Chapter 21 – Jayjay

A brief account of the journey from Cairo to Mena Camp is provided in in the First Battalion History , p21. “French leave” was slang for what was more formally known as being absent without leave (or A.W. L.). The term is used in the First Battalion History , p. 20.

The waterproof sheet was the only cover many men had for several nights after reaching Mena Camp. References include Archie Barwick, In Great Spirits , p. 19 and Patsy Adam-Smith in The Anzacs , p. 65 and Charles Bean in Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18 , vol I, pp 116. Archie Barwick also describes being served with “cocoa, cheese and a roll” on getting off the train at Cairo (p. 19).

The Eighth Battalion, being recruited from Ballarat in Victoria, is mentioned by Charles Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18 , vol I, p. 42. The Eighth Battalion war diary states that this Battalion disembarked at Alexandria and proceeded to Mena Camp on 8 December 1914.

Charles Bean states: “Mena was in the desert…Within the first few days the youngsters had written their names on the pyramids, where those of Napoleon’s soldiers in1801 and British soldiers in the same year could still be read”, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18 , vol I, p. 127.

Charles Bean illustrates the racial views of the day his diary entry for 3 December 1914. He refers to the locals as “natives” and states that “you are apt to get disaster when people with their morality meet with people of our morality unless the two are kept apart by a hard and fast division.” Recorded in Bean’s Gallipoli , Edited by Kevin Fewster, p. 37.

Interactions with pushy Egyptians selling coffee and fake ancient coins are described by Archie Barwick, In Great Spirits , p. 21.

Charles Bean describes the origins of the term “furphy” in Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18 , vol I, pp. 92 when the Victorian troops were preparing to leave for war in September 1914, as follows: “The wildest rumours, of the kind to which every army is subject, flew through both the people and the troops. In the Broadmeadows Camp, near Melbourne, the sanitary carts which went scavenging through the lines were marked on the back with the name of the manufacturer at Sheparton who made them—Furphy. These rumours of the camp came to be called “furphies,” and subsequently in Egypt the word spread through the force.” Bill Gammage presents a slightly different view in The Broken Years , Gammage includes a copy of AWM photo J04837 with the following caption: “Troops yarning round a Furphy water cart, Egypt, 1915. From this custom came the AIF slang word ‘furphy’, or rumour.” (p. 48)

https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1055057?image=2

The First Battalion training area (or drill ground) is referred to as ‘the Valley of Despair’ in the First Battalion History , p. 21. Accounts of the gruelling training regime imposed on the men of the First Division in the initial weeks at Mena Camp are provided by Archie Barwick, In Great Spirits , p. 25 and Patsy Adam-Smith in The Anzacs , pp 66-67. Both accounts include a description of a single dry roll for lunch, with a tin of sardines shared between two or four men. The account in The Anzacs also states that breakfast was consistently one slice of bread per man, with jam. Hugh Dolan, in 36 Days, The Untold Story Behind the Gallipoli Landings, describes the hot [evening] meals as ‘sand-soaked stew, cooked over a trench in the open. Bully beef (a poor variant of Spam) was simmered in a liquid of overcooked potatoes.’

Charles Bean describes the early training regime in Egypt in Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18 , vol I, pp. 125-6 as follows: “This training is worth more than a passing mention, inasmuch as it was one of the finest achievements in the history of the A.I.F. It was scarcely realised at the time that its intensity was exceptional…The infantry marched out early in the morning, each battalion to whatever portion of its brigade area had been assigned to it. There they split into companies. All day long, in every valley of the Sahara for miles around the Pyramids, were groups or lines of men advancing, retiring, drilling or squatted near their piled arms listening to their officer. For many battalions there were several miles to be marched through soft sand every morning before the training area was reached, and to be marched back again each evening. At first, in order to harden the troops, they wore as a rule full kit with heavy packs. Their backs became drenched with perspiration, the bitter desert wind blew on them as they camped for their midday meal, and many deaths from pneumonia were attributed to this cause.”