Zeitoun
13/2/1916.
Dear Everybody,
I missed the mail that leaves today, but could not help it. At present time I am acting O.C. squadron, some 150 men & 60 horses. Needless to say I have my hands mighty full having only one other officer with me. How long it will last I do not know, but so far there is no sign of any senior officer coming along. Maj. Orbell who is in charge of all the O.M.R. here at the base leaves me pretty much to myself & has handed them over to me to train and keep in order. Personally, I would rather the officer who will ultimately have the squadron would step along, so that I could get hold of the troop that will in the end be mine, for I am not expecting to become second in command of squadn, haven’t got such a swollen head yet. Have had no word of rejoining the old O.M.R. yet, & am not expecting to now. So long as they have no fighting down there, and just continue on training, I am quite content to stay here. As a matter of fact, I have no desire to go back to the regiment at all, it is being so badly run, & Col. Gregor is not popular; put your thumb down very heavy on that.
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I am looking foreward to getting into the new regiment that is in the making here, of which the squadron I am now in charge of, will be part. It has been very funny this last week, we had an instructor sent to us from headquarters. I mean divisional, to instruct us in mounted work. He evidently started off the wrong way & got up against the different O.C. units that are here, net result, the O.C.s were told that in the future they would not parade mounted. Now this meant that if the different O.C.s did not come on parade, I was the senior officer & had to take charge. Well! We started all right & did not get very far when things started to go wrong. He started giving us signals & orders we knew nothing about, & which are not in our drill book, winding up by calling out the officers & asking us if we knew our drill. Rather an extraordinary position for me to be in, but as the senior I had to do my best to talk him down, at which he got rather narked. However he told us that our drill books were to be our bibles, so far as instruction was concerned, & that he did not come here to answer questions but to instruct, & that if we did not know our drill we had better read our books. That just the cue we
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wanted, & where he fell in badly. I whipped out the book in front of the lot, & floored him in two points in succession. He got very nasty & made us fall in again, & we carried on, but it was hopeless, he knew nothing about the drill. This sort of thing lasted for several days & then I complained to the different O.C.s to the effect, that if we went on as we were doing we would be hopelessly at sea & eventually able to do nothing. It would have been the fun of cork to have seen him drilling a regiment, he would have had them all over the desert in about 2 minutes, & would never have been able to get them together again. Anyhow it wound up by him getting his marching orders, so that today we are again on our own. The trouble now is, that his notions have all got to be rubbed out again, & we will have to go back to what we were doing before, a position we should never have left. This takes a bit of doing when you consider that you have to re-instruct over 500 men. It is rather extraordinary that after 18 months service we should have to submit to a man like that, fancy wasting the time of 500 men & officers on points of drill that the men should have known before ever they left N.Z., really it was too funny, & has been treated as a good joke
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by everyone, even by the Adjutant of the camp. The new regiment that is being formed, is being formed by a squadron being taken from each of the regiments that are out here now. That is to say there will be four squadns one from each of Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury & Otago. What they will call it I cannot say, but will let you know later. Just received a mail today, two letters from Rothie & one from Balamona from Jessie. One from Rothie & Jessie’s were dated 28th. Dec, & the other from Rothie Jan 2nd. It is good to know that my mail is coming direct again, & I am pleased you got my Xmas cable when you did. I did want you to get it on Xmas day, but it was not possible for me to have got it away any sooner than I did. I also know you would be a little puzzled over it, after the one saying I was leaving soon. However you must have acted on the first one, or else my mail would not be coming here. So your Xmas was a quiet but busy one, quite in keeping with the state of things in general, is that it! I am very pleased Lottie got home, I was very dubious whether she would be able to get away or not because of the shortage of sisters in the hospital. Sincerely hope she got
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through in that beastly paper. In her note she did not say whether she thought she got through or not. The letter written on 2nd Jan mentioned that the men folk were attending the races. Well, Maj Orbell received an Otago Witness dated 5th Jan & therein I saw results, must convey my hearty congratulations to both winners. They, the horses certainly must be going well, but the papers & the times registered let one know what the weather conditions must have been like. Speculation judiciously done must have been very good, eh! They have races here every fortnight, but they are very poor & I have not been to them since coming back. Hope Mary & Lottie had a good run at Queenstown, Lottie enjoyed it so much last year, that given good weather this time I am quite sure she would enjoy it again. With a little patience I suppose I will hear it all. In the papers I have been reading the accounts of the Dunedin wool sales, they certainly must be very satisfactory to the growers. In reading the earlier letters I did
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not think the work would have been finished up by the New Year. It is quite a relief when one can go for a day out with the knowledge that he is leaving nothing undone. There is a movement of troops taking place here on the 18th. At time of writing am not expecting to go with them, although they are going from our men. Think they are going foreward to reinforce other units & of course that is no good to me, & there are other officers here who are anxious. I refer to the 9th. Reinforcements they arrived here on the 13th. & I think they will be the lot that will be sent on. Am still hoping that there will be a new regiment formed here, & that is what we are being kept back for. Another draft of officers arrived from England on the 14th. among them Allan Finlayson. We are both hoping we will get away together again. It is most extraordinary how we have dropped across one another during our travels. Amongst the others we have sufficient senior officers to form the new regiment, & officers I should like to go out under. It is a rotten thing to say perhaps, but none of the O.M.R. crowd that are here now want to go near the old regiment again. What I said of the present C.O. when I heard he had received his promotion, I take this opportunity of taking back. However enough said. Troops are still being pushed into Egypt by the thousands, transports are
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unloading every day. All goes to add lustre to the rumour of the Colonial troops operating in a more important front. Have heard nothing yet of the Marama’s arrival in England, but take it for granted she is there all right. Did not write to Kate to catch her in England, am hoping I will be able to get a couple of days off when she arrives back at Alex. If we are still here when she arrives I do not think I will have any difficulty in getting away. Maj. Orbell has just come in & in reference to movement of troops on 18th. he says the men going from here will all be split up amongst infantry engineers Army Service Corps etc. Asked us if we wanted that, needless to say what the answer was & he assured us we would not go. It is now the 17th. & in reference to the troops going away tomorrow it has come out who the officers are, & Finlayson & I are not amongst them. Just received another letter from Rothie dated 10/1/1916, Annie the author. So the party got off to Queenstown all right, & not on their uppers as Lottie seemed to think there would be a chance of them doing. I should like to be accompanying Charl on his tour. In spite of all I have seen, I still think there is a great deal for me to see in N.Z. when I get back, & Milford is one of the places.
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You may rest assured, Mrs Hooper received your letters all right. They had had four I think before I left & one from Jeanie also. Fancy Bessie Hamilton being married, one can hardly believe it & Iris Baxter too. Jack Hamilton & Tom Brown came across to see me last night. Both are looking very well & are very fit, they are going down to the canal on Saturday 19th. Jack did not say anything about Bessie’s wedding. They are to come over to see me again on Friday, that is tomorrow, I said I would take their photos & send them home. However I am very sorry all that is knocked on the head, for the Maj. has just come in & told Finlayson & I that we are officers of the town picquet for the next 24 hours commencing from 5.p.m. tonight. I am enclosing two photos of the little girl Darvell I spoke of at Xmas time. She is one of the sweetest little things you would meet anywhere. She reminded me so much of Jessie Ewan. I just received them today along with a letter from the Hooper’s. The Hooper’s are awfully good, never fail to write once a week.
Well I must be off Cheerio! & Au Rêvoir
Your,
Affectionate Brother
E.S.McI.
