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[Page 6]
A few experiences on Active Service.
By one of the "Boys of the Dardanelles"
When the Great War broke out in August, 1914, Australia could hardly realise the very important part She was to take in it. It was not long before I made up my mind to be "Up and at 'em", for I am British born, with a very sincere regard for all the old traditions, and the call of the blood became stronger and stronger as the days after the Declaration rolled by. So on the 12/8/14, I offered my services to the 1st Field Ambulance, under Colonel Newmarch, was accepted and attested at Queen's Park, Waverley, on the 24th August. I had two months of good, solid training there, which consisted of Reveille at 6.30 .p.m. - physical drill - breakfast - route marching - stretcher drill - lectures, and wagon drill. Some of these were repeated in the afternoon, and as the weeks passed, we became pretty fit, and were anxious to get away and be at the real thing.
On the 19th October, we embarked on the Troopship "Euripides" and the next day we steamed out and away from the land of the Sun, leaving sorrowing Mothers, Wives and Sweethearts - who knew well that some of us would never return, and each of them, I knew, were murmuring prayers that her dear one might be spared to return.
I had parted from my Fiancee when I was sworn in, and she had gone to relatives in Queensland, and when I saw all the weeping, I was glad to be spared the pain of another parting. But she was young and in good health, and my thoughts turned to my dear Mother, who was ill with heart trouble. We had said our farewells two days before, and needless to say we had felt the intense sadness of it all, but Mother is a great loyalist, and a real Briton - her last