WE SAIL AWAY
CEYLON MISSED--LAND-HO--AT ADEN--BAKSHEESH--"THE TRANSPORT
TRUMPETER"--A LITERARY COINCIDENCE--ON HISTORIC GROUND--THE
PYRAMIDS--PAST AND PRESENT--AN EGYPTIAN HANDKERCHIEF--MA'ADI.
"Who's the Jonah?" That was mild.
"Curse our luck!" That was moderate.
But when Trooper Newman said, "To hell with the ship!" most of us felt
that he showed a proper appreciation of the position.
For days and days we had ploughed our way across the Indian Ocean, and,
as the long leagues in front joined their comrades behind, we felt
that we were getting farther and farther from sunny New South Wales.
But we were steering straight for Ceylon, and looking forward with
keen anticipation to a few days of the picturesque Orient. Some of
the impressionable young subalterns were singing "Cingalee, Cingalee,
I have lost my heart to a Cingalee." All of us for the last day or two
had been taking station on the forecastle-head, shading our eyes and
gazing into the misty horizon for the first glimpse of the enchanted
isle.
But alas for hopes unfulfilled! Ceylon's spicy breezes, after all,
were not to fan our fevered brows, neither were Cingalese to minister
to our need with "tea in the morning, tea in the evening, tea in the
afternoon." Early in the morning of January 12 we got word that a
special squadron of three ships was to be detached from the main fleet,
and with Colonel Ryrie in command, steam straight to Aden. So we stood
on deck and swore unrestrainedly.
However, there was still corn in Egypt, and we would be the first to
get there. Besides, there was quite a chance that there was something
doing--a Dervish expedition or an Arab raid might be on, and we would
have the laugh at the other chaps if we could have first smack at
the unspeakable Turk. So by the time the bugle sounded for the usual
inspection, we were all in high good humour again. The three liners
swung out from the convoy and, cheering a farewell, were soon steaming
westward. One after another the transports dipped down under the
horizon, and soon a few grey smudges on the rim of the ocean were all
that remained to remind us of the fleet.
We had seen no land since leaving Australia. It seemed such a long
time. So when, a couple of days later, somebody shouted "Land-ho," we
rushed to the nearest post of advantage. Far away to eastward, like a
green pimple on the blue face of the waters, was a tiny little island.
In an hour we were abreast of it--Minikoi, surely one of the islands
of the blessed; how green it looked after the everlasting blue of the
Indian Ocean; from end to end it was covered with cocoa-nut palm. A
long line of snow-white surf beat upon the sandy shore. Gleaming in the
tropical sun was the lighthouse--a silent sentinel. And in the offing
were a score of picturesque canoes, and dhows, with brown hempen sails,
managed by gaudily-dressed islanders, who seemed rather annoyed that
the transports did not stop and purchase their fruit-offerings.
Passing by the rugged Socotra, we soon sighted the mountainous southern
coast of Arabia, and by midday on January 20 we were focussing our
binoculars on the picturesque gate of the Indian Ocean, Aden. Curious
it is how Britain has secured all the great strategical points of the
world--Gibraltar, Suez, Aden, Singapore, Thursday Island, the Cape of
Good Hope, and the rest. And one has only to see Aden, with its rocky
peaks piercing the skyline, to realize how strong it is, and how futile
would be any effort to capture it. For all the defences of Aden seem to
be hewn out of solid granite.
No sooner had we got anchored in the harbour than the _Suevic_ was
surrounded by swarms of boats, in which were crowded Asiatics of all
descriptions yelling like demons in wild anxiety to sell their wares.
Then the colliers came alongside and proceeded to coal. Scores of thin,
undersized, but wiry Arabs did the work, and as they loaded the bunkers
they kept up a perpetual yelling and singing, and the weird cacophony
lasted all through the night.
Aden is a curious mixture of the Orient and the Occident. In the
streets silent Arabs stalk along with camels, and Europeans buzz
around in automobiles. One section of the port belongs to the Asiatics;
the other is all Western. Arab dhows float across the harbour and steam
tugs scurry hither and yon. One section of the town has thatched roofs;
the other is all galvanized iron. And one of the natives sang us "Songs
of Araby." They yelled harshly for baksheesh all the while. Clad in
their own coloured loin cloths, or in discarded khaki tunics from the
Force, they were a motley tatterdemalion crowd. Here East and West
met--but did not mingle.
We had had no word of news for weeks. So we eagerly searched for
the newspapers, and demanded news of the outer world. The war was
still on. The Allies were more than holding their own. Here was news
indeed!--news such as _The Transport Trumpeter_ (published aboard the
_Suevic_) had never heard of. Yet we loved that little paper of ours
on the transport--"a little thing, but our own." If it lacked news it
did not lack reporters whose imagination made up for the deficiency.
We were all reporters for _The Transport Trumpeter_. Even I. And I am
wondering to this day about a certain curious coincidence connected
with one of my painstaking efforts. I wrote on December 28, 1914, a
skit on Lissauer's "Hymn of Hate," and Arthur Adam's reply to it--"My
Friend, Remember." A month later I got the Sydney _Bulletin_, and there
I saw almost exactly the same article with the same excerpts from each
poem. They were probably written on the same day, a thousand miles or
so apart. You who delve into the mysterious, will you explain?
* * * * *
Egypt! What memories! What life here! What a quest we have set out
upon! What Alexanders are we!
I feel the blood coursing through my veins as I have never felt it
before. I live in the present, but the past stands up before me. Dead
kings and emperors pass in endless succession. Libyans and Ethiopians
pass by, Assyrians and Macedonians, Babylonians and Persians, Romans,
Arabs, Turks and Mamelukes--and French and British. Great names are
sprinkled over the pages of Egypt, from Menes, the first king, and
Rameses the Second, down to the present day. Nebuchadnezzar and
Alexander the Great, Constantine, Saladin and Napoleon, Mohammed Ali
and Kitchener have all left their mark on the Nile Delta. What history!
and here are we--soldiers of King George V, from Australia--treading
this historic ground, making new history. Nebuchadnezzar knew us not.
Constantine never dreamed--and they used to dream dreams in those
days--that from a land he knew not of would one day come armed men
marching on the wonderful city he built.
Nor did I, nor did any of us, know it--well, not yet.
I know what it means to see the blush clouds beating the night shades
back in the van of a golden morning, but there is a quality of richness
about the sunrises of Egypt that Australia lacks. Egypt has the glint
of gold, the cloud ridges of rosy red, the blaze of amethyst and
opal. So also has the Australian sky. But Australia has no pyramids.
The first beams of the sun in this land tip the cones of the age-old
pyramids, and soon these drab giants shine like molten copper. Then the
sky turns all gold, and the scene is duplicated in the placid bosom of
the ancient Nile, which skirts our camp. In the murky distance the
desert is shrouded in a misty haze which has the same blue that one
sees in the distance on the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, but once
the sun is fairly above the horizon, the brilliant transformation scene
dissolves itself into a glaring white light that lasts till sunset.
Then the morning's glory is reenacted with softer tones and a riot of
colour that I can never describe.
Then, as the Pyramids of Gizeh were due west from Ma'adi, we always saw
these giant triangles sharply silhouetted against the red horizon. They
looked like little toy tents, yet when alongside them their magnitude
staggered us.
The day was so hot that helmets were necessary. Some "went down" under
the fierce rays of the sun, but there were some with us who said it was
not hot at all. They spoke of the sun-baked Western Plains. They spoke
of Bourke. They spoke of Northern Queensland. But they wore helmets,
nevertheless.
Yet was Ma'adi, for all its heat, a joy to the senses. If we had the
everlasting desert wilderness on one side, we also had the oasis of
Ma'adi on the other. The irrigationist has caused the desert hereabout
to blossom as the rose, and Ma'adi is like an English village, with
gracious gardens and green, luscious fields and rippling canals.
I have spoken of the blue of the desert haze that is like that of
the Blue Mountains. And here and there one finds other touches of
old Australia. I went out one day to Sir Alexander Baird's beautiful
mansion near Zeitoun, and there I saw some fine old gums and wattles;
and it just felt like home.
And the people, how kind they all were! Even the shopkeepers did
all they could to make us feel at home. "Special Australian Shop,"
"Australian Soldiers' Rendezvous"--signs like these met us at every
turn. Especially grateful did we feel for the warning one Cairo
shopkeeper gave us: "Don't go elsewhere to be cheated, Australians.
Come here!" Nor shall we ever forget the laborious days and nights
which that shopkeeper who put out the sign must have spent in mastering
our language--"English and French spoken; Australian understood."
Truth to tell, the Australian soldiers were as a shower of gold to the
thirsty Cairo traders. They all loved the Australians. We scattered
money far and wide--till we had none left. We threw piastres to the
winds--thinking nothing of them, they were such little coins--till we
had none left. From morning till night we distributed largess. It was
baksheesh everywhere and all the time. Whichever way we turned we found
somebody dangling something in front of our eyes--ready to sacrifice
it for our sake. Even Trooper Newman, who previously had expressed his
best wishes to the ship, comes up to me with a gaudy handkerchief he
has just bought for ten piastres. It has King George in one corner,
Kitchener in another, French in another, Jellicoe in another, and
generals and admirals and dukes and earls all round it. "It may be the
only chance I'll get," says he, "of poking my nose into high society."