Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 433
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[Page 433]
[At the top of this and some following pages of this letter is the letter G or the word "Girls". Not transcribed.]
the other postage packages were papers from Melbourne friends, Table Talk and Punch up to the 25th of April. Mrs. Knowels and a Miss Drury were the senders. An Orient steamer is time to pass through the Suez canal southwards on the 15th of June, by her this letter should travel, any how I hope to have it ready for the post for that steamer.
Wounded men arrived again in large numbers, during the last forty eight hours, the fighting at Galipoli has been again severe, the progress being made by our side, if they are making any is of the slowest. Think you no so? During a talk this afternoon with two men, I was told much about several of our officers. Each of them was in the battalion that left Sydney and went to Turkey under the command of Lieut. Col. Onslow Thompson. They told me that the colonel was killed during the day of the 25th of April, the Sunday when our men landed on the peninsula. The battalion was pushing on in pursuit of the enemy, "The colonel was leading a charge and encouraging his men to do it well, when he was struck. We saw him leading the line of bayonets, he fell, and had to be let lie on the spot, as it was not possible to remove him. He was found seven days afterwards, when it was noted that his papers and money were intact but his wrist watch had disappeared". He was a man whom I liked? he was a member of the Board of the Sydney Hospital, I have written to Sir Matthew Harris, the foregoing particulars.
10-30 p.m. must take a run out for a few minutes. For the time present good bye. [A line of Xs and Os.] Car. [A line of Xs and Os.] Joe. [A line of Xs and Os.] Kit.
10.6.15 – 12.40 a.m. Went to Heliopolis, called at a cafe & partook of fried sole, with a lemon & bread, washed down by lemonade. I thoroughly enjoyed the fish, it was fresh, we never see such at our mess table. A jolly Frenchman, well condition keeps the restaurant and calls it "Brasserie de l'Avenir."
10-6-15. 11p.m. Letters were posted to you and others in Australia on Monday last, with the hope that they might have rapid transit south.
Kitty dear, when you see any one of the Curtains please say that the letter from Mrs. Begg reached me safely.
When they are ripe, I shall collect and send to you seeds of the Pointiana Regia, it is a flowering tree of the most brilliant kind, the blooms being bright scarlet or deep blue, it comes into flower just after the jackaranda, it should grow well around Sydney or Maitland, here it is used in the streets. did I not tell you about it in my last letter? It bears very freely, and some of the specimens at the Zeitoun convent are laden with large pods, the Irish sister told me that I might have some when
[Lieutenant Colonel Astley John Onslow Thompson, grazier of Camden Park, Menangle, NSW, joined the Army on 15 August 1914 and embarked from Sydney on 20 October 1914 on HMAT A14 Euripides in command of the 4th Infantry Battalion, 1st Brigade. He was killed in action at Gallipoli on 26 April 1915.]