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Monday 15 November 2010

Diary Entry - 15th November, 1915

On Tuesday midday, after coming out of lunch, I met the adjutant coming out of his office, and he started chalking up a lot of names on the slate. On viewing the slate after the former gentleman's departure, I was much surprised to see "Move on 16th" in big letters and ten names underneath, among them Sam's, Pat's, Bee's and my own.

The whole ten of us went to the Colonel in a bunch and asked for leave to complete our kit. The old man was very decent and read us the dispatch received by the man Henry from the War Office, and we found that the inevitable Henry was arranging a program that we should "leave by the 10.15 on the 16th inst and not to give us any orders till then". The War Office note said that we would catch the 1.15 pm train for Southampton from Waterloo and be ready to embark.

The time that we received leave was two o'clock, and we Australians packed up and were on our way to London by the 4.15 train – not bad, considering business in Ipswich etc. That evening was spent at the Carlyle Club, with RS Gilliard trying to get AC Bell along with us and take a man's (Kingston) place who was to be married, but our efforts were futile. Bee and self had a great struggle with our luggage at Batts that night, as had a lot of sorting to do, but eventually got to bed fairly early.

3 comments:

  1. I wonder if he will say things in the diary than he is not prepared to say to his parents?

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  2. Funnily enough, I was thinking yesterday that in his letter to his father he seemed more revealing than in some of his diary entries. In some of his letters, I think he could tone down quite how close he is to dropping shells et cetera. I'd find it a bit hair-raising, if I received something from my son which suggested he was pretty much in the line of fire. I suppose you'd be stupid if you didn't realise that though.

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  3. Possibly, but parents tend to like the life of an ostrich, myself included.

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