compliments took place, during which the
private referred disparagingly to his superior's figure and parentage.
On the next day he appeared at "orderly room" and was awarded a brief
period of enforced retirement. Declining to walk to the place of
detention he was placed on a stretcher, but the stretcher bearers were
so inexperienced then that after a journey of about 200 yards he elected
to march. On his release, the offender, very contrite and desiring to
make the _amende honourable_, approached the warrant officer and
explained that the statement previously made in regard to his _figure_
was entirely without foundation.

Some rioting had occurred a few months previously in Cairo, and overseas
soldiers were said to have been concerned in it. A further outbreak was
reported during the last week of July, followed on the next evening by a
disturbance in Heliopolis. Whatever were the causes of the first two
outbreaks, the third was directly traceable to the fact that Cairo was
suddenly placed out of bounds when leave men were waiting for trams at
the Heliopolis terminus with a view to securing passage to the city. The
military police, in attempting to deal with the situation, behaved
rather tactlessly, and incurred the resentment of the men, who indulged
in some stone-throwing and roughly handled a few individuals. Charges of
wholesale looting were laid against the troops, but a court of inquiry,
of which the commanding officer was a member, found on close
investigation that L50 would cover the whole of the damage done. The
claims submitted by the native shopkeepers totalled up to some L3,000.
During the early months of the A.I.F's. stay in Egypt, the Military
Police, a newly constituted force, incurred the dislike of the bulk of
the troops. This dislike engendered an antipathy which endured until the
end of the war. In the first instance there appears to have been some
reason for it. The police were not selected with sufficient care, and
included a number of men whose actions, to say the least, were shady. On
several occasions decent and well-behaved members of the Battalion were
received from the police cells, bereft of their money, much bruised and
battered, and accompanied by a charge sheet accusing them of crimes
which one moment's consideration would show they could not have
committed. Strong representations on these matters had no immediate
effect, but ultimately the Provost Corps was purged of the bad element
and