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[Page 68]
Copy of Lionel Bigg's letter.
age, 20
H.M. SS. Hororata
Off Lemnos
24 December 1916 (1915)
My dear Mother
Well it is all over successfully. We got off quite safely, & properly bluffed Johnnie Turk. Everything was well done, well organised & run to time, shows they can do things when they try – there wasn't one hitch.
On the night of the 19th Guthrie Tony Hordern, & I, cooked our last meal in the old dug-out, where we had spent, the happiest 3 months since we joined the army. We ripped up our waterproof sheet, and carried our packs, down the hill. It was dark then, or rather moonlight, with a clear, warm sky. The 3 or us, were in the covering party, and went straight into the trenches. We knew we were to be the last 75 of the division to go on board & had to hang to our post, if they came.
At 10 p.m. we heard that The Apex, Rhododendron, & Battleship-Hill, had been evacuated, & that 9 men, held – from our left, to the Apex, - about a mile & a half. They kept walking up and down the deserted trenches – firing a shot here and there.
[Alex Guthrie: Frederick Alexander Guthrie, (No. 459) enlisted 28 August 1914, 1st Light Horse Reg. He served in Gallipoli. He was killed in action on 3 November 1917 and is buried West Corner of Gum Tree Gove, Beersheba.)]
[Tony Hordern: Cecil Anthony Hordern, (No. 460) enlisted 25 August 1914, 1st Light Horse Regiment. He served in Gallipoli where he was wounded. Later he served in Upper Egypt, Sinai and Palestine. He was wounded at Rafa. He returned to Australia, 5 June 1919.]