Yesterday a teeming town - to-day abandoned

Cadets massed on the Oval for review by General Sir Ian Hamilton on  Tuesday, April 28. - Otago...
Cadets massed on the Oval for review by General Sir Ian Hamilton on Tuesday, April 28. - Otago Witness, 6.5.1914 Copies of photo available from ODT front office, Lower Stuart st, or www.otagoimages.co.nz
Although dark clouded skies ushered in the day at the Territorial encampment at Matarae, the rain held off.

A little rain fell, but not sufficient to cause any annoyance whatever.

The most notable incident of the day was the departure of the entire Mounted Rifles Brigade, whose period of camp training was finished.

The whole of the Infantry Brigade was engaged in perfecting several sections in the art of company attack.

The signallers were practising their usual mysterious signs, and the Artillery Brigade held its big annual shoot.

The breaking up of a home, however temporary and rough-and-ready, is apt at all times to be tinged with a faint solemnity.

Lowering skies regarded the daybreak activities of the Mounted Rifles Brigade, which was busy betimes preparing for its departure.

At 5.30 a.m. the first long troop train, with its many horse trucks and its comparatively few carriages left for Balclutha with its heavy freight, and from that time onwards other trains left, at 6.25 a.m. for Invercargill, at 7.30 a.m. for Gore, and at 12.10 p.m. for Clyde.

The camp was stirring with quick activity.

Bundles of luggage had to be made up, horses had to be entrained, and every article the property of the Defence Department had to be accounted for.

A lost tent-peg cost 2d, and everything that was mislaid meant a similar levy.

This is sound business, and is also a valuable means of inculcating carefulness and tidiness into the men.

By breakfast time the lines of the 12th Regiment were deserted, the horse lines stood bare, and the tents were empty and melancholy-looking, ready for striking.

In other parts of the mounted camp, the work of demolition was busily proceeding.

At intervals, little parties of two or three or half a dozen would ride off by themselves to nearby homes, followed by a chorus of farewells from their camp friends.

Intimacies a fortnight old, but none the less sincere on that account, were, perforce, broken off, with many handshakes, and much insistence on ''au revoir'' as opposed to the irrevocably-sounding ''good-bye''.

Quickly and surely the transition from gay, busy life to desolation was effected.

About midday the Hussars mounted their horses and cantered off for Macraes, where they will spend the night, leaving Dunback for their homes at Dunedin and elsewhere at about noon to-morrow.

There were a few cooks, and grooms, and people who had to stay, left in the midst of desolation - worse than desolation - a city of unoccupied homes.

The nearby infantry, as yet intact, offered consolation and good fellowship to the deserted survivals.

But the transition on the mounted side of the camp was starting. Yesterday a teeming town - to-day the same town abandoned!

• The Fifth Battalion, New Zealand Cadets, attended the parade in Dunedin on Tuesday for inspection by General Sir Ian Hamilton, but by an oversight mention of the fact was omitted from our report.

It was composed mainly of country lads from some very remote corners, and when one thinks of these youths mustering out of all sorts of places in the Catlins bush and elsewhere it is only right that their attendance should be recognised.

The battalion comprised the following companies:- Bruce, Lieutenant Turnbull, 59 rank and file; Tuapeka, 31 rank and file; Teviot, 41 rank and file; Clinton, Lieutenant Clark and 37 rank and file; Clutha, Lieutenant Weymouth and 71 rank and file; Catlins, Lieutenant Jackman and 89 rank and file; Kaitangata, Lieutenant Miller and 45 rank and file; total, five officers and 373 rank and file. The Catlins company mustered 90 strong out of a roll of 96. - ODT, 1.5.1914

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