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[Page 65]

defied him to do his worst, through nothing more or less than this mans inability to carry out an order before the whole Company through excessive supersensitiveness.

This sensitive man had upon two occasions openly defied the O/C, once before the whole Company & again before the whole Division simply because it was quite impossible for him to take a pace forward & go through any movement alone, before the whole Company or Division. On the second occasion a file of men had to arrest him & take him back to the base for trial, and upon the return of the Battalion the men were keen to hear the result, for all the men knew the mans weakness if the officer did not & no one knew what would have happened if the man had been too severely punished.

However our O/C was not a man that fined his men he had a saying If he could "not control his men without having to fine them (fining Australians was hitting them in their weakest spot) he did not deserve to be in Charge". On this occasion he gave the offending private a fatherly talk & they both agreed to be good friends in the future (& were) but the officer did not then know the reason why the man who on close acquaintance appeared so reasonable & willing to obey orders was so stubborn & insubordinate on two occasions.

It was at this time the private pointed out to the O/C this mans weakness & also drew his attention to the condition of some of the reckless men who drank the water, the whole bottleful shortly after issue at 6 oclock in the morning & had to go without till 6 the next morning, generally the younger men & others who were inclined to be weak. In fact one or two were mentioned as likely to die unless a better supply of water could be issued to them, & as the private pointed out to the Captain there was really no

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