Arrived at Holsworthy depot, we were sorted out into the various units to which we belonged, and we three being for the infantry were attached to C Company of the 12th training battalion and were immediately taken in charge by a sergeant and shown to our tents. We were allowed, as far as possible, to keep together so we looked up our other friends mentioned before and ten of us took over a tent and soon made ourselves comfortable in our new quarters. 18th October, 1915 really marked the day of our actual experience of first acquaintanceship of real soldiering as up to now we were allowed every latitude and were under no rigid discipline and were wel1-fed and had comparatively soft beds to sleep on, and had been treated more like high spirited young colts to which it was not necessary to apply the curb than like soldiers who were going away to fight and face unknown hardships.

I say this more to emphasise the fact that up till now the authorities had not considered it wise to make our life too hard for a beginning, but preferred to make us used to discipline and hard training gradually, recognising that we had hitherto not been used to military discipline and camp routine and were for the most part fresh from our mother’s apron string.

At Holsworthy depot, we very soon found out that we were to begin our training in real earnest, and were intended to forget our past easy lives and were required to settle down to our drill, guards and piquets and other military training as if we meant it. Next morning, our company was roused out of. bed at 6 a.m. and was formed up in the company lines and was then marched to our parade ground, where we performed 3/4 hr. solid physical exercise, after which we were dismissed for breakfast. After breakfast, we were again fallen in by companies and received our issue of clothing from the quarter-masters stores, including 2 flannel shirts, 2 woollen singlets, a cardigan jacket, 3 pairs of sox and 2 suits of dungarees, and as we already were in possession of our military ankle boots and hats, we then had our preliminary equipment. This took most of the forenoon to issue and as each man received his bundle of clothing, he took it to his kit bag in his tent, and was free until dinner time.

At 12 o’clock, the bugler blew the cook-house call to notify the camp that dinner was served, and on hearing the call, each man found his mess canteen and waited in his company lines until the mess orderly, detailed for the day, brought the dixies of tea and stew etc. Then the mess orderly proceeded to dole out a portion to each man in his mess, who, when he received it took it away and consumed it either in his hut or anywhere else he thought fit.

After the meal the mess orderlies returned the empty dixies to the cook houses and there washed them clean ready for the next meal. Mess orderlies were always detailed in turn from the hut roll of men occupying each hut, so that each man in turn had his day of duty. After dinner on the first day, we were again fallen in and were paraded to the A.M.C. hut, where we were all vaccinated against small-pox and as before when receiving our issue of clothing, as each man was vaccinated, he was free for the rest of the afternoon and some went away and wrote letters while others occupied the time in washing clothes and bathing, etc.

Holsworthy training camp was really a branch of Liverpool camp and situated near the Georges river and four miles from Liverpool and was almost an exact replica of the Liverpool camp. The camp was laid out in blocks of bell tents which were in rows, two rows of ten or twelve tents, each containing a company of men, say about 250 in all. There was a space about 10 yards wide between the company rows, used as the forming up ground or company lines, where the company was fallen in by the company sergeant major every morning preparatory to going out to the battalion parade ground, and on every other occasion when the company was required to be paraded.

The first tent in each line of tents was the company orderly tent which was really the company office and was ruled over by the company sergeant major and company commander and it was in this tent that all the clerical business of the company was performed. The second tent was generally used as the quartermaster’s tent and it was here that the Coy. Quartermaster Sergeant executed all matters in connection with the feeding and equipping of the company. The third tent was usually occupied by the platoon sergeant and section sergeants who generally lived separately from the rest of the company, as it was not advisable for them to mix too freely with the privates on account of the discipline which it was one of their duties to maintain. The remainder of the tents in the company lines were occupied by the corporals and privates in allotments of from ten to fourteen to a tent. As is usual in all military camps, strict tidiness and cleanliness was enforced and all personal gear was required to be kept neatly folded and stacked in a uniform manner throughout, whilst the mess orderly for the day had to see that no papers or rubbish or particles of food were lying about the precincts of his tent and as the whole battalion lines were inspected daily by the Commandant and Medical Officer, accompanied by the orderly officer and orderly N.C,O.’s this rule was rigidly enforced.

Every fourth day it fell to C Company to supply the men necessary to perform the daily duties such as cookhouse fatigue; sanitary fatigue; quartermasters fatigue; guards and piquets, etc, for the battalion to which we belonged, and on that day the company did not go out on to the parade ground but confined its energies to the execution of the above duties.

Cookhouse fatigue was always the most popular fatigue with me as being detailed for this duty generally meant peeling potatoes or some such similar easy work and also meant having a decent meal of something more tasty than stew – such as grilled chops or fried steak and chips, etc., and as it was such a popular fatigue it generally paid one to be in the Sergeant Major’s good books. If we fell foul of the Sergt. Major, as likely as not we would be put on to less classical work such as digging cesspits or emptying latrines or stoking the incinerator, so that it generally paid to be a good boy in the eyes of the Sergeant Major and I always kept good with him myself.

Every second Friday was pay day, and on this day the company Commander assisted by the company clerk and quarter master paid the men alphabetically and the company was fallen in in a queue outside the orderly room and as each man’s name was called he entered the tent, saluted, received his fortnights pay, saluted again and departed to spend his money just as he thought fit, some making their way to the two-up schools, some to the canteens and the more careful ones saving it until they could obtain leave to Sydney and so on. Periodically, during our training at Holsworthy we were subjected to medical inspections by the medical officers, either to ascertain whether the training was bringing to light any physical defects, or to inoculate or vaccinate us against fevers and diseases which were likely to break out amongst large communities of men, and in every way, I must say, our health was looked after in every detail.

If a member of a tent contracted meningitis, measles, mumps or any other infectious or contagious complaint, it meant that the whole of the occupants of that tent were segregated in a quarantine enclosure for a fortnight or three weeks, and during my training days at Holsworthy and Casula, prior to embarkation I was unfortunate enough to be quarantined on three separate occasions, aggregating nine weeks in all, but since all my friends were occupying the tent with me, it did not matter much, except that we were not allowed out of the Contact Camp whilst we were under observation, therefore could not take part in any amusements which might be on at the time. Every morning at 6.30 a.m. we were awakened by the depot band marching through the camp lines to the tune of a march and had to rise immediately and fall in in our various parade grounds in any dress we fancied and were then put through over half an hour’s good solid exercise including physical drill and games and were then dismissed for breakfast. At 9 o’clock, ‘dress for parade’ was blown by the depot buglers and everyone thereupon made haste to perform his final preparations for the morning parade and half an hour later the ‘fall in‘ was sounded, when there was a rush for the company parade ground. On the company parade ground we fell in in our various sections and platoons by our sergeants and other N.C.O.’s and answered our names which were called by the section commanders and when everything was found to be correct, the company was handed over to the Company Commander by the Sergeant Major, who handed the various platoons over to our real trainers and teachers, the platoon commanders.

The officer in charge of the platoon then made an inspection of his men and saw that we were all clean and tidy, with boots polished and dungarees clean and so on, after which the platoon was again reported present and correct to the company commander. Presently, the ‘advance’ was sounded by the buglers and the company took its turn and marched with the battalion on to the parade ground and was reformed on the general parade ground with all the other troops in the camp, the band playing a march in the meantime. Here the general parade was handed over to the Depot Commanding Officer who ranked as a colonel, and when he was satisfied with the parade, issued orders for the training for the day to proceed. Thereupon, each officer marched his platoon to its own allotted portion of the parade ground and the days training was gone through until lunch time, with only one break for a ‘smoke-oh‘ which lasted about fifteen minutes. After lunch time, the training was much the same as in the morning and with one interval for ‘smoke-oh‘ lasted until 4 p.m., at which time the battalions were reformed and were marched back to the various company lines, headed by the band, for dismissal, the men doing what they pleased from thence onward until ‘Tattoo’ was blown at 9.30 p.m. when every one was supposed to be abed and all lights out and noise ceased.

The training consisted chiefly of platoon, squad and company drill, lectures on military topics such as sanitation, march discipline, duties of guards and piquets, wood fighting, also extended order drill, bayonet fighting with dummy rifles or sticks, semaphore signalling and so on, so that we were kept hard at it and soon became hardened and very fit. We were frequently taken out on long route marches along the dusty roads around about Liverpool and very often were marched to the Georges River where we indulged in an afternoon’s swimming and this latter form of route march was certainly the most popular item in our daily training, as the River was only about two miles distant and provided splendid facilities for bathing, and was really enjoyed by all as it afforded a nice pleasant break from the otherwise monotonous routine of our training. And so the days followed one another until the weeks flew by and we began to consider that we were beginning to shape like soldiers and were feeling quite rejuvenated by the physical exercise and the outdoor life and much browned and burned considerably by the hot sun, until one day, after being in Holsworthy camp about a month a member of our tent contracted measles and went to the hospital and lived on chicken broth etc. until he was well, whilst the other nine occupants of the tent, including Harold and myself were marched off to the ‘contact camp‘ where we remained with about 250 others in a like position to ourselves, for about 10 days.

During this time, we were enclosed in a separate camp in a space of about an acre and a half, surrounded by a fence with only two rails in it, and had to patrol the boundaries and act as police generally during the term to prevent the quarantined men from mixing with the rest of the camp. The reason for this separation was of course to see if any more members of the various infected huts should contract any of the sicknesses for which they were quarantined and since an outbreak of measles or other illness on a large scale would have been disastrous to the scheme of training. However, we were rewarded for our having performed police duty for ten days whilst in this camp, as when we were released we were each granted an extra four days leave in addition to the ten days which it was usual to give those who underwent quarantine, so that there was a good spell of a fortnight to spend when we came out on doing just what we wished. By this time we had all received our first uniform of khaki and oh! how proud we felt and how badly we wound the puttees round our calves and how slovenly we looked and how gallant we thought we looked. I remember readjusting my puttees four times on the first occasion of wearing them, because I could not get it out of my head that they would fall down and spoil my appearance in some awkward place and then discovered that they were too tight and had to rewind them a fifth time until at last I was satisfied and sallied forth to dazzle the ladies and take Sydney by storm, and was sadly disappointed when I found that I was only one in 20,000 and no one took any notice of me in particular.

But still the feeling that at last I was a soldier in uniform was worth going through the solid toil of weeks to experience and I really think that the uniform made us all feel more soldierly and we braced ourselves up accordingly. About this time also, after we had returned from leave spent at our homes and otherwise, a rumour began to spread that Holsworthy camp was to be removed to Casula, a place adjoining Liverpool and on the other side of Georges River; that Holsworthy was to be reserved for a camp for Light Horse only. This rumour was one of the few I ever heard of in the army that ever came true and accordingly, in about the first week in December 1915, Holsworthy encampment marched out ‘holus-bolus‘ and took up its quarters in a well laid out, well drained grass grown tent encampment at Casula. Every arrangement had been completed before the move and the camp at Casula was a model encampment in every way. The bell tents were arranged in battalion groups as at Holsworthy and Liverpool and were nearly all new; proper cook houses had been built with cement floors and proper camp ovens to cook in, water was laid on in the kitchens, bath and wash houses, while latrines were plentiful and clean with cement floors.