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After their embarkation in the Eastern States, the Australian forces arrived at Albany in the last days of October in 28 troopships. Their arrival had taken place at dawn, and they had had to steam to their anchorage through a heavy mist, which lifted now and then, showing their fellow transports and the hills which surround this magnificent haven. When the mist lifted, the scene became
superb in its vastness. Few harbours can boast the advantages possessed by King George's Sound. It seemed to the beholders capable of containing the whole of the combined British and French Navies.
The grandeur of the surroundings formed an impressive setting for the marvel of human organisation and efficiency represented by the combined
ships. A171 present realised that the occasion was historic and fraught with the most tremendous issues with which Australia had ever been confronted. The
feeling of concentrated fervour and excitement became intense as the
"Orvieto", the flagship of the transports, passed on her way down a long double line of ships, greeted on both sides by the men of the Fleet.
Meanwhile, other liners were gliding into anchorage. To these were shortly added certain "strange grey ships flying the Union Jack" (Melbourne "Age," Nov. 2oth), which came silently into harbour, escorted by men of war, and joined the Australian lines. There was nothing to show at first whence these came, east, west or north : but the mystery was soon dispelled : for it was realised that the New Zealanders had come to join their Australian brothers in war.
On November ist, 1914, the great ships steamed out of Albany Harbour, some forty strong, in three long, stringing lines. It was before dawn, and mist
was on the hills and the water. Before the troopships sped the great warships. The vast Fleet comprised some 30,000 men, destined to travel over 4000 leagues of ocean, yet ignorant, save for very few exceptions, as to whither
they were speeding.
They numbered the finest manhood of the two great Southern Dominions, and each of them was ready to fight for the Empire in whatever part of the World the Mother Country should decide.
The greater part of the voyage was uneventful. The wind was fair and the sea calm, the ships averaging a good ten knots an hour throughout the trip. Three days out, the Fleet
was joined by the ships bearing the Western Australian Contingent.
Life or, a transport differs in certain notable respects from life in the first-class of a P. and 0. liner. Instead of deck quoits and deck chairs, there is the daily march round the decks for nearly four hours, the men being barefooted and bareheaded, with trousers rolled up to the knee and shirts open at the neck. This exercise, which included drill, took place between 9 and
11.30 and for one hour in the afternoon. In addition to this, there were the usual guard and routine duties, and, besides, special courses of physical drill and Jiu Jitsu.
Men were exercised in signalling and the handling of the rifle, and there was
regular musketry practice, consisting of ordinary firing and snap shooting at small targets.
Nothing was left undone that might keep the men fit and prepare them for the ordeal awaiting them. At
7.30 all lights were extinguished, and the troops undressed in the dark. "The only navigation light was a slight beam thrown over our stern for the guidance of the following ship.
" - (Melbourne "Age," Dec. 7th.)
Day after day the transports steamed forward without hindrance. On arriving at the entrance to the Red Sea the troops saw their first actual evidence of
warfare. On November 16th, the Turkish forts which command the entrance to the Red Sea had
been bombarded by the British warships, and subsequently occupied by Indian troops. Looking over to the Nubian side of the Straits of Babel Mandeb, the troops could see these battered strongholds. It was a sight to inspire confidence, and that confidence was
increased by the appearance of the British shore batteries, and the Indian
and Territorial troops by which the banks of the Canal were guarded.
All along the water-way, military
camps could be seen, and beyond these a great desert. The soldiers knew they were now on the fringe of the War, and
they realised this all the more clearly when they were informed that the
Turks had prepared a gun for the express purpose of sinking the transports but that this had been destroyed by troops from Aden. The
Australians now had sight for the first time of the Indian troops by whose side
they were destined to wage such memorable warfare.
By this time, too, they realised that Egypt was their immediate destination, and that they were to
be preserved from being flung, into the mud and sleet of Salisbury Plain
immediately after a journey through the tropics. To take a force of Australasians from their own
sunny climate and send them through the Bay of Biscay on into an English winter, must
inevitably have meant a large death-list.
This would be avoided by landing the men in Egypt, and the
Egyptian winter would, moreover, admit of continuous training, whereas in England at this season there must have been several days in each week
during which full instruction would have been impossible. The troops at this period regarded the training as being merely
preparatory to their being sent to France, the theatre of war, in which they
most eagerly desired to serve : and there was therefore no disappointment
when they were given to understand that there would be a temporary halt in their progress till they should be fit for active warfare.
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