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there was no allotment of officers to units & no control so that the men broke off as they pleased: the artillery officer simply said "What is the use of trying to hold them?" It could easily have been managed as well at it had in the morning, but actually the men straggled & got quite out of hand.
I stayed with 2 of the officers to see if anything could be done, & abt 5 o'c went down to the wharf trying to get the men together for the barges which were to go off at 6 o'c. A number of the men came along in time, & then instructions came from the colonel that 3 officers were to take separate pickets out & round up stragglers.
It took some time to get the pickets together, & by 7 o'clock we were ready & took the men to the canteen at the barracks where for 6d. they were able to get biscuits & cheese & a pint of beer: a meal at one of the eating houses would have cost 3/- to 4/-. Thence I took the picket from pub to pub getting stragglers away. There were a few cases of rather bad drunks, but nothing like the state of affairs at Freemantle, which rather surprised me as I had heard that most of the liquor sold was very vile stuff.
In the native quarter it was pretty dark, & I was rather sorry I had not my automatic as the picket was quite unarmed: in the morning I had put it with my camera on my belt, but when the orders about marching thro', & not breaking off came out, considered it quite unnecessary and