WITH OUR TROOPS IN EGYPT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2390, 20 February 1915, Page 8

WITH OUR TROOPS IN EGYPT

ACTIVE SERVICE CONDITIONS. :: The following extract is made from an infantry private's letter, written from Zeitoun, Cairo, oil. Now Year's ■Eve:— • v

"About 3 p.m.—A gloriously hot day without a cloud. LooKing out over tho hot, 'noisy camp from my--writing-desk: —a hard-packed, sea-kit —I can see little- squads- of. mon kicking. up ; the dustou th(f sandy parade; ground, and " can hear the blare of half-a-dozen bands practising. Above tho camp are great flocks of hu<*e\ floating lazily along or. volplaning swiftly ttr earth, always alert for any refuse in the long' tent lines. You may. be surprised that I am writing;to-day, and at this hour; but tho fact is that this company is rot on parade at all to-day, because of a big day's work yesterday. - We were paraded for review from 7 a.m. till 10.30 a.m., for route march from noon till 4.30 p.m., and again at 10.30 p.m.'for outpost duty, from .which we returned at,dawn. I must tell you about the outpost duty. Wo wero a company about 200 strong, wearing big. thick overcoats and muffled to tho ears/in sleeping-caps, with rifles slung across our backs, aud great) square bags—a new addition to our equipment —slung where the overcoats, usually hang. We were under orders to be absolutely silent, and oven the "fall in." was whispered to us. Marching four abreast in tho moonlight, with their overcoats and equipment -to add to .their size,: the men looked huge, And the silent tents and smooth (?) desert lay as white as though under a mantle of snow. Not a sound was heard but the steady beat of our marchinp; feet. The night was oloud•less and quite windless, fortunately; but wo felt the cold keenly for all that. Three miles out we halted, arid—oh, yea, T forgot to mention that evory second man carriod a pick or a shovel —then' wo commenced digging a tronch. In about an 'hour's time, when tho trench was 120 yards long by 4ft. wide and. 3ft. deep, we resumed our packs and • "overcoats, and lay down in the trench with an oil sheet under us, and 'a blanket oil *-op. <)ur rifles were piled m threes at our feet, and' a' watch, to bo reliovod every half hour, was placed on the. look-out. ' . This i'b regular work for actual warfare. Each night in camp outposts are posted north,. south, cast,. and west, and usually consist of about a fourth of tho camp's strength. In this way n complete ring is thrown around the sleeping camp. ,