He was enlisted in the Royal Horse Artillery in September 1910, having lowered his age and given Auckland as his place of birth. He served as a soldier for a year before leaving his wife and child at their Park Lane home in London and travelling to Sydney, Australia. In the remaining years before the outbreak of World War I he worked as a clerk at a sugar mill weighbridge in Proserpine, Queensland, and also lived at Kelly's Club Hotel in Brandon, where he formed a close connection to the publican's family.