Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 5]
There have been backslidings and senseless noise and a scrap here and there but I am dealing now with myself and the men who appeal to me. The others can be dealt with by the A.P.M. in and possibly by some damned journalist who sings the song of the Bolschevick. I am writing because I have no duties for two or three hours, merely finishing my diary, packing my stuff or rather assisting my offsider to do it. I shall finish I hope a sketch of Ismalia this evening. But to our muttons – Take my man. He is carefully rearranging & packing pictures, materials, clothes &c. renovating cases with nails he has to find – patiently, thoroughly. A group of men the last of the A.P.M's outfit ride past in the same old Australian manner taking their horses down to water. Perhaps tomorrow their horses will be handed in but today they will be watered, fed, groomed, and told with the harsh voice which conceals emotion that they are Bastards.
Just alongside my hut Signals (Telegraph & Telephone Office) keeps up its monotonous Moascar, Moascar, Yes Sir or "Hello! How she go" as the case requires. Sometimes the call rings or burrs and the worn out operator fails to hear it at once, his offsider or the man who is about to relieve him wakes up and giving a rub to his face with a towel to remove get some of the sweat & sleepiness from his face