Letters from Troopship “Tahiti”

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume 4, 27 August 1915, Page 2

Letters from Troopship “Tahiti”

The following are extracts from two most interesting letters from Mr Bert Husband, step-son of Mr J. Wesley of this Town, who is with the Fifth Reinforcement. The first is written from Colombo and the second from Bombay. N. Z. Expeditionary Force. Company sth Reinforcements, Troopship 'Tahiti” at Sea, Dear Mother and Father and all, We arrived at Colombo on Monday morning. We were told the day before that we would all get leave, so by breakfast time v e were all dressed up ready to go ashore but things were not as we expected to find them and leave was cancelled excepting for a few Officers and Non. Corns., and the next we heard was that we had to sail at five, so I had to get busy on the mail which was intended to be closed on the Tuesday before our plans were altered. All the ships anchor out in the harbour here and we were a good way from the wharf and were loading coal nearly all day. We were only in ten or eleven hours. The little I saw of the shore is lovely. Palms and other trees and flowers all over the show. The Post Office is a decent show, full of the natives of these parts. The chief mail clerk is a darky but talks very good English. There appears to be a bit of trouble in India with the natives and the whole show is under martial law. Anyone doing anything out of place would be shot on the spot. There are native soldiers on sentry go in the streets in Colombo. There were scores of natives round the boat, and all over it, selling bananas, pineapples and cocoa-nuts, wanting a bob each; but generally coming down to sixpence and sometimes threepence each, while they are worth about three pence or less a dozen ashore. The bananas were a bit more reasonable half a crown or three shillings a bunch. They were also selling their coins as curios, wanting and getting about ten times their value. Some had brooches, rings and small stones which they wanted a pound for and some of them got several shillings for them but when they got hunted off the boat they let them go for a couple of shillings. It is the same if yoa use one of their boats or anything at. all. They tried to charge me two shillings to go over to the Aparima with a paiket of letters ; but I only gave them a shilling and they were well satisfied. They are hot stuff on loading coal. It is all on big lighters in sacks and they th.ow it up on board till their little bodies just stream with sweat. It is hard to see a white man ashore. I only saw three or four; but I was only there a few minutes. We are now on our way to Bombay, India, and I don’t know what we will do then. 1 only hope we don’t get pushed into Garrison duty there. The Aparima sailed a while before we did for Madras so the three troopships that left together, are now separated. Perhaps we may all come together at the base sooner or iater. This is Wednesday morning and breakfast nearly ready. 1 am an early riser lately of necessity, as the decks are hosed down by six o’clock. It will be my birthday on Sunday so I will just think of you all and dook myself many happy returns of the day. I hope you are all in the best of health as this leaves me and that the farm is getting on O.K. “ ’Ow’.s straw—berr’ys new calf?’’

H.M., N.Z. and No 25, Sunday 18tU July 1915, Bombay. India. Dear Mother and Father and all. Who would have thought on my last birthday that 1 would ho writing to you from Bombay on this one. We arrived here on Friday morning after an uneventful trip from Colombo. We went into dock early in the afternoon and Hio horses were unshipped* Wo got leave from fiv. till nine o’clock. The docks are largo enough for several ships to berth in. They are put in at high tide and the gates' are shut to keep the water in when the tide goes out. There are a good few docks and the one we were in was the Prince's Dock. 1 knocked round all the evening with three id' my mates and wo had a pretty good time. Some of the buildings made our mouths

open. I had to call at tho Post Office to arrang.* lor taking a mail ashore from our boat to New Zealand. It is a fine show about three times as large as that at Auckland an I very handsome. The whole of .the ground lloor is taken up for Postal work. The money order and savings bank business being done on the first lloor. Unlike our New Zealand Chief Post Offices there i j plenty of room for a garden all round the building which makes the grounds look lrko a small park in themselves. Mos, of tho big buildings of this sort have a big lawn with tlovver bods and trees on them which makes them look much better and sets

them off. The European quarter of the town is very nice but some of the native quarters are just the opposite. Dirty looking and old houses are the rule there, with thousands of the natives of about twenty different kinds who suit the surroundings. They have great little shops. might be live or six on one of a street in about thirty There must be thousands of them but they do not as a rule look very attractive. It is common to see one with a bit of canvas rigged up to keep the sun off and running a cobblering or barber or some other establishment in a few square feet. We filled in the evening admiring the sights and spending a bit of our “ utu ” which was a bit light on as when we left Albany we did not think we would call anywhere till we got to Egypt. We called at tlie Y.M.C.A. a.id had had a good look round after which we had lunch or Tiffin as they call it. We had a game of billiards while waiting for lunch. lam sending you a menu. The ; price is twelve annas which is j the same as one shilling of our "money. By the way, we had to ! get our money changed into the j

Indian money which costs ns about one penny in the shilling except for gold which is the same as used here. Rupees and annas are the main coins. We enjoyed lunch and went over to the Lady Hardinge War Hospital. It i; a fine building which was or rather is being built for a museum but was handed over to be used l s a hospital for Colonial troops wounded or taken ill with fever, etc. It is only four storeys high but each storey is very high and there is a dome in the centre which in itself looks magnificent. It is above the fourth storey and there is nothing between it and the floor immediately underneath it. The inside of it has hundreds of iron rings in it to hang lights on but the place is not finished yet although it has been building for over nine years. There is a fine view from the top of the building just where the dome starts. Straight below the dome there is a round pool in the floor which is of marble and a fountain which plays up to nearly level with the next floor which is, I should say, over twenty feet above. There are only a few fish in it and a turtle. We were shown through the operating rooms and all the wards. There are two wards on the bottom floor with sixty-four beds in each and most of the other floors are full of beds. -There are Ghurlcfhas, Sikhs, Hindus, and several other native troops besides Turkish and Arabian prisoners. The Ghurkhas have the best name as fighters and are fine jolly little fellows who would’nt run away from Old Hick himself, but the nurses said the others were very in and out and it was a bit of a toss up whether they would fight or go for their lives. Most of them had their kits which are a good bit bigger than ours. The Turks are fine looking fellows, big and wiry. They don’t like trusting the nurses who have a good bit of trouble giving them medicine and doing anything for them. They seem to think they they will he quietly pushed off. The natives who wore able, used to be allowed to go up to the prisoners ward but it usually ended in a scrap so they had to stop them. The natives took it a bit crook. They said, “we brought these fllows here as prisoners and now you wont let us come and sue them.” One Turk can speak a bit of English having teen out to Australia but he would not answer me when I spoke to him. I suppose ho knew what I was in uniform for and stood on his dig.’ Some of tiie patients had broken legs or arms, others had wounds in the body or head, while a lot had fever or some other sickness. Wo were shown bullets which had been extracted and other things in connection witli operations on the wounded which are rather gruesome to write about. The nurses are very nice arid as they were off duty showed us right round. One of them was an English woman belonging to India and the other a native of some sort, but she could speak English better than I can, and explained all the cases to us. There are hundreds of other places we did not see and if I had it would take a week’s shorthand writing to describe them properly. There is the European Hospital which is a goo.l way out. There are a lot of wounded soldiers there, the markets, the museums and Victoria gardens with the magnificent zoo. The Parsec lower of Silence, where the Parsees bury their dead. They carry them in and leave them, and in about two or three minutes there is not a particle of flesh left on their bones by the vtiltures which swoop down in hundreds and fight for their share. The bones fall down a deep pit, where they are washed by the sea water, which comes in down below somewhere. Some ol' the churches are fine buildings as also are some of the hotels. 1 41 is pretty hot hero; hut they ” say it is cool to what it was a couple of months ago on

account of the monsoons being on now. They come up with hardly a moments notice, just a a burst of heavy rain and wind. The niggers have been loading coal all night. They have a different style to’that of Colombo. The coal is loose in the boats and they fill baskets and put them on their heads and run up a plank to the side of the ship and tip. the coal in the chutes. The planks are resting on the coal, so the lower the coal gets, the steeper tho planks are. They make a terrible lot of noise and keep jabbering all night but they did not keep me awake, although I slept on deck. I think we sail to-morrow (Tuesday) but would not like to be too sure. There are different rumours about our destination, sonic think we are going to Aden, some the Gulf of Persia ; but I think we will join the main body. I will have to ring off now as it is time to do some work and I may not get another chance to finish this before the mail goes.