BERRIMA

Dear Dad and Ma, – I think my last note to you was written in the trenches about the 26th August, was it not? Well, I will go back to the time of our leaving Heliopolis so it will connect up. etc, etc, . Well, we disentrained at 6.30 a.m. at Alexandria, to march straight aboard our transport. The name of this hooker was the “Saturnia,” and I mentally christened her the “Dirty Liz,” for a boat to have so little deck space, and to be so close and smelly below, besides being dirty with plenty of cockroaches, we well knew, we had left the “Berrima.” etc, etc, . While we were in the trenches and every time we used our periscopes we could plainly see the chaps who had fallen in the general advance that took place at the beginning of August. It was the 8th and 10th Light Horse that charged, 600 about all told. Well the poor devils did not reach the Turkish trenches, they were met with a hail of bullets, from machine guns and rifles. Out of 600, 400 lay out there now dead, the remainder managed to get back somehow, only 20 escaped altogether, the remainder being wounded. It is a pitiful sight, a colonel, captain, and seargent lie together just as they fell. The stench is awful, for the bodies are being opened up by the sun, and the flies, whew ! they eat your dinner for you. It beats everywhere in Australia, they are here in millions. . It is said the Turk’s had a machine gun every 10 yards, I think they must have had. etc, etc, . 20th Battalion B Company. Australian Imperial Forces. “AIF” Bertram Fraser Lyon Regimental Number 608 http://www.noelenejoys-biblestudies.com/?page_id=33736 . Noelene Joy Rout 3.21pm 1st November 2019