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[Page 23]
told the First Lieut., or Pte Tom, Dick, or Harry, in the course of a confidential chat with the Colonel, and the Captain was advised that we would disembark next morning, or would continue the voyage to England, or would go through Canal and disembark at Alexandria, or change boats for Mesopotamia, etc. etc.
Sunday, 27th:
News out today. We are to disembark tomorrow morning. Reveille to be at 5 a.m.
Monday, 28th:
Reveillé 5 a.m. We moored alongside the wharf about 9.30 a.m. Disembarkation took about 2 ½ hours. Entrained (Officers 1st class, of which there was one, Sergeants 2nd class, and men 3rd class). Left Suez at 12.30 p.m. Suez very quaint. Houses flat-looking and with an appearance of being incomplete. Crowds of natives and children, the latter running by the side of the train crying "Backsheesh, Backsheesh". Next station Terre Plein, then Tenara, whence we could see the dark blue of the Bitter Lakes, with their fringe of palms. Desert, pebble covered in parts and on the eastern side of the line, between it and the Canal nothing but camps, camps, camps, miles of them, dusty, dirty, primitive things, with camels in hundreds, clumped together on their outskirts. The men in them looked cheerful but to us it seemed a dreary scene. One could scarcely realise that one could adapt oneself to such a life as this.
There was just one pang, no more, of longing for the life