The Trip to the Middle East
In October of 1915 grandfather's Lincolnshire regiment was told they were being sent to Salonika, where they would then ride across the Balkan plains to attack the enemy's flank. On the 17th of that month they boarded the Mercian, a fruit ship that had been fitted so that it could carry men and horses. It had no armaments. They travelled from England to Gibraltar, on very rough seas and many were affected by sea sickness. They docked at Gib, as they called it, but not one soldier was allowed out, as the ship was pretending to still be hauling goods. A few hours after leaving port many of the men washed their uniforms and hung them on lines to dry. Without any warning a shell whistled over the ship. A second shell struck amidship and the steam whistle sounded a warning. They were being attacked by a German U-boat. Since torpedoes were so expensive the Germans had surfaced and were using their 21 pound cannon. The Mercian couldn't fire back, so the men, with lifebelts on, had to stand on the deck and wait by their lifeboats. The ship sped up and zig-zagged through the water. At one point the crew of the ship abandoned ship, but the yeomanry men took over their jobs and kept going. They did fire back with machine guns (and perhaps Grandpa was involved), but the sub was too far away to hit. At one point the regimental chaplain actually grabbed an unexploded shell and threw it over the side. The attack lasted for an hour and a half and about thirty shells struck the Mercian. Another ship appeared on the horizon and, perhaps frightened that it was a destroyer, the submarine disappeared. The ship docked in Oran, Algeria. There were 78 wounded, 23 men killed, 22 men missing and 8 crewmen missing (later 13 yeomen and 5 crewmen were rescued). The whole event would have been a real baptism of fire for the regiment.
The Mercian next sailed for Alexandria, after getting new orders to report there. They arrived on the 20th of November. At that time Egypt was a protectorate of Britain and they needed to defend it, and the Suez Canal, from the Turks who were in possession of Palestine. The Lincs. Yeomanry set up camp south of Cairo.
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