CROWDS ON WHARVES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 146, 21 June 1940, Page 5

CROWDS ON WHARVES

Within a few minutes, delirious crowds thronged alongside the great ships whose engines were already turning. Cries of recognition were tossed between wharf and ship; streamers appeared magically on every hand, pennies and souvenirs of all descriptions showered on those below from the khaki figures—some of them in the new battle-dress —of the troops closely lining the upper decks of the ships, and the good-humoured witticisms exchanged kept everyone in good spirits.

Special cheers acclaimed the trim figures of the uniformed nurses as they appeared high up on the boat decks. The Trentham Camp Band was on the wharves and led the singing of favourite numbers from the last war

and the present one, and no song was repeated more often than the rousing marching song of the Maori Battalion, | which echoed across the water long after the Maoris themselves had pulled out into the stream. There were many unrehearsed incidents and last-minute farewells the night before the transports left. One girl flew from Blenheim to find that her fiance had already embarked, and she was in tears outside the barrier when an officer, noticing her distress, undertook to deliver the parcel she had brought. Not only that, but he arranged for the lucky soldier to appear on deck, and the couple were able to wave if not speak their own farewell. Another girl who arrived with a parcel when the ships were already in the stream was transported from despair to delight when she succeeded in having her parcel taken off in the last launch which went out to the transports. One of the last soldiers to embark was a man who had special leave, enabling him to go aboard at midnight. The reason was that his daughter had died only a week previously, and he was offered the chance of remaining behind and sailing with the Third Echelon. He refused, and after remaining ashore with his bereaved wife as late as possible, sailed with the unit he had originally joined.