Two days later the three chums received instructions to report on board the Pomfret Castle, which was due to sail with a mixed contingent on the following afternoon. The vessel was a Union Castle liner commandeered by the Government. Capable of doing twenty-two knots, compared with the Pintail's seventeen, it was more than likely, U-boats and mines excepted, that the Pomfret Castle would arrive at Plymouth days ahead of the convoy with the New Zealand reinforcements.
Taking no chances this time, Malcolm and his companions went on board a couple of hours before the authorized time. Baggage was still being stowed, while the decks teemed with troops of various nationalities. The bulk consisted of South Africans, mostly veterans of middle age, with a sprinkling of youths; detachments transferred from Mesopotamia to France; and Imperial troops from German South-East Africa. A draft of Maoris, and about twenty Australians who had overstayed their leave at Cape Town, completed the muster.
Instructed by the embarkation officer, the New Zealanders went below to their mess.
"Hallo, here are three Diggers!" exclaimed a strapping Queenslander. "Make them at home, you chaps. Now our mess is quite filled up. By Gum, I don't quite cotton on to those Dutchmen. I'm a believer in Australia for the Australians, and You fellows stand in with that crush."
The speaker introduced himself as Jack Kennedy, quartermaster-sergeant by rank, and sheep-farmer in civilian life. His left hand was in a sling, a strip of surgical plaster embellished his cheek. During his stay at Cape Town he had been forced into a squabble with a crowd of disloyal Cape Dutch. Words led to blows, with the result that three of his opponents were picked up insensible, while Kennedy was taken to the military hospital with a broken wrist and a nasty contusion of the forehead, caused by the nail-shod boot of an eighteen-stone antagonist.
"No kits?" continued Kennedy. "Your chaps went on and left you behind? We were much in the same sort of hole, only Buck-up Miller here knows the ropes. We'll soon see that you are comfortable. How about a pannikin of tea?"
Under the attentions of their new chums Malcolm and his companions soon adapted themselves to present conditions, and before the Pomfret Castle cleared Table Bay the Anzacs felt as if they had known each other for years.
Although the troops on board were going to fight a common foe--a foe that victorious would speedily prove more than a menace to Australia, to United South Africa, and to civilization in general--there was a certain amount of misunderstanding between the Afrikanders and their brothers-in-arms. In spite of the utmost endurance on the part of the Imperial officers, petty squabbles were frequent. The Boers, for instance, were prone to treat the Maoris in a similar manner to the Kaffir "boys". They could not understand how a white man could treat a Maori as an equal, being ignorant of the high moral and physical standard of the latter, that has justly earned the appreciation and admiration of the New Zealand colonists. For their part the Maoris accepted the Afrikanders' remarks with courteous equanimity, but there were others on board who championed them--with no uncertain voice.
Big Kennedy 'was as good as his word, and before nightfall each of the New Zealanders had a full kit, although they wisely refrained from asking questions as to the origin of the source of supplies. Already they were well advanced in the ways of the old campaigner. If they kept rigidly to the codes of civil life they would soon have found themselves very much out in the cold as far as personal comforts were concerned, although on board, in camp, and on active service, it was noticeable that personal property was rightly considered as inviolate.
One of the morning parades had Just ended, and Malcolm was hurrying down the accommodation-ladder to the mess deck when he was brought up sharply by a huge fist tapping him on the centre of his chest. Coming out of the brilliant sunshine to the comparative gloom 'tween decks, young Carr could not at first discern the features of the man who barred his progress.