Item 01: Eric Susman war diary, 1 January 1915-4 April 1916 - Page 68
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[Page 68]
Saturday 13 February 1915
Everybody in camp, or rather, the members of the 13th Battalion, are now very "hard up". The other battalions of the Brigade have all received some pay since disembarkation. At any rate, there has been a great deal of justifiable dissatisfaction for the last few days. And to-day, the colonel, in granting us a half-holiday referred to this all important topic. His excuses (which almost amounted to apologies) were pathetically feeble. "Money is difficult to obtain, some errors have crept into the new and complicated forms for the requisition for pay, and generally, we have not settled down to the new style of things." If he had stated that the administration of his own battalion was rotten, he might have been believed. "Qui s'excuse, s'accuse". He forgot to mention that the other battalions had to face the same allegedly unsurmountable difficulties to the prompt payment of the troops, and had apparently been able to make their men a contented body of keen and enthusiastic workers. If a man knows that, after a hard day in the field, he has in his pockets that which will obtain for him a packet of cigarettes and a pint or two, he ceases to be an apathetic soldier as the members of the Battalion are at present.