THE EMPIRE IN EGYPT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 72, 8 November 1940, Page 2

THE EMPIRE IN EGYPT

N.Z.E.F. Official News Service

EGYPT, October 11. "\)\V HERE'S the fellow who said the Empire was falling apart?" asked a New Zealand soldier of his comrades. He answered his own question in these definite terms: "T’d like him to be here with me now, in the third-class carriage of a leave train crawling back over the dreary wastes of the Western Desert. Without turning his head he would be able to see diggers, Tommies, Cypriots, Rhodesians, Indians-all in khaki, all on the same side of the same war. A copper-coloured son of India, drowsing, is unconsciously squeezing me harder and harder against the side of the carriage. He has just lunched from a mess tin filled with flat slabs of unleavened bread and raw onions, and thumbed the bright pages of a magazine I offered him. Now there is nothing to do but sleep, and a soldier can sleep anywhere. In the seat opposite, black-bereted English "tanks" are talking with an amusing absence of reservation of their plans to disturb-‘"friendly-like, chum," -the peace of the city for which they are bound. Down the aisle, half-a-dozen Cypriots are engrossed in a game of cards. Three New Zealanders are emptying three bottles of beer. The next cartiage, which is a canteen on wheels, has just as strong an Empire flavour. Mile after mile across the familiar desert — a gently-rolling expanse of brown sand, speckled with patches of scrub-the train is bringing this mixed company slowly back to the civilisation which Alexandria and Cairo stand for. Bright lights, brilliant shops, new sights, music and gaiety all lie ahead, somewhere in the shimmering distance, beckoning to these dusty, sunburned men whom the desert has claimed for two or three long months. Alexandria is now a mere hour away, but until its modern skyline shows through the blue sea haze it will remain a sort of dream city. The landscape is still so devoid of distinguishing features that the train hardly seems to have moved all day. Yet it has left far behind the busy military station where we stood this morning in the early sunshine, peering down the line for the first glimpse of the engine’s smoke. Almost before the train had stopped it was full-crowded with men who scrambled in through the doors and windows and choked the luggage racks with their rifles, haversacks, and rolled blankets. It has been stopping and starting ever since, for every little station on the way has had its quota of waiting passengers, In a little while the patchwork quilt of swampy flats and green fields that is the edge of the Nile Delta will be unrolling under the train’s wheels, and the crowded carriages will empty themselves on to the platform of a city station. The New Zealanders may spend their week’s holiday here or in Cairo, or travel on to Palestine. Excellent facilities enable them to make the most of their leave.

WAR DIARY