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[Page 5]
had to take the opportunity to tear themselves away while the girl was unconscious. I saw in the dim light many a man give his pack a determined hitch, toss his head & walk briskly, through he wharf gate on to the wharf. Inside the wharf, with the dismal scene behind us we sat the men down and awaited perhaps the most dismal dawn of many of these men's lives. Some of the single & indeed some of the married men too, were gloriously drunk, and they gave a lot of trouble.
A tough hardened little man who for weeks was our Sergeant's Mess orderly hailed me from his position in the seated line. He was sitting on his pack with his head on his hands. "Sergeant" ! So I came over and said "Well Bill it's a dismal business, hope the wife took it well?" "By Christ Sergeant" he said "I can say good bye to the missus, but the kiddy clung like glue – by the living Christ I nearly squibbed it dinkum." He was overflowing with tears and was showing an affection you couldn't credit some of these lads with. So I just said to myself – well Bill Holman, you'r a man at the bottom of your soul, although you have a dirty tongue and you can show your Sergeant many an old soldier's trick. But there's a lot worse than you.
We embarked alright and the crowd were let onto the wharf about 8 a.m., just as we commenced to draw out from the wharf. Streamers were thrown and the same sad hopeless scene commenced all over again. I never want to see so many hopeless despairing womens faces again. It is an apparition still, and always will be. Ruben's representation of Dante's "Pergatorio" is a mere instance beside it. Well, perhaps the men going now have a heavier task to face than those who hurried away before our big casualty list started to remind the public of the deadly earnestness of this campaign.
We left Sydney harbour