On 20th September came the news of a serious misfortune. Since the outbreak of war H.M.S. Pegasus had been working from Zanzibar along the coast of German East Africa. She had destroyed the port of Dar-es-Salaam,[89] and had sunk a German gunboat and a floating dock. At 5 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, 20th September, she was lying at anchor in Zanzibar harbour, cleaning her boilers and repairing her machinery. Suddenly the German cruiser Königsberg appeared, and caught her unawares. The German ship was armed with guns which outranged those of the Pegasus, and she immediately began a fierce bombardment. The Pegasus discharged her broadside; but the Germans disabled her guns with three shots, and then for a quarter of an hour rained shells upon her, while she was helpless to reply. After a lull the Königsberg opened fire again, and the Pegasus by this time was able to return shot for shot. When the German steamed off to the southward the British ship was found to be badly holed, and was towed away and grounded on a sand spit. She had lost 25 killed and 80 wounded out of a crew of 234.
During the fight the British flag was twice shot away. It could not be nailed to the mast as in the days of Nelson, for masts are now made of iron; yet it had to fly in sight of the enemy, for without it the ship would seem to have surrendered. Rather than let this dishonour attach to them, two marines seized the flag and held it up while a new flagstaff was being rigged. It was still fluttering its defiance when the Königsberg steamed away.
I have told you in these pages of scores of heroic deeds; in the multitude of them let us not forget the brave and devoted men who kept the flag flying in Zanzibar harbour, and thus showed the enemy that the British navy of to-day is still inspired by the old unconquerable spirit of Blake and Nelson.
Early in September we first heard of the famous German raider the Emden. She had been on the China station when war broke out, and now she appeared in the Bay of Bengal and began her career of destruction. I will tell you her full story later on, when I come to the day when she was sunk.
Now we will learn how the German commerce raider Cap Trafalgar was sent to her doom. She was a fast liner, armed with eight 4-inch guns and machine guns. Strange to say, her victorious opponent was a British armed liner, the Carmania, of the White Star line. Liverpool boys and girls are sure to have seen the Carmania lying in the Mersey, or at the Prince's landing-stage, for she has regularly crossed the Atlantic since 1905.
On 14th September the crew of the Carmania were just sitting down to their midday meal when the lookout men sighted a strange vessel. She was a liner as big as the Carmania. She was not at first recognized as an enemy, because she had rigged up a dummy funnel, and made herself look something like a Union Castle liner. The British captain, however, was suspicious, so he ordered a shot to be fired across the stranger's bows as a signal to heave-to. No sooner had the shot plumped into the water than the stranger opened fire, and the German flag fluttered to her masthead.
The Carmania let fly her port guns, and soon both vessels were fighting hammer and tongs. Both were big ships, and very good targets: the Carmania, for example, is 675 feet long and 60 feet out of the water, and aiming at her is like shooting at the side of a street. The Cap Trafalgar hit the Carmania more than three hundred times, but only two of the shots were serious. For the most part the shells flew high, and only damaged the Carmania's rigging and upper works. The British gunners aimed low, and her captain so manoeuvred the ship that she was end on to her enemy most of the time.
