Good-bye to Border and Middle sex Regiments Nearly 1,500 officers and mei, for~ merly of the North China Command, [consisting mostly of the Ist Batt. the Border Regiment and the ist Batt, the Middlesex Regiment, and a few Welch Regt, reservists, left Shanghas last Friday at noon in H.MT. Somersetshire. Col. E. Roche Kelly, '0.0., commanded the Borders, and Col." W. A. Stewart, 0.2.6, commanded the Middlesex. The Headquarters' Staff of the 13th Brigade, [consisting of Col.-Comadt, W.A. Blake, Cac, 08.0, Major A. G. Barry; DS.0,, m.c., and Lieut. Kendall, also were on board, as were a contingent of nurges.
The departing troops may be fattered on the large number of friends. officers, and ranks to see them off, for the largest group of military and civilian men and women lever gathered for such an occasion in Shanghai were present on the wharf, Those leaving and those who stood on the dock were enthusiastic to a superlative degree. It almost seemed as though the departing troops were merely going on a week end trip, instead of embarking on a 4.00mi Journey. From all a the ship drew away into the stream, friendships were not broken, and the usual tears were missing. Cheers rolied from ship to shore, the volume from the vessel drowning the comparatively feeble efforts of the others, Promptly as eight bells sounded, the siren boomed the warning note A few belated ones rushed down the xang-plank, which then was hoisted into position. Tugs, fore and aft, drew the transport away, the bow moving first. The—hawse-lines were let go as the tugs took up the slack and twice-exploding crackers filled the atmosphere between the vessel and those on shore.
The Welch Regt. band allowed The Green Howards Band the scene of prominence as the Somersetshire fag was hoisted. The first indicate lof grief was visible when Mr. Fri directed his men in "Keep the Home Fires Burning," to be followed almost at once with "Rolling Home to England, When the transport had got 100 yards into the the band! played the usual and_ always ai propriate, "Auld Long Syne." As an officer having years of service expressed it, "The send-off has not been, surpassed since the Great War."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.