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Updated: June 12, 2025
Whether it was tea she had been accustomed to drink on board the troop-ship we cannot tell, but probably she was correct as to the "mighty difference." It may be that the beverages supplied in foreign lands had somewhat damaged the power of discrimination as to matters of taste in these soldiers' wives. At all events an incident which occurred about the same time justifies this belief.
He had been running the Caribbean ports long enough to be able to say that much in Spanish; but more than all he smiled as he said it. You want to smile to get away with anything like that in the fire-room of a troop-ship in the U-boat country.
Yet ever and anon an exclamation on the jetty, and an answering wave of an arm on the troop-ship, told that some at least of the anxious ones had been successful in the search. "Don't they look weather-beaten?" remarked Miles to his companion. "Sure it's more like sun-dried they are," answered a voice at his side.
Toward evening, when the officers clustered together on the forward bridge, the band of the Second Infantry played tune after tune, until on our quarter the glorious sun sunk in the red west, and, one by one, the lights blazed out on troop-ship and war-ship for miles ahead and astern, as they steamed onward through the brilliant tropic night.
To Granger the shouting of the river was for all the world like that of a troop-ship departing for a distant country. "Farewell, farewell," it cried. The sound of its going made him weary with a sense of world-wideness; if he was left behind to-day, when once he had joined himself to a daughter of that country, he would be forever left behind.
A troop-ship has no longer a name, but although the ship we boarded at Port Melbourne docks was designated by the number A 14, it was not hard to discover that we were on a well-known ocean-liner, for on life-buoys and wheelhouse the paint was not so thick that inquisitiveness could not see the name that in pre-war days the Aberdeen line proudly advertised as one of their most comfortable passenger-carrying ships.
She has not before been mentioned. There were no other ladies on board, but there were several soldiers' wives, with their children, though, altogether, there were fewer women than are generally found in a troop-ship. A calm unusual for these latitudes had prevailed for several days.
Part of their water was started, and their guns, shot, provisions, and whatever would materially lighten them, were removed into three coasting-vessels detained for that purpose; but still they remained fast. The rest of the squadron, except the troop-ship, which was also aground, crossed the bar, and passing a stockade of large trees, anchored in deep water below the island of Madura.
Proceeding to the Embarkation Jetty, the detachment was marched on board the troop-ship, where the men were at once told off to their respective messes, and proceeded without delay to make themselves at home by taking possession of their allotted portion of the huge white-painted fabric that was to bear them over the waves to distant lands.
The fact was that a troop-ship having arrived rather suddenly, a sergeant had driven up in hot haste from the docks to make arrangements for the reception of the soldiers' wives and children! "Look sharp!" he cried, on entering the hall abruptly; "sixteen families are on their way to you."
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