Sunday 23/4/16

Egypt

My dear Mother

Things are just jigging along checking along in the same old way here and I am not settled yet. I think I am fast becoming used to be Egyptian climate and the sandy desert and I am getting as brown as berry. The place we are at is on the ridge of an old battlefield and one can see the remains of the trenches on and a lot of the litter which was left after the fight of over 30 years ago. In fact we have one man in our tent who enlisted to fight in the same war and one man who actually did fight with the real battle. Next Monday and Tuesday we are going to have some sports to celebrate and commemorate Anzac Day and a lot of Generals and Brigadiers are coming down for the occasion. We will have to look spry then wont we? The Prince of Wales has been fussing about lately in Egypt for a while I believe. We have not been graced with his presence yet.

Bert Allen and Harry Carberry managed to get leave and went off to Cairo for the day. Yesterday I could not manage it myself as only five out of the company could get it each day. I believe they went to keep Cairo quiet on account of some Jewish festivals there for a while. I will have a good time when I do go there though. We don’t get more than eight hours there as it takes 21/2 hours travelling in the train each way to get there.

It is only amusing to hear some of the remarks over here about Liverpool Affair. As a matter of fact the fellows over there are about 12 months ago had a riot and did twice as much damage to Cairo as was done in Sydney and Australian are not thought much of in consequence and yet they have the cheek to criticise us when we come over here when we are no more to blame individually than they are.

Harry Carberry has a nice little camera and we all help to bear the expenses of the material so that I am getting together quite a nice little collection of quarter plate photos of our experiences. I expect I will get a letter from you next mail. It is not quite time yet but I got one from Grace written two days after I left. We hear a fair bit about the war here as we get a morning and evening edition of the Egyptian mail and of course we only hear what is good for us. We heard about the fall of Trebezond and the Brit success on the Tigris and all about Verdun etc and we also know several satisfactory things over here which probably you don’t know of and I never felt surer now that the Allies would win.

I hope things are still all right at home and am looking forward to see Auntie Clara when she arrives. I have to buzz off now and shave as we have to perform that operation over here every day.

Well love from Walter, Tel el Kebir 23/4/16