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[Page 47]
Abbassia
2 1915
My Dear Mother
I expect you will be anxious to know just where I am & how I am the place named above is a few miles out of Cairo 7 or 8 miles [indecipherable] for the most part Barracks. I hear that they are the 2nd largest outside England, in fact the work of Kitchner shows out pretty plainly everywhere one goes. The Terriors [Territorials?] of whom there are about 50,000 occupy Barracks to the west between us & Cairo native troops are quartered to the north near Heliopolis while to the east & south lies a barren waste of sand which is as cheerless &, as it looks. We disembarked from the good ship Themistocles at Alexandria at 10 oclock on the 1st having arrived there the day before some of the other Battallions left ship at port Said and trained here the others came to their various camps during the next few days. The motor drivers arrived last night they were intended to land them in France and were not far off the French coast when they got a wireless instructing them to come here they were awfully disappointed.
We are camped under canvas & things are pretty bad, the desert has its disadvantages, just the same as any other place things may get better in the tucker line later on at present their no class at all. The first contingent is camped out near the pyramids on the other side of the city. I must go out that way when I get some cash. at present I have none the heathen here are awful rogues & we have to watch the change when doing business. The 7th & 8th Batt (Victorians) of the first, have gone to the front & are now in the firing line. I don't think the fun will be very furious round about the canal, somehow there are too many sikks & [indecipherable] & not enough Turks The Egyptian times says that they have given up the thought
[written in margins]
It may mean the trenches on the canal.
8th We have received instructions today to get ready to join the first Batt. which is camped close to the pyramids We will move there tomorrow as they are [indecipherable] men short. The is also a rumour that something will be doing on the 16th it is said we start for home meaning of course England.