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[Page 18]
I remember several occasions when our chaps got a belting. One was: We were forking stones between the sleepers when our "boatswain" Perryman stopped and sang us a little song entitled "The Death of Nelson". He reached the part where Nelson died, when one of the sentries rushed up and struck him on the back with his bayonet still in its sheath. This didn't hurt enough for him so he drew his bayonet and struck him about six times across his back. My word didn't our blood boil, but it was no use. We could do nothing.
Another occasion was:- An Irishman named Gordon stayed in bed sick one morning and two sentries came up and told him to get up and go to work. He said "no I am sick", so the big sentry, a Dane, got on one side of the bed and "Ned Kelly" (as we afterwards called him) on the other. Ned Kelly struck him with his rifle and the Irishman turned to speak to the Dane. As he did so the Dane hit him in the face with his fist and then hunted him out.
My word, "Ned Kelly" was a terror. He was as mad as a hatter and also dangerous.
I remember once when we were working above a sewer under the railway track. "Ned Kelly" was sitting quietly on the bank. Then all of a sudden he jumped up and ran under one side of this sewer and came out the other, and then gave a satisfied grin at us. He also used to salute and say good morning to horses, cows and goats. He used to tell us how he had killed several Russians, and it was a wonder he didn't kill some of us.
Well I carried on the work like this with the same food all the time. At the end of a month I and all were feeling pretty weak and done up. One Sunday we heard a shot and went out side and found that somebody had shot a big cat. We jumped on this, cooked and ate it, and in the state we were in, enjoyed it. About a week later we caught another cat, and