State Library of NSW
[Page 473]
size of our country. Then when the last of 'Stralia faded away we settled down to days of travelling with no land in sight at all. The voyage then became about as lively as a headache; there was not a vessel passed us for about ten days. But at last, just as we neared the Red Sea we began to sight small coasting vessels, and one glorious night we passed three vessels who signalled to us in Morse, and thus we learnt of the sinking of the "Persia". Our wireless received no messages except official ones and so whenever a boat passed us we lined the bulwarks, boat-deck, and rigging (though this last was strictly prohibited, to which prohibition the polite Orstralian said "[dash]s") and signals flashed backwards and forwards, with those experts amongst us reading out the news to a hungry crowd.
When we at last got to Port Suez we let them know that Australia was there, and woke up all the shipping including some warships into spasms of Morse talk. The boys had little sleep that night and neither had
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