SECOND FORCE IN EGYPT ARRIVES AT ALEXANDRIA

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 57, 9 March 1915, Page 2

SECOND FORCE IN EGYPT ARRIVES AT ALEXANDRIA

(From Captain 0. E. Bean, Official Reporter with the Australian Expeditionary Force in Egypt.) (Copyright.) (Rights Secured by The Post.) ALEXANDRIA. Ist February. They were expected at Alexandria on Saturday. The military landing officers were all down there waiting for them. One Saturday evening, when we arrived by the late train from Cairo we found a small improvised mess already at the big hotel in Alexandria— twenty officers, more or less, chosen from different Australian and New Zealand corps, and sent down there to supervise the landing. They had obtained a long table in the dining-room, and there they were with their pockets crammed with lists of the transports io arrive, the troops in each one, their horses, wagons, and other paraphernalia, and .the railway station where each lot was to be eventually deposited in Cairo. Late that night two of us. took a. cab and drove down through the streets — through a fine modern Italian town, through a low medieval Greek town, finally through a native town, much the lowest of all, with houses of rather odd rooms piled on one another much as you would pile old trunks and boxes in a crowded box-room. We hammered on a big Customhouse gate, which ultimately blocked the end of one of these alleys, and clattered through it on to the great silent half-empty wharf. THE FIRST SHIP. In fact, it was not until just after noon next day that working in one's bedroom high up in the hotel, and looking out through the window, one saw over the sun-baked square, over the low buildings on the foreshores, over the low white fort on the narrow spit where the most famous and first great lighthouses used to stand, a large ocean steamer, far out, making for the harbour entrance. She had a funnel and two masts, and one could faintly make out on her side fore and aft a white square. It was the first of the "new lot." She came in first; then the others. As they each came slowly up the big harbour, crowded to the rigging with troops, there were very few to appreciate the sight. One or two policemen in red fezzes and dark blue overcoats, and two or three Australian landing officers, had the huge empty wharves all to themselves. The ship swung slowly round, and moved gingerly in. to the wharf side. A dozen sentries slipped down the gangway, and stationed themselves around the quay. A small ragged crowd of natives— as many as could escape . tlie policeswarmed around the ship's side. The landing officers and the major commanding the pay corps went on board. That was all. The second contingent had arrived. A vine voyage,They had as good a voyage as we had. Ihey say there was not one rough day horn tho beginning to the end of it. Ihey lost, as far as is known, only a little over fifty horses. They lost more men than we did owing to an epidemic of meases in some ships, which was in certain cases followed, as often happens, by pneumonia, and ended fatally in about a dozen cases. The deaths in the case of the first force have been in almost every case due to pneumonia following on influenza. The most interesting incident of .the voyage seems to haye 'occurred when, in the Arabian Sea, two masts and two funnels were seen, just above the horizon. The vessel neither steered off nor came closer, but just sailed along parallel with the fleet, and at the very top of the mast those on the convoy could just make out through strong glasses the figure of a man always kept there on watch. The stranger would neither answer flag signals nor wireless signals. and_ the officer commanding the escort had just ordered a warship over to investigate, when the stranger at last turned inwards, and came up on the horizon. She was an. lndian marine ship, She knew of the existence of the convoy, and she assumed that the convoy also knew of 'her. IN CAMP. Now that the second force ha 6 arrived a large proportion of Australians will be training with the New Zealanders. There are now camped at Zeitoun, where General Godley's headquarters are, the 14th Australian Light Horse Brigade, and the newly-arrived 4th Australian Infantry Brigade. The 2nd Light Horse Brigade, which goes to Maadi camp, from which the Ist Light Horse Brigade has just moved, will probably be under General BirdwOod's direct command. The base depot has now been established under Colonel Sellheim in Cairo. One of its functions is, of course, to deal with all l enforcements which come forward. The first reinforcements just arrived with the second contingent have . gone into camp _at Abbassia, near Zeitoun, north of Cairo.