Ismailia
Sunday Feb 6th
Dear May,
Since writing last we have made a shift & are now in the main body. Have seen Billy Hume & Hitchon here they are both looking very well. Mark Collins I think is still in England. There are quite a number of Gore chaps here including Major Domigan & Capt Wilson (W.S. & Co). There are 6 Wesley Cubites in the Regiment & at least three more over in the Trents. We are back into tents now & like them rather than the huts, 8 of us are in each tent & our own little crowd is still together. We have all our belongings here & are quite comfortable. Saturday is always a sort of holiday & today is Sunday so that we have done no work yet but will have to get into the desert again tomorrow. The hours here are different to Zeitoun. Reveille 6 am. Gargle parade 6.15 breakfast 7.30 & parade about 9 & take lunch out with us & return about 4 o’clock & have tea at 4.30. That finishes the day but I understand we have to do night manouvres occasionally. We get leave from 2 to 5 on Sundays
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& today we took a stroll down to see the shipping. The business part of the town seems to be entirely native & is most shockingly dirty, even compared with Cairo. Along the shore & in the gardens there are some rather pleasant scenes & there are some nice avenues of trees but we hadn’t time to see everything. Down on the wharf we saw four of the boats that the Turks attempted to cross the canal in last year. There are also two of them in Cairo gardens. I got a few chips & a piece of the metal that they are made of & will send them home some of these days. It was while I was examining them that we came across Hitchon & W. Poppelwell. It is hard to say how long we will be here but I don’t think there will be a great lot doing, will be very much surprised if we don’t get a great deal further from home before we finish. Before leaving Cairo I sent you a rather good p.c. photo of the Obelisk at old Heliopolis & hope it got through alright. I never managed to get back to get a snap of it. Have still got the camera here but I believe they are a bit more strict about censoring both photos & letters.
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Tue. We have put in two days training here now but don’t find it much different to our last camp although the sand here is loose & so far it has been rather hotter. The food is about the same on Sunday night we had plum duff for tea I don’t know whether it is Govt or gift goods but it was very acceptable. They issue a tin to each tent 2 or three times a week so we are told. We also get tobacco & matches issued now that we are in the main body but they are not much good to me – I’d sooner take it out on films or even tinned duffs. There are also other things, swarms of them, that are to be got “backsheesh” (the native word for anything given for nothing). So far we have escaped them but those who have been here for a while spend most of their time inspecting their clothes, & when we have a halt on the desert for 10 or 15 minutes off come their shirts & singlets & the hunt begins. Frequent washing & changing of clothes seems to be the best preventative – they are said to thrive on Keating’s Powder. Last Sunday I got an Otago Witness, Dec 15th, with pictures & results of Gore Show. So far it is the only paper I have received, however I do not miss them a great deal, our attention is all taken up with our work & our wanderings
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around Egypt. Up till now the weather has not been particularly hot in fact one or two days at Zeitoun were quite wintery & one morning there was a slight white frost. Altogether we have been very fortunate with the weather as we have missed the hot weather both in N.Z. & here, that is of course if our expectations come true. The niggers say that this is one of the wettest winters they remember & yet we haven’t lost more than a couple of hours drill since we arrived. Last week Hargest & I bought a book of French & have been swatting it up for a day or two but are not getting on very fast. We have also picked up a few words from the local niggers. It is surprising how well some of the native kids can speak English & a good many of them can speak fairly good Italian & French to. Fri. Met Sid Pearce (who used to be in Gore P.O.) yesterday. We were having lunch out on the desert when he blew along. When he left Gore about 6 years ago I didn’t think this would be our next meeting place.
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What we miss most here is our supper. There is a canteen here but we can’t get a great variety of stuff at it. At the last camp there was a soldiers’ supper room run by the British ladies of Helmich just on the outskirts of the camp & we used to patronise it fairly frequently. It wasn’t run to make money but just for the benefit of the soldiers, and we used to get a real good clean supper at a very modest price. It must have meant a lot of work for them as it was crowded every evening, but their efforts were much appreciated by the men. It is the only place that I know of in Egypt where we can get proper English food served up in a clean & appetising way. I have paid as much as 3/- for a meal at Luxon but it all has an Egyptian flavor that makes us stop before we feel quite satisfied. Fri A mail arrived today – all papers. I got one Ensign, Dec 27th which by the way had a lot of news in it that we are not allowed to tell. Until I joined the mainbody I never got a paper & now I have got 2 in less than a week. The explanation is that all the mail comes here first & only letters & small parcels are sent on to the smaller camps. Probably I’ll receive anything in that line a bit more regularly while we are here.
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Yesterday I came across some sort of bulb out on the desert & I will post it to you. It had leaves the same as a narcissi but no sign of a bud. Unfortunately I pulled the top off while getting it out & the bulb looks as if it’s half dead but it might be possible to grow. It is not likely to be a prize variety but if it does any good it will make an interesting specimen for mother’s collection. We all went for a swim this morning in the salt lake, a sort of widening out of the Suez canal. It is very hot today & flies are a bit troublesome. I heard Albert B. threatening to buy an axe if they got any worse. I don’t think there is any more news. We are all still in the best of health & are in need of nothing. From now on my letters might not arrive quite so regularly owing to the large number that have to be censored. Will continue to write weekly so long as I can get them away.
Love to All
Len
The old address will still find me but my correct address is:-
14th Regiment
Otago Infantry Battalion
N.Z.E.F.
G.P.O
Wellington
My No is not changed
