MIDDLE EAST

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 77, 27 September 1941, Page 8

MIDDLE EAST

NEW HANDS AND OLD

N.Z.E.F. REINFORCEMENTS

MUCH TO LEARN

(N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.)

CAIRO, September 2. The arrival of reinforcement drafts in Middle East military camps is always a source of interest to soldiers already stationed there, as well as a day of excitement for the new arrivals. From the old soldier's point of view the sight of New Zealand faces is a new link with home, and there is always the chance that he will see a face he knows. These men may

have left the Dominion only a few

weeks ago-'-they will have little tit-bits of news, made interesting

by the personal atmosphere,

The old hands, even if they arrived as recently as thft previous draft, may be pardoned a slight feeling of superiority. Already they laugh at the heat and sand and flies and other troubles which the newcomers are about .to sample. The actual arrival scenes at base camps are confined to groups of soldiers watching the reinforcements march past. There may be an occasional "Hello, Jack" or "What the ■ are you doing here, Bill?" but the .reunions and gay scenes take place in the evening in E.F.I. canteens or the V.M.C.A. huts.

EXCHANGE OF NEWS

The old and the new mingle. The latest arrivals answer numberless questions about New Zealand and how it looked when they left, while in turn they receive instruction in the manipulation of 100 piastres per week in Egypt, or listen to tales of how hot it was last month or last year.

There is much to be learned by soldiers newly arrived in the Middle East, even though they are by no means raw recruits. The first and paramount lesson is that of looking after one's own health. At first the soldier is amazed by the number and range of diseases to which white men are subject in a climate such as that of Egypt, but he soon finds that the Army is very jealous of the health of its men and that sickness is kept remarkably low by the observance of elementary precautions. Within the first day or two of their arrival reinforcements receive a lecture on health from the medical authorities. This is followed by a lecture on conduct in a strange country, a dental inspection, and an equipmem inspection. And then the business of training begins all over again.

CURRENCY PROBLEMS

The new coinage is puzzling, or, rather, deceptive, for a time. A hundred piastres seems to be a lot of money, but it is not long before they learn to watch every half-piastre carefully. Conditions in a desert camp are trying for a start, particularly if it happens to be summer time, but it is not long before a soldier's adaptability asserts itself and smalt trials and troubles assume less importance. Older soldiers are always on hand with good advice on how to keep cool \vhen it is over a hundred in the shade, or the best method of combating bed bugs. Route marching assumes large importance until men become physically fit and toughened to the sand, and then it is weapon training to enable them to take their "place alongside earlier comrades in fighting battalions.'

First leave is a big occasion. Ii is usually taken in Cairo, and the New Zealander has his first experience of native street hawkers and Eastern cabarets and meets soldiers from many parts of the Empire. There are tourist attractions to be seen and presents and souvenirs to be sent home, so that it is not for weeks or months that Cairo begins to bore the New Zealander. Perhaps by that time more reinforcements are arriving and he can assume the "old soldier" air as he watches them march in to their desert camp.