by A B Facey
WAR
1914–1915
‘YOU BOYS DIDN’T SLEEP, YOU DIED.’
49
MILITARY TRAINING
I had a few days at home, then went to the military camp that had been set up at Blackboy Hill. This was some fifteen miles east of the city of Perth. A sergeant-major took my name, age and address, pointed to a large tent and told me to wait in there until my name was called. The time was now ten thirty a.m. I was told that some of the chaps waiting had been there for hours the day before. They were growling about the delay. Outside we could hear the loud voices of command putting the men through the necessary military drill. Every half hour or so some names were called out. Volunteers were coming in all the time.
It came midday and my name hadn’t been called. A sergeant came and told those of us waiting to follow him. He took us to a large tent where there were long tables with forms to sit on along each side. One of the chaps remarked, ‘Looks like they’re going to give us a meal.’ We were given a mug of tea and some sandwiches, then we were taken back to the waiting-room again.
I waited all that afternoon and was still not called. About four thirty a sergeant came and told us that two of the doctors had been called away so we wouldn’t be examined until the next day. We were told that we could go home or stay there for the night. A lot of us who had homes in the metropolitan area decided to go home and come back the next morning. The Sergeant gave us a leave pass until nine o’clock the next morning.
It was after ten o’clock the next day when my name was called. I had to strip off all my clothes and lie down on a form with a rug under me. A doctor came in and examined me from head to toe. He tested my heart and blood pressure, then made me do some exercises and tested my heart again. Finally he said, ‘Okay, you’re one hundred percent fit. You can get dressed now and report to the Sergeant in there.’ (He pointed to a door leading to another tent.)
I was measured around the chest and waist, my weight was taken and then my height. My height caused quite a controversy. The Sergeant – who did the height measurements for all recruits – seemed to take a long time. He kept on saying, ‘I don’t believe it.’ As I stood in my bare feet on the platform he checked my height several times, then told me to stay put while he got a doctor.
He returned with a doctor who also checked my height and remarked, ‘It cannot be.’ He told the Sergeant to bring some other people, and mentioned some names. All this confused me – I was wondering what was wrong. While the Sergeant was away the doctor again checked my height and said, ‘It just cannot be.’ The Sergeant returned with two more doctors who also checked my height. After all this I was informed that I was the only man out of the thousands measured, who was exactly six feet tall. So I had, in their opinion, a height all to myself.
The Sergeant (an Englishman who had been in the army for many years) said that he had taken the height of Englishmen, Indians – many thousands – but never had he seen one who could be claimed to be exactly six feet tall. After giving blood and water samples I was passed fit to be an Australian soldier.
I had my first taste of army stew and I liked it. After lunch, those passed fit – about three hundred of us – had to attend a large tent for a series of lectures. The lectures were given two to three times a week. We were told about health and hygiene and the various kinds of diseases and their symptoms. Several doctors addressed us during the afternoon.
The following days we had to learn army drill. This was the most humorous part of army life. There were dozens of sections of raw recruits, each under a corporal or sergeant shouting orders such as: ‘quick march’, ‘left wheel’, ‘about turn’, ‘right turn’, ‘left turn’ and ‘halt’. The instructors used to get really mad at the recruits for being so dumb. For instance at the call of ‘halt!’, some would keep going and some would stop; at the call ‘right turn’, some would turn left and some would keep straight on.
The instructors didn’t allow for a man from the bush not being acquainted with any kind of army drill or discipline, and there were many country men that had been very keen to answer their country’s call. All that was required was a little patience. Non-commissioned English instructors wishing to assert their authority in a bullying way were no good to the man who had been used to going his way and go-as-you-please freedom. (Probably this worked under conscription conditions in England but not in Australia.) So it was a common sight at Blackboy Hill the first few days, to see a sergeant or a corporal get a punch on the nose or his nose pulled. Of course, this meant the offender being paraded to the Senior Officer who usually gave him a lecture and another chance. This officer was very understanding and his technique nearly always worked. Some hot-headed men would at times walk out of the camp and not return.
For the next two weeks we got army drill and lectures on how to use a rifle. Then, when we were about used to the drilling and getting to a stage where we didn’t make many mistakes, they changed the section style of drilling. The old style we had mastered was for the organisation of men where there were eight companies to a battalion. Now suddenly this was changed into four companies to a battalion and four platoons to a company. The new drilling was called platoon drill and was different altogether, so we had to start all over again.
When we got used to it we found the platoon system was a much easier and quicker way of manoeuvring – it was all in fours. Each platoon consisted of sixty privates with seven non-commissioned officers and three officers. There were four platoons to a company, four companies to a full battalion and four battalions to a full brigade. Our battalion was the Eleventh, and we were attached to the Third Brigade that was made up of the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Battalions.
At the end of October our company was shifted to a camp near the Swanbourne Rifle Range to do our musketry training. A man wasn’t accepted as a full soldier until he had passed his musketry test, because rifle-shooting was important and there were standards that had to be passed. If a recruit didn’t pass first try but showed promise, he would be given another test. If he failed again he was declared unsuitable and discharged. Not many failed as most Australians then were good shots.
We were camped at Swanbourne for about one week. I could shoot very well because of the kangaroo-shooting I had done. The still target was especially easy to me – it was very seldom I had shot at a ’roo that wasn’t on the run. The only moving target at the range was a figure on a chain at a distance of four hundred yards. This target kept bobbing up and down every few yards and was much easier to hit than a fast moving, dodging kangaroo.
We were required to hit targets at one hundred yard intervals. I got a possible (highest possible score) at one hundred yards, two hundred yards lying down to shoot, three hundred yards both lying and kneeling and at five, six, seven and eight hundred yards all lying down.
At the end of the fifth day we had finished shooting up to and including the eight hundred yards range. I didn’t feel well and after the midday meal, I reported to one of our sergeants. He took me to the doctor, who, after taking my temperature and giving me the once over, ordered me to hospital. He said I had the measles and that I would have to go to hospital in a hurry as my temperature was one hundred and two.
My company had only one more range to shoot to complete our musketry training – the nine hundred yards. I was unable to take part in this but, owing to my scores up to then, I passed with flying colours.
I was taken to the Fremantle Army Barracks where one large room on the second floor had been turned into an infectious diseases hospital. When I arrived there was another soldier there from the Twelfth Battalion, also with the measles. We were at Fremantle for about nine days when another case was brought in. He was supposed to have measles but two days later they found it was scarlet fever, so instead of getting out as we expected, we had to wait until the quarantine period was over. In the meantime we both got scarlet fever, and the outcome of this was that we didn’t get out of the Fremantle Army Barracks until after
Christmas – in fact it was January 1915 before we got back to Blackboy Hill.
My battalion had left for overseas so I was put into the third reinforcement of the Eleventh Battalion. Before I was discharged from the hospital, Joseph, my eldest brother, came to see me. He was in the Tenth Light Horse Regiment from Western Australia and they were expected to sail before my regiment.
50
THE MIDDLE EAST
We finished our training and were issued with all of our equipment; then in early February 1915, we sailed on the troopship Itonus. I learnt that Joseph had sailed five days earlier with the Tenth Light Horse. On our ship were the first and second reinforcements for the Eleventh Battalion, and the reinforcements for the Twelfth Battalion and other units, making a total of approximately seventy-five troops.
We sailed direct to Aden, then through the Red Sea to Suez. We were taken off the Itonus and camped in tents for a whole day at Suez, then went to Cairo by train. The sea trip was lovely, but the train journey from Suez to Cairo was the worst I had experienced. There weren’t any proper toilets on the train – empty open trucks with about one foot of dry sand in the bottom were put in between the carriages to be used as lavatories. The sides of these sand trucks were only eighteen inches high. The trip took nearly a whole day and we had only one stop, so everyone had to use the sand trucks.
I often wondered what the Egyptian people thought after seeing this sight. Sometimes there would be eight to a dozen men in a stooping position with their pants down relieving themselves, besides many standing to urinate where anyone could see. Sometimes this was happening while the train was running through a village or town. I was shocked. I was now twenty years old but very modest. My Grandma had taught me to be this way and always to be respectful and honest. The troops were not to blame but the Senior Officer and the Military Authority deserved the most severe reprimand.
When we arrived at Zagazig – the junction where the line branched off to Port Said – our train had to stop for forty minutes so a guard was put on all entrances to the station. My mate and I were placed on guard at the main entrance, with instructions that no soldier was to be let out unless he had written authority from the Australian Commanding Officer, and no civilians were allowed in or out. (While at Suez most of the troops had got beer and whisky and were intoxicated by the time the train left. Some were very drunk.)
The troops who wished to have a meal at Zagazig could do so, as the army had set up a canteen at the station for this purpose. That was the reason for the forty minute stay.
The guard job at the main entrance became quite a problem, as hundreds of Egyptian people wanted to sell goods to the troops – especially booze. They got so cheeky that we had to take drastic action to stop them. If anyone approached the entrance with bottled drink for sale, we had to break the bottles with our bayonets. I alone broke thirty-six bottles that were supposed to contain whisky. The smell of the contents would have almost knocked a man down. I took several bottles and asked one of our officers to try to find out what the contents were. He said that he would have them analysed when we arrived at Cairo. He said, ‘From the smell of them, the results of the analysis should be interesting. I’ll let you know.’
We finally got on our way to Cairo and during this part of our journey there was some terrible conduct and carrying on. There were drunk soldiers vomiting all over the seats and out of the windows; some were trying to fight, and the language they shouted at each other was terrible. We finally arrived at a station just outside of Cairo and disembarked. A lot of the troops had to be carried off as they were so drunk they couldn’t walk.
From here we had to march to a place called Abbassia, some two and a half to three miles from Cairo. All the drunks had to be taken on donkey lorries. We arrived at our camp at about nine o’clock that evening. Tents were already there for us and fourteen of us were to occupy each tent. We settled for the night, in full battledress, and slept on the sand floor of the tents.
The next morning the place was a mess. There didn’t seem to be anyone in charge. No officers about, no sergeants – there were a few Corporals but they were at a loss to know what to do. They said that they couldn’t do anything unless they received orders from their commanding officers and they didn’t know where the officers were. No provision had been made for food. There were several large mess huts with tables and stools but no food.
We waited around until late in the afternoon but there were still no officers. We went in to the town part of Abbassia, looking for somewhere to get a meal. Those of us with money were okay but there were men who had spent their money. The ones who had enough money treated the broke ones. (The drunks had sobered up and some were craving for more liquor and for food. They were in an awful state.)
What a situation – in a strange country with little or no money and no food. The next day we found out that there was an army barracks about half a mile away from our camp. This barracks was the permanent station for some sixty thousand English troops.
We got all our troops together and held a meeting to see what could be done. I suggested that we send three men to see the commanding officer at the English barracks and put our plight to him, to see if he could help us to get food, at least until we contacted some authority of our own. The troops agreed to this and three of us were appointed – a Corporal, a private and myself.
We set off for the barracks and on arriving there, came up against an armed guard at the entrance gate. I explained our mission to the guard and he sent for a sergeant-major. This sergeant-major was about the rudest man I had ever met. He yelled at us to stand at attention when addressing him and not to refer to the Colonel as his ‘boss’. He was done up like a prince with all kinds of polished brass buttons on his uniform. His moustache was waxed and stuck out like bullock horns. When I finally got him to listen to our troubles, he snorted and said it was none of their affair, and it wouldn’t be any good seeing the Colonel. He suggested that we find some other way and told us to get in touch with the military police. He then told me, when I asked for the Colonel’s telephone number, to get the hell out of there before he threw me in the guardhouse and put me on a charge of insolence. I replied, ‘All right, you just do that. I’m not scared of you pommy upstarts. That will be one way of getting somewhere or getting someone to see our position is desperate.’ I looked around to my mates. One had gone but the Corporal had stuck beside me.
Then all at once the Sergeant-major said, ‘You two wait here and I will see what I can do.’ He went away and returned about half an hour later. He told us that we could come into the barracks and that the Colonel would see us. He took us along several corridors and up several flights of steps; then, stopping at a door he said, ‘The Colonel is in here. Don’t forget to salute and be very careful how you speak. Do not use slang.’ With that he knocked on the door and a voice called out, ‘Come in.’
We had to wait a few minutes and then we were called in. The Sergeant-major told the Colonel who we were and then left. We both saluted. The Colonel returned the salute and told us to take a seat. He then asked, ‘Well boys, what is your trouble?’ I explained what had happened and about us having no food and no money. He listened, then pushed a button on his desk and an orderly appeared. The Colonel told him to ring Australian Army Headquarters and then put the call through to him. He sat back and asked us what part of Australia we had come from and what the Australian people thought about the war. Then the phone rang. It was now about midday. The Colonel spoke to someone and was put through to the person he wanted. He turned from the mouthpiece and asked us where our camp was, how long we had been there and how many of us there were. When he put the phone back on the hook he told us to go back to our camp and that he felt sure our troubles would be over that afternoon. We both stood up and saluted him and I thanked him. He replied that it was a pleasure and that he was glad to be able to do a service for one of England’s dominions.
We left him and as we went out of the gate, one of the guards ask
ed us how we got on. They seemed surprised and said, ‘ “Old wire whiskers” (meaning the Sergeant-major) is always like that. He thinks he knows everything.’
We went straight back to our camp and explained the situation to our troops. They were also surprised at the outcome because the chap that had left us had come back with the story that we looked like getting put into the clink.
So now all we could do was wait and see. Some of the men said that leaving us without officers and food might be a sort of a test, as we were going to war and no doubt there would be times when we would have to do without food and other things for long periods. We talked about many things but the most thought about thing was a good meal.
At about three thirty in the afternoon a car came to our camp carrying three officers: a captain and two lieutenants; and a sergeant-major. They came to where the troops had gathered and said, ‘We have come to see what is going on. We believe you haven’t any food and your officers have left you. We want to see the two that went to see the English Colonel this morning.’ My name was called out and also the Corporal’s. We came forward thinking we were in for some trouble. The Corporal was quick to say that it wasn’t his idea. He was nervous and was about to say something more when I cut in and told them it was entirely my fault; that I had made the suggestion to the men and moved the resolution at a meeting to send a deputation to see the Colonel. I said to the Captain, ‘It was carried unanimously and that is how it all came about, sir.’
The Captain ordered the Corporal and I to follow him. We went to the car and he ordered us into the back with the Sergeant-major. The three officers got into the front seat and one of the lieutenants started the car. Without any further word he drove off.