Reply to 4106 Pte WH Elkington 10/20 Btn 5th Inf Brig AIEF

Egypt

Tues 28/3/1916

My dear Mother,

I did not write to you from Fremantle but wrote to Pa instead and I hope you have received it. I did not have much time to write much either as there was some bother in getting a letter posted. I had to give them to a chap who was on the ferry which brought the Health Officers from the shore to our ship. This letter will be posted from that place which I told you in my last letter that we will be going 1st but you ought to be able to guess. All our letters will be censored from now on so that there will be much interesting news to tell about what I have seen at the places of call.

We entered the tropics about last Friday and will pass the equator probably today. It has been a feeling hotter and hotter every day until it was now as hot as bins are during a heat wave. The heat yesterday was very intense indeed especially down below where we have our own meals. My Coy has absolutely the worst quarters right down in the badly ventilated hole three decks now and level with the water.

We generally feel quite hungry while on deck at dinner time but when we get down below our appetites disappear at once. The food is really good for private soldiers and there is plenty of it too.

Talk about sweat. Without exaggerating, I started to mop my head and face at dinner time yesterday and within half an hour I could ring the perspiration out of my handkerchief like water and I am a chap who doesn’t sweat much. I don’t want you to think I am growling at all as I am simply mentioning it as an experience I have tasted. We have had beautiful calm weather all the way so far and are still allowed to sleep on deck, so we dont have many troubles in that score. There is generally a real mad bulldog on the troop decks at 6:30 pm when they hand out the hammocks. Everybody struggles to get on the deck first so as to get a good place to sleep and makes me smile when I think of how much worse could be if we got torpedoed or had a fire as all the little coves would get squashed as flat as pancakes. The rush reminds me of when they load sheep on a stock train.

Time is not lagging at all and we seem to have plenty to amuse us. We generally manage a couple of concerts in a week. We had rather a good one last Saturday night. We had printed programs on board, which was set up and presented on board and were done on a pink paper and were very good indeed. We have a band on board too and it is a great help to all these little occasions as they play rather well. Russell Lumsdaine is on board. He doesn’t take much notice of me and I don’t chase him for his company either. He contributes to presentations at the concert the other night and they took on quite well.

Another night we had a boxing tournament and some pretty hot boxing too. They rigged up the after hatch as a stadium and it may quite a good one and they have have plenty of room for the combatants and to wollop one another until they were chipped to bits. The fights were limited to 3 round bouts so that the boxers generally waded in and made it willing while it lasted and black and blue eyes and skin noses are a common sight. Senator McDougall of the Federal Parl fame travelling on board with us and the seems us in very ordinary chap and is a good sport too. He refereed to be boxing contestants for us and everybody thought his decisions were quite fair. He posted a couple of letters for me at Melbourne, although I did not know who he was then.

Last night, Captain or Colonel someone (censored with a thick purple line like ? name) delivered us a very interesting lecture on the evacuation of Anzac. It was from first-hand informants and had the effect of working our fellows up until we felt quite proud of being a Australians as we don’t often get praised. We generally hear ourselves spoken of as an undisciplined rabble or something like that and are always being threatened with the King’s regulations the penalty for everything being death five years or to use or some other awful judgement so that it was quite nice to be told by the “Head” that he was sure that we were made of the same stuff as the Anzacs. The Sergeants and the Corporals are getting very cocky on the boat and strut about and skite as if they owned it the blessed ship in spite of the good laughs we have at them when they make blunders. I hope we don’t have any of our lot when we go into the firing line as they will get us all shot I am sure. We can thank our stars that all the officers on fboard bar one the cove in charge of the military police are real fine fellows such as Australians would be glad to follow anywhere our (censored) has proved a very sincere worker for the comfort of his Coy and has obtained many little concessions for us so that we all like him as very well.

We do not see much bird or fish life now as we are far too far from land. We often see schools of small black and white flying fish and porpoises out nothing else except different kinds of sea gulls and albatrosses which follow the ship for days and sleep on the sea.

The open sea all round reminds one of either of “Enoch Arden” where it says ‘water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink’ that there is any amount to swim in.

The crew erect a long canvas bath on deck every after and some of the young bloods get in and appear to enjoy it. For my part I prefer to use the plunge baths provided for us- salt, of course. We have several of those dirty beggars who won’t wash with the result that it has been necessary to parade us like a lot of sheep and squirt a hose over us. Of course I don’t mind the bath but it seems rotten that a decent man can’t be trusted to wash himself. Just because a few are dirty. Well mother if you can wade through this you will get a fair idea of how I am setting on in to the ship.

I must conclude now

With love from your affect son

Walter

ps -The next letter will be from our destination. I hope

pps2- will look forward to receiving the reply bundles of inner sheets of the Sydney papers since I left. WHE Orsova