Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War. Buley Ernest Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ fourth shot of the Emden was a good hit; it went through the Sydney's deck and exploded below, wounding Petty Officer Harvey and another man. An Australian lad who was detailed there to watch for torpedoes never even turned round at the explosion, nor did he move the telescope from his eyes. At the same time the Sydney was scoring hits on the Emden, though the first sign of it to the Australians was not observable until the fall of one of the German's funnels, which was greeted with loud cheering from all the Sydney's company. A minute afterwards the foremast of the raider toppled over, carrying with it the main fire control, and throwing its members into the sea.

      When fighting had been in progress for a quarter of an hour the Sydney discharged a salvo which settled any hope the Germans may have cherished either of victory or escape. It entered the Emden's stern under the afterdeck, where it burst, blowing up the whole of the steel deck. The steel plates were twisted and shattered beyond anything that could have been deemed possible; the after gun was dismounted, and the crew blown into the sea; the ship was set afire aft, and remained afire for the rest of the fight. Most serious effect of all, the salvo destroyed the steering gear, and for the rest of the battle the Emden had to steer by means of her screw, thus reducing her speed immensely, and leaving her completely at the mercy of the manœuvres of her opponent.

      The Emden now swung round, doubling in an attempt to reduce the distance; but the Sydney easily countered the move by following the operation; and continued steaming parallel with the German, and battering her to pieces. In the first quarter of an hour, and before she had received her deadly injury, the Emden had scored several important hits on the Sydney. One had struck the second starboard gun, and set fire to some cordite, which the gun crew threw overboard. This shot was followed by a shrapnel shell in the same quarter, which killed two of the gun's crew and injured all the rest except two. Another shot exploded in the lads' room, and damaged their kits; but the room was empty, and no one was hurt.

      But after that explosion aft she never struck the Sydney again, though the fight lasted for an hour longer. She had been firing with remarkable speed; it is believed that the third salvo was out of her guns sometimes ere the first had reached the neighbourhood of the Sydney. In all she fired 1,400 shots, of which only ten struck their mark; and of these only three, or at the most four, could be considered important hits.

      Again she doubled, with smoke pouring from her at every quarter. Suddenly the whole company of the Sydney burst into ringing cheers. "She's gone," was the shout; and indeed for a time it appeared as though the Emden had suddenly gone down. Reports from the centre of a patch of curiously light-coloured smoke dissipated the notion; the Emden was still afloat, and still fighting. The smoke that hid her was the smoke that showed how badly she was hurt. One by one her guns ceased firing, as the well-directed shots from the Sydney put them out of action; but still she ran, and still she fought her remaining guns.

      One by one her funnels collapsed, and fell across the twisted deck. Only one gun was left, a gun far forward on the port side. Desperately the crippled Emden ran, and desperately she fought her last little gun. What an inferno she then was, only those who fought her can tell. Her gnarled steel work was hot with the raging fire; the smoke from her furnaces belched from the holes left by the fallen funnels, and streamed in scorching clouds across her deck. Her ammunition hoists, and most of the rest of her equipment, had been hopelessly damaged; and what ammunition was being used had to be carried to her remaining gun by hand. The ship was a shambles, with dead men lying everywhere, and badly wounded as well. But in the conning tower Captain von Mueller still fought his ship, and prayed for a shot to carry him and it away.

      His ship was wrapped in flame; the stern actually glowing red hot with the fire. She no longer could be steered, even by the employment of her screws; and with her ensign still flying, and her solitary gun roaring at intervals, she ran high up on the coral reef, a hopeless, shattered wreck. Her conqueror gave her two broadsides as she lay there, with her bow high out of the water and only a short stretch of surf between her and dry land. Her ensign was still flying, and Captain Glossop had to make sure.

      While the fight was in progress a merchant ship had hovered round the combatants; obviously most anxious as to the result of the duel. At one period she showed signs of wishing to take part with the Emden, and the guns of the Sydney had been trained upon her, though no shot was fired at her. She was really a collier which had been captured by the Emden, and with a prize crew from the Emden on board had met the raider at Cocos Island. Her crew had considered the advisability of trying to ram the Sydney, but were wise enough to abandon the scheme, and make for safety when the fight went so badly against their side.

      When the Emden ran ashore this collier was already a long distance away; in fact she was almost out of sight. The Sydney put after her, and after a long chase came near enough to send a shot across her bows as a summons to surrender. She was boarded, but by this time she was sinking, as some one on board had turned on the seacocks, and filled her with water. The crew was accordingly taken off her, and she was abandoned to her fate, the Sydney returning to the Emden.

      The tide had gone out, and the one-time terror to the commerce of the British Empire was lying high and dry, with her ensign still floating. "Do you surrender?" signalled the Australian warship. To this question the Emden replied by hand signal: "We have lost our book, and cannot make out your signal." Then Captain Glossop sent the curt demand, "Haul down your ensign." As the Germans paid no attention to this, he sent yet another message, intimating that he would resume hostilities if the ensign were not hauled down in twenty minutes. For so long he steamed up and down her stern, while the white flag with the black cross still fluttered upon the wreck. Then reluctantly, and because he had no option, Captain Glossop fired three more salvos at the defiant raider. Down came the German ensign and in its place the white flag of surrender was hoisted.

      Those three last salvos, unwillingly discharged at short range into a helpless hull, did terrible havoc. The scorching decks were strewn with dead and wounded sailors, hapless victims to a tradition the Kaiser has sought to impose upon a navy that has no traditions of its own making. The Sydney could not succour them yet, for there was still work left for her to do. A boat manned by the German prize crew of the collier was sent to the wreck, with the message that the Sydney would return to the assistance of those on board early in the morning.

      It is now necessary to relate what occurred upon the island, where we left the British and Germans together gazing spellbound at the opening of this remarkable ocean duel. After the deadly salvo which crippled the Emden had been fired, the German landing party recognized that their ship was doomed. They at once ordered the British off the roof of the cable station, and shut them up in a room where they could not know what was going on. They behaved courteously but firmly, taking every precaution that there should be no interference with the work now before them. There was lying at the island the schooner Ayesha, and into this vessel they loaded everything they could find that was likely to be useful for a long ocean voyage.

      By the middle of the afternoon they were all ready, and about half an hour before the Sydney returned from her chase of the collier they set sail, taking with them the three boats and four maxim guns with which they had landed. They were about forty in number, and their bold plan of escape was successful. The story of their adventures on the little schooner is a romance in itself; it belongs to the history that Germany will one day produce of the daring of her own men. Before leaving, they had done all the damage they could to the cable and wireless stations.

      Next morning the Sydney returned to the wreck, taking with her the doctor from Cocos Island, and all the helpers that could be mustered. The Emden was found in a condition truly pitiful. The deck was a tangle of twisted steel; so shattered that it was impossible to make a way about it. The survivors were huddled together in the forecastle, the only part of the ship which had not been made an inferno by the fire, which was still burning aft, and had scorched the stern out of all shape or even existence. СКАЧАТЬ