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[Page 5]
I enlisted at Victoria Barracks on the 10/7/15 and went into Liverpool Camp on 13/7/15 and was sworn in on the 14/7/15 and drafted into the 10th Reinforcement of the 3rd Battalion in which I done my training as a recruit and on the 26/9/15 I with a lot more was transferred to the 11th Reinforcement of the First Battalion. And on eight hour day 4/10/15 we marched in the 8 hour procession. And we were in the centre instead of being at the head of the procession (in my oppinion). And as we marched and behaved so well we had our leave extended from 4 P.M. to 8 P.M. same day but seeing that my company (300 strong) was sailing for Egypt the next day some never arrived back to camp till early hours in the morning and I shall never forget Major Rook that night how he come to our huts and count us and declare that there would be about 50 men short in the morning at roll call. And at 5 o'clock on the morning of the 5th of October 1915 the bugle sounded to get up (I will never forget it). The whole company turned out with the eception of one man and I think there was 75 per cent never had any breakfast as they were exited and eger to get away. We was supposed to have been the worst crowd that had left the camp up to that time some was that drunk that they did not know what they were doing so we marched out of the camp without a band to the Railway station.
Then we left for Sydney by train at 7 a.m. Well there was four of us as mates never seen each other before the 13/7/15 in our lives and we made up as mates and named ourselves the Terrible Four. There names were Alex (Carbine) Teal, Dave Lowe, Fred Davis, and myself. Where you would find one the others would be there and after we learnt to handle the shooting iron and tooth picker we was seldom on parade. I remember one Sunday morning we were mounting Isolation Gaurd and Carbine and I put our fingers down our throat and made ourselves sick and got out of it. We were the cause of going on strike twice for our uniforms and many other things we done contrary to the rules and we always had the good luck to miss being caught. When we landed at Sydney on the 5/10/15 we were lined up on the platform and formed fours and marched off no band and just as well for after we got off the station into Eddy Avenue the officers lost all control of us and we went as we liked. The route was from Eddy Avenue, Elizebeth St to Campbell St, then Wentworth Avenue, College St. and down to Wooloomooloo to No. 1 wharf where we embarked on H.M. Troopship A.32. the Aberdeen white star liner SS Themistocles. After we were on board we were told to go to our mess decks as Colonel Kirkland wanted to say a few words to us well we waited for 15 or 20 minutes for him and he never came so we made the stairway, and one of the officers caught one man and said to a Cpl to put him in the clinck the lot said put us all in and when we got up on deck we found that the boat was leaving the wharf. So the Kirkland tale was put on us so they could get away from the wharf before we knew. Well we got away from the wharf about 10 a.m.