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 {10} 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. General Byron, his orderly officer, and myself left the same evening for Cairo en route for Suez. Next {11} day we had time to obtain a fleeting glimpse of the Pyramids, take tea at Shepheards', and be held to ransom by an energetic British matron who ordered us to "stand and deliver" in the name of some philanthropic institution which had not the remotest connection with the War or any suffering arising out of the War. The General furnished the soft answer that turneth away wrath, and with that, plus a small contribution for supplying wholly unnecessary blankets to the aboriginal inhabitants of some tropical country, we were allowed to retain the remainder of our spare cash and to continue our journey in the Land of Egypt. {12} CHAPTER II