''Over There'' with the Australians - R. Hugh Knyvett (read more books .TXT) 📗

we were allowed a couple of hours ashore, and as many had a three-weeks' thirst, they saw no more of Colombo than the inside of a hotel bar. Others of us were amused at being escorted through the streets by the nigger policemen with whips, who did not hesitate to belabor very energetically any niggers who approached us too closely; but while the policeman was chasing one nigger another would seize his chance and offer for sale native jewelry of exquisite workmanship, at what would seem to us a ridiculously low price, but we were assured by every one that whatever price they asked was ten times its value. Some of the boys were after souvenirs, and as soon as it was realized that we had money to spend we were followed about, during our whole stay, by scores of merchants, some simply loaded down with the entire stock of their shops. Our time ashore was too short for us to see what Colombo really was like, but it was delightful to be able to stretch our legs ashore again, and the novelty and charm of the streets and the luxuriant tropical vegetation made us feel that we would be willing to remain a lifetime amid scenes of such fascination and color.

After Colombo the days were more wearisome than before. The weather was scorching and only a few of us could get on deck at a time for a breath of fresh air. Long before nightfall the decks would be covered with men lying on their blankets, for permission was given to as many as there was room for to sleep on the boat and saloon decks, and as there was only room for a twentieth of the complement, one had to grab one's position early. Some preferred a comfortable night's rest to their tea, and so would occupy their man's length of deck space while the others were eating.

Going through the Red Sea was a feast of beauty, for the evening colors of the sand-hills were gorgeous, and inconceivable to any but an eye-witness. We were now on biblical ground, and great were the religious arguments that waged. One boy wrote home that one of the ship's anchors had brought up a wheel from the chariot of Pharaoh, and his mother had replied that she was glad he was visiting such historic country, but when he later on told her that "Big Lizzie" was firing shells twenty-seven miles at the Dardanelles, she wrote him that she was afraid life in the army was making him exaggerate things and that he should keep strictly to the truth!

There was fighting going on at Aden when we passed—some Bedouins were attacking the town from the desert side, but evidently it was not serious, for, to our disappointment, we were not asked to join in. We were merely examined by a British war-ship and told to pass on.

At Suez we disembarked and we were none of us sorry to say good-bye to the old ship, and there were no fond farewells taken of the crew, for they were as unpatriotic a set of scoundrels as ever sailed under the British flag. They robbed us right and left. They stole our ration jam, selling it to us in the form of a drink. A penny a glass would buy "pineapple cordial," which was merely a tin of pineapple jam mixed up in a ship's bucket of iced water. "Orangeade" was marmalade jam and water. Strange to say, there were always enough "boobs" among us soldiers to fall for it. On board ship we were not allowed to wear boots, as the hobnails in our military footwear could cut up the deck, so those that hadn't shoes went barefoot, but at the end of the voyage when we began to search for our boots there was the deuce to pay. Only half the men could find them at all, and it was only through a search of the whole ship that many of us did not have to walk in the sands of Egypt barefooted. The missing pairs were found among the sailors, of course, one of them even having six. It is a wonder those sailors didn't cut our hair when we were asleep to stuff their pillows—they certainly skinned us as close as they could.

PART II

EGYPT

CHAPTER VII THE LAND OF SAND AND SWEAT

How we hated Egypt before we left it! It may be a land of fascination to the tourist who drives about in gharris to view its wonders and stays at a European hotel, but to be there as a soldier, to lie in its vile sand, to swallow its conglomerated stinks, to rub the filth off the seats in the third-class train-carriages, to have under your eyes continually the animated lump of muck that the "Gyppo" is, to have your ears filled continually with the vile expressions that the Egyptian conceives as wit, is an experience that makes one so disgusted that few Australians that were there will ever want to see the rotten country again. At first, however, all was novelty, and we were like children on a picnic as we marched from the wharf into the third-class carriages of the Egyptian state railways waiting for us just outside the gates. It was some job getting into those carriages. Ordinarily white people travelled first-class, but we were troops, and it was like pushing against a wall to pass the smell that came from the doors of these carriages that had been the preserves of the unwashed nigger of varied age and sex for the Lord knows how many years.

We left the ship with twenty-four hours' provisions, which were all consumed on that train. Some of us managed to get a little sleep by packing all the equipment in the end of the carriage and sitting on the floor back to back. Now and again the train would stop at nowhere in particular, when we would be assailed by anything-but-clean niggers, who would draw oranges and other fruit from inside their shirts. We had been warned against eating anything in Egypt that could not be skinned, and when we saw the niggers and where they kept their stock in trade we knew the reason. So far we had nothing but English money, and, though we had been given lectures before disembarking on the values of Egyptian money, we had to pay liberal exchange to these train-side merchants. Oranges cost us about two cents apiece, though later on with Egyptian money we bought them three for a half piastre (three cents). The only station I remember on this trip was because of its curious-sounding name, Zagizig, where we had a stroll along the platform and met some of our lordly Sikhs from India, who were all smiles when they discovered we were Australians. In the early dawn we disentrained at Koubbeh and after straightening ourselves out from having been cramped up in those horse-boxes, we started our march of about ten miles, carrying full pack, to the camp at Zeitoun. But here there was no arrangement for our breakfast. The New Zealanders and Australians already camped there had only their own day's rations, and we had consumed ours on the train. How we cursed the powers that be! We had humped our eighty-pound packs those weary miles and when we thought we had arrived—no tucker! There might have been some trouble; grumbling might have led to action in a raid on somebody's stores, but for the Y. M. C. A. hut. They served out hot tea and in a few moments grumbling gave place to "chiaching"; criticism that a few moments ago had been edged was now good-humored. Give an Australian soldier hot tea and it will pick him up quicker than any other drink on earth.

CHAPTER VIII HELIOPOLIS

Our camp was just outside the new city of Heliopolis, which was built at the cost of about $40,000,000 by a Belgian syndicate to rival Monte Carlo, but it was a fiasco as a money-making concern. Nevertheless, there were some gorgeous buildings, and it was a source of constant interest to us. The Palace Hotel was the most magnificent building I have ever seen; used by us as a hospital. There was no lack of marble, and the mosaics were marvellous. The lamp-stands were of a unique and exquisite design. The contract provided that the pattern should be destroyed after they were made, so they would not be copied. It was rather incongruous to see nothing but rows and rows of army cots, and the white-robed nurses flitting about in rooms that were manifestly intended for luxurious divans and the evening dress of fashion. Lying in those cots, one had but to gaze ceilingward, and forget that one was in a hospital. It required little imagination to people the rooms with the same splendor and fashion that fills Monte Carlo, and maybe, had the war not come and the gambling license been granted, all this barbaric splendor would have been perfumed with the scents of "attar of roses" and "lily-of-the-valley" instead of "iodoform" and "carbolic."

Another hospital was in Luna Park, which had been built to cater to the amusement of thousands of joy-seekers, but the only joy there now was in relief from pain. It was fun to make the round of the wards, for many beds were on the scenic railway, and you would visit one poor chap in a high fever, lying amid painted ice and snow, while another nursed his broken leg alongside a precipice that might well have caused it. I walked in to see the sights one day, and passing through a cave almost fell over a bed whereon was my own brother, whose whereabouts I had been trying to discover for days. Such are the coincidences of life.

The streets of this town were spacious and very clean and were bordered by fine buildings with granite and marble pillars and some fine masonry lacework. Unfortunately, poor taste was often shown, with plaster alongside the marble, and the stone used was too soft and already in places was crumbling. In Egypt, where it rarely rains, the climate is kind to the jerry-builder, and it's only when Jupiter Pluvius wants a laugh and sends a regular tropical downpour that the buildings that were a thing of beauty and a joy forever come to earth and are no more. We ourselves were on one occasion victims of this god's fun. We were told that it never rained, and our huts were built just to shelter us from the sun, but at 2 A. M. the grim old weather-god turned on the shower, and no doubt it amused him a good deal to hear our curses as we tried to shelter ourselves and tucker beneath greatcoats and water-proof sheeting. There was no chance of "getting in out of the rain," for there was not a water-proof shelter for miles. Egypt is not the only place, though, where the residents know least about their own climate!

Heliopolis, anyway, is a skeleton of a town, for most of these buildings were merely occupied in the front, by Greek and Indian merchants who had anticipated our coming. In these shops anything could be bought, from a microbe (which was sometimes given away) to an elephant (nearly always a white one)! However, there were silks galore and filagree-work of beauty, but the biggest trade was done in colored handkerchiefs, crudely worked on a sewing-machine with a design of the pyramids and "Advance Australia." The cuteness of these merchants was also evidenced in the signs on their stores. The first Australian to stroll down those streets was amazed to see, in huge lettering, "The Melbourne Store," next door to "The Sydney Shop." They even knew our slang, for here was "The 'Fair Dinkum' Store," and across the way "Ribuck Goods." Prices were pretty much what you liked to pay.