COLONIAL TROOPS IN EGYPT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16288, 22 January 1915, Page 6

COLONIAL TROOPS IN EGYPT

THE MARCH TO THE PYRAMIDS. The correspondent of the Age, writing from Cairo on December 5, describes lite march of the Victorian Battalion to tho encampment in the shadow of the Pyramids. He -writes: — In a city where the arrival and departure of troops has been going on for months past the arrival of more khaki troops (thev might have come from any corner of the British Empire so far as the star.ng Arab knew or comprehended, and their di nurture caused little stir. Even the band and the bugles roused little more than passing interest. It was a deserted pari of the town, but what Arabs there were watcJied the troops; the mounted officers rode past at a trot. Willi a guide to point the way the battalion wound its way out ol the station. I't seemed curious from the first to be marching on what would have been in Melbourne on the wrong side of tho road (the right) and the inclination was always to swerve on to the wrong side of the road. Oceosionally a motor car swept past at a furious pe.ee, tooting and sending the Arabs scrambling out of its track. There was a surprise for the battalion when the Kahar-il-Nil military barracks were reached, for the Territorial regiment that is stationed there had turned out, and they lined the walls and clustered round the gates, and cheered and cheered again for the Australians. It was a wonderful reception, and put the troops in splendid spirits. The bands kept the meii's spirits up, if the thousands of .novel sights were not sufficient to make them forget the distance. It was just as if ft limelight had been shed over the city, for the moon was high in the heavens. The spires and minarets and towers and domes lost all their harshness a,i the shadows hung round them. The Nile was like a vast lake. Reflections of the date palms and great spreading trees similar to our sheoak. the terraces of houses built near the water's edge, and tho tall masts and sails of the dhows shone in its surface like reflections .in polished Striol. The troops passed along the road, over two bridges, more than half a mile long, that spanned the Nile, and out on to a long highway that fitreached away into tho filmy distance, covered in completely with the giant lebbalk trees that met overhead. Electric tram cars parsed up and down along one side.

It was the road that led to the Pyramids —the great Pyramids of Egypt. The troops, tired as they were, questioned one another, if they were not asleep altogether. Would tho road never end? They had long exhausted their list of popular ail's, with their improvised choruses, and had for a second time sung "Who Will Come Fighting the Kaiser With Me," and " It's a Loner, Long Way to Tipperary." They had asked again and again if they wore downhearted, and always the answer was " No." so there seemed to be no reason to susncct they were. They nevertheless were very tired when the word passed along (hat the Pyramids were just ahead. I can hear tho whisper that went down the lince. as each man strove to see through the trees the great masses of stones. One saw them loom out, of the haze that was like a veil of mist rising from the desert, and saw them refleeted in the ir.arshv water that lay just on either side of the road. At first one was inclined to rather accept them, and dismiss them in a glance. There were many taller buildings. But from that moment the eyes of all looked up to them as gradually through th-> branches of the trees One caught, glimpses of their regular sides. One grew fascinated with them as one np. proached nearer to their base. Another half hour and the end of the electric line had been rear-hod. where there were tram cars already that had brought out. the baggage from the station. Past a great spreading building, along a newly-marie road. still in the process of-formation, and round the. foot of some bare hills, the battalion marohed. and came on their first real view of the desert. It was a vast bas'n in between two ridges of hills, that were '.iiirelv 300 ft high, and probablx three miles apart. It undulated away and away, sand rise following sand rise until one imagined ono was looking up tho valley of an old.

verv broad river bed. At isolated points in "the shadow of the ridge were half a dozen tents, mere specks they looked in the desert, but they were nevertheless the camp. They were more than a mile away yet, and the road was made fftr only half that distance into the desert.

At the terminus of the line the advance company o-f the Fifth had greeted their weary comrades. They came to guide thorn to their lines. But first the baggage that had come had to be loaded into the low lorries and mule carts that served as the improvised transport, and the mules and camels had to be urged on with fearful threats by the Arabs. They went complainingly and .slowly. The battalion moved on again, dragging its weary length over the new road that led out into the middle of the desert. Great masses of stores lay piled up by the side of a halflaid tram iine; baggage and materials of ;ill descriptions were cast on the glistening sand. The melancholy wail of ducks camo iiom the swamps that lay now half a mile on tiie right hand side of tne road. This road, this blessed road ! To step off it meant to sink over one's ankles in the loose sand. In itself it was as smooth any any pavement in a modern city. It turned sharply to the south-west and ran along for Half a mile parallel to the hills, above which the twin Pyramids snowed their regular, triangular ehiipc.s—the placid monitors, ione thuuglit at that moment, of the desert. For a hundred yards now the road had become more rough and more white. It grew broken, and a steam roller lay inertly in the way. Great quantities of baggage were half buried in the sand.

The road hut) ended abruptly. Ahead were the white pegs and neat piles of stones tit lining where tho road would be continued in the morning. There was nothing now but fo plod for tho next 500 yards through the deep sand. Here, then, was the discipline and training of the troops. The battalion was the pioneer battalion of the brigade, and '.veil do they deserve the kudos for this first entry to their camp. Four tents were pitched in the sand near a distant pile of stones. That was the head of the lines. 'j*ne other tnd was where a pile of stores were grouped round a dull glow which was a fire. In between were the Tines for the battalion. So, in tho dead of night - it was after 2 o'clock in the morning—the Fifth gradually hauled and pulled their kits across the half-mile of desert into their place. They cursed and whacked the mules till they went forward with the loaded lorries that stuck every 10 yards, and had to b.; lifted out by scores of men, until the b-itf:ilion came to the lines, when all the baggage had to be taken off again. The troops dropped in their tracks, and wound blankets round themselves, and in the shadow of tho Pyramids they slept their first night on the sands of the desert, white the cool wir.ds blew over their faces and chilled their hands.