After a preliminary reconnaissance by the CO, company commanders on 10 September went to Baggush to lay out the defensive position to be taken up there by the battalion. A Company moved to Baggush on the 16th and was followed on the 27th by B, D, and HQ Companies, which bivouacked for a night at Burg el Arab on the way. Australian troops took over the area at Amiriya and in the opinion of most of the men were welcome to it. C Company, meanwhile, remained on railway duty at Daba, rejoining the battalion at Baggush on the 29th.

The September war diary records several deaths. On the 19th a primus being used as a home-made forge exploded in the pioneer platoon's workshop, and two men, Privates Lowe

Pte O. Lowe; born Wellington, 5 Apr 1915; blacksmith; died on active service 19 Sep 1940.

During the last week of September work on the Baggush Box defences was begun. At this stage in North Africa it was expected that the Italians might attempt a drive on Alexandria at any time. With the Rajputs on its left, the battalion began the laborious task of digging, concealing, and wiring its allotted area. Weapon pits, communication trenches, and dugouts were excavated, the digging varying from soft sand to rock too hard for picks and shovels. At night large quantities of sand would fall back into the diggings so that next morning some of the previous day's work had to be done again. ‘Cut and cover’ dugouts (usually spoken of by the men as ‘cut and shivers’) were revetted and covered over to make them invisible from the air. The work proceeded smoothly but with a new significance after the CO had told his men that they would probably fight in their positions some day.

During October the work continued, enlivened on the 5th by a celebration of the anniversary of the First Echelon's entry into Burnham Camp. Issues of beer had been saved for the occasion and many dugout parties marked the end of the first year in the army. In a special order, ‘On this, the first anniversary of the formation of this unit’, Colonel Kippenberger expressed to officers and men his thanks for ‘their good and loyal service during the past year’ and wished them good fortune in the future.

High-flying Italian planes began to pay evening calls when the moon was full and the troops made the acquaintance of their ‘thermos’ bombs, booby traps so called because of their resemblance to thermos flasks. After an air raid had caused casualties in an adjoining area, the order was given to dig tents down four feet and house trucks and lorries in pits. As part of the toughening-up process, and to make the battalion more mobile in the event of a hurried move, bedboards and palliasses were later dispensed with on the CO's orders, and everyone slept on groundsheets on the sand or made beds, illegally, of sandbags filled with newspapers.

During the second week of October three Royal Air Force Gladiators co-operated to give the troops experience of a dive-bombing attack. The planes' performance was rather less spectacular than the men had been led to expect, but as a precaution against unauthorised retaliation from the ground magazines were removed from rifles before the demonstration began. On the same day, 10 October, Brigadier Puttick inspected the area and expressed his satisfaction at the siting of the positions, and on the 22nd the battalion sent representatives to an inspection by the Rt. Hon. Anthony Eden, then Secretary of State for War.

As changes from the monotony of digging, the battalion, by companies, carried out field firing in a wadi a few miles away and, on 23–24 October, combined with the tanks of 7 Royal Tank Regiment in a two-day exercise—though it must be said here that the tanks were represented by lorries carrying a petrol tin on a pole. Harry Bretherton's diary for 26 October records, ‘Sandstorm and flies. Worst day in Egypt.’ Still another diversion was the training in tank hunting given by the RSM. This was based on methods taught to a 4 Brigade demonstration squad by an NCO whose knowledge had been gained with the International Brigade during the Spanish civil war. Sea bathing and inter-company football matches provided recreation.

About this time one D Company private, well known as the battalion barber, assiduously produced his own hand-written news-sheet, The Muddle East Rumour, which appeared regularly on the company notice-board.

November saw further routine training, including another brigade exercise. It is remembered for two incidents—the first when one of the battalion's Bren carriers, while refuelling, caught fire and a thousand rounds of .303 ammunition went up in the flames; and the second, shortly afterwards, when an Italian plane, attracted by the fire, dropped several bombs close to the bivouac area. The usual order to dig in, obeyed only perfunctorily until this raid, suddenly assumed a new importance, and through the darkness echoed the clinking tattoo of many shovels and picks as men deepened their trenches in expectation of another raid. On another manoeuvre the provosts became lost and suddenly found themselves back in camp.

The fourth death in the battalion occurred on 13 November when Private Wattie Jack,

Pte W.H. Jack; born Mossburn, 30 Dec 1911; labourer; died on active service 13 Nov 1940.

Further field firing, a month's interchange of appointments among subalterns, and an inspection of each company in turn by the CO completed the month, during which the weather had become much colder. Several showers were followed on the 27th by a heavy downpour which flooded dugouts and trenches and washed away part of their walls. Tents built in wadis were flooded and some of them collapsed. One tent and its occupant were washed down a wadi, the soldier having to return next day to search for his teeth. Several days were spent in digging out weapon pits and dugouts and in drying wet clothes and bedding.

At one stage during the battalion's sojourn at Baggush several NCOs and men were detached to supervise the work of Sudanese natives who were employed in digging an anti-tank ditch. A corporal's life is never an easy one but this ‘Wog driving’ imposed more than usual strain. It seemed almost impossible either to make the natives understand what was wanted or to keep them at work once they had grasped the idea. The climax came when one of the labourers rushed up to Lance-Corporal Fred Mason

L-Cpl F.T. Mason; Dunedin; born Dunedin, 12 Feb 1917; brass polisher.

During December instructions were received from Brigade Headquarters that work on defensive positions was to be confined to maintenance. At this stage men might easily have become ‘browned off’ but for the CO's ingenuity in planning methods of training. A minimum of three days each week was to be spent in training; and it was during this period that company fought and manoeuvred against company outside the ‘Box’ in a manner reminiscent of the Tai Tapu manoeuvres. Companies fed themselves, marched, patrolled, evaded and surprised each other, and learned a great deal about handling themselves in the desert. There was plenty of movement in transport and on foot. Altogether it was a most useful training period.

Sandstorms and rain were the major discomforts of mid-winter at Baggush, unless one includes the military and general knowledge tests given to the NCOs. Khaki-drill shorts and shirts were still being worn, and men on picket at night often wrapped blankets around them on top of greatcoats and pullovers. Battle dress was not issued until the middle of January, after the battalion had moved to Helwan Camp.

The battalion transport drivers, familiar by now with most of the hazards of driving in sand, left Baggush on 11 December for Mersa Matruh. Under command of Major Burrows, they formed part of a convoy of New Zealand transport which was used in General Wavell's offensive which had begun on 9 December. On the outward journey, according to Harry Bretherton and Eric Taylor,

Cpl E.C. Taylor, m.i.d.; Invercargill; born NZ 12 Feb 1902; motor mechanic.

Next day the convoy took rations to a dump 18 miles south of Sollum. Travelling slowly next day, the convoy made an unofficial stop near a recently captured Italian position at Tummar West, where the drivers searched dugouts for souvenirs and emerged with new Italian rifles, the ‘Red Devil’ hand grenades, cases of sardines, clothing, abundant supplies of macaroni, bottles of mineral water, wines and liqueurs. The convoy halted again at 5 p.m. and the men were told to go to bed. Shortly afterwards, on fresh orders, the trucks were hurriedly packed and the convoy set off on a very cold and difficult all-night drive to a petrol dump, which was reached about eight o'clock next morning. After delivering its cases of petrol at the supply dump south of Sollum the convoy returned to Baggush on, 20 December. That night the drivers celebrated their return with a very fair fireworks display from the souvenirs brought back from the Italian fort.

For the rest of the battalion lingering at Baggush, these were weeks of disappointment as the battle swept west to success after success without their help. Perhaps for this reason Christmas celebrations began some days before Christmas Day and continued as long as the money or the beer lasted. Officers waited on the men at Christmas dinner and there was a spirit of good-fellowship in the battalion lines.

The drivers began their second excursion into the Western Desert on 30 December when a convoy of 15-cwt trucks returned to Burg el Arab to pick up Australian infantry of the 2/7 and 2/11 Battalions who were going forward to take part in General Wavell's campaign. After staying the night at Burg el Arab, the convoy journeyed past Mersa Matruh to a camp just outside Charing Cross where it spent the night. New Zealand drivers, accustomed to observing a strict blackout, were mildly surprised when the easy-going Australians lit fires everywhere, quite unconcerned about enemy planes. Next morning the convoy moved through Sidi Barrani to Sollum and up over Halfaya Pass to an area between Fort Capuzzo and Bardia, where the infantry debussed, formed up, and went straight in to attack Bardia that night. The trucks were shelled while in this area, returned across the flat at top speed, and reached Baggush the following afternoon. An Italian radio broadcast extolling the bravery of their soldiers defending Bardia against ‘800 tanks and 400,000 men’ gave the drivers ‘a bigger laugh than usual’.

On 11 January preparations were made to move to Helwan as the first step towards the concentration of the Division. Next day, after striking tents, the men endured the worst dust-storm of their experience. Lying on the ground, they huddled into their equipment which had been rolled up ready to be taken to the station. A Company alone had not struck its tents and Captain Mitchell

Maj T.H. Mitchell; Christchurch; born Christchurch, 9 Dec 1904; electrical engineer; wounded 26 Nov 1941.

Settling in took several days, a good part of which was spent in pitching tents and digging them in. The men were eager to renew acquaintance with Cairo; at the weekend they crowded into buses for a breakneck dash to Helwan station and thence by diesel train to Bab-el-Louk.

The battalion guard on 18 January brought a warm tribute from General Freyberg, who in a letter of congratulation to the CO added the postscript, ‘It really was a very well mounted guard.’ Not all the battalion's guards were as successful, the corporal of one of the early guards at Maadi achieving minor distinction during an inspection by General Wavell by prefacing the order to present arms with the order ‘Right turn’. The result was that the General took the salute from a guard which faced away from him in file. The General was amused and is reported to have commented that he had been in the army a long while but that this was the first time he had seen a guard present arms in that fashion. Other senior officers who saw the manoeuvre were more critical.

Training recommenced with route marches and practice in pontoon bridging, followed by river-crossing exercises on the Nile in small assault boats which were later used for races. Against the current it was hard work to row the clumsy craft across and some men got a wetting when their boats capsized. On the 23rd the battalion marched out for an exercise in advancing under a live-ammunition barrage. To men weary of training under imaginary conditions it was their best ‘stunt’ to date. To quote Bill Glue's

Capt W.A. Glue; Lower Hutt; born Timaru, 5 Feb 1916; journalist.

During the first week of February companies in turn carried out rifle and Bren practices at the Maadi range. Coaches were appointed to raise the less-qualified to the necessary standard. On 10 February Royal Engineers demonstrated the use of anti-tank mines, Bangalore torpedoes to blow gaps in barbed-wire entanglements, and the neutralising of booby traps. The thrill of being within the danger area of large quantities of explosives was increased during a demonstration with a Bangalore torpedo when a large piece of the piping landed amongst the spectators.

A football match with 26 Battalion, won by the latter 26—nil, the divisional boxing championships and, on 14 February, a divisional regatta were the chief diversions from training. During the boat races there were quite a few capsizes, one of them caused when the chain of a passing felucca fouled one of the boats. Another craft was swamped and two of the occupants swam ashore complete with rifle, pack, and steel helmet.

On 16 February at church parade the recently formed 4 Brigade Band appeared. It had originally been formed from men of the battalion in the Dunera during the voyage to Egypt.

At various stages in their training the troops had been required to use their imaginations in such matters as wire, tanks, and air cover; now for the next exercise, a practice in a beach landing, boats too were imaginary. Four Bren carriers, connected by ropes which enclosed a number of troops, represented landing craft. On 18 February New Zealand engineers gave a demonstration of how to haul a Bren carrier up a cliff. A mild sensation was caused when they ran out of rope, and a carrier containing Private Southon

Pte R. Southon; born Kaikoura, 3 Oct 1912; transport driver; died on active

A medical inspection of all companies was completed by 25 February. This, and the issue next day of tommy guns, revived rumours of a move which had been inspired a month previously by an issue of sandshoes. Lectures by the Brigade Intelligence Officer on what to report to Intelligence from the front line, further instruction in anti-gas precautions, and the arrival of reinforcements on 28 February gave added weight to the rumours already current, and three days later (another rumour) Lord ‘Haw-Haw’ was reported to have confidently announced that ‘General Freyberg's circus is on the move’.

Whatever the destination might be the men were keen to go. Training periods that are indefinitely prolonged have a soul-searing effect; even the attractions of Egypt were beginning to pall, while its disadvantages were endured with diminishing patience. Men felt that they had ‘missed the bus’ in Libya last December. The crowded Italian prisoner-of-war camp nearby made them envious of the accomplishments of the Australians. Preparations were over at last, and the words in the army paybook, ‘On Active Service’, were about to assume their real significance.

The battalion's commanding officer, writing to a friend in New Zealand on the eve of leaving Helwan, said: ‘We have not wasted our time. We are ready. My men will do their whole duty.’

* * * * *

During the battalion's first year in Egypt boredom and sickness had been its enemies. It had yet to fire a shot at the enemy against whom it had trained so assiduously; none of its four casualties had been killed in action. Some of the men had had anxious moments and close escapes from bombs dropped by high-flying Italian planes, and a few on anti-aircraft sentry duty had relished the opportunity to hit back with their light machine guns but had scored no known successes. Most of the troops had had to be content to lie in their beds at night and listen to the surge of the motors of the three-engined Italian planes (‘organ-grinders’ they called them) as they circled overhead in the moonlight looking for a target. It was too passive a role for men keen to see action.

No unit is altogether free from crime, which is a harsh name under which to classify the misdemeanours of men intent often only on enjoying their leave; and the battalion was no exception. Out of an average strength of between 650 and 750, approximately 150 men appeared ‘on the mat’ during their first year in Egypt, most of them charged with absence without leave, drunkenness, absence from parade, or with that old favourite, ‘conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline’. A soldier who overstayed his leave for an hour or so and was unlucky enough to get caught could expect two or three days' CB; if his absence was longer his punishment might be seven days' CB or field punishment and the loss of one or more days' pay. If he was guilty of drunkenness the penalty was usually two or three days' CB or a fine of ios. or £I, according to the circumstances and the frequency of the offence; but if drunkenness was combined with a more serious charge, such as striking a superior officer, resisting an escort, or wilful defiance of authority, the punishment was usually detention for a period of from seven to twenty-eight days. A man who was found both drunk and out of bounds was given 10 days' detention; another who was drunk while driving an army vehicle received 17 days' detention.

CB, confinement to barracks, meant that the soldier (usually referred to as a ‘defaulter’) was prohibited from leaving the unit's lines and was required to attend a number of extra parades, in varying orders of dress, ‘at uncertain hours throughout the day’. Defaulters were summoned by bugle to the battalion orderly room to answer the defaulters' call: ‘You can be a defaulter as long as you like / As long as you answer the call’ and were given extra fatigues, sometimes unpleasant, or drill. Field punishment was awarded for an offence committed on active service in the field; where possible, the sentence was served in a field punishment centre. The soldier under sentence was ‘subject to the like labour, employment, and restraint … as if he were under sentence of imprisonment with hard labour’, and could be kept in irons. Detention was served in the military equivalent of a civil prison. Pay was forfeited by a soldier serving a sentence of field punishment or detention.

In the first year overseas only about twenty men of the battalion were sent to detention barracks at the Citadel or at Abbassia, but several of these men served two or three sentences at one or both of these places. A man who had been awarded 28 days' detention for defiant behaviour at Colombo had not completed this term when he received a further 21 days for ‘offering violence to a superior officer’ and resisting an escort. About two months later he faced charges of drunkenness, of using insubordinate language to a superior officer and resisting an escort, and received 28 days' detention. He was again in trouble in August when he was given 21 days' field punishment for disobeying a lawful command. Scarcely had he completed this sentence when a further seven days were added for ‘disobedience, in such a manner as to show a wilful defiance of authority, of a lawful command given personally by his superior officer’.

Another ‘character’, whose offences included drunkenness on at least four occasions—once when he had been warned for duty—as well as absence without leave, failure to parade, offering violence and using threatening language to a superior officer, was sent to the detention barracks for periods of 21 and 28 days and was also awarded 21 days' field punishment and two or three shorter terms of CB. Another man, well known in the battalion by his nickname, spent 14 days and then 10 days at the Citadel during the first few months in Egypt on charges of conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline. On the second occasion he was punished for malingering; to avoid duty he had paraded sick with diarrhoea, but had failed to prove to the satisfaction of the Regimental Medical Officer that he was suffering from this complaint. In due course he came back from the Citadel a smarter soldier but unrepentant. He reported that he had spent most of the time in a cell scrubbing pots and pans with bath brick, that he had cleaned his brass, web, and boots about three times a day, that even finger-nails were inspected and that all drill was done at the double. The place was far too tough, he reported. The experience left him with a predilection never to double when ordered, a circumstance that was to cause him much trouble during his army career.

On 8 June 1940 the theft of the Headquarters Company payroll amounting to £102 was discovered. There was a muster parade and kit inspection for the whole battalion, and a man from this company was apprehended in Port Said and brought back next day in civilian clothes with £52 in his possession. In due course a field general court martial found him guilty of desertion and stealing public money, and he was sentenced to six months' detention.

A soldier who ‘committed an offence against the person of an inhabitant of the country in which he is serving’ (he assaulted an Egyptian) and resisted an escort received a court-martial sentence of 60 days' detention.

Before he could serve his sentence the battalion left for Greece and the soldier went with it. He was wounded at Markopoulon and, on his return to Egypt, found a sixty-day pay stoppage in operation. When the CO himself got back from Crete, however, he insisted that ‘If a man fights for his country he must be paid’. He was.