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[Page 5]
Folkestone – Boulogne
16/9/16 Roused at 1.45 am and after a bowl of cocoa and some bacon fell in the draft and took over 230 of them. In the dark the Band led off with them and we marched 5 miles through winding sweetsmelling Wiltshire lanes and meadows until we reached Amesbery where embarkation took place or rather entrainment. We reached Folkstone about noon and the men were at once taken out of our hands by a staff and housed in a big terrace facing the water. The officers adjourned to a hotel close by and lunched, shaved and washed. The coast of France was quite plainly visible from here. The town is a busy one and plenty of girls seem to be about. Our men seem to have all the vices. They drink heavily – the air in the ranks on the march down was that of a malt house. They gamble, the chief pastime in the billets in France. They whore – but this is the least of their failings now Cairo has been left behind. The conduct is uproarious and full of boisterous good spirits. Immediately on getting inside the 3 storied place here men must needs sit on window sills high above the ground and "chip" passers by. In private life they would not dream of such boisterous conduct but the uniform encourages their [indecipherable] spirit. These observations are a comparison – taking the British tommy as the standard. Fell in at 1.40 and marched on to a boat with about 1000 others aboard and sailed for Boulogne escorted by torpedo boat destroyers. One of our shark shaped airships was manoeuvring over the water The motion of the boat creating a feeling of nausea I slept for the two hour journey. We made Boulogne about 5 and a staff of NCOs took complete charge while the officers had afternoon tea. On coming out everything was ready for the march off but the men had started straying and altogether showed marked indiscipline a great contrast to the trained veterans of the old regiments. We climbed a devilish steep winding street up to a camp where a staff again took control and tonight we sleep in tents for the first time since leaving Egypt. Boulogne harbour is not very large and there