Our steamer took us to Algiers and we marched on to Blidah. The morning after our arrival we were given our uniforms. I thought that basic training would last six weeks but it was over after only eight days. One hundred of us were then shipped straight back to France to replenish a regiment decimated at Woerth. Contrary to all hopes, I had not been able to sit out the war in Algeria.
My regiment formed part of the army of the Loire. General D’Aurelle de Paladines was our first commander-in-chief and General Chanzy succeeded him. We were subjected to continuous marching and fighting. It was no fun. I fought in the battles of Toury, Coulmiers, and Artenay. One little episode is fixed in my memory. On the eve of the Jewish New Year we were camped outside Orleans. The orders of the day permitted Jewish soldiers to absent themselves for twenty-four hours to attend religious services. I decided to take advantage of this privilege. I remember that my comrades were much surprised to discover I was Jewish.
At Artenay I was wounded and evacuated to a military hospital. I remained there until after the armistice was signed on May 10th 1871. More than two months passed before I recovered from my injuries and was discharged from my regiment. While convalescing, I wrote to the Hertzs in Paris but found myself totally unprepared for the doctor’s reply. Emma was dead! A shell had hit the ambulance in which she was working. At first I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it; I couldn’t accept it; I couldn’t think of anything else but Emma. Her image was always in front of my eyes; I spoke to her continuously in my mind. And then after several weeks, suddenly, I made peace with it all. I attribute my recovery to the war. War surrounds soldiers with a stench of death and conditions them to accept it; immediate self-preservation requires not a living with death, but rather a getting on with life. It wasn’t easy. I didn’t feel that I could distract myself by going straight back to University. Either way I had to visit my mother in Berlin and re-evaluate my financial situation with her. En route I spent a couple of days in Paris with Dr. Hertz and we consoled one another. Berlin was only to provide more bad news. Mother had died of a fever six months earlier. I contacted her lawyer to enquire as to my share of the estate. Most of it, the solicitor claimed, had gone to sustain and educate me for more than a decade. I couldn’t help but feel that he and my stepfather had acquired a fair share of it for themselves. But I decided not to pursue the issue further. I was too upset to embroil myself in a legal battle and had no wish to risk losing the bit that was still mine in the process. Instead I decided to re-start my life again, faraway from all this. I had read about Australia in books and now thought about visiting it. London would be the best place to make inquiries. Gold had been discovered in Victoria and had helped to create many opportunities there. It was possible, by way of a Government grant, to acquire a farm of 640 acres and I still had sufficient funds with which to stock and work it. I was young and idealistic and the thought of acquiring wealth from the soil by some honest hard work really appealed to me. I booked a passage on the Sussex.
When a newly arrived ship disembarked at Sandridge, it was customary to offer passengers one extra night on board. For the Challenge this was not possible. The crew of the Sussex was sent to the Sailor’s home. A family, in transit for Brisbane, was given accommodation at the Latrobe Street Immigrant’s Depot. Morris Abrahams was sent to the Police Station in Little Collins Street to be locked up for his own protection. The rest of us met with Mr. Siddeley, the local agent for the Money Wigram Line, who offered us a berth on the Suffolk, a fellow ship, currently in dock at Railway Pier. I left for Melbourne secure in the knowledge that I could spend my day exploring the city and still return to the port at night if I found nowhere to stay.
Later that same afternoon I was walking north up Queen Street, all alone and scantily clad. The only garments draping my body were a nightshirt and a pair of trousers. The sun had already sunk towards the west but the stone pavement was still warm. I thought about my bare feet and wondered whether they would blister that night. On reaching Bourke Street West my eyes gazed right. ‘Allegro Con Brio!’ It was New Years Day and the street was full of life. I turned into it and walked down the hill. My stomach was hungering for food, when, passing a chemist’s shop, I sighted, alongside it, a simple restaurant. A sign on the window read All meals sixpence. I put my hand into my right trouser pocket and pulled out some coins. They added up to three shillings. I was amazed that they were still there. They should have been at the bottom of Bass Strait. I entered the shop and asked for a meal. The proprietor eyed me carefully. “Got any money?” he demanded. “Yes”, I replied. He bade me sit down and sent me a waitress. “What is your selection of sixpenny meals please?” I asked. “Chops, steak, sausages, and colonial goose,” she rattled back. I ordered colonial goose. It was a good serve - plenty to eat - a right square meal. I turned and spoke to a man sitting opposite me. “Australian goose certainly tastes different from English goose. Are geese plentiful here?” “Hundreds of millions of them,” he answered, “but they have wool instead of feathers.” “That is most interesting,” I responded moronically, too intellectually dulled with fatigue to comprehend his joke. “You are a stranger?” he then enquired. “Yes I am an immigrant in search of a bed.” “You look every inch an immigrant,” he remarked with a wry chuckle. “The Immigrant’s Home is the best place for you.” I asked where it was and he gave me directions. He told me to continue down Bourke Street to Swanston Street, turn right, and then walk as far as the bridge. “There is always a policeman there,” he said, ” who can advise you further.”
Following the instructions, I soon found myself outside the Immigrant’s Home on St. Kilda Road. I rang a bell on the gate. An elderly man came. He looked amiable enough until he saw me. Then staring me straight in the eye, he blurted aggressively, “What the hell do you want?” I replied that I was an immigrant, a passenger from the wreck of the Sussex, who had been directed here for the night. “You bloody liar, there’s no wreck of the Sussex.” “Whether you believe me or not is immaterial,” I argued, “I want a bed for the night and have the money to pay for it.” “Ah, so now you’ve got money!” I produced my two and sixpence but this only riled him further. He hissed at me. “The likes of bloody you coming here at this hour and with money. Get out of here!” and he slammed the gate in my face.
I was dazed from lack of sleep and couldn’t think clearly. The old man’s behaviour perplexed me. I couldn’t understand why he had reacted in such a way. I even remember wondering why the possession of two shillings and sixpence had deprived me of my immigrant’s status. That I was dirty, dishevelled, and looked like a drunken derelict, or a mental case, never occurred to me.
I remembered the way I had come and retraced my steps across the bridge into the city. I followed the stream of shoppers and holidaymakers back to Bourke Street. It now dawned on me that my undistinguished appearance was attracting attention. My brain, it seems, was starting to get its second wind. The meal, which had initially diverted blood from my brain to my stomach, was now starting to nourish my neurones. I suddenly realised that I knew nobody in Melbourne and that nobody knew me. I needed to formulate a plan. The logical thing for a Jew to do was to go to the synagogue. Unbeknown to me I had walked straight past it on my way to the Immigrant’s Home. But before I had an opportunity to ask someone its location a stranger tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and found myself face to face with a tall, bearded man, about forty-five years of age, who looked Jewish. He asked if I was Frenchy from the Sussex and I nodded. “Where’s my brother?” He was obviously overwrought with emotion. I denied any knowledge of his brother. “Oh, yes,” he pleaded, “you do know him. My name is Lewis Abrahams. I hadn’t heard of the wreck until I returned home from the races. I went straight to the wharf and questioned some of the shipwrecked people camping there. They told me you were good to him, you had cared for him during the voyage. They thought you had taken him to town.” “Morris Abrahams,” I said, “you’re Morris Abrahams’s brother. The police have taken him.”