This place will be a mud hole when the rain does come. We had a bit of a shower last night but it was nothing to speak of.
Occording [sic] to an account of a Turkish Officer who gave himself up
the other night says that the Turks are getting very badly treated by the
Ottoman Officers and are only getting one meal a day and that was in the
evening. There was one Turk who tried to give himself up the other night got shot by the sentry. We dragged him into our Trenches to bury him
in the morning and you ought to have seen the state he was in. He had no
boots on, an old pair of trousers all patched and an old coat.
The pioneers took him down the gully to bury him and one got shot in the thigh by a snipers in the Turks Trenches. We are not doing bad for food, we got that little present from Lady Ferguson [wife of the Australian
Governor General] that was 2 fancy biscuits, half stick Chocolate and 2 sardines each. I think I have told you all the news so I must draw to a close with Fondest love to all."
Private Martin craved a letter. Across the top of his letter he scrawled:
"Write soon. I have received no letters since I left Victoria and I have been writing
often."
A little over a fortnight later he died from heart failure, probably caused by enteric fever, and was buried at sea.
His enlistment papers gave his age as 18.
- At the time of his death he was 14 years and nine months.
Among his effects was a scrap of red and white streamer that he had picked up as his troopship left Melbourne. |
