Chauvel broke the disappointing news to his Light Horse Brigade. They would not be taking their mounts to the battle zone. Only a few score of packhorses and mules, and a handful of speedy steeds, would accompany them, the latter for passing urgent messages or mail. Bill the Bastard’s bulk, strength and endurance meant he would be in that small equine allotment, but as a packhorse. The war theatre would be ‘somewhere’ in the Aegean, Chauvel informed his bewildered men. He told them that the terrain of sharp ridges and thick scrubby ravines would be unsuitable for Light Horse or cavalry action. The men would be going to the war zone as back-up infantry.
The troopers were disappointed and confused. They were horsemen, not trained soldiers. Yes, they were mostly good shots, on average better than their infantry brethren, but the anticipated close combat trench warfare was not what any of them had envisaged or volunteered for. They had in mind open fields or plains. Troopers dreamt of the charge on horseback that had been romanticised and glorified in a thousand books, magazines and newspaper reports since Napoleon’s halcyon days a century earlier.
Before any severe disgruntlement could set in, Chauvel had his brigade and another from New Zealand do competitive manoeuvres in the desert, with their mounts. This was to take the troopers’ minds off the frustration, made worse by the added news that the infantry would soon (mid-April 1915) be en route to the battle destination. The troopers would come later, if needed. This was further disillusionment. They had always considered themselves superior to their foot-slogging mates. Now they had been relegated to support for them. This was a humiliation too great for some. Good-natured banter between the two groups turned into the odd booze-fuelled brawl in Cairo’s cafes and bars.
The fake stunts in the desert were not enough to satisfy the troopers. At night they filled in time with various activities in the city, much of it with Egyptian prostitutes. But that turned sour. About one in four contracted a venereal disease, some of them so badly that they had to be shipped back to Australia. This plus the frequent theft of watches, wallets and keepsakes while troopers were ‘horizontal dancing’ (as they termed it) with the locals built further tensions.
This came to a head on Good Friday, 2 April 1915, in the Cairo red-light district of Haret el Wassa when a group of diggers and troopers decided to cause havoc at a multi-storey brothel. The Anzacs grabbed the women and their Greek pimps and dragged, pushed and hurled them into the street. The brothel was ransacked. Pianos, beds and furniture were hauled from all four levels of the brothel. The Anzacs then piled up those items and others from the cafes where the pimps congregated, and set them on fire. The bonfire drew a crowd, including hundreds more Australians and New Zealanders who were in the area and joined in the bedlam.
The fire brigade arrived, but the revellers blocked their attempts to douse the flames. The Anzacs manhandled the Egyptian firemen, pushing and shoving them away from the conflagration. Fire hoses were cut. A full-scale riot developed with Anzacs, pimps and firemen brawling as the fire spread. Some Light Horsemen commandeered the fire engines and began driving them around the streets with alarms blaring. British military police (Provos) arrived on foot. The Anzacs formed a solid phalanx in front of the brothel, which had now caught fire. They also set fire to a tavern frequented by the brothel’s pimps. The Anzacs threw bottles and rocks at the police, who were outnumbered.
It was just after 11 pm when Shanahan and two friends and fellow troopers, the rangy 20-year-old Sergeant Henry ‘Chook’ Mulherin and barrel-chested 30-year-old Sergeant Barry ‘Bow’ Legg, walked out of a restaurant and saw the fire in the distance. They drove to Wassa and pushed through the crowd of onlookers to see about 500 Anzacs in the thick of the mayhem.
‘Jeez! What can we do?’ Legg asked.
They followed Shanahan, who shouldered his way to a police captain.
‘The only way to stop them is to get the Lancashire Territorials here fast,’ Shanahan told him.
‘Why them?’ the captain asked. ‘Your mates are out of control!’
‘Our blokes get on really well with them; they call them the “Chooms”,’ Shanahan said, ducking a bottle. ‘They won’t fight them.’
The captain hesitated.
‘Don’t think about it, do it!’ Shanahan yelled above the noise. ‘Unless you want the whole of Cairo destroyed.’
The police captain sent an SOS to the Territorials.
Shanahan then led the other two into the fray. They began pulling Anzacs out of the fighting, but they couldn’t stop the brawl, which was spreading like spot fires.
‘They’re all shickered!’ Mulherin yelled. ‘Nothing will stop ’em!’
About 200 Territorials arrived in trucks. Shanahan hurried to its bug-eyed, chinless commander, who was deploying his men. They had no impact on the brawling. Looting in the brothel and nearby houses and cafes intensified.
‘Threaten them,’ Shanahan said. ‘They won’t fight you. We’ll back you up.’
The commander shook his head. ‘That could take it to another level, Lieutenant …’ he said, hesitating.
‘Commander, it is at another level already.’ Shanahan pointed to streets beyond the brothel where fires were taking hold and shop and house windows were being broken. More people were fighting, some tangling on the ground. ‘Look,’ he said calmly, ‘fire a volley of shots. That will get their attention. Then have your men fix bayonets and line up in front of the brothel. We’ll talk to the Australians. Got a loudhailer?’
The commander did as advised. His soldiers fired in unison into the air. Shanahan moved in front of the brothel as the Territorials marched into position. Shanahan used the hailer to call for calm, telling the Anzacs: ‘Okay, you blokes, you’ve had your fun, now quit it and go back to camp.’
There was a momentary lull in the brawling near him. ‘The Chooms are here. They have to do their job …’
Shanahan paused as the commander yelled, his face red and eyes now out on stalks: ‘Men, fix bayonets!’
‘C’mon, you blokes, break it up!’ Shanahan shouted. ‘You don’t want to fight the Chooms, do you? They’re our cobbers. The very best of the Poms. We want to fight with them, not against them!’
Despite the Anzacs’ alcoholic haze and adrenalin rush from fighting, taking on good friends under orders to use weapons seemed a folly too far. The fighting stopped in the vicinity of the brothel. Shanahan, Mulherin and Legg moved among the diggers and troopers, urging them firmly to leave the area. Locals who had been battling the Anzacs began to peel off and depart into narrow side streets. The Provos started to assert their authority.
Shanahan took the police captain aside. ‘Don’t make arrests, chief, unless you really must,’ he said. ‘Don’t push them around. It will only ignite things again. Our blokes have a one-in, all-in philosophy.’
The captain took the less confrontational cue from Shanahan. Only a few arrests were made. Soon the Anzacs were wandering away in all directions.
The war could not come quickly enough for all concerned. Commanders Chauvel and Monash wanted to avoid further disruption in Cairo. They were cognisant that all their men were volunteers, and there was only so much inaction they would take before desertion or even mutiny entered their minds. The men just wanted to get on with the action. The locals were also wishing for their departure, having had enough of their culture being disrupted by brawling foreign occupiers.