Marsh letter diary, 14 January-2 March 1917 / Henry James Marsh - Page 26

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night tinned fish was on the table, it was simply delicious, the fried fish that we get is cooked with scales on, and the smell at times would turn one sick, I go pretty solid on the porridge. I must weigh myself in England when I arrive there. In Durban I weighed 10st 5lbs, lost weight since I left Australia, but I must be putting on some fat with the appetite I have got now. I think it must be the cold weather. This is how often I am eating, at 5.30 a.m. bread and jam, and a cup of tea, breakfast at 7.30 a.m. dinner at 12.30 p.m. tea at 4.30 and supper at 7 until 8 p.m. and when I start eating I don't know when to stop. While at work I am busy studying my signalling books, whenever a signal is sent from one boat to another the privates ask all sorts of questions, what the message was etc. but I always tell them some other yarn. Of an early morning now we get plenty of double marching round the decks etc. to keep us warm, and our unit has parallel bars and we have exercises on them 3 times a week, our Lieut. (2nd in charge) has been a gymnastic in his younger days, and he has us on all sorts of exercises. At first I was very sore and stiff from them, but now I am alright, I have some big bruises on me from them to remind me of the bars on our troopship. Now 2/3/17 we are not far off England, yesterday we met an escort of 7 destroyers, all the troopships are separated now, but a few are in sight yet. This boat is guarded by 2 destroyers, (mosquitoes) one in front and one behind. This ship has got a lot of valuable cargo, mails etc. we are now in the English