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[Page 7]
division, while mine was on the Somme. He and I were students together at Julian's and we had a lot of common interests, I was heartily sorry to have him leave me and hope he gets on well. His rank of private will lay him open to even more bangs and insults than I'm going to get. Isn't it ridiculous to be sent here as a sort of war artist - "other rank" hybrid? An ex-schoolteacher who writes ungrammatically is responsible for the arrangement. It takes a Pommie to do such things.
The 0. C. my company, Lt. White, was kindness itself, and he made things as easy as he could for me. We went through gas mask drill and through the gas chambers. The underground chlorine tunnel was weird, with its great cobweb like skeins of sickly green fumes hanging across the trench. On the 12th we entrained back along the track we'd come down four days before. We travelled all night and next afternoon we arrived at a camp not far from here, where I found I had to stay overnight, with the prospect of next day having to march here (eight miles!). This, of course, for me (apart from the question of my baggage) was impossible, so I explained the matter to the Commandant, whom luckily I knew and he consented to let me go by myself, instead of with a draft, so as to give me the chance of catching a motor-lorry and getting a ride. This I eventually did. That night I slept in a Nissen hut with one of the Depot clerks, a very obliging chap from Somerset, but a member of the A. I. f. There was a certain amount of discontent in the depot air that evening. Where it is situated there is nothing to see or do, so, the boys on the staff got busy with spades and improvised a sporty tennis court. They then applied for and got rackets and balls from the Y. M. C. A., and being enterprising Australians, invited the nurses from a hospital train lying near at hand to join them, for as long as it was stationed there, in a game. This evening the nurses came along as usual, but with, their M. 0., an Imperial officer and said they couldn't play. They stayed only a little while but, in that short time the M.O. must have got on the snobbish side of the depot adjutant for he, unlike any real Australian, shortly afterwards sent out his shamefaced batman on to the court with a notice which the