No.Name.Tonnage.Speed.
1st Division.
3Maunganui7,52716
9Hawkes Bay7,20713
8Star of India6,80011
7Limerick6,82713
4Tahiti7,58517
2nd Division.
10Arawa9,37212
11Athenic12,23412
6Orari6,80012
5Ruapehu7,88513
12Waimana10,38914

the red of her keel, and saw her speed cone at the mast-head. We smiled at the efforts of this craft to keep pace, a smile which later in the voyage became wry at the mention of the ill-speeded vessel's name. Gradually on either quarter there crept towards us the leaders of the other lines or divisions, the Euripides and Wiltshire and their nine followers. Each ship was coaling and threw her smoke in the air, and each ship that left made a smoky trail, till the harbour became obscured like in a fog. As the Orvieto, following the course of the Minotaur half a mile ahead, now turned to the westward, astern we saw nothing but a bank of dark grey cloud, and from it masts and funnels and sometimes the bows of a ship protruding. It was all so smoothly and finely planned that it seemed almost unreal, as the ships took up their positions, our central line slowing down to permit of the other ships making up leeway. As I looked down the lines of ships each became a little smaller and a little more indistinct, until the last was scarcely more than "hull up" on the horizon. On either hand a warship; ahead a warship. The coast faded to a dim blue, more distinct once the sun rose over the hills, but soon vanishing over the swelling horizon. It was the last link with the Homeland, and who knew how many would see those shores again—and when! It was at last the real start.

Two days out—on the 3rd November—during the afternoon, the last two transports joined the fleet, escorted to their places by the Japanese cruiser Ibuki and the Pioneer. They came through a storm, I remember, and slipped into line without the least fuss. The Minotaur had signalled across to the Convoy, and soon we saw the warships that brought our escort up to five. This is how they lay beside the Convoy: the Minotaur a mile ahead marked the course (at night we steered by a stern light); the Ibuki on our right and starboard beam, a mile away; the Sydney on the left a similar distance. The Melbourne was a mile astern of the last New Zealand ship that followed hard in the track of the Australian Convoy, their ten ships ranged up on either side of the central division. The Pioneer turned back. Each transport was two cables length ahead of the one following; each division (on parallel courses) four cables from the other. So went the fleet with its precious Convoy into the Indian Ocean.

CHAPTER III
ADVENTURES ON THE CONVOY

Now the course set by the Minotaur, once the Convoy was well clear of the Western Australian coast, was not the ordinary trade route to Colombo. In the first place we steamed farther west, and then shaped a course to pass some 60 or 70 miles to the east of Cocos Islands. This was on the opposite side of that group to the ordinary track of the mail steamers. The reason for the change of route was to ensure protection. Other courses were open to us; for instance, the one which would have led us amongst the Deia Garcia Islands off the Madagascar coast. However, our destinies were guided by information received by wireless on the Flagship from the Admiralty. The troops were not aware of it, but there was a Japanese squadron operating round the coasts of Java and in this distant way protecting our flank. The speed of the Convoy varied from 9½ to 11 knots an hour, though the usual run for a day was about 244 knots.

The black sheep of the fleet—if one may call a vessel such—was the Southern, the 4,000-ton vessel which I have already referred to as following the Orvieto, the Flagship of the central line. She became the cynosure of every eye, regarded in turn with interest, mirth, derision, and finally anger and compassion. There was something in the attitude of the steamer with her great heavy bows that suggested she was always doing her best to keep up, and always she seemed to be stoking. One pictures her ghost stalking each night along her confined decks looking with alarm at the terrific pace! (10 knots) and wondering for how long it would continue. Not the least amusing part was that sometimes, gathering speed, she made spurts, and all but "came aboard" the Orvieto, taking this opportunity of hauling her speed cone part way down the mast, with an arrogance that she hastily had to abandon some ten minutes later. It was never quite understandable why she was chosen as a transport, and I have heard since that it was a hasty bargain of the Government when an early departure of the force was contemplated. The Medical Board had condemned certain ships as overcrowded, and this ship was taken on as an extra vessel, thereby reducing the speed of the Convoy by at least a knot an hour. The shortsightedness of this policy will be apparent when one calculates that the ships were hired by the day. With the Southern absent, one and a half knots an hour would have been added to the speed of the Convoy. This meant the dropping of 36 knots in a day, which in a voyage of thirty-five days was the same as two days wasted. Now, reckoning coal at 15s. a ton, as a Government price, the cost of that first Convoy a day was at least £6,000. That is to say, probably a great deal more than £12,000 was flung away by keeping the Southern. I cannot help including this incident. Captain Kiddle, of the Minotaur, had been given power by the Navy Office to discard the vessel if she was a nuisance, and it was thought at one time of turning her into a hospital ship at Colombo; in fact, that zealous officer signalled to Captain Gordon Smith, commanding the Convoy, telling him "to distribute the horses and men when you get to Colombo, and then allow her [the Southern] to return to the obscurity from which she should never have emerged." Unfortunately, for some reason this was not done, and she remained there faithfully with us till the end of the voyage—the constant source of our gibes.

Routine on the transports was not a very strenuous affair after the hard days of drill in the training camps and the long marches. To begin with, there was very little marching; only on the Orvieto and ships like the Euripides, where there was a certain length of deck available, did it permit of companies of men being marched round the ship. Many is the time I have sat writing in my cabin listening to the steady tramp of unbooted feet along the decks above, and the bands, stationed amidships, thumping out march after march. Never, however, could I grow accustomed to the distant squeal of the bagpipes, a band of which we were unfortunate enough to have with us. One threw down one's pen and tried to piece together some melody in the panting pipes.