Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 199
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[Page 199]
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throughout the voyage. We should have liked to have gone ashore, but our stay was so short the ships did not go in and berth, and we were not able to go ashore, even if permitted to do so.
Having left the shores of Australia, we were now officially on active service, and the General Officer Commanding the Division was empowered to make appointments and promotions within the authorised establishment. So about this time a list of promotions appeared in Routine Orders including that of mine to First (full) Lieutenant, but this higher rank did not carry any extra pay or allowance.
The troopships now proceeded more or less independently in smaller groups, direct to Suez, with only one guarding warship. Our escort was the light cruiser "Hampshire", which later was torpedoed and sunk, with total loss of all aboard, off the Orkney Islands, when taking Lord Kitchener to Russia on a special mission. The continuation to Suez was uneventful excepting a call at Aden for water, and passing through a widespread multitude of porpoises one sunny Sunday morning in the Gulf of Aden. Even the very calm, humid, equatorial weather was monotonous.
Passing slowly through the hundred-odd miles of the Suez Canal was an interesting experience, as was the coaling of the ship at Port Said by a horde of coolies carrying no more than a large shovelful of it on their heads in small baskets. Here again, much to our chagrin, we were not allowed ashore, although we were able to see most of the principal part of the town from the ship's higher decks.
We were now informed that we were being diverted to Egypt to complete our training, instead of going to Britain or France, as we had been expecting all along. When the coaling was finished the "Suffolk" steamed around that night to Alexandria, and berthed there on the afternoon of 18th December, a week before Christmas; and we had been in her exactly two calendar months.
The Battalion disembarked very early the next day and immediately entrained for Cairo, travelling overnight and arriving in the very early morning. We formed up in full equipment and marched seven miles along the straight tree-lined carriageway,