Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 211
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[Page 211]
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spent the rest of the night, in the bare dank cells opening off the guardroom. In the morning after breakfast their names were taken and their units telephoned to come and get them. But for the fracas in the ballroom, they would have been marched a short distance away, turned loose, and told to get back to their camp as fast as they could. But now higher authority was bound to inquire as to what disciplinary action had been taken.
The biggest riot in Cairo, however, was the so-called "battle of the Wazzir", and took place in the Sharia el Wagh, the principal shopping street of the native quarter. It was also a "red-light" street in which many prostitutes lived in the upper rooms with their procuring male associates, who had been robbing, thugging and even stabbing soldiers. During the Australians' last night in Cairo, a vengeful crowd of soldiers swept through the bawdy-houses, chasing out the inmates, throwing the furniture out of the windows into the street below (including pianos which smashed to pieces) and generally wrecking the area. The Egyptian fire brigades arrived and turned their hoses on the rioters, but the soldiers hacked the hoses to pieces with their jack-knives, and turned some hoses back on the firemen. The mounted military police (the "Redcaps") appeared on the scene and urged their horses into the fringe of the milling mob, fired their revolvers in the air and galloped away. The company of infantry (mine) on duty at Mena, seven miles away, as the inlying picquet, was promptly marched to the scene, but by the time we got there the "battle" was over, and all was quiet again.
The Australians have always been given the blame for starting this riot, but there are good reasons for believing that it was started by a few New Zealanders.
Shortly after our arrival at Mena, the eight companies of the Battalion were reorganised as four double companies, each subdivided into four platoons (a new unit) of about fifty men in charge of a lieutenant. I was appointed to command of No.1 Platoon in "A" Company commanded by Major Gordon, my former company commander. The three senior captains were given