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[Page 116]
Friday 2 April 1915
After yesterday's enjoyable little picnic, we left our bivouac grounds at any early hour and returned to camp at about eleven. After a shower and a general spruce up, many left camp, bound for Cairo. I shall always have cause to remember Good Friday, 1915, for I witnessed a most remarkable sight – a great military riot on the part of the colonial troops. How it started, nobody can say for certain. A few New Zealanders and Australian Light Horsemen, it appears, had some good reasons for taking strong objections to either the inmates of or certain incidents that occured in a house occupied by several public women. The house is one of many on the same street which has an evil reputation, and these few soldiers began to show their objections in, to put it mildly, a most practical manner. They began by emptying the whole of the contents into the street – wash-basins and tables, underclothes and wardrobes, even a piano! Then in the narrow street, they made a huge pile and a great bonfire was in full swing. By this time huge crowds of soldiers had appeared on the scene. The native police were helpless and when a last the mounted military police appeared on the scene, and were forced to fire several shots things began to get really lively. Several were shot, but this did not daunt the courage of the mob, for when the fire engine appeared on the scene, the poor
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