Item 01: Leslie William Sutherland diary, 24 September 1914 - 23 September 1915 - Page 180

[Page 180]

21 November 1914
Saturday

Revielle at 6
Great consternation existed among the ships of the third division for one of the ships during the night dropped a man overboard & when the lifeboat was launched the ship hadn't stopped & capsized the boat & drowned all the crew. The warships have been searching the water by the aid of their search-lights & then when daylight appeared searched & parolled the locality for quite a while. The ships of 12 knots & over have gone on as specified yesterday & by 6 tonight were out of sight. The remainder of the troops got inoculated this afternoon & now sore arms are very prevalent especially mine it's a dead pain with feverish accompaniment. Had a pleasant talk concerning home ties with Corp Holland. Was Canteen Corp again tonight but didn't see one of our chaps. The boss is a little better today worse luck. Bed at 9.
22 November 1914
Sunday

Revielle at 5.30
Had an unpleasant night for the inoculation troubled me that much that I lost all my sleep & consequently feel washed out. Church Parade was held this morning & as we were off stables I attended it. The warship has been very erratic all day & the [indecipherable] likewise. We ran into a storm this morning & it broke the monotony of fine weather. Had quite a change for dinner in mutton peas potatoes & plum pudding quite a royal feed. The niggers paraded for inspection by their Captain & right royal did the two castes look. All the jack-tars were having church when their boat passed us & it looked like a huge cloud of white that had settled on the deck. Today at 11 we were 1200 miles from Colombo & at 9 in the morning we expect to sight a Cape on the coast of Africa, also we are not going to call in at Aden but go on to Suez. Bed at 9.