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[Page 4]
The train trip down to Sydney was most uncomfortable, and some of the men needed a good deal of looking after for they had been drowning, in every sense of the word, their troubles. We marched to the show ground between a packed line of mostly feminine faces, but here and there were scattered the returned men on their crutches & sticks, looking thoughtfully on the passing fours of the great uninitiated. I could look on our column in much the same way too, but not quite in the same light as these Gallipoli lads.
There was a big tedious review, and then we marched to our quarters in the poultry shed in the Grounds. Leave till 11 o'clock was given but most of the boys stayed up all night and came in just before reveille at 3 a.m. The scene then was one of animation as the thousand men rose and hurridly put on their putties. We were soon away, and at 3.30 a.m. the gates of the show ground opened and we passed through. The crowd outside was a wonderful sight. Women & children who had waited all night in the cold were scurrying here & there inquiring for their husbands, asking in eager voices for a man who no one knew and few of the weary men cared about. They became nearly frantic as the column moved on but every now & then a cry of joy showed that some sweetheart or wife had located her man. They forced themselves into the lines & marched with the column, some of the wives taking their soldier husbands white kit bag the husband taking the child.
We stumbled along in the dark the crowd growing & growing. Along Bourke St. doors and windows opened, gas & lamps were lit and many people scantily clad streamed into the road & and onto balconies to give us a cheer. It was the most romantic march I have ever taken part in. All the conditions were strange, and I have never seen so many sad farewells before. The children simply clung to their fathers and some of the small girls collapsed absolutely in a heap and their sweethearts