Item 01: Leslie William Sutherland diary, 24 September 1914 - 23 September 1915 - Page 65

[Page 65]

9 April 1915
Friday
Revielle at 6.30
Boot & saddle at 7 for the Barrage every man is riding & leading a horse the HQ men accompanied us, nothing of much importance happened on the trip out, the horses at times proved a trifle frisky, it to us just on 5 hours to reach there as we only proceeded at a walking pace. When we arrived there horses were feed & tethered & the troops knocked off. I went for a stroll over the waterway which is a 60 gate 50' X 12' gates sluice & the diff in levels is well on to 12 feet the idea is to prevent the flooding of the Nile affecting the cultivation lower down & towards the North. A light tramway runs over the waterway which must well be 600 yds in length the old drawbridges are still there but are not in use. We turned in at 9.30 for the night

10 April 1915
Saturday

Revielle at 6.30
Feed & watered our mounts then had break which was kindly supplied by our CO. After break all preparations were made for the swimming of our [indecipherable] we started off well & got our half over without an accident but in the first batch from the other side we had an accident one of the horses was entangled in the tow rope & got both hind feet over it & then its head, & with us pulling it it put its head under & consequently was drowned by the time we got it out. Jack L & I tried for a long while to pull it round but no good. A nigger then towed it down the river out of the way. We had the afternoon off & I spent it in the gardens under a palm previous to this I visited the Barrage Museum & there inspected models of all the bridges in the neighbourhood. Bed at 8.45 pm