VERBATIM TRANSCRIPTION OF LESLIE GRAHAM MACDONALD TAPES

Recorded and transcribed by Stanley Graham.  Strictly copyright.  No part of this manuscript may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language without the written permission of Stanley Graham.

Tape identification                                File Number

Tape two red leader.                            075\lgstory.016

I probably wouldn’t have rushed into the army so quickly if it hadn’t been for the fact that I was scared of what would happen between Min and meself.  She was doing her damnedest to get me to team up with her.  She said that she had enough money to buy a hotel and if I was to go with her we could go away somewhere and start in a business on our own.  She was so blatant about this relationship that Mother was getting to know about it and she was throwing out some dirty hints.  So I thought bugger it, the one way out of this is to get into the army. In the meantime, George Ganes had come out of prison and immediately joined up.  I don’t think he finished his time, I think they offered certain classes of convict a pardon if they joined the army.

Anyhow, George joined the army and he was only in a week or two and they were off to Egypt.  Just at that time Molly’s Mother died, her family went to live with some of her relations and Molly went to live at home with Mother and Father.  When I got into the army everybody felt a lot better because of this business with Min.  I had words with Mother about it and I told her she had nothing to worry about as I didn’t intend to do anything that would cause any scandal.  To my great surprise, she said to me “Do you know you almost broke Molly’s heart.”  I said “What do you mean, almost broke Molly’s heart?”  She said “Well, Molly’s very fond of you.”  I said “I’m very fond of Molly but not in that way.  Anyhow if I’ve broken Molly’s heart I’ll have a talk to her.”  which I did but Mother was only dreaming because whilst Molly was very worried it was only because she didn’t want to see me getting into a mess.  She said that the agreement we had made years before that we would regard each other as brother and sister still stood as far as she was concerned.  So I was quite happy about that.

We spent the next week or so going through the various performances like doctors, dentists, eyesight tests and all sorts of things.  They never found out I had a bad eye because the method of testing your eyes was that you put your hand over your face to read the letters.  Well when I come to reading them with me right eye I just put me hand over me left eye and left the fingers apart so I could read them that way.  Whether the feller saw me and didn’t take any notice or not I dunno but they didn’t ask any questions and I was passed out OK.  We were given twenty four hours leave and told we were going down to Sydney, to Liverpool racecourse to prepare for embarkation.

One thing I dreaded was Mother coming to see me off at the station because I knew that she’d cut up very rough so I went home and said goodbye to her there and asked her not to come down to the station.  But anyhow when we left aboard the train, Mother was there but she was very good, she didn’t go into hysterics or anything like that and we eventually got off.

We landed at Liverpool racecourse next day and the real training started then.  I’d joined up for the Light Horse but I could tell from the training we were getting that it had nothing to do with horses, in fact I never saw a horse all the time I was there.  I asked to be paraded to the Colonel and I pointed out to him that I joined for the Light Horse and he said “Oh, you’ll get drafted to them when we get out there but we’ve got to put you through an infantry brigade now because we haven’t got enough fellers for the Light Horse to warrant forming a separate unit.”  Anyhow I thought that’s what you say but I have me doubts about it. 

Whilst we were at Liverpool there was an outbreak of meningitis.  That held us up for a bit.  We used to be paraded every morning and they’d ask all those with, the order was anyone with a pain at the back of their head step forward.  If you had a pain and you stepped forward you was whizzed off to a bit of an isolation camp and they were dying like flies.  Anyhow I never felt any pains at the back of me head or anything and after about three weeks we were all ready to go aboard and we were given 48 hours embarkation leave.

Well I hadn’t time to go home and come back but I thought if I don’t go home there’ll be a lot of hard feelings so I went to the Colonel and I asked him if I could have immediate leave.  If I could get away immediately I could get home and back on the next train and then be back in time to see relations in Sydney and be in time for embarkation.  He said “Well, it can be arranged but we’ll have to do something about your kit because you’re going down to Centennial Park to muster for embarkation.  So you’ll have to make some arrangements for someone to take your kit down to Centennial Park.  If you do that I’ll grant you immediate leave.”  This meant that I would be able to go home and have the day with them and then come back on the night train. 

So I did this but of course, nobody at home knew I was coming so when I got there, there was Mother and Doris and the two kids and of course I went to see Min and her family.  Funnily enough when I went to see her she had a bloke there and they looked as though they were doing a bit of courting.  Anyhow I said goodbye to her and she said I’ll come and see you off at the station tonight and when it come time to go back I said “Where’s Father?”  She said “he’s down in Wellington, We’ve sent him a wire but I don’t think he’ll be able to get home.” 

So I got on the train to go back at night and when I got to Wellington, who should be there but the Old Man.  He came to say goodbye, we didn’t have long to talk together because the train only stopped there for about two or three minutes.  He never said anything much until the train started to go, he just stood there and had hold of me hand.  When the train started to move he jumped on the running board and he kissed me.  I could see tears in his eyes.  He jumped off and that was the last I saw of him.

This parting had a great emotional effect on me particularly because of the doubt that I had whether I was really his son or not.  The only inkling I had had that time that I might not be his son, I got from Jim.  That was one day when we were having a row, something came up about the MacDonalds, something was said about them and he said to me “Well you’ve no right to call yourself MacDonald anyhow.”  I said “Why is that?”  and he said “Well you’re not a MacDonald, you ask Mother about it, she’ll tell you.”  So anyhow, I did ask Mother and I didn’t get any further with her because when I asked her she went into a towering rage and almost into hysterics and by the time I’d got her quietened down I’d forgotten for the moment about this thing which was uppermost in my mind.  Therefore, I was gratified to see the show of emotion made in saying goodbye because it didn’t appear to me to be the attitude that a man would have for someone who wasn’t his son.  Anyhow, for the time being, that had to be left just where it was.  I was no further towards getting a clear statement of the position.

When we got into Sydney the next morning I went to see friends and relations and spent the day drinking innumerable cups of tea and pints of beer.  We were supposed to be back with the battalion by twelve o’clock midnight, but by six o’clock I just seemed to be hanging about waiting.  I was at Stan’s house and I said to him and Sadie “I think the best thing I can do is get back to camp.  I’ll have to find me kit and get everything ready for embarkation in the morning.”

Anyhow, I went to camp and me kit was there in the guardroom for me, I found the rest of the company, reported to the guard and they took me pass off me.  Then I went and reported to our commanding officer, the man on duty that night was a man named Lt. Chapel.  Then I went to the canteen and had a drink or two and something to eat.  At about half past eight they sent for me to the guardroom.  When I went there the officer of the guard said “We’ve got a visitor for you.”  and I said “Who is it?” and he said “It’s your sister Molly.”  So I said “Well, what’s she doing here?”  He said “She’s come to see you.”  So anyhow, he took me through into the office and Molly was there.  He said to me “What do you want to do?  Do you want to go out now?”  I said “Well, I’ve handed me pass in.”  He said “That’s alright, I’ve got it here. It’s been cancelled but I’ll initial it and as long as you’re back at twelve o’clock everything will be alright.”  So I got me pass and off we went.

I didn’t know where to go and I said “Have you had anything to eat?” and she said “Yes.  I’ve had me tea.”  I said “Shall we go and have a cup of coffee and have something to eat.  We can’t go to a show now, it’s too late and although I’m not very hungry we can go to one of these dago restaurants and have something to eat.”  We did this and then we went and sat in the park.  It’d be about half past nine when we got in the park and of course we were only a stones throw away from where the battalion was so we just sat on a seat and talked.  We had a heart to heart and really we were both very fond of each other I think.  I know I was fond of her but not in the way that one would think about marriage or anything like that.  Anyhow she was older than me.  We just sat there and talked about days gone by, the good times we’d had together and all that sort of thing.  Anyhow it came quarter to twelve and she walked back with me to the guard room and we said goodbye, promised to write to each other.  We both had a bit of a cry, anyhow the officer said he would arrange for one of the permanent staff to see her home and this he did do, she told me in a letter that she wrote me afterwards.

Next morning we were woken up about four o’clock, got our things together, went down to Woolamaloo Dock and went aboard His Majesties Australian Troopship Number Seven which was the old Beltanah one of the old government owned boats which travelled between Australia and England.

She was about fourteen thousand tons and she was a well-deck type of boat with a top speed of about twelve or thirteen knots.  There was quite a few of these boats owned by the Australian Commonwealth, there was the Beltanah, the Bendigo, the Ballarat, the Banally and they were all sister ships to the Waratah, although the Waratah wasn’t owned by the Australian government.  A lot of older people will remember her, she disappeared between Durban and Capetown in about 1912 or 1913, I’m not quite sure which.  There was never any sign of her afterwards, not even lifeboats or rafts, she just disappeared completely.

Anyhow, we got settled down aboard and were allocated our various places where we ate and slept.  We had to look forward to a period of getting our sea legs.  We didn’t pull in at Melbourne, we stopped to pick up some troops but we stood out in the stream and they were brought out by lighter so we didn’t get a look at anybody at the Melbourne docks.  We went off from there and our next port of call was Fremantle.  We put into Fremantle and we were given shore leave there.  We spent it by going swimming.  There was the usual crowds of people, wherever troops massed there was people running along giving them things and exchanging addresses and all that sort of thing.  In the crowd I picked up a girl named Driffield, I forget her other name but there was two sisters of them.  Their Father was a surveyor in the Lands Office and we exchanged addresses.  They promised to write to me and I promised to write to them and that was all I ever saw of them.  I only saw them as I was marching along in column.  I did write to her afterwards and they certainly didn’t forget me, they sent me parcels and lots of little things.  They continued to send them right throughout the period of the war.

Well, when we’d got what we put in for at Fremantle we put to sea again and we were out of Fremantle about three or four days I think, when the alarm went up, there was a fire in one of the holds.  Well they got the fire-fighting gang on the job but they didn’t seem to be making much headway with this fire, it was getting worse.  I suppose the colonel in charge of the troops and the ship’s captain must have had a pow-wow and they decided that the safest thing would be to turn around and put back into Fremantle.  Well, this meant, steaming full speed ahead, at least three days to get back into Fremantle.  Then rumours went round the ship that there was explosives in the hold and the ship might go up any minute.  The decks was being crowded by soldiers ready to jump over the side if there was an explosion. 

Although the authorities knew there was no explosives in this hold, they called the men together and they told them time after time, but you could here the fellers mumbling amongst themselves, its all right them telling us that, they’re just hoping for the best.  Somebody said they daren’t take the covers of those hatches and that’s why they can’t fight the fire.  They’re frightened if they took the covers off there’d be too much air get in and the whole ship’d go up.  Well, the fire was burning pretty good because I noticed at night time, every time that we plunged into a wave, there was steam coming off the side of the ship which meant that the plates were getting pretty hot. 

Things got so bad in the finish that the captain ordered everybody below and a lot of the fellers wouldn’t go below.  They mustered a guard, there was so many from each platoon in this guard, I was one of them.  We were given live ammunition and we were put at the stairheads into all the holds with orders to shoot anyone who tried to come out.  I don’t know whether I’d have shot anyone, I might have hit them with the rifle but anyhow nobody tried to come out so I was never put to the test.

Eventually we got back into Fremantle.  The fire tender was standing by, we were disembarked and we were sent up to a camp at Perth whilst they dealt with the fire.  I understand they had it under control and out in a very short time once the boys that knew what they were doing got at it.

The ship hadn’t taken any harm apparently.  She was still considered seaworthy and I think we’d been in Perth about a week when we were told that we were going back to Fremantle the next day to go aboard.  We did this and set out for Durban.  Well, it was a very uneventful trip to Durban apart from the fact that there was a lot of seasickness.  It was the only time I’ve ever been seasick in me life, there’s fellers running to the side and heaving their heart up and others sitting round about that looked as though they might do it any minute.  I was trying to make them sick by pretending to vomit meself and all of a sudden I did vomit and I was as sick as a dog for about ten minutes.  As soon as I got the first spasm over I was alright again but I kept meself to meself after that and I didn’t bother to poke fun at other people who were sick, it taught me a lesson.

We had some sickness aboard, I myself was in the sick berth for a few days, I had a touch of malaria but it wasn’t anything serious, I was soon out and about again.  But there was one man aboard with appendicitis and they decided that he’d have to be put ashore.  They pulled in to put him ashore at Mauritius[?] and we couldn’t get in there.  He had to be put into a boat, they lowered him on a stretcher with a winch and into this small boat and he was taken ashore in this boat.  We didn’t get a chance to get ashore but we did get a chance whilst we were stopped there to do a bit of shark fishing.  We just had butcher’s hooks out of the galley with a lump of meat on and we were chucking ‘em overboard and the sharks were taking them as fast as we could throw them in.  A lot of them were too big for us to haul up but we did get one or two on deck.  Then the old man came down from the bridge and started playing merry hell with us, he made us throw the things back again and stop messing his ship up.

It was very monotonous.  We left Durban and we made our way up towards the canal.  The reason why we were going to Durban was that we had to pick up a convoy there, I can’t think of the name of the naval base there, anyhow we got in this convoy and we went up towards the canal.  We were off-loaded at Alexandria and from there we were sent to Mersa Matruh to guard a chlorination plant which was being erected there.  After we’d been there for a week or two we were sent back to Cairo.  The camp we were in was just outside Cairo, I think it was called Tel el Kabir as far as I can remember.  Anyhow I know there was little single decker trams used to run into Cairo and when we got leave we used to get on these trams.  It was like a swarm of bees, there was men on the running boards, men on the roof, I suppose the trams would seat about forty people and there’d be anything up to one hundred and fifty.  Sometimes when the drivers tried to put us off we put the driver off and drove the trams ourselves.  Anyhow we had a wild and uproarious time for a few weeks and then we were mustered up into the Australia New Zealand Army Corps which should have had another name added to it because the Manchester Regiment was put in with us to make up the corps.  I think it was the twelfth Manchesters that made up the corps.

We were told that we were going on to the peninsula but we were also told that it was a piece of cake.  All that we had to do was go in there and take the peninsula from Johnny Turk and just sit back and hold it.  Well, there’s nothing could have been further from the truth.

I don’t profess to know very much about what happened there, all I know is that we landed [25 April 1915] at the wrong place and that we were in water up to our neck when we left the landing craft and when we got ashore, there was a cliff that seemed to me to be about two hundred feet high.  In fact it was about half that.  Anyhow with struggling and hauling and cursing we got up this cliff and got our light field guns up as well and in the meantime we’d lost a lot of people because we were under direct machine gun fire from the Turks.  But eventually we gained a footing on the top and got roughly dug in. 

Well that was the beginning of one of the most uncomfortable and unhappy periods of my life and of course the lives of a lot of others.  There was a shortage of water, there was a shortage of food, by this I mean a variety of food, there was plenty of tinned stuff but nothing to break the monotony of biscuits and bully beef and pork and beans.  The organisation, altogether, was pretty terrible.  We, as soldiers, didn’t know much about what was going on, all we knew was that everything seemed to be going wrong.  We didn’t know then and I don’t know now, who was to blame for it.  Officers were blaming one another and the Navy and the Army seemed to be at loggerheads.  The Navy was supposed to come up to support an advance that we were going to make, they came too late and when they did come they were dropping the shells in amongst us instead of in front of us.  I think our own Navy killed almost as much as what the Turks did in that advance.

It seemed to me that it was stalemate until word went round that we were going over the top next morning and we were going to take the peninsula.  When it come round to getting on for zero hour, every one was on pins and needles and when we did go over the top eventually, this was just before dawn, we could see that no one on either side of us was going.  Apparently the hop over had been cancelled but they’d forgot to tell the officer commanding our lot or he hadn’t understood the order.  I don’t know what it was.  Anyhow, we went over and we went so far and then we were ordered to retreat.  Anyway we went back again and just as we got back, the other two lots went over on either side of us and they were left with a gap and they got a blasting.  Then we were ordered to go over again.  Eventually we got almost to the top, we had opposition, but it wasn’t anything like we were to see in France.  Mind you, this was the first time we had been under fire in an advance and we didn’t know much about it.  It seemed like all hell let loose to me.  Anyhow, we got over most of the top and then for some unknown reason, we got orders to retire.  We went back down into the trenches again.

Well, nothing happened for a couple of days, and then we got word that we were going over again the next morning, so we did.  In the meantime the Germans had got a lot of field guns up to the Turks and they had some big guns standing back with shrapnel and they gave us one god-almighty pasting.  There was fellers that got wounded, and it was full of ravines and gullies, there was no level country to work on, lots of these fellers that were wounded, they weren’t found for days and when they brought them in they were absolutely fly-blown.  Some with their tongues black where they hadn’t had a drink for a couple of days and it was all of one hundred and forty or fifty in the shade I’ll bet, it was just like standing in a furnace. 

Anyhow, it just ground on and we were sent out one night with a reconnaissance party.  The idea was to get over into the Turkish lines and if possible, get through them and find out what was at the back.  We got through but we got caught coming back and we were taken prisoner.

They took us down on to a bit of a plain and we were put into this compound.  The compound was only wire-netting, it wasn’t barbed wire, they must have been short of barbed wire, it was a wire-netting compound.  There were no guards in the compound, it was Turkish women that were looking after the feeding of the prisoners and that.  I don’t know whether some of our fellers had had a talk with these women or how it happened but I knew nothing at all about what was going on until, at teatime when they were coming round, they gave us a little parcel each.  I was saying “what’s this?” and one of the blokes said “Never mind what it is, you’ll find out later on.”  So when it got dark this woman came back and she led us out to where there was a hole in the wire netting.  Somebody had cut a hole in it. 

When we got through, she’d given directions as to which way to go  to get back again.  Anyhow, we set off, we had no idea what time it was because none of us had a watch.  We thought we were going to get caught on the wrong side of the Turkish lines in the daylight.  We were looking for somewhere to hole up and we found what we thought was a cave.  So we went into this cave, we kept going on and on and on, and eventually we decided it must be some sort of a tunnel.  So we thought it might go right through and come out the other side.  We decided we’d try it so we went on, oh, we must have gone about a mile in this tunnel and eventually we heard a noise.  We listened and we couldn’t hear very well what was going on or what was being said so we sneaked along until we come to a place where the tunnel turned slightly.  Just around the corner we could hear these voices and they were talking in a foreign language.  We didn’t listen long enough, if we’d listened longer we’d have realised who they were.  We just listened and thought it must be either Turks or Germans or somebody.  We had no ammunition or weapons of any kind so we decided that we’d all get as many stones as we could carry and we’d rush them, try to overpower them and get their arms off them.

Anyhow we made a rush for it, shouting like hell, and eventually heard voices shouting in English.  We pulled up and when we got up to them it was some Maoris and they’d been playing cards and talking in their own language.  They were in this place, there was a way out of it just near where they were, but they were sent there to guard this tunnel to see that nobody got through it.  So they let us through and we got back to our lines again.  We made a report what had happened and what we’d seen on the other side but we hadn’t much to tell which was of any use to us.

Well, time went on like this.  I got a letter from home in which they told me that George Ganes had been killed in action.  He must have been killed somewhere quite close to where I was but I never saw him.  I didn’t know he was dead until I got a letter back from Australia to tell me.  This went on for a time and eventually, thank god, the powers that be decided to evacuate.  Elaborate arrangements were made for the evacuation and as a matter of fact, if the landing had  been as well planned as the evacuation, we’d have taken Gallipoli within forty eight hours.  There wasn’t one casualty during the evacuation,  We went aboard the troopships and everything was planned down to the last minute.  It was only when they blew up the ammunition dumps that the Turks realised that there was anything going on.  Then they started shelling and firing but of course there was nobody there for them to shoot at.  Everybody’d got aboard and we were away. [Dec 1915]

We went to an island by the name of Lemnos and there we licked our wounds and got ready for the troopship that was to bring us to England.  Eventually we embarked for England and on the way over we had a boxing competition.  I won the light heavyweight class and was a bit of a hero with me mates.  I’d also palled up with a chap named Charlie Bullock.  Charlie was a brother of Frank Bullock the one-time jockey and now a trainer of race horses in France.  Charlie and I started to collect bottles on the boat and there was a penny apiece on these bottles if you took ‘em back to the canteens.  Between leaving Lemnos and arriving in England we made over seventy pounds on empty bottles.  That was what we had in our pocket, not accounting for the money that Charlie had lost playing Crown and Anchor because he was a devil for playing Crown and Anchor, he used to be coming to me every now and again for the loan of a couple of quid to see whether he could break the Crown and Anchor board but he never did it.

Anyhow, we landed at Plymouth and we were entrained for Erdcote on Salisbury Plain.  We were all very glad to get ashore because we’d had a terrible rough passage through the Bay of Biscay.  There was waves there, I’ll bet they were nothing short of forty feet high.  In fact you could stand on deck and you had to crane your neck to look up and see the top of the waves.  You wondered how the boat ever got on top of them.  I thought two or three times that we were going to be engulfed by one of these seas.  Anyhow, we got ashore alright and we went to Erdcote.

We were assembled at Erdcote and were told that we were going to get embarkation leave and then we’d be off to France within a week or two.  It was just coming up to the time of the Battle of the Somme and we were told that we were going over to take part in what would be one of the biggest assaults that the Allies had made on the Germans since the war began.

Well after a time we got our embarkation leave.  Charlie and I went up to London and spent our seventy quid.  In the meantime I’d been crimed for marking me kitbag, I’d painted me name and number all over it.  I got fourteen days number two field punishment and I was fined twenty five pound for defacing His Majesty’s property.  Well, that put me in debt and I never got out of debt again whilst I was in the army.

Shortly after this criming over the kitbag I got into trouble with the sergeant on parade.  He threw a rifle at me and I threw it back at him.  As soon as I threw it I heard a voice behind me say “Arrest that man!”  So I was marched off into the guard room.  I got another twenty eight days number one field punishment.  While I was in the cooler, we got word that King George was going to review the Brigade before they embarked for France.  The review was to take place at a place called Rolleston.  I don’t know how far it is from Erdcote, but it’s a long way, I think it’s about twenty mile, but we marched over one day with full pack.  We were better off than the rest of them because when we got there we were put into the guard room for the night, the rest of the fellers had to sleep under canvas and it was raining like hell.  They had us up next morning about four o’clock, we got a very scanty breakfast and we were marched out on to this parade ground which seemed to me to be about three or four miles square, I don’t know how big it was but it was a hell of a big place. 

We were lined up standing at ease waiting for the King to come.  Anyhow, he didn’t come and we were given orders to stand easy.  Then we were told that we could sit down and smoke.  This went on to about half past ten before we were called to attention again and we saw these fellers riding up on horses.  It was the usual thing for Australians, if something happened or if they didn’t like somebody, that they’d count ‘em out, like counting up to ten and shouting ‘out’ the same as you do a boxer.  Anyhow, they counted old King George out!  It didn’t seem to upset him, I don’t think he saw any of us, he just rode along hunched up on his horse.  He never spoke to anybody, he never stopped he just rode up and down the lines and left us.  We were marched back to Rolleston where we got a meal.  That would be about two o’clock so it’ll give you some idea of the time we had standing about.  With the meal over, we were marched back to Erdcote again.  Two or three days after that we went aboard ship to go to France.

The boat that I was on, it was a railway boat belonging to, I think it was the Great Western Railway, was the Viper.  On the way over we picked up a torpedo.  These boats had steel wire and chain curtains hung round them.  They hung away from the ships side, about eight or ten feet.  The idea of this was that they’d explode a torpedo before it actually hit the ship.  Anyway, this one didn’t explode, it must have been a dud because they had it in the nets when we got into Le Havre the next morning.  None of us knew anything at all about it.  I didn’t see or hear anything during the night.  It was there next morning for us to see.

We went into camp and somebody was found in my platoon to have mumps so we were all put into quarantine for the requisite period, I forget how long it was, a week or ten days or something like that.  We went into quarantine and spent our time lounging around the camp there.  When the quarantine period was over we were told that next day we would leave to go up to our battalion at Loos.

END OF TAPES.

6,037 words.

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