Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 235
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 235]
117
entertain me in their homes, or take me for long motor drives.
At the beginning of February I was passed fit for active service again. I wished to be sent back to the 2nd Battalion which had recently arrived on the Western Front in Northern France, Gallipoli having been evacuated shortly after Christmas. But another Infantry Division, the Third, was being raised in Australia, and I was ordered to report to the Commanding Officer of the 34th Battalion (9th Brigade) being formed at the Maitland Showground. The nucleus of this unit was "The Wallabies", one of the several recruiting marches going from town to town gathering volunteers as they went: my Father and Mother had actually received and entertained them at the Council Chambers at Parkes. I was promoted to Captain and appointed Second-in-Command of "A" Company under Major LeRoy Fry, a very efficient, but not popular, officer. Major St John Lamb of the original 3rd Battalion was given command of the 34th and was eventually promoted to Lt-Colonel. When the new battalion had been brought up to full strength, at the end of a few weeks, we marched out to a fully tented camp on open country fronting the Muswellbrook road, near Rutherford, to complete our recruit training. A score of officers who had recovered from wounds received at Gallipoli, were now dispersed through the four battalions of the new Brigade.
In early May the 34th entrained for Sydney, slept overnight in the Sydney Showground, and early the next morning marched down to Circular Quay East and embarked on the troopship "Hororata", of the New Zealand Shipping Company. She was a "dry" ship in common with all other Australian troopships. A Federal Election had taken place since the first big convoy had left, and to placate the puritan prohibitionists and get their ten-percent "wowser" vote, Prime Minister "Billy" Hughes and his Cabinet had cut out the beer issue for the rest of the war. A scurvy way of treating men they were asking to go and fight to preserve Democracy : it certainly put the "mock" in Democracy.
The "Hororata" proceeded independently to Colombo, where we were allowed ashore for most of a day to stroll through the