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[Page 39]
a march through crowds of People who lined the streets & cheered us like as if we had won the whole war we at last landed at Victoria Barracks where we were formed up & told to take all our equipment to pieces & fix the Bayonets on the rifles this done we put all the different parts of the equipment in heaps & then Handed the rifles & Bayonets into the Armourers shop & fell in again for Pay, we were given each £1.0.0 & after having lunch which was served on the Barrack square, we we told to go home & come again on the next Friday [19th] when we would be paid up.
So we went our different ways home & on the following Friday we came as ordered but was disappointed as the Pay was not ready for us, so we again formed up & got another £1.0.0 & told to come again in a weeks time which we did & were settled up & got our discharge from the very first expedition that has left Australia in the Great European War which started on Aug 4 1914
Seemingly not having had enough of it, I again joined up on April 20th 1915, joining the 19th Batt: A.I.F. & was posted to A Coy: my regimental number being 300 & after having had training we embarked on June 25 on the "Ceramic" & as soon as things settled themselves on Board it was drill & more drill all day long with a lecture now & again on different subjects, I was appointed Lance-Corporal & on July 25th we arrived at Alexandria & got on a troop train for Cairo in open trucks & on arrival at one of the Suburbs of Cairo we got out of the trucks & arrived in the early hours of the morning of