Good Friday
6th April 1917
Dear Mum,
We are getting near land at last. I expect this will be our last week-end on the water. Eight solid weeks on the water and in all not twelve hours leave to do what you like. Still it has been an interesting experience and one impossible at any other time, we will all be quite sorry to break up. We have been a most happy family and have had absolutely no interunital rows. This is most remarkable. At Claremont every unit was always trying to work points on every other one and officers wouldnt speak. Here we all get on wonderfully well, At my table ever since. we left we have had a good collection. An engineer officer, the rep W.A. representative from the far back part of West Aust. An artillery officer from Sydney and another from Townsville who has spent a several hours on Thursday Island, and one of our chaplains, Jonnie Walker from Ballarat and Mrs Walker his lawful, wedded wife. Every state except S.A. is represented. The padres are not much. Jonnie Walker is a very decent old man who tells very long uninteresting stories without any point and laughs so much that every else laughs & he thinks he has made a great joke. The C. of E. chaplain is a philosopher, and the YMCA man isnt much.
The C.O. hasnt been very well at times. He has malaria badly. He can rouse when things go wrong but he doesnt interfere much and has nothing to do. Capt. DaRavin knows uncle Eric very well indeed. He was in the 7th Battn. You neednt be worried about the ladies. They are seem to be specially chosen with a view of keeping the younger subs, on parade. I havnt seen much of any of them except Miss Paramore & very little of her.
I believe there were 200 women booked to start. It would have been awful with them and women should never be allowed on a boat with troops. Now there is only one boat of civilian passengers & the troops can have the rest which are only enough with the collapsable ones & rafts. But no one thinks seriously of submarines.
Everyone is supposed to wander round with liftbelts but it is the most difficult thing in the world to make the men keep them, they leave them about & lose them. We have a guard on watching. A lot of men with loaded rifles. The guard as usual are always seeing things that are not. There is always one of our officers on duty & a man in the crows nest.
I have slept on the boat deck since we first went into the tropics & will stay up there now. I tried to urge the men to sleep up there but now it is cold they just go down stairs. I wouldnt sleep down under the waterline for anything. We are in civilised latitudes again and the weather is quite cool especially at 4 in the morning. I always get up about 4.30 as that is the dangerous time, just at dawn & dark when we are show showing up against the sky yet couldnt see anything like a periscope. We are a most valuable convoy and one of the largest that has gone home for sometime.
Convoy life is very interesting. First you nearly run into the boat in front and then you drop back & the boat in the rear nearly runs into you. One of our big boats went off westward one morning & hasnt been seen since. It is generally believed she has gone to Convoy the American fleet. We get a few headlines of news each day but only the war on the western front. We have some hazy lines about America which gives us much to speculate about and we have heard nothing about the rume rumoured trouble with the Government in Australia. I expect there will be some letters for us in England. The one subject is leave. The December 7.A. didnt get an hour off for a month. I dont expect more than 4 days altogether before going to France. I am wondering what will happen to me myself. I would give anything to keep the unit together more or less. I havnt had much time to myself and I havnt written a single letter except to you. I havnt had time. A good deal of spare time goes preparing lectures. I have kept going pretty well & havnt nearly run out of material.
The poor sergeants were bankrupt six weeks ago. One thing you might tell anyone coming away they want to bring is plenty of money. I didnt think you wan would want any & left with £14 and have had two pays of £5 each only. But when it comes to £5 at this port & £5 at that for motors, dinners etc, and drinks on board, 9D (penny) a glass for lime juice & soda! And about six a day. Then biscuits, choclae choclates, it soon mounts up. I have still about £10 but I dont know how long that will have to last on shore & what expenses I will have to meet before we get our full ship’s pay.
There is absolutely nothing else that I havnt got. I am very glad of the Capo comforter (refers to a knitted wool cap worn by soldiers during WWI as an informal alternative to the standard service cap. It was a versatile item that could be worn as a short scarf or pulled over the head to act as a warm hat, especially in the cold trenches, and it was made from patterns circulated in military publications) & we had to wear one even in the tropics when sleeping on deck. I wish sometimes I had brought my bed, I as the deck is rather hard but it would have been a nuisance. I gave out that packet of magazines yesterday. I had kept them till everything else had absolutely given out and were very much appreciated. I My batman also said your cigarettes saved his life. I will have to pack my trunk again as to find anything needed looking and the three drawers provided have been all the time absolutely filled with papers.
I am just getting the disembarkion papers ready. As far as the sea has gone we have had a wonderful trip, it has been absolutely like oil all the way even in the Bight. I have learnt a good deal about work by having to get lectures ready & Col. Heritage (Lieutenant Colonel Francis Bede Heritage, Tasmanian) is a very good man to work under, he is always pulling you up on points of etiquette. I think last week end when I wrote I mentioned doing Court Martial work. I won my last case & got the man 30 days. I know that big Manual of Military Law inside out by now & all the rules of Law procedure & evidence etc. it was rather good practise especially as the three men were all defended by a full K.C. with junior Complete. Mr Mitchel of Sydney I dont know if you have heard of him, at present a full acting lance-corpl. in a Light Trench mortar battery (Corporal J Mitchell of the 6th Light Trench Mortar Battery [LTMB]).
I have enclosed the a full series of copies of our little paper the “Osteralia” which came out every the on Saturday mornings early, for the last six weeks and provided a good deal of amusement. I dont suppose you will understand all the allusions.
We got all the kits up today & tomorrow trow tr throw overboard all clothing etc not required
I believe we get a holiday on Monday as the old Pres. Padre so severely objected to Good Friday being a holiday that we got the other as well. He kicked up such a shindy at St Patrick’s day being a holiday that the Col. gave him the next Saturday & told him to call it St. Andrew’s day & went to the C. of E. padre & told him it was given as St Georges day. The old man padre is most foolishly narrow minded but not a bad sort really. I think I will censor this letter!
It was rather a pitty pity missing Easter in England.
I may write again tomorrow but after that don’t expect a little letter till you get one. These will be censored on board & posted on arrival. I dont know yet whether I can wire, anyway I will get one through somehow.
Goodbye,
Arndell
What do you think of this blue card. (I am yet to come across the blue card he was referring to – it may have been lost)
(written on board R.M.S. Osterley)
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