Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 189
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[Page 189]
94
We remained at the Randwick Racecourse for a fortnight, and though those floors were very hard to sleep on, they became as comfortable as any bed after the first few unpleasant and cheerless nights. During this fortnight batches of new volunteers came to join us every day, until at the end of a week our numbers were well over the total required (32 officers and a thousand other ranks). In the meantime medical officers had arrived, and thorough medical examinations had begun, the standard being that set for the Militia. Nearly a third were rejected as unfit or undersized, but more volunteers continued to pour in and create a surplus. As a result, the standard of fitness was made much higher, and men were rejected for such simple defects as having even a small dental plate, insufficient teeth, a trace of varicose veins, or slight flatness of feet, and the minimum height and chest measurements were increased too. Many who scraped through the first examination were rejected in the second one. The original members of the first A.I.F. were probably the most physically perfect soldiers in all history.
Our battalion was organised into eight rifle companies, each with an acting Captain and two lieutenants. I was appointed to "B" Company with Captain Gordon and Lieutenant Kelly, a Boer War veteran. Close-order drilling began immediately in the nearby streets. In a few days uniforms were issued, followed soon by web equipment and rifles, and the men were beginning to look like real soldiers.
The pay (seven days a week) for a private soldier was six shillings a day, of which one shilling was deferred until discharge. A Captain got 22/6d a day, and a Lieutenant 15/-.
At the end of the fortnight at Randwick, the First Battalion and our Second Battalion marched across to a fully tented camp on the middle of Kensington Racecourse, where the University of New South Wales is now located. Here we slept in bell tents with a waterproof sheet and one blanket under us and two above; later we were provided with a straw-filled palliasse each. Our training was now much intensified by our Lt-Colonel Braund, who was, I think, the strictest and keenest of the battalion