LETTER FROM EGYPT.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1917, Page 3

LETTER FROM EGYPT.

In a brief letter to Mr. T. Buchanan, Waitara, Trooper "Tapp" O'Neill says:— By the mail which came to hand a few days ago (August 12) yours of May 12 arrived, so you will see that it now takes' three months for a letter to reach here. This is owing to the mail coming via England. It was over six weeks when we received the last, batch. I understand that the mail now leaves once a month for New Zealand and vice versa. This, I take it, is owing to the boats run being cut down and going via Cape Town instead of the Canal. Over here most of the boys follow the racing news of New Zealand, and frequently the sports run a double book over the events, mostly a E5 to 2s one. So far I have not of them, the closest being a leg in and a third. You will be pleased to hear that Cliff Tate is now Orderlyroom Sergeant, which means a rise of two-bob a day in wages. Since writing last things are just about as usual with us. We are still pegging away at Jacko and keeping him thinking We get our fair share of day and night work, although I guess the New Zealand papers do not have much to say over our doings, but they do not allow us to get cold here. Wo have daily minor engagements with Jacko, mostly on our flank, whilst our infantry frequently make night rai(\s on his trenches on the same principle as in France, and the artillery booms away day and night. Ted Avery came along to my bivy the other night with a bottle of "frisk" which he had dug up from ''somewhere," and four or five of us had a convivial evening. The whisky in Egypt is of the chain lightning variety, and in many eases the bottles of well known brands are blown, a hole, the size of a threepenny hit being drilled in the bottom of the bottle, genuine contents extracted and inferior dope put in, and the hole refilled. You can't beat these Egyptian merchants for working one on to you. They have two prices, one for the Tommy and another for the Colonial, which, of course, is higher. News of interest is scarce, as it is the same old monotony- witli us. By the way, three of us were nearly cut off "by the Jackos last week, as we were carrying out a mate in a blanket who had received a mortal wound, he being alongside me when he met it, but Jacko did not know exactly where we were. At the time we were skirmishing in a dry river bed full of gullies and< ravines, otherwise ■.