MID-DAY SIESTA

Camp News, Volume 1, Issue 26, 7 June 1940, Page 6

MID-DAY SIESTA

N.Z. TROOPS IN EGYPT Summertime Relaxation MOSQUITO NETS ISSUED ' f (N.Z.E.F., Special Service.) EGYPT, May 5. Following the summer custom of English troops stationed in Egypt, the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force has now adopted a new routine which provides for relaxation in the warmest part of the day. Reveille, at half-past five in the morning, is half an hour earlier than previously. -Tea and biscuits a snack which the Army knows as “gunfire” —are provided immediately and training begins at six o’clock. or shortly afterwards, continuing until eight, when breakfast is served.

Training is resumed at nine o’clock and is carried on until midday. After lunch there is an hour’s complete and compulsory rest, and the remainder of the afternoon is free for sports or relaxation. There is a further hour of training immediately before tea, however, and “Lights Out” is sounded half an hour earlier. Late leave is being granted only on Friday and Saturday nights, instead of all through the week as has been the practice in the 7 past, in view of the importance of the troops obtaining as much undisturbed rest as possible.

The new routine varies slightly in the different units, but basically it is universal throughout the camp. It may be relaxed if cool temperatures so allow, and may also be adjusted to suit the requirements of out-of-camp exercises. On Sundays the force continues its practice of luxuriously “lying in”- until seven o’clock in the morning.

Although still a novelty, the routine has been accepted enthusiastically by the men. After the temperate climate of New Zealand, early afternoons in Egypt are uncomfortably hot for training, and the comparative cool of the mornings is far more pleasant for the heaviest part of the day’s work.

Discomfort from the heat has been minimised in another direction by the adoption of hot-weather kit for both training and leave hours. Each man has been issued with three light, halfsleeved khaki shorts, two pairs of drill shorts, hose tops, puttees and light underwear. The combination of shirt and shorts is the universal dress tor wear about the camp, while in leave periods the drill jacket and waist belt replace the open shirt.

Still another innovation is the issue to all ranks of voluminous mosquito nets, which can be suspended from cords stretched across the tent ceilings, completely enclosing the beds. It is in warding off flies that the netting is proving most useful at the moment, and the early afternoon siesta sees tents practically filled with the white, billowing drapery.