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[Page 27]
the arab drivers panting and puffing in the rear imploring them to stop, which of course gets scant heed from the excited riders.
June 5th after 3/3/16. The last day for which I have so far written up my diary, we were fairly busy with many changes so that I have let it slip each day. Just after this date we moved to Moascar when we were formed into the 5th B.A.C. and I was made an acting corporal. We were not there very long before we moved to France. The last of the days at Moascar was a brute. We struck tents about 10 a.m. and a heavy wind sprang up. Covering our baggage, which was lying on the old tent sites with sand, as we stayed like this all day and had to eat our meals in a veritable sandstorm you can tell how rotten it was. However, we managed to swallow two or three mouthfuls of stew, which by the time it reached our mouth had a nice covering of that wretched sand, whilst bread jam and sand formed our rather novel meal for tea. We left about 9 p.m. and held camp fire concerts up to that time. We travelled to Mex, a special military harbour near Alexandra, in open trenches, being in them till 12 p.m. the next day and as it poured that night and was bitterly cold the next day we had a pretty rotten journey for our last trip through Egypt. Our voyage to Marseilles in the Minnewaska was uneventful, although we learnt that we only missed a submarine by half an hour, the Minneapolis, a sister boat to ours, being torpedoed just ahead of us. Of course we had to wear the life belts every moment of the day, and sleep with them alongside. From Marseilles we journeyed by train to Le Harve and I thoroughly enjoyed the two days we were travelling. The scenery was everywhere beautiful and some of the quaint little villiages and farmhouses nestling at the foot of a mountain the long slopes of which are daubed with all colours by the different crops and ploughed fields and vineyards, really formed some dainty pictures. The views are so different from what we see in Australia. Instead of the wild grand scenery of the Australian bush, we have well ordered rows of poplars making an avenue for those beautiful white roads, with here and there an ancient church or wall. The absence of fences make the country side look like a patchwork quilt, but with what beautiful patches one can hardly imagine.