Recreation (19)

Practicing cricket in Rockhampton

September 19, 1943 (Sunday)
     This afternoon I went to the cricket field and watched some fellows at practice.  They ranged in apparent age from 18 to 50!  I learned something of the game.  Wickets, wicket keeper, batsman, bowler, fielder - 11 in all.  Stumps, bails, ball, bat.  Quite interesting to watch, though somewhat slow.  The ball must be bowled (thrown overhand).  I talked to a Reggie Armstrong - swimming coach at the grammar school.  It apparently corresponds to our high school and jumior college.  It is a private school.  Students come from "out back".  It is a boarding school, endowed, and not run for profit.  The "Master" is an MA (master's degree).  It has a boys and a girls section.  Men teachers only.  It is 50 years old.  I hope to attend some of their [the club's] cricket matches.  That must be an endurance contest - 2:30 to 6 is nothing.  One player has made as high as 600 runs before being put out.

22 Sept. '43
Dear Folks,
     Yesterday was our first day of Spring (I think!)  Anyway, the weather was more than Spring-like.  The last few nights I haven't pulled the top of my sleeping bag over me until along towards morning.  But at least it is cool enough to sleep at night.  During the day it was in the 90's.  I'll be glad when the "open air building" for my office is up.  They claim that the shorts are much cooler in summer.  But the long wool socks that are worn with them would seem to me like a drawback.  And they cretainly couldn't be worn in the evening the way the mosquitoes gather around.  The other evening I put on my helmet to keep them off my ears.  They claim that some of these skeeters look at your dog tag before they bite, to see what blood type you are!

An Australian possum

     Last evening one of the fellows shot a "coati" - at least that is what it was called [possibly a bandicoot, or an Australian possum since coatimundis are New World animals].  It belongs to the marsupial family.  It has a head and ears like an oppossum, and a long tail, bare along the underside only.  Why they killed it, I couldn't quite see, for certainly the fur is no good now at this season.
     ...  Our shows lately have not been good.  The other evening there was a typical Western - "Bandit Ranger" - you'd have laughed at how the patients enjoyed it.  They just whooped and cheered.  They are (a lot of them) just kids.  I suppose the average age is almost 10 years younger than I [Gene was almost 33].  I'm a considerably older soldier than you were, Vernon [he was about 18 in WWI]!
     Our mess officer was just in for the census.  He certainly has a headache, trying to anticipate several days ahead what our count will be.  We are busier than we ever were in the States.
     The boys who have been there, say that in New Guinea they opened lots of packs of cigarettes, only to find them molded.  Imagine sealed packs molding!  They say that Camels was one of the few brands tightly emough sealed to withstand it.  ...
     Love, Eugene

September 23, 1943 (Thursday)
     Christie and I had a tea - lunch at Stewart's.  Then took a bus out to the Botanic Gardens.  It was quite interesting - a fairly large park-like arrangement with all sorts of tropical trees and plants, some labeled including the "cassia fistula" or Indian Pipe Tree.  This had long seedpods that contained a black resin smelling like ichthyol [ammonium bituminosulfonate, used to treat some skin diseases].  A huge tree had large, waxy red blossoms.  It was full of beautiful little wild parrots.  There was a banyan tree and all sorts of palms, some of which even had clusters of coconuts.  Another tree had things hanging from branches that looked like the very large sized bologna, and about a foot long, hanging from a string [see the photo of the sausage tree in post #17].  There were beautiful bougainvillea flower masses, now fading.  I hope to take pictures in it [the Botanic Gardens] - kodachromes.

At the Rockhampton bowling Club

September 25, 1943 (Friday)
     This afternoon some of us went to the "rices" at the RJC - Rockhampton Jockey Club.  I didn't bet!  After the 2nd, George and I had tea, then walked over to the RBC - Rockhampton Bowling Club - and watched the members at "bowls".  They all wore white clothes, including some type of straw hat (even formal style) with a hat band insignia.  There were 7 alleys.  They have about 100 members.  They were very nice and hospitable, explaining the game (which I had watched in Denver).  About 4 a bell rang, and they invited us to tea!  (When a bowl was short); Good on you!, Kiss the kitty (=hit the bowling jack).  Then we talked to some fishermen along the river.
     ...  Beth's letters make me so darn lonesome.  No one knows how many years of life are left to each of us.  What a cursed shame that time is slipping by, and we're apart.  Why must there be war and suffering?
     At the race a lady back of me said, "Why that horse is knocked up before he starts" meaning he was tired before starting.

26 Sept. '43
Dear folks,

Waiting for the dingy on the Fitzroy River

     ...  [W]e talked to a man fishing in the river.  It is quite a sizeable river, and the tide varies its depth.  It is about 300 yards wide and there are quite a few fishing boats and launches on it.  Prawns (a variety of shrimp) are taken by netting, at night.  The salt water when the river flow is low brings in sea fish to a certain extent.  The water looks as muddy as the Pecatonica River [the river through Freeport, IL], to me.  We cross it each time we go to town.  I still want to go ocean fishing some time.
     One of the fellows shot a "gecko", a species of hooded lizard.  He skinned it and expects to mount it.  It is harmless.
     Hope you are both doing O.K.!
     Love, Eugene

September 30, 1943 (Thursday)
     Last night at the show, we had a good G-I short.  It introduced the "Screaming Eagle Hardware Company"  The sales talk was clever.  "Are you bothered with tanks?  Then see our latest model Tank Eradicator. T-A-N-K  D-E-S-T-R-O-Y-E-R, tank destroyer.  With its new bogey wheels it rides smoothly (?) along over the roughest terrain.  And its new gun - a model for ease of operation.  The trigger is conveniently mounted as a push button.  Etc., etc.  See your Supply Sergeant today.  Ask the man who didn't own one - Irwin Rommel of Berlin."
     In the last issue of the Yank, the story of the song of Dirty Gertie from Bizerte [a city in Tunesia under French control at the time] is given.
          Dirty Gertie from Bizerte
          Hid a mouse trap 'neath her skirtie
          Strapped it on her knee cap purty
          Baited it with Fleur de Flirte
          Made her boy friends' fingers hurty
          Made her boy friends most alerty (or very shirty, originally)
          She was voted, in Bizerte,
          Miss La Trine for 1930.
    

Old river man, all cleaned up

October 10, 1943 (Sunday)
     ...  Today George and I left at 1 and went down to the [Fitzroy] river where he had scraped up acquaintance with an old river man.  This old man of 72, born in England, started as a pharmacist apprentice but left that at the age of 15 (thought he had poisoned a customer.  This woman asked for 6d of laudanum, which he gave her and she drank at once.  So he just went home!  The woman was an addict, so it didn't bother her!)  But he went to sea.  In about 1885 he came to Rockhampton with a load of settlers.  The town was nothing, then.  He has packed [in] supplies in north Q'land (had a huge alligator break the back of one horse at a ford), hunted, fished for turtles, all around the islands north of here, etc. etc.  He has a stubby sailboat, not over 16 feet long, with a half cabin forward, in which he lives.  He is short, sun-burned, and none too clean.  He was anchored out in the river when we came, but rowed his "dingy" in for us and took us out.  He then proceeded to wash up and change clothes for the occasion!  The boat was crowded with all sorts of gear - tar buckets, boards, etc.  He lets George take the dingy out in the river to fish, which George, being a natural born fisherman, enjoys immensely, dirty as the water is!  George rowed me across the river (300 yards wide, and 40 to 50 feet deep in some places), and I went to take pictures.
     All is not quiet these days.  Outfits are starting to leave.  Something is no doubt beginning .

Recreation time is over for those returning to war.  The members of the 92nd Evac still have some time to watch and wait.