With the Persian Expedition

by Martin Henry Donohoe

The Malwa boasted an amphibious purser named Milman. For three and a half years, ever since the war began, he had been sailing up and down the seas from London to Rio, and from Bombay to Liverpool, and he knew from personal contact the summer and winter temperature of the Mediterranean Sea better than did any meteorologist from collected data. In fact, he had been torpedoed so many times that he had begun to look upon it as part of the routine of his daily life. He possessed a life-saving suit, his own improved design, which was at once the wonder and admiration of all who inspected it. It was of rubber, in form not unlike a diving dress, with a hood which came over the head of the wearer and was made fast under the chin. In front were two pockets, which always remained ready rationed with a spirit-flask, some sandwiches, and a pack of patience cards. It was the purser's travelling outfit when he was overboard in the Mediterranean or elsewhere and waiting to be hauled on board a rescue boat.

Occasionally when, in harbour, time hung heavily on his hands, this amphibious purser would clothe himself in his rubber suit, slip over the ship's side, and go off for an outing. Once in Port Said, while gently floating off on one of these aquatic excursions, he was sighted by the port guardship, and a picket-boat was sent to fish him out under the impression that he was dead. "This bloke is a gonner all right!" said one of the crew, as he reached for him with a boathook. Then the "corpse" sat up and said things. So did the spokesman of the astonished crew when, having recovered from the shock, he found his voice again.

Milman was a cheery optimist. Nothing ever perturbed him. He was a recognized authority on "silver fish" (i.e., torpedoes) and cocktails, was an excellent raconteur, and possessed all the suavity and tact of a finished diplomat. When nervous ladies worried the doctor and cross-examined him as to the habits and hunting methods of Hun submarines, he invariably passed them on to the purser, and always with the happiest results; for, under the spell of Milman's racy talk, they soon forgot their fears.

The second day out from Taranto brought us well within the submarine danger zone. We changed course repeatedly, for wireless had warned us of the proximity of the dreaded sea pirate. The Tagus, our fellow transport, proved herself a laggard; she was falling behind and keeping station badly, and the Commodore of our Japanese escort was busy hurling remonstrances at her in the Morse code. Our three Japanese destroyers made diligent and efficient scouts. They gambolled over the blue waters of the Mediterranean like so many sheepdogs protecting a moorland flock. Now one or another raced away to starboard, then to port, then circled round and round us, took station amidships, or dropped astern.

Their tactics, perhaps one should say their antics, must have been extremely baffling, even exasperating, to any enemy submarine commander lying low in the hope of bagging the Malwa or the Tagus. Nothing seemed to escape the keen-eyed sailors of the Mikado's navy. Experience had taught them the value of seagulls as submarine spotters. Endowed with extraordinary instinct and eyes that see far below the surface of the sea, the resting gulls detect a submarine coming up anywhere in their vicinity, take fright, and hurriedly fly away. Whenever the gulls gave the signal—and there were many false alarms—a Japanese destroyer would race to the spot in readiness for Herr Pirate; but he never appeared.

However, the Hun was not always so cautious. There was great rejoicing on board the Malwa when the wireless told us that west of us, in the Malta Channel, Japanese vigilance had been rewarded, transports saved from destruction, and two enemy submarines sent to the bottom. It was all the work of a few minutes. Whether the enemy failed to sight the destroyers, or whether they intended to chance their luck and fight them, is not quite clear. At all events, Submarine No. 1 popped up dead ahead of one destroyer and was promptly rammed and sunk. Submarine No. 2 met with an equally unmistakable end. It had already singled out a transport for attack, when a second Japanese destroyer engaged it at seven hundred yards' range and blew its hull to pieces.

Nevertheless it was an anxious time for us on the Malwa living in hourly dread of being torpedoed. The Nursing Sisters professed to treat the danger with scorn; they were courageous and cheery souls, and would unhesitatingly have faced death with the equanimity of the bravest man.

Ten in the forenoon and five in the afternoon were the hours of greatest peril, when submarine attacks might be specially expected. Everyone "stood to" at these hours, wearing the regulation lifebelt, and ready to take to the boats if the ship were hit and in danger of sinking. Colonel Donnan, C.O. ship, was a strict disciplinarian. He enhanced the somewhat piratical ferocity of mien with which nature had gifted him by always carrying his service revolver buckled on and ready for any emergency, and the Nursing Sisters professed to be in great trepidation each time at inspection parade when he ran his critical eye over their life-saving equipment. Of course knots sometimes went wrong, and the strings of the life-belt were tied the incorrect way; but volunteers were never lacking to adjust the erring straps and to see that they sat on a pretty pair of shoulders in the manner laid down in Regulations, while the ferociously tender-hearted C.O. smiled approval.

On the fourth day after leaving Taranto the Malwa steamed into Alexandria Harbour. Everyone was in the highest spirits. We had escaped the submarine peril, and the period of nervous tension while waiting in expectancy of a bolt from the deep was happily over. It was a glorious spring day; the warm, radiant sun of Egypt gave us a fitting welcome.

The stay in Alexandria of the Bagdad Party was short. Orders came through from headquarters that we were to proceed to Suez by rail as soon as possible to join a waiting troopship there. That night there were many tender leave-takings in quiet secluded nooks on the upper deck of the Malwa. During our four days' journey from Taranto the Australians on board had proved themselves to be as deadly effective in love as they are in war. But now had come the parting of the ways, with the pain and bitterness of separation. Perhaps a kindly Fate may reunite some of these sundered ones, but for many that can never be. At least three of those bright, cheery Australian lads sleep in soldiers' graves beneath the soil of Persia, far from their own South Land and from the girls to whom they plighted their troth that last night in the harbour of Alexandria beneath the starry Egyptian sky.