Hyder's letter to his mother, written 27-28 July 1915 / Laurie E. Hyder - Page 2

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and then had breakfast, we never left Alexandra till Thursday evening, while at Alexandra we saw several troopships come in with Indians & Frenchmen, it is the first time I had seen a french soldier & my word I did laugh, such a peculiar uniform they have, blue coat & red trousers very baggy & funny little caps. The Indians are pretty well the same as us only they have turbans & long knives,& these knives they won't show anybody unless they are allowed to draw blood.
Some of our officers had gone ashore & while they were there the ship pulled out from the pier it was 100 yards out when they come running up they then had to get into a native boat, the native would not take them until he got the money first. they always want the money first these fellows, well the boat was getting further away while they were arguing the point then there started a race there was great laughter on board anyhow they reached the boat in the course of time. Well Mother dear we were really off to war at last although none of us seemed to realize it we were all too jolly glad to get out of that horrible desert & filthy city. As soon as we got out on the ocean the boat started to roal some, I will own up I felt very queer although I wasn't sick, anyhow I wasn't the only one. We reached the Island of Lemnos on Sunday morning at 6 am. If you get hold of a map you will be able to follow our movements about from here.
When nearing the mouth of Lemnos Island we saw a great row of what we though were barrells, but were told that they were mines right across the entrance to protect