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[page 2]
I got a telephone message at Helouan Hospital (Egypt) at 12 Noon on Sunday 26th March 1916 that my unit ( 9/17 ) was to move out at 7 a.m. next morning from Heliopolis and I had no hesitation in telling them that I would be with them when they moved. Under ordinary circumstances I would have been discharged from the Convalescent Hospital within two days and would then have had to go to the "Overseas Base" and from there to some strange unit and possibly stay in Egypt for months. We were particularly lucky to get away so soon as a lot of the earlier reinforcements to the 17th Batt. were still in Egypt. Plenty of men had been in Egypt 5 months and never had a move. Instead of making the 9th Reinforcement we will probably form the 1st Reinforcement to the 17th Batt. I went over to Heliopolis where the 9/17 were camped on Sunday afternoon to make all arrangements and returned to Helouan in the evening to get my discharge from Hospital, luggage etc. Coming back to Cairo about 11 p.m. I got a motor car from the Railway Station to take me right out to the Camp (about 10 miles) but after it had gone a mile or so in trying to avoid another car coming round a corner it ran over the pavement and smacked a wall. The wall came off best so I had to transfer my baggage and self to another car. The run out to Heliopolis is very pretty even at night and the road is perfect - as a matter of fact, Australia (and Particularly N.S.W.) is the only place I have seen which has bad roads. Arriving at Camp. I found my old orderly had made a bunk up for me in a tent so I turned in for a couple of hours - the only occasion on which I had slept in camp in Egypt. Reveille went at 2 a.m. breakfast at 3am. and