SORROWS AND JOYS IN A TROOPSHIP
Mac dragged himself regretfully out of his bunk when a mournful
"reveille" had finished echoing along the decks, and went above to see
what might be doing. They were off, or, at least, they soon would be.
Already the cruisers were coming steadily down the harbour, some
transports had weighed, and were awkwardly pulling their heads round to
seaward, others sent clouds of steam rumbling in a deafening roar from
their safety-valves. The cruisers passed, and each transport followed
in her appointed place.
Everyone neglected the work of the moment in that hour of putting to
sea, and Mac, perched high on the roof of the wireless cabin, watched
it with as much pride and rapture as might an emperor reviewing the
grandest of fleets. In single line-ahead, the fourteen great grey
ships, their smoke trailing away over the port quarter before a fresh
wind, passed down the wild rocky gap of the entrance. The grey seas
rolled in a long swell, grey, flying clouds hid the eastern mountain
tops. The passengers of an in-bound steamer had hurried on deck, clad
lightly against the chill wind, sent a faint cheer to each passing ship.
Hundreds of people waved vigorously from the western shore, having come
far to see the last of the adventurers, and the garrisons of the forts
looked like silhouetted maniacs above the fortress mounds. They, too,
faded in the distance, and at length the reefs with their white surge,
and Pencarrow Light high on the cliffs above the poor rusty remnants of
a wreck, were far astern. The leading vessels had lifted their bows
westward through the Strait, and each following ship was in turn
changing course. At sea at last, Mac left his perch, and departed
below to his work, a shower-bath and breakfast.
Later in the morning the weather cleared, the cliffs, the hills and the
snowy mountains were glorious in the sunshine, and the troops basked at
full length on deck while distant points took form far ahead, came on
the beam and passed astern. Once through the Strait, the fleet took up
its regular formation, the ten transports in two lines of five, with
the two large cruisers ahead and the two small ones astern. Late at
night, the Farewell Light passed into the blackness, and when dawn
broke again, grey, chill and wet, no land was visible behind the
reeling stern.
For five or six days--Mac lost count--the transports rolled and creaked
and swayed up the grey, lumpy swell, lurched over the crests and
plunged away down into the troughs. The spray lifted over the bows and
swept along the decks, the wind howled dismally through the rigging,
and the ship was wet and comfortless. All was grey--the ships, the
sky, the sea and the long trails of smoke fleeing away to leeward. Mac
had found a good job on board, together with Joe of the Canterbury
Squadron and Jock of his own squadron, in charge of the fodder. Both
were from the sheep country and real fine fellows, though Joe had had a
college education, while Jock claimed only to have been dragged up in
the bush. Three times a day, about an hour before their own meals,
they weighed out for the horses the rations of chaff, oats, hay,
linseed and so forth, and issued them to fatigues from the troops, the
service corps and the mounted machine-gunners, who came slipping and
sliding along the deck in heavy gum-boots.
The second-class dining saloon of peace days had descended to becoming
a fodder room for the horses, and outside its door gathered the boys
clamouring for their loads, laughing and swearing and generally
hindering Mac and his cobbers at their work. Everything had gone like
clockwork in port, but, for the first few days at sea, these practical
sons of the bush and the sheep-stations were for the moment put out of
their stride. Hefty men lay huddled helplessly on their bunks and
others moped about searching for the drier, warmer corners. But the
horses had to be fed, though many of them, too, hung their heads in the
deepest dejection. The men who were not seasick turned to with a will,
and many who were went to work with bold hearts, though feeling too
utterly miserable for description when down below on the stuffy,
reeling horse-decks.
Mac, in the foolishness of his abandonment, had flung himself at the
first spasm of seasickness on to the top of some of his bales of hay;
the sweet fragrance of the hay aggravated the evil effects of the
rolling, and three days passed like an interminable nightmare.
Sometimes the bales and bags slid about the place with the rolling of
the ship, occasionally he made weak though desperate attempts to help
Joe and Jock who struggled on nobly; but eventually Mac managed to drag
himself and two blankets to the top of the horse-boxes high on the
boat-deck. There lay rows of men like corpses in their blankets, with
pinched white faces peeping out, which smiled pathetically with the
bashfulness of returning spirits.
All were on their feet again by dawn of the sixth day, and in odd
moments between work peered over the side to catch a glimpse of the low
dim line of the Tasmanian coast. They kept along the land for a few
hours, and then, forming single line-ahead, steamed slowly up the
beautiful sunny waters of the Derwent, with white curving beaches and
bush-clad hills on either side. Five ships berthed at once for fresh
water. In the afternoon the troops were marched through the town, and
the people cheered heartily and hurried in great excitement to see
them, bringing cake and fruit and beer. Some of the boys, keen on
adventure, slipped quietly out of the ranks and down side streets, and
in the evening other hard cases garbed themselves as stokers, walked
boldly past the guard and spent the merriest of evenings in Hobart, to
return, perhaps, to a term of C.B. which the holiday was well worth.
The other five vessels watered in the morning, and by evening the fleet
was again at sea, steaming slowly southwards in a fog towards the
southern point of Tasmania. In Morse code each ship in turn mournfully
wailed her number, and endeavoured to keep station in the thick pall.
For day after day they swung over the long seas which always sweep
across the Australian Bight, but the troops ran about the ships as if
they had never been anywhere else, and the horses stamped and whinnied
unanimously when the boys stood ready to feed, and looked eagerly for
more than the martinet of a Vet would allow.
The Vet was a brusque man whose job was to look after the horses and
not to concern himself with the fine points of military lore,
distinctions of rank, or the airs of those officers who thought
themselves not made of ordinary clay. He was impatient with people who
were incompetent or who hindered him in his work. So on the occasions
when Captain O'Grady violated the sanctity of the fodder-room by
stowing there some of his infantry equipment, the Vet would angrily
demand:
"Mac! What's that blanky stuff doing there? Is that some more of
O'Grady's blanky rubbish?"
"Yes. He said you said he----"
"I don't care a blank what he said. Heave his blanky stuff out of
here. O'Grady and his blanky stuff can go to hell. Next time he tries
to bring his rubbish in here you tell him to get to blanky blazes with
it! See?"
"Righto! I'll do that."
Mac was not soaked in military etiquette, but he rather hesitated, when
the Captain-Quartermaster brought some gear to stow, to instruct him to
go to blanky hell with his blanky, etc., etc. However, as soon as
Captain O'Grady had disappeared he and Joe shoved his gear out on the
wet deck and the Quartermaster constantly finding it there decided to
seek other havens.
"I'll teach that blanky infantryman to stow his blanky stuff here,"
rumbled the Vet with satisfaction when there were no more signs of
alien goods lumbering the fodder-room.
The first burial of a member of the force took place one stormy day in
the Australian Bight. He had died the night before on the Ruapehu. In
the middle of the afternoon the whole fleet lay to for ten minutes, the
troops standing to attention on every ship. The vessels rolled heavily
to the rushing silent seas, the troops with grim faces swayed in their
long lines on the careening decks. There was no colour to the scene
but grey. The greyness, the vast space, the haunting notes of the
"Last Post" echoing along the troopdecks, the lonely body deserted on
the wide sea, left a deep impression on those light-hearted
adventurers. Death! And to be buried here in a lonely ocean grave!
Mac wondered how many of these 8,500 men would see New Zealand's shores
again, and how many would lie in foreign lands. But such speculations
did not trouble him for long. "Carry On" sounded briskly, and Mac
returned to his work in the fodder-room.
Like many others of that light-hearted crew, Mac had really not
embarked upon these adventures on account of the "ruthless violation of
the rights of small nations," with the desire "to crush once and for
all the Prussian military despotism," and so forth. Had he given the
question deep thought he might possibly have welcomed these reasons as
additional charms; though the fact was that he had never worried much
concerning why he had come. War, bloody war, romantic, glorious war
raging in the Old World, and he obeyed the irresistible desire to join
in it.
The whole atmosphere of the life appealed to him, the uncertainty of
the future, the unknown destination, the company of all the boys, and
the free, fresh life.
More than a week passed and then one morning against the pale blue of
the dawn sky showed low dim outlines of deeper blue, and towards midday
the fleet entered the wide waters of King George's Sound and cast
anchor with the _Tahiti_ nearest the sea. On the upper reaches of the
Sound lay a great fleet of thirty or forty large vessels--the
Australian fleet. Mac had not previously known that they were to fall
in with them here. For four days they lay at anchor swinging to the
tide, in the entrance, lonely and unvisited, while the eager,
bare-footed, bare-legged and bare-chested men gazed longingly at the
distant port and tried to persuade themselves that the vessel must go
up there for coal and water. Several times the life-boat crews lowered
the boats and raced clumsily with each other; and once the troops
polished and cleaned all the morning for an inspection by the G.O.C.
which never came off. Otherwise they drilled at odd times, groomed,
fed and exercised the horses and basked in the sun. Rumours were
unusually active, and the question of destination was fiercely
argued--South-West Africa, India for garrison duty, or France by the
Cape or Suez. The course the fleet set after leaving the Sound would
partly decide the question.
The first daylight of Sunday, November 1st--a dawn of rare perfection,
with the spacious Sound unruffled by any stray breeze, the wide blue
heaven unbroken by any cloud--saw that purposeful activity among the
ships which immediately precedes putting to sea. Smoke drifted upwards
from many funnels, some ships were busy clearing their anchors, while
others manoeuvred out of tight corners. First came the men-o'-war,
sweeping majestically past the _Tahiti_ and out to sea. Then, in
single-line-ahead, followed the transports in grand procession past the
_Tahiti's_ bows, whose troops stood on the topmost perches to miss
nothing of the glorious review. Everywhere to the upperworks of each
passing vessel clung the Australians. As each vessel came abreast,
wild, enraptured cheering broke out, and, with all the power of healthy
lungs, with enthusiasm unreserved, with cooees and hakas and scrappy
messages semaphored by the arms, the Australians and New Zealanders met
in a deep friendship which was to last through years of campaigning and
privation.