First Anzac was going to give a hand in France.
Four thousand five hundred souls lived, moved, and had their being on that five-day run to Marseilles, where normally two thousand would have complained of being crowded.
Generals quadrupled up, four in a second-class berth, the more junior officers shared no worse privations.
Down in the troop decks human beings nestled like sardines. The companion-way from one over-populated suburb was reached by planks over an open hatch — a nasty drop for the unsteady in a rough sea — and in a panic a veritable death trap for a battalion.
Not even a cigarette glowed on deck after dark, and below light was a negligible quantity, the "police lights" not being able to penetrate a foot through the gloom of the surreptitious cigarette smoke.
* * *
In his crowded cabin underneath the bridge the Senior General on board gave birth to a great idea.
There must be a false night alarm to test the morale of the troops.
The Colonel — O.C. Troops — was summoned.
"To-night at 9.45. I would like a night alarm."
"Yes, sir!"
But the ship's adjutant had seen the death trap.
"It can't be done, sir," he explained, to the Colonel. "We'll kill half the men in No. 5 troop deck if we try it. In the dark they'll just push each other over the planks, and either be smashed up in the fall or trampled to death by the men struggling up, from below.
The Colonel put it up to the General:
"Rot! Half these men were on the Peninsula with me, and they'll steady the rest! Get on with the alarm!"
But the Adjutant reckoned he knew all the men in No. 5 were reinforcements straight from Australia, and even had they been regulars No. 5 was a death trap in the dark.
With no ostentation he moved among the men, most of whom were already turned in or were trying their luck at little games of chance by the glimmer of the police lights.
"To-night at a quarter to ten there'll be an alarm. Pass the word it's false and don't say I said so."
* * *
The familiar tooting announced the time.
The C.O. went to the bridge with the G.O.C. — the Adjutant checked the reports of the ship's section commanders at the foot of the bridge ladder.
Those of the Diggers who thought fit strolled up on the deck, the rest rolled over in their hammocks and cursed the fools who sought to deprive them of their rest.
In four minutes three seconds the Adjutant was scurrying up the ladder.
"All present on stations, and correct sir.!"
The O.C. Troops repeated the formula to the Senior General.
* * *
"I thought you said there'd be a panic," growled the General.
It was a good thing there were no lights on the bridge for the Adjutant was grinning. — E.G.K.
Source: The Sailors' and Soldiers' Parliament (1920, June 19). Smith's Weekly (Sydney, NSW : 1919 - 1950), p. 23.
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