Egypt
June 11th 1918
Dear Bill
You would perhaps be expecting to hear from me from another part of the world to this; I didn’t think myself that I would see this place; we landed here on May 31st. I don’t know how long we are to be kept here but it probably won’t be very long. I hope not anyway. This is not a white mans land; the dust is abominable and the flies are as bad, they are determined little wretches are something like the little house fly of N.Z. The country about here is quite void of any natural vegetation but, where it is irragated it appears to be able to grow almost anything. Date Palms seem to do very well about this part, the fruit is in the growing stage just now. The Egyptian natives are not at all clean in their habits, not much wonder sickness and disease is rife in this part of the world; the smell which greets one when passing through the town is such that you won’t forget in a hurry and the town itself which [to]
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speak of is about 500 years behind the times. We are not allowed to say what part of Egypt we are in, so you can speculate in your own mind as to where we might be; we are a good way from any firing line here, though we see a number of prisoners coming through. There are a lot of Australian troops with us in camp, they came in a week after we did. We have aeroplanes flying over our heads daily, sometimes they dive down quite close to us & one or two of them have met with accidents. It is very hot in the middle of the day, the evenings are more comfortable and the mornings are usually quite chilly; one day we had a hot wind and it was really cruel, about 106 in the shade. I was pretty crook for the most part of the voyage over but since I arrived here I was feeling well with a good appetite until a few days ago when I went off colour again with a kind of sand sickness quite a lot of the chaps have got it (griping pains with diarrhoea & sore [loss]) but now I am getting a bit better again. I don’t know of anything more to write about so will finish, – hoping you are all [well] and love to all, from Jack
