Cecil Mills Collection - Wallet 1 - Part 9 of 12

4/ 
Have not had any chance of doing any 
sightseeing of any importance yet; but I 
hope to go to the Pyramids tomorrow morning as 
soon as possible after Church Parade.  Five of us 
are going & we will take a Car, as we have 
to hurry.  We have to report at the School at 
3.30 Sunday afternoon, & start there on 
Monday morning. Charlie Hamilton the 
other Officer in our Unit beside Newey & who 
shares a tent with me is also going, & 3 
other chaps that came on our Ship are also 
going. We are all pretty pally, so it is nice 
going together.  We will be there for 3 weeks, 
so will put in Christmas and New Year 
there.  It is not far from this Battallion  
Camp, only about 1/2 a mile, so we will be 
able to come along here for a decent feed now 
& again.  The tucker in this Mess is jolly 
good, run by our own men.  In the School 
Mess it is all niggers & they tell me the 
cooking is rotten.  Here for good tucker we 
pay 10 Piastres a day.  At the School it is 
17 Piastres, so I guess we will all be glad 
when the 3 weeks is over & we are back again.

5/ 
Sorry to hear old Pittie that you were off 
colour after I left, but it was only to be 
expected that you would be absolutely done 
up, as it was such an awful rush, with  
no pleasure at the end of it, but the reverse. 
Hope Dearie you are quite settled down 
now & that there will be no further off 
colouredness for you or the dear Kid of ours. 
Where we Par{a}de out on the Desert, used to be 
a Cemetery for the old Egyptian Kings Princes 
& [[Knuts?]] generally.  There has been quite a 
lot of excavations made.  It is round here 
that the American Syndicate got so busy 
digging up the old Tombs.  I saw a couple 
of niggers delving the other day in a deep 
hole & they were going through an old grave 
They did not get anything of any value while 
I was looking on.  Came across a few 
bones. & heaps of little beads that are buried 
with them.  I picked up a handful, that are 
probably a couple of thousand years old. 
Knocking about these Ancient places makes one 
realise what small items individuals are 
in the big scheme of things generally. 

6/ 
Some of the troops came across a very swagger 
grave the other day when they were digging  
trenches. It was bricked in & in a wonderful  
state of preservation. Had to go down a shaft 
about 10' x 3' about 16' deep, then it spread out 
into different Chambers.  This was supposed to  
be a very old grave or Family Vault. I went 
down & had a look round, but it did not appeal 
to me. Soldiers were down there stripped to  
the waist covered with sweat & dirt, delving 
into it, but nearly everything of any value 
had been collected then. I did not want a heap 
of bones & skulls. It was frightfully hot & 
stuffy, so my explorations did not last very 
long. Newey also came down & did the ghoul  
act. He got a tooth out of a jaw bone that 
was in an excellent state of preservation  
The enamel still intact. Would like to have  
got it for your Father, but Newey did not  
notice my hint to that effect. The Night  
Operations we were to have just after I wrote 
last were not conspicuous by their success 
The Route March from 1 to 4 was good. We  
went along the irrigation area, past the Holy

7/ 
Well, where the Virgin Mary rested during 
her flight into Egypt with Jesus Christ 
It is only about 2 miles away from here at  
Matarino & I'm going to have a look through  
the Mosque & see the Ancient Tree planted  
there when I get time. Time seems to be 
about the only thing one wants here. I've not 
got enough. Finishing up the night  
operations we had to attack the Camp & I  
should think the attacking party got pretty 
well licked, but in the dark it is very hard 
to say who gets the best of it, when the  
cartridges are only blanks. I went out  
to Ghezirch Hospital (N○ 2 Aust. General 
Hospital) on Thursday night to see Mattie 
Chisholm. We had a yarn & I'm to go out 
the first chance I get to have a great big 
yarn & a trip out somewhere together. She 
is looking fairly well & very distinguished.  
Her hair is a lovely silver now & her big 
brown eyes show up. She is rather weird  
looking in a way as she is only about 37. 
She told me about Harold O'Brien being there. 
He is Muriel Meyers brother & I went up to 

8/ 
have a yarn to him. He is a Major now & 
returned from the Dardanelles with Rheumatic  
Fever. He is now convalescent & I'm going in to 
see him again soon. We used to be pretty pally 
years ago. These little Donkeys break me up. 
It is wonderful the weights they can carry. 
It would be quite easy to pick one up & carry 
it away if it did not struggle, but they carry 
great big buck niggers round with ease & as 
for drawing a load, It is nothing to see a 
little donkey hauling about 5 grown up men 
round in a little sort of hand cart with shafts. 
Coming in from Parade yesterday at midday, we 
passed close to a Native Cemetery & there was a  
Funeral coming along.  We were about 200 
yards off & the noise the mourners made 
sounded very weird.  For all the world like 
the whining of a pack of dogs.  The deceased  
must have been a person of some tonnage 
socially, as there were 3 banners carried along. 
Only the men went to the grave, the women  
all dressed in black stood back a couple of  
hundred yards & wailed.  I would like to have 
seen the business closely, but we are not supposed

9/ 
to go poking our noses into Native affairs. 
We had a big day yesterday.  In the 
morning we had an attack by our Company. 
We sent 1/4 of the men out first about 3 miles 
to take up a position & then we followed & 
had a fly at them, when we found them using 
Scouts, Advanced Guards & all the business. 
We were all fairly tired when it was all over, 
10 till 1/4 to 1 with lots of doubling thrown in 
was quite enough for most of us.  Then from 
2 until 5 we had a Route March, in towards 
Cairo, through the suburbs, along good hard 
roads.  We were all pretty well satisfied 
we had had enough & I hit my little cane 
sleeping stretcher arrangement at 8 o'clock 
had a smoke & think of you & Johnnie & I 
woke up at 1/4 past 6 this morning.  It did 
not annoy me at all to know that our Coy 
was the inlying picquet, & that none of us 
were to leave the lines during the time  
between Retreat last night & Reveille this 
morning.  The inlying Picquet is only in 
case of emergency & is rarely called out unless 
there is a disturbance too big for the ordinary 
picquets to quell, & since we came there has

10/ 
been nothing but peace & quietness.  All our 
boys have behaved very well, practically no 
misdemeanours at all.  Well old Petty Girl 
Its now about 3 o'clock every Officer in the 
Camp seems to have buzzed off, so I think 
I'll put on my open fronted tunic & take a 
walk round somewhere, & have a look round. 
When I say every Officer, I mean all those 
that are not specially detailed for Duties of 
one sort or another.  Well Dearest, if Active 
Service was never any worse than what I've 
had to put up with since landing in Egypt, 
all we Kitchener Tourists should pay a big 
premium to join the A.I.F. I suppose it 
will be well into the New Year when you 
get this letter.  Don't expect to have time 
to write tomorrow.  Give my love to all 
at Kinellan & I hope Pettie you & the boyoh 
and the rest of the family are just the 
very thing. Your ever loving Husband 
Cecil. 
Got it on reasonably good Authority that no 
more Australian troops are going to the Dardanelles. 
Apparently we are booked here for a long time 
CPM

No 9 
On Active Service 
abroad 
  
AUSTRALIA  
13-11-15 
DETAILS P.O. 
  
Mrs C. B. Mills 
c/. Dr.  A Burne 
Kinellan 
Dalley St 
Waverley 
N.S.Wales 
Australia 
  
Lt CB Mills 
Of 23rd Batt 
AIF 
FRANKED 
6TH. TRAINING 
Battalion