Tidworth
Sund. 20/8/16.
Dear Everybody,
Here I am spending another very quiet Sunday in barracks, with all kinds of sunshine & shadows hanging over me. Our fine spell of beautiful weather, in all, three weeks & not a single drop of rain, has at last broken & we are having rather a showery spell, not disagreeable however. The sunshine & shadows referred to may be found in the following. First, just yesterday we received orders from H.Q. that a draft of 40 men were required to reinforce squdrns in France, no mention of any officer, however I am still in great hopes that that will come later. Also asked by what date they would be ready to proceed overseas, & I notified Wed. So now you see anything may happen by that time. Secondly, it was last night about 10.30 the H.Q. of this regiment got orders to mobilize & to stand by pending orders. What is in the wind we do not know, but the nett result is that the regiment is confined to barracks until such
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time as they receive orders to the contrary. Today at lunch time, orders came out that the regiment would parade in full marching order at a certain point tomorrow morning. All kinds of rumours are flying round & many will persist that there is a scare of some kind. At anyrate despite the fact of our draft for France I have to parade with the Regt in the morning, which appears in orders as the Service Regt, & if they intend to treck anywhere I do not know what is going to happen. Personally, I have great visions of doing again as we have done now on so many occasions, pack our kits for war, turn out on parade, stand there for an hour or two, hear a blast of trumpets & see on the distant horizon about 20 horseman come galloping towards us. Then the General Salute will be sounded, we will all spring smartly to attention while a Brigadier inspects us at the gallop. On reaching the end of our line he will turn to the Colonel & over his shoulder will say “thank you very much Sir, will you let your regt. go back to barracks.” He will disappear in the distance in much the same manner as he appeared, so will end our mobilization scare. I am a true prophet you will see! However, it does not alter the fact that I will have to pack a small kit; & it certainly is causing some of the young officers a great deal of excitement, & some hard thinking. There will, I am thinking, be some disappointed expressions on the faces of not a few tomorrow.
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After a good deal of arranging, managed to spend a night with Kate. She wired me last Sunday to the effect that they had arrived alongside at Southampton & could I go down to see them. Unfortunately I could not get away, so the next thing I had another wire, & she & Sister Patrick were arriving Amesbury Monday night & would they be able to see me. Again I could not manage is having had to go to bed Sunday afternoon in a very feverish state & with an awful throat. Had to stay in bed 3 days, during which time they paid me a visit. On Thursday however I was quite all right again, & was able to run across to Amesbury, it is only about 3 miles from here, & spend Thursday night with Kate. Sister Patrick had to go on to Brockenhurst so did not see her again. They both are in great form & look as fit as fiddles. There is nothing like good hard work to keep Kate in good health. They were both very tired however & enjoyed the 3 days of perfect weather they had at Amesbury. Their latest rumour is that they may now be put on the Salonika run. Hope it doesn’t come off. Things are a little busy in that quarter again. We can’t tell yet whether an offensive is going to develop out of it or not.
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Had an N.Z. mail last week, dated 12/6/16. Have had one letter later than that & received before this last mail, it was from Mary and dated 17/6/16. It must have come by a different route. It mentioned the fact that you had received my cable from Sling & that you were wondering what my movements were going to be. Those you will know long before this reaches you. I was over at Sling yesterday & found that Bert Foster and Perry Instone had arrived there. They were out at the time so I did not see them. However they must have heard of it for Bert rung up later but the people in the mess here could not find me, & he left word that he would ring me up again today at 4.30 P.M. I was going to go over & see them today, but this mobilization business has knocked all that on the head. Had a letter from Charl. in the last mail, he seems to be in good form & is evidently enjoying himself. Hope you are sending my letters on to him, for I do not know his address, & he never lets me know in his letters. He evidently is not going to transfer so I hope that when he reaches here they do not transfer him into into the infantry without giving him the option, they did that with the last lot
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of reinforcements that arrived here for the Otago Squdn. The Bde sports come off on the 30th of this month, & we are taking a prominent part & expecting to do very well too. However if this business for France comes off it is more than likely that all our men will be off before the sports come off, in which case it will be a little unfortunate. I am representing the N.Z. forces in the officers jumping competition, have a splendid jumping horse but it is a little too flighty. I have asked the Hoopers to come down for the day & I think they will come. The two girls will at least, & it will only be because Mr. Hooper will not be well enough to come if he does not turn up. He has rather a bad turn lately, a very bad dose of flue, & the doctor says it has left his heart a little weak. To me it looks like a general break down, & it is only now he is showing signs of the burden he has had to carry these last 12 months. However the last letter I had from them Mrs. Hooper said he was very much better, & that when well enough they were both going off somewhere for a holiday. For myself I am as fit as ever again, & must be off, in the meantime Au Revoir. Remember me to Mr. Diack & tell him he’ll hear from me in due course. Affect. Brother E.S. McI.
