Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

M.C. Evans war diary, August 1914-29 October 1915
MLMSS 1576/Item 1

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A.M.C. Despatch Book  
Army book
August 1914 – March 1915

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[D.R. Times Decorps. and all stations Westward – table not transcribed]

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This book covering the first year of the war was written from memory during March & April 1918 for amusement
The diary proper, such as I kept it starts in the next book
M C Evans

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It was about 6 oclock in the evening of  scorching hot day   what had been a scorching hot day. The sun had gone down but the lingering glow in the west threw into sharp relief the Palm Trees & the sandy undulations of the Sinai Desert. Had one Had one looked closely into the velvety dusk one would have seen four figures stretched in weary attitudes on the ground around a diminutive fire. They were smoking dreamily well content to be lying still after their after their arid thirsty trek which had started with the daylight & only culminated  ended on arrival at the little palm grove in the
Sinai.
They had all four left their homes in 1914. Death & Disease had taken away many of the friends with whom they had so gaily set forth for but as

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yet, though tired & disillusioned, these four still plodded on down the path of war. Presently the Englishman took his pipe from his mouth & addressed the silent  taciturn Irishman.
"Are you on picket tonight Ulster? No thank God" grunted the Irishman ".Are you Long' un? he said looking at a tall lanky Australian. "Oh cut out the rough" replied the latter. "I was on three nights ago."
A further spell of silence ensued broken only by the staccato crackle of the fire & a subdued  an occasional subdued rattle of chains from the horselines, while the night came down darker & darker.
Presently the second Australian a small fellow with what is known as a "hard dial " remarked ruminatively I wonder where our next stint will be to? Oh Lord! groaned the Englishman

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here we have just hit this place after travelling riding over a sizzling wilderness four four days & here he is looking for more. I suppose you would like a scrap with the Turks too? Cut it out Lad, that way lies madness. " "D'you know" he resumed a moment later "That that man J. who has just come out on the desert reckons that we are all a bit mad. He told me so the other day; I was talking to him & he said ' All these fellows are a bit mad you know; you probably don't notice it but, I coming   to us just down from Cairo it is quite obvious. That is what he told me & what is more he believes it too.
Well replied the Irishhman I shouldn't be surprised, four years of this existence is enough to

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send any man off his rocker. "Oh that's all rot" broke in the Australian. It is only because we attack importance to trivialities & behave like children because there is nothing else to amuse us. We lose our sense of proportion a bit that's all" The argument waxed fast & furious neither side scoring much, when the Englishman, who had been listening with a smile, got up from the fire & opened his battered old haversack patched grotesquely at one corner with a piece of nosebag. He took out a flat object & unwrapping the  taking off the bit of dirty canvas in which it was wrapped, he produced an old notebook much thumbed & worn & presented it to the Australian, Well he said

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to prove how mad we all are let me present you with my DE HOMINIBUS ET REBUS GESTIS  The people & history DE HOMINIBUS ET REBUS GESTIS "Arma Virumque cano, Australine qui primus aboris Venit." For "Cano" I should write epistole but the metre is sufficiently damaged by Australine already so I will leave it as it is. Virum is, of course myself. I make no pretensions to literary fame in my simple record, for that is what it is, a simple record of an average individual plainly & I am afraid often very unattractively set forth.
Neither have I attempted to keep to

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any particular style but have written in whatever mood I happen to have been just how things strike me at that particular time.
Everything has been set down primarily for my own personal perusal in after years and thus I have not attempted to gloss over that which is unprintable, but only have I omitted descriptions which offend my own aesthetic sense and those incidents the memory of which were better forgotten by me. And this is by way of warning to anyone who may commence to read this, to be sure that I myself, have censored the main contents before they dip into it. - :3:18

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The scene opens at the breakfast table at Cutterabah, Kyogle N.S.W. one morning in late July, where I was but languidly interested to hear that another war had started in the Balkans.
I had never interested myself in international politics & so took another helping of eggs & bacon without a thought to the monstrous possibilities that a war between Austria & Serbia opened up.
A few days later without taking much notice of the papers I left home for the H.H.C. saying farewell to my family, little thinking that it would be over four years before I would see them again.
I took two days on the journey down to Sydney during which many things happened Russia, Germany & France went to war & finally just as I reached the H.H.C. big headlines

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in the papers announced the Great Britain had taken up the gage.
For a while I dallied with the Idea of going to the war & finally the desire to see new things & to experience new sensations which the voyage to Australia had aroused decided me to go with the First Contingent.
I knew nobody to help me into the Light Horse but I was determined if possible to get into a mounted Unit, for my three years in the O.T.C. at Aldenham had taught me to avoid the infantry if possible. Thus it was when I heard that Dr. Helsham was going as Major in the 1st Light Horse Field Amb. I joined that unit & on or about the 22nd August I found myself a duly attested member of the that Unit in Camp at Queens Park.

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I got hold of quite a decent little bay pony whom I named Timothy and I kept him until we went to the Dardanelles in the May of the following year. Our sojourn at Queens Park was short and finally on September 22rd we embarked on the "Southern" & proceeded to Melbourne only to find on our arrival there that our embarkation orders had been cancelled & we had to wait three weeks at Melbourne. We went out to Broadmeadows camp & spent a pretty miserable three weeks before we reembarked early on the morning of Sunday 18th Oct.
Then commenced a period of extremely hard work, we had 287 horses on board & not quite 100 men to work them.
There was a 24 hour picket every third

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day so it was by no means a picnic. In the tropics the mode was just a pair of boots & a length of sacking around the loins.
We touched at Colombo to coal Aden, & Suez & Port Said & finally disembarked at Alexandria on Dec 12th 1914 at about 5 pm & started to entrain for Cairo.
We must have started to put the horses in at about 6 oclock just as it was getting dark & from then until nearly 1 in the morning we worked solidly trying to force or entice them up the steep ramp, for there was no platform, into the trucks.
It was a picturesque scene – a long train standing in a sort of half street half yard place, on one side lay the quay & the harbour with all the boats , on the other lay the lights of Alexandria. Beside the train were a restless mob of

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of some 200 horses, here & there, a big oil flare flickered & hissed showing up a heterogenous mass of men standing  crowded around a ramp with a blindfolded horse in the middle rearing & plunging. Timothy, my beast, was one of the worst & and I had three tries to attempts to get him in & finally had to leave him until last, when after a great struggle we managed to get him in.
At 5 am or thereabouts we reached Cairo & from there to Ma'adi a good eight miles we had to walk & lead our horses.
Having made camp at Ma'adi a delightful little spot, there ensued a period of training which.   The next event, of any importance was the Accesion of the Sultan about the 20th December, on which occasion we did an extremely tiring march

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past through the streets of Cairo. On Xmas night 1914 we Yates  Yeats T. Rutherford, Threlfall, Stanger Lealties, & Torrens & of course myself, went up to the café Au bord du Nil & had a very excellent Xmas dinner there & generally made as merry as possible. On my birthday I also gave a jovial little dinner at the same place. It was quite a good place, the cooking was good, the drinks were good, & the situation was excellent. It was right on the bank of the Nile & gave one a most perfect view of the pyramids & palms silhouetted against some of the most gorgeous Sunsets I have ever seen in my life & just at ones feet lay the river dotted with Dahabiyas with their picturesque high triangular sails, leisurely gliding up & down.
On Jan 27th we shifted camp to

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Heliopolis, where we trained assiduously for about three arduous months having two brigade days & one Divisional field day every week. About the  
About the beginning of April all the infantry marched away for the Dardanelles & we – poor fools – started to eat out hearts out because we had not gone with them.
Then Early in May came the sudden orders that we were to leave our horses behind & follow the Infantry onto the Peninsula. So on May 9th at midnight behold us marching cheerfully but with very sore feet – into Cairo & entraining. Alexandria we reached early in the morning & that day we embarked on board H.M.T. Kingstonian, taking all our Transport waggons & horses with us mark you. We reached Lemnos after a delightful day or two amongst the Aegean

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Isles. imagine a harbour like  with twists & undulations like Sydney harbour only larger & an opening 10 times as large & and surrounded by sloping grassy pasturage.
Here we waited inside the torpedoe booms for a day or so & then proceeded to Cape Helles arriving there at about 6 pm where we had a splendid view of the first big bombardment we had ever seen.
Next day we steamed up to Anzac & waited - apparently aimlessly again.
Here we were doomed to disappointment for instead of landing, for which at that time our young, eager, and unsophisticated souls yearned – all dismounted personnel got orders to embark on board the S.S. Galeka for transporting wounded.
She was a mere troopship, entirely

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unfitted for carrying wounded but neverless we had to take some 900 on board & with them proceeded to Alexandria.
Here we got rid of the wounded & then spent a very pleasant week in Alexandria  harbour with nothing to do all day but go into Alexandria.
Here the fellows money soon ran out & many & varied were the 'stunts' to pay the native cabbies. For a while they would take a tin of Bully Beef in lieu of payment but they soon tired of that. One fellows got free rides for about a week on the same bad WPt piece, which the cabby would return in disgust; where upon he would explain that it was that or nothing, Finally even he met his waterloo in a cabby who was either less sophisticated or more

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careful for the Public good & who accepted the bad coin to his great chagrin.
Finally we embarked on H.M.T. Itonus, on which through a hatchway around which our quarters were, they were loading steel rails. I spent most of the night in Alex. with another fellow not returning until the loading was finished & sleep, possible. Just about half an hour before sailing A Section was taken off the boat & we spent a day or too on the quay.
Here one night I was guard on our stores & made a supper off beer & tined salmon clothed in my shirt – a queer situation.
Finally we embarked on the H.M.T. Canada – a fine 'boat', went to Lemnos, picked up a load there & then to Malta where we remained

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a week, doing nothing but amusing ourselves in Malta, which is a very poor place for the Private soldier. Here I saw at the Malta Opera House "The Geisha Girls" acted in Maltese. The Maltese women are the pale black eyesdtype like those of the spaniard but do not give much and they have not the same voluptuous effect about them. They wear a rather quaint big black mantilla affair which is worn in woru mourning for the rapine that ensued after Napoleons conquest in 1815 – which they swore to wear for a century in remembrance – or so the story runs. Valetta, the capital, is a very pretty place from the sea. Just like the scene on a stage

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the houses rise up tier upon tier interspersed with green foliage & some tropical trees.
The streets are narrow & precipitous in most cases being paved with stone blocks & the footpaths graduated in shallow steps so that it is surprising with what little fatigue one can get about. In the Strada Reale the principal street, it is amazing for the size of the place how many really fine looking European women one sees – the majority being French. Finally we were squeezed about  aboard the "Massilia" a detail trooper & taken to Alex. – two days there, & then to Lemnos again. Here we were again subdivided & with about 15 others I found myself dumped on the shore at East Mudros, for duty on board a mine sweeper plying

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between Anzac & Lemnos.
The minesweeper never arrived & we stayed at Lemnos until august 4th.
We landed about July 1st then ensued a period of terrible inactivity, nothing to do, nothing to read.
To start with I got a touch of Dysentry & ran a temp & was pretty miserable for about a week but got over it.
I also had a terrible bout of what I thought was fleas but could not catch any. Finally I found one morning an insect, genus unknown to me, in my short, "Oh" I exclaimed in triumph "this is what has been biting me" & showed it to another chap "Why" he said "you are Lousy" I nearly took a fit & incidentally burnt a perfectly

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good shirt. That was my first introduction to the engaging little insect whom I was to know intimately, on the Peninsular.
Finally having lost 30/- at poker & thus having conceived a temporary dislike for the game I became cook to the little camp of 16 men and gave them – though I says it who shouldn't – some quite decent meals.
On August 3rd we got orders to go onto Anzac & accordingly embarked on board the SS Abbassia for the short journey across.
We arrived off Anzac at about 1 oclock in the morning of a very dark night - & got on shore about two am, only to find that the rest of the Unit who were coming on another boat had not yet arrived.

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An obliging Officer guided us up the gulley a little bit close to where the 4th Amb Dressing station was & there left us. We proceeded to get to bed. It was pitch dark & one of our chaps found an excellent place as he thought & proceeded to lay out his bed of what turned out to be Col Beeton's dugout roof. All sorts of menacing sounds soon proceeded from underneath him & he fled incontenently
In the morning we were awoken by a man from the Unit sent to look after us & then proceeded to the right  left & finally after much sweating & swearing brought ourselves & our gear to Walkers Ridge. Here we abode 3 days undergoing our baptism for

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the Turks could (and did) shell it from Gaba Tepe way.
Finally on the Evening of the 6th August after being fitted out with two white Brassards & a big white patch on our backs for artillery direction, we set off about dusk along the "Long Sap" which stretches (or used to) from Walkers Ridge to No 3 outpost.
Opposite No 3 outpost we lay down in marching order & slept, or tried to for it was bitterly cold & mules transporting water & ammunition
contu  were passing close to us in one continual stream.
Eventually at dawn just before dawn I was awoken by the most stupendous bombardment which I had then heard.
Three Battleships were firing

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straight over our heads & the whistle & drone of the big shells was almost continuous.
It was our first experience of heavy stuff & we sat there shivering in the cold dawn pretending we liked it. I know it was like a monstrous nightmare to me, but at the same time I would not have missed the experience for the world, even at the time.
Soon after dawn we got orders to proceed up, & clear from, Chailak Dere all wounded. We went up, at first quite boldly walking all over the gulley. The strays were falling very thickly but at that time we had not learnt caution or respect & treated them with contempt. After one fellow had obviously been sniped at

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all the time that he had walked across the Gulley; we began to think a bit & then afterwards kept to the sunken creek bed in the middle.
And now began what I always count as the hardest work that I ever did in all my life and also the most dangerous.
For nearly a week we staggered down that half mile of creek bed in a temp of about 100 carrying men & sniped bullets literally lobbying all around from snipers & strays. We drank water by the bucketful when we could get it – almost the colour of coffee from being stored in tins & getting rusty.
On the Eight of August at about midday the Turks spotted some reinforcements coming

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up the Gulley & for about an hour they shelled the bottom end of that gulley with shrapnel at 5 second interval. I ran all through it myself like the young fool I was at the time & by the especial grace of Providence, or "beginners luck" was never touched, but Threlfall was killed. Jimmy McGowan was fatally wounded,Stanger Leathes was wounded & also Grey. A great number of the Reinforcements were killed. RIR boys, & the place for about 40 yds was converted into a shambles. Those men were not buried for some 5 or 6 days & in that climate after that time the only way one could lift them is on a blanket for otherwise they will

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come to pieces. Threlfall himself we could not bury for four days as a sniper was covering the only available ground.
For the rest they remained; we had too much to do with the living to attend to other people's dead & meanwhile at night we used to walk on them.
Meanwhile For two days no boats had arrived to take off the wounded from the beach at the bottom of the gulley. The result being that there was a square acre of men lying wounded at the beach & stretcherful 4 abreast for a quarter of a mile up the sap.
We were short of stretchers too and as it was useless returning without an empty stretcher, we had to look around for

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[Layout of battlefield]
a dead man & take him off his stretcher. In some cases one had to wait until one died!. And the sights & sounds of that place were pitiful. As one passed they would all beg for some impossible thing – they were in the open; a mark for every shell & stray bullet some sensible but the majority in merciful delirium. It was a sight that can never be forgotten.
It was real hard work, that week, at times I was so weary that I did not care if I was shot, and I was convinced that I should be sooner or later.
We had no blankets and it was bitterly cold at night for three nights there my only bedclothes

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consisted of a solitary little sandbag with which I used to bridge the gulf between my shorts and my puttees.
We remained at Chailak Dere until about the 15th August when we were divided & one half including myself went over to Quin's Post & established ourselves in Canterbury Rest gulley which is a continuation of Shrapnel gulley & on the immediate right of Anzac.
Here we had a fairly safe & fairly restful time until I contracted Dysentry & had to give into it. I stayed on for a fortnight but finally had to go away as I started running a temp of 103 every evening. Thus on the morning of Sept

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5th I found myself on a minesweeper off Anzac, as it turned out, never to return.
I got to Imbros & stayed there three days living on thin milk & boarded the Hospital ship "Assaye" & thence to Alexandria via Lemnos. Here I was put on board the train & finally came to rest in the Sporting Club at Heliopolis & there got rid of my clothes which were literally crawling with vermin for there has been several nurses on board the boat & I could not strip & louse myself daily to keep the numbers down as heretofore.
I reached Hospital on Sept 11th & stayed until Oct 29th when I was discharged to Details.

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I was not fond of Details & so "worked my head" & got myself sent over to the Transport of my unit which was at the time encamped at Heliopolis & there, no reinforcements being sent to the Dardanelles in view of the Evacuation, I stayed until The crowd returned from  after the Evacuation.
Now of the Unit who had  there was a bare half left, I was offered the job of Corporal in the office but as soon as we got more light horses I threw it up prefering to have a horse to ride.
Out of these horses I got a chestnut with a hard mouth, & him I kept & rode for nearly three years and he never failed me once.
The next episode worthy of note was Xmas night when Tommy Rutherford

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and I bathed clothed and in an amiable frame of mind dined at Shepheards; whe  we had an excellent dinner washed down with a bottle of St Julienne, a bottle of George Goulet '06 with Liqueurs to follow.
Afterwards we proceeded by easy stages to the Moorish Hall where everyone was dining. Here I spotted an acquaintance by name Mrs Curtis with whom I danced & she very kindly asked me to dinner there on New Years Day.
I duly turned up on New Years day & had an excellent time dancing & drank more champagne than ever before, on each occasion hitting camp about 4 in the morning.
On Jan 11th 1916 the whole camp moved to Wardan a camp on the

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Sahara about 50 miles north of Cairo, and a cautionary measure against the Senussi
Had not been here more than a few days when a small detachment of 12 men of which I was one went out with the 3rd Reg to Wadi Natron. From a station about 5 miles from Wardan there ran a 3 foot gauge line 45 miles out to the Wadi in which there were salt Lakes & a factory, from here there ran a two foot gauge up to the head of the biggest lake where we were camped.
Here we remained until Feb 12th when we moved six miles further out to a camp named El Ga'ar.
Here we stayed in misery until March 3rd our rations were

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short, our literature was usually nonexistent, of canteens there were none.
On March the 3rd we trekked back to the big gauge railway & there entrained for MINIA in Upper Egypt, where I commenced to keep a diary proper.
April 9th 1918  

[Transcribed by Lynne Frizell, Linda McGee, Judy Macfarlan for the State Library of New South Wales]