to get it the following Monday, especially at Xmas time. There is still a big difference in the price & piasters aren’t over plentiful at this game. I hope there was nothing of any great importance in the cable you sent. We have seen a good many illustrated N.Z.
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papers at the Y.M.C.A & have seen a good many photos of our departure & also some of the 9th’s march over the Rimutakas. The Y.M.C.A are doing great work for us here. Where ever we go they have tents or sheds for concerts, & writing & reading rooms. They manage to get a good supply of paper, & supply writing material free. They seem to get terribly decent chaps to run the shows. I am having a great job to write this letter. I sitting down flat on the sandy floor of our tent & there is a coon concert & two or thee arguments going on in the tent & I simply can’t think what I am putting down. YMCA is only 5 or 10 minutes away but it is raining like mad. Friday 18th. Strange to say your cable just arrived today. It arrived in Egypt on Dec 22nd, the day after we did, & has been looking for me more or less continuously ever since. We were in Zeitoun camp from Dec 21st till the 4th of this month & they should have had no difficulty in finding me. However I see the envelope is marked “Unknown N.Z. Training 22.12.15”. The number alone should have been sufficient the [censored] stands for the Otago Infantry Battn & the [censored] is my
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individual number, and as we have been [censored] they should have known that I was in the [censored] reinfts to the Otago Battn. This is only one instance of the careless & unsystematic way they manage our postal affairs here. And if a cake takes two months to be delivered you can easily understand a good many of our papers going astray. I was glad to get the addresses you sent – we half expect to be scrapping within a couple of hundred miles of there so there will be a chance of seeing some of them. Work here is pretty much as usual. Yesterday we had a very heavy day. Breakfast at 7 & fell in at 8 to march away out to meet an attack from our own men. We had a good spell between 10 & 11 & then marched on until 12.30 & after a couple of minutes pause the “enemy” were reported on our right flank & we had to climb a steep sandy slope & take up our positions. There was a good wind blowing & the sand was driving in a deadly manner & we were just about blinded & buried. At last we were ordered to retire & had just reached the foot of the hill when we were ordered back again. We were pretty tired & you can
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imagine how we felt climbing up a soft sliding sandy hill. About three o’clock the whistle sounded & we were assembled & marched off for home. As far as I know the scheme was well carried out but they overlooked the fact that our company went into “action” first & we had not had a minute off to have our lunch. About 20 past 3 we made a momentary pause to get into our right place & we all pulled out our lunch & sat down & started to “bog in” & a crowd of them sang out “Dinnertime”. Our commander looked at his watch & said nothing but just let us sit there. Our lunch consisted of a couple of slices of bread & jam & a drink of water but I can tell you we enjoyed it as we had had nothing to eat for over 8 hours & most of that time we were tramping through sand up to our boot tops. By the time we had had lunch the others had 1/4 of an hour’s lead on us & we had to catch it up & it was the most tiring march I have ever done yet. The desert in that part is not flat but is an everlasting succession of low hills. We had already done a good day’s work, the sand was well churned up by those at the head of column & we were a bit weak for the want
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of food so you can understand how much enjoyment we got out of the stroll. Fortunately they took us home by a shorter route & after having two short spells we landed back in camp at 5.25, tired, dusty & hungry. We felt a bit wild at the time but after a good tea of stew & plum duff & condensed milk we turned in feeling that it wasn’t as bad as we thought. Today we have had an easy day, in the morning visual training – picking up objects, distance judging etc. & after dinner we had a short attack & a swim in the canal and got home about 3. Tomorrow & Sunday we do practically nothing so we should be fit for anything again by Monday. During the march quite a lot of the men knocked up & had to fall out & I suppose a good many more who stuck to it felt equally as bad. Drs accompanied us & a man was not allowed to go back until he got their permission. It is rumoured that they reported that the march was too exhausting for the men, so if that is right we might not have any more. My own opinion is that the work is a good deal more strenuous than is needed to keep the men fit. For the 7 weeks we were at Zeitoun Bagrie & I didn’t do more than 6 or 7 days training & here we are standing
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the heavy work at least as well as the men who were on the desert six days out of seven. We are supposed to know our work now & it is only a matter of keeping us physically fit, & I reckon we would be in a better condition to stand a hard time in the trenches or chasing turks across the desert if they gave us less-fatiguing work here. The mainbody men tell us great yarns about their experiences at Gallipoli. I heard a yarn today of a “Tommy” stretcher bearer who found a man with a leg off & set off with him on his back. A passing shell carried away the wounded man’s head but the Tommy didn’t now & struggled on. At the Hosp a Dr met him & told him they could do nothing for a man with his head off. The Tommy stood the lecture for a while & then said “Well I couldn’t help it, he told me it was his leg & I took his word for it”. Must stop now as we going into town and the mail closes today. “Sayeeda” just now.
Love From
Len
