April
April 1st to 17th
We arrived at Alexandria on April 1st. The harbour is very fine, about three miles wide, and protected from the open sea by a boom. The docks are very extensive, and, just now, are of course seething with industry. All the transports have arrived safely. The harbour itself is full of shipping, and anchored in a long row I am delighted to see a number of German liners which have been either captured on the high seas or captured in port at the beginning of hostilities and interned. All the Division disembarks and goes to four camps on the outskirts of the town. My destination was bare desert, and reminded me irresistibly of the wilderness as mentioned in the Bible. There was a salt-water lake near by, with a big salt-works quite near it.
In the centre of Alexandria is a fine square flanked by splendid up-to-date hotels and picturesque boulevards; but the native quarter is most depressing, consisting of mud hovels sheltering grimy women and still grimier children. The huts themselves are without windows and only partially roofed. Flies abound upon the filthy interstices; a noxious smell of cooking, tainted with the scent of onions, greets the nose of the passer-by at all hours. I find my work at the docks rather arduous, as, after the troops have disembarked, we have to take stock of what supplies remain on board, and then make up all shortages. I sleep and have my meals on a different ship almost every day—which is interesting. About the fifth of the month the troops return to re-embark—I have to work very hard on the ships with gangs of Arabs. These folk are just like children, and have to be treated as such—watched and urged on every moment; if one leaves them to themselves for an instant they start jabbering like a lot of monkeys. I finally find myself on a fine Red Star boat, the S.S. Southland.
There are a lot of our Staff on board—also French Staff, including General D’Amade, the French G.O.C., who did such good work in France in the retreat. He is a distinguished-looking old man with white hair, moustache, and imperial. I hear that Way and myself are to be the first Supply Officers ashore at the landing. Half the A.S.C. have been left behind in Alexandria, and there are only five of my people with me.