Item 01: Eric Susman war diary, 1 January 1915-4 April 1916 - Page 91
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[Page 91]
Monday 8 March 1915
Concluded our course of musketry to-day, when two more practices were successfully gone through. The shooting showed a vast improvement on last day's feeble performance at the range – the average of three hits out of five being fairly consistently maintained throughout the whole battalion. Nor was the weather conducive to good shooting. A high wind with the usual accompaniment of dust, made it very difficult to pick up the khaki targets, so that the splendid performance was all the more meritorious.
The first exercise was snap shooting at stationary targets at 200 yds, five seconds for each round. The second was with the moving targets which covered a distance of thirty yards, during which time, you were expected to fire five rounds. This proved to be more exciting as it introduced a little inter-section rivalry. And anything in this line always suits an Australia.
Marching to and from the range amidst clouds of dust was very disagreeable, and practically every man finished up with sore, watery eyes. "Thank God we will soon be quitting Egypt" was the common remark of the haters of dust and dust storms.