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[Page 8]
night, 13th January, and was buried at sea this morning at 6 a.m (14/1/17. Every man was on parade in uniform, the ship was stopped for a few minutes, until the body was sent to its last resting place, and the troopships bugler sounded the Last Post, and the shooting party, 50 men, fired 3 shots each man. The ships flag has been half-mast all day today. He was a man between 30 and 40 years of age, I do not know his name, but he was in the 12th/31st Inf. One of our men fell down the steps the other night and ruptured himself, now he is discharged for life poor fellow, he says he is sorry he cant go when he has come so far. He will be put off at Durban which we reach on Wednesday night, and he has to go back to Australia. He is a lucky man, but he is ruined for life. I am doubtful whether we will get leave at Durban with having so much sickness on board, anyhow, if we don't there is bound to be trouble, as we have been on the boat a month today. It seems ages since we were on shore, wherever one looks there is no land to be seen. There is gambling of all sorts on board, and if one is caught at it he gets time to do in the cells. There are 50 naval men on board from New Zealand going home to train in a naval college for promotion, they seem to be a decent lot of men. If I do not succeed much in the signalling line I will have a cut at something else, most likely the artillery. The mail boat "Mooltan" came into Freemantle just after us on her way to England, she had a party of Light Horse on her for India, she is a fine big boat and there was a wireless message received the other day to say