Diary of Verner Gladders Knuckey, 1916 - Part 3

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July 8^th 1916
We came in from Duntroon
Plateau camp (the trenches) on Monday
July 3^rd, back to the old camp, at
Ferry Post Rail head, great changes have
happened here since we left about
six weeks ago. at that time our
8^th L.H. was practically the whole of
the camp and at the Engineers we
had a few Australians and a
small company of Infantry doing
fatigue work. Today we have a
camp four times as large wholly
made up of Tommies and one
company of British West Indians.
We would willingly have stayed at
our last camp as this is out of
the frying pan into the fire and
the men are worked much more,
then again there are officers every
where and a man cannot call

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his soul his own most of the time.
But that is not our complaint, we

are having considerable trouble over the
food. there is no denying that the
men are only half fed and if it
was not for the food bought with
our own money at the canteens
many a man would go hungry.
Even as it is we will only get
up from one meal in six feeling
at all satisfied. Over in Australia
a doctor once said that a man
should always get up from the
table feeling he could eat a little
more, it sounds bad enough but
when put into practice it feels a
jolly side worse, even if a man
does have a feed of their issued
food an hour afterwards he is as
hungry as ever, it may be filling
but far from satisfying.
 

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For breakfast, (the one meal a man
really feels fit for since he turns
out at 4.30 a.m. and exercises
horses for an hour) there is meat
served out usually a piece of
mutton or beef about half the size
of this page together with a
piece of bacon fat (very rarely any
meat on it) natural consequence
is that we must dig into our
jam and as one ^lb tin has to do
four men for a day we must
inevitably run short later on. The
midday meal is made up wholly
of bread and marmalade, each man
gets half a loaf of bread per day,
very often less, it usually is sour
before we get it but that is not
bad enough to prevent us from eating
it, one loaf in four will
have black mould running through

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it, then even a soldier cannot face
the music and our mates cut themselves
short by sharing theirs with
the unlucky two who got the
crook loaf. In the evening we get
our hot meal. for seven months
I have faced stew practically every
day until a week or so ago there
was an uproar from the men
as stew was abolished and the
meat was roasted, it was worse
than ever. the small piece of
meat per man was of no value
and the vegetables comprising
carrots, potatoes, ^marrow, onions and beetroot
were tossed into one dixie
and mixed up like pigs food
by the mess orderlies. They have no
other alternative as only one dish
is allowed and every man wants
some of each vegetable, there is
 

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no denying that he gets a little
of each but the mixture is such
that one must be very hungry
to face it.
I cannot see any excuse for
all this mix up, a stranger
visiting our lines would see two

steam cookers and many

cases cooks who have been to a

cooking school at Alexandria, it

is easily understood that this

sort of food is not dished up to

the officers and Sergt mess, in

the former case of course they

are allowed so much to buy

extra food and the Sergts are

always allowed to pay money out

of their own pockets to form a

mess, with the officers no complaint

can be made as they

have their own cooks but from

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what I can see of it (though I

never join in the complaints made

by the men amongst themselves)

there is too much time spent by

the cooks preparing special dishes

for certain messes, whilst

the food for the men is tossed

in and allowed cook itself.

There are numerous articles which

according to regulations should be 

issued regularly, we see them

once in a blue moon, one can

not say where it goes to but a

lot of us have a very good idea.

To emphasize what I have said

here is a case worth quoting. A

man in our troop was caught
asleep on stable picquet, he was

sentenced to 25 days number two
field punishment and left for 

Ferry post to carry out his sentence,
 

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He returned today and informs

us that the food here was absolutely

not to be compared with 

what he had been getting, men

have been known to commit a

crime and be sent away so as to

get a chance of decent food, every

time a man goes on leave his

one thought is that he will soon

be able to get a square meal in

the city. The three times I have

visited Ismalia my first and

perhaps only thought was to find 

a good hotel or restaurant and

tuck in.

Judging by this week's experience

the jam question could be easily
remedied, three solid months of

marmalade seems to have been 

the last straw and one day

we protested to the Orderly 

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officer, the following day black

currant was issued. For such a 

a number of men it would take

more than twentyfour hours to

alter the make of jam and yet

this came to light, marmalade 

has again come on the boards

one cannot help asking who

would have got that jam had

the row not been made and

since it was so easily obtained on

such short notice who is getting

it now. Now and again a

tin of plum jam comes to light,

everyone knows that all food is

contracted for, where is the rest 

of the plum jam contract, some

thing seems to be very much 

wrong, as I said before I never

have anything to say, but, like
the Sailors parrot, I thinks a lot.
 

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Up to now I have written a

fair amount, this being the

second book and I have tried

to keep all complaints out of my

works. now I am on the subject

I may as well do it properly. Our

friends in Australia are working

day and night to provide comforts

for we soldiers, every now

and again we get an issue of

gift stuff but usually it is so 

poor and tin pot that one wonders

who would be so foolish to send it

over, there are rare occasions
when it is good and to prove

that a screw must be loose

somewhere else for example our

last issue received about a fortnight

ago.  That was undoubtedly

our best issue and there is no

doubt it was satisfactory, I can

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hardly enumerate now what we

got but every man got a nice

enamel plate, one big handkerchief, 
two small tins of milk,

two packets of peter pan cigarettes,

then the sections got issued to

them to divide up between the

men. tinned fruit, powdered

milk, milk food, tins of lollies,

sauce, pickles and other small

luxuries.  The reason for such a

good issue as far as I can see

is explained in the fact that a

man was sent from Australia
expressly to see that the food

reached the quarters it was

meant to reach, the natural

consequences was that we got

the proceeds of the money earned

by our loyal women folk, who

are doing their share in this war.
 

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One more complaint and then

perhaps I will be finished.  We

are told by some that our

Members of Parliament have taken

this up at anyrate, they sent

us here and its nearly time

they did something for us over here

for it is not a bed of roses out

here in the desert, many of them

are neither use nor ornament over

there perhaps if they were forced

to come here it would be some

good as a days work might be

got out of them (if they have it

in them) a great number of them

are under the age limit and when 
they are of more use at

home than over here they must

value their services as soldiers on

a very poor basis since their use
in Aust. is very little indeed.

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But to this complaint and then

"Mafish". The tobacco issued to us

is absolutely rotten, one man is

supposed to be keeping a sample of

each brand to take home. he will

have a load I'm afraid. From the 
time we came out on the desert till

a week or so ago we got a fresh 

brand almost every issue.  two or 

three were rather good but they must 

have been trying to find the worst

as it worked down to that until we

got down to the lower grade of "Black

Cat" at last they had reached their

limit, nothing could be worse than

that ands so they issue that every

week now, the man not only cannot

smoke it but it ruins his pipes and nine

out of ten throws it way, Tobacco

speaks for itself when a smoker
 

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away from civilization with hours

and hours on his hands throws

away the only tobacco he can

obtain and gives up smoking.

I wanted to send a tin of this 

particular brand home, needless

to say the censor tabooed such

a thing. at the Rail Head we 

have canteens and buy our own, 
surely our Members can remedy

such a simple thing as the 
men's issue of tobacco and cigarettes

for many a man will

put up with bad, or a scarcity

of food if he can get a good

smoke two or three times a

day.  And now I have had

my say on this question let

us close it down for a while.

and will try and not harp

on an old subject  ∼

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July 12^th

It seems strange that I should

write down all our grievances on the 

8th, since then they have improved

100% and no man can find fault

with the present condition of things

in our mess shed. I believe some

of our men took it upon themselves

to draw the attention of the 

Head of our camp to the state

of affairs, we very often get 

two hot meals a day and the

stew dished up is of the best.

our cook seems to fry the

onions and then put them in

the stew which gives it a 

very good flavour, the joints

are good and at present we

are getting a bit of variety,

porridge one day, boiled rice

the next, if things continue as at

present, there will be more satisfaction

 

 

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As we came from tea tonight

a great treat was in store

for us, a Brass Band belonging

the Royal Field Artillery (an

English regiment) had come to pay

our lines a visit. they planted

their music stands on our 
football grounds and played for 

over an hour..

I suppose in reading this

you simply think for a band to

play it only means as much 

as if one took a walk to

some park on a Sunday afternoon

and heard a band.

It meant a thousand times

more to us that that, since we

left Heliopolis nearly six months

ago the only approach to brass

music for us had been the

sharp shrill notes of a bugle

giving some unwelcome call

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and soon after we arrived at

the canal even that was put an

end to and a whistle used,

tonight one had just to close

his eyes and dream, though it

was an English band most of 

the music was familiar, one

piece would send our minds

back to the theatres at home,

another piece played often by

the Warrnambool band years

ago, a third piece was one I
had often heard in the Melbne

Botanical gardens and the

whole performance took us

back once more to civilization,

I never used to take much

notice of music whilst

at home but after six months

silence I lay on the sand and

enjoyed myself. my camera

was useful, I took a photo of them

 

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There is not much love lost

between the English and our boys

I'm afraid. It seems a great

pity for I find some of them 
are fine fellows but others are

not much chock, still the

same things applies to our own

boys also. A couple of weeks

ago they almost came to blows,

some argument cropped up

in front of the canteen (I suppose

the beer was talking) there

were about four of our boys

and a mob of Tommies, things

looked bad for Australia but it

only took a minute or two to

to get word to the Y.M.C.A

tent when the Kangaroo feathers

soon received reinforcements and

the Tommies started running

round saying they had come

to fight the enemy not their

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brother soldiers.

There is a sentence there you

will not understand, I spoke

of Kangaroo feathers.  The third

L.H. Brigade have been issued

with Emu plumes,  it is a crime

to even go on stable duty without

the plumes in your helmet. I

saw our Major refuse one man

Alexandria leave simply because

he came out to stables one

morning in a felt hat. The

plumes look well and of course

the Tommies want to know what 

bird they belong to, we tell them

they are Kangaroo feathers and

some of them are simple enough

to swallow the joke. It is remarkable

the way the British

West Indians and the Australians

pull together, the English are hated

in many cases but in their