Before the battle of the Falklands took place, however, there had been certain other events of scarcely less importance—namely, the hunting down of the Königsberg and the Emden, the most noted of the German corsairs. That they did fine work for their country, even British tars will admit. They were as slippery as eels, and turned up in the most unexpected places and at the most inconvenient times for the British trading vessels. But at last Nemesis overtook them.
There was the Emden, for instance. She was at Tsing-tau when war broke out, and immediately started out on her marauding cruise. Slipping out of the harbour she steamed off for the Straits of Malacca, with enemies hot upon her track. She hoodwinked them, and while they were going southward, she swept into the Bay of Bengal, sinking various vessels as she went, and finally shelling Madras, setting fire to the oil tanks there.
Thence she went to Ceylon, sending four more boats to the bottom, making nine in all. Another she sent into port with the crews of the sunken ships, and yet a further one—the collier Buresk—she held on to for the sake of the coal she carried. So, aided by wireless installations in different places and by supply ships, she kept on her destructive way, until by October 19 she had captured half a dozen more ships.
Then something happened to annoy her. H.M.S. Yarmouth, which had been following her doggedly, seized some of her supply ships; and the Emden slipped into hiding for a while, though trading vessels still went in dread, expecting her to turn up suddenly.
She did turn up suddenly, though her quarry was something better than merchant shipping. On October 21—Trafalgar Day—a four-funnelled cruiser swept into Penang roadstead, and the French destroyer Mousquet and the Russian light cruiser Jemtchug little thought that this was the Emden, which they knew had only three funnels. What had happened was that Captain von Müller, her commander, had rigged up a jury funnel out of woodwork and canvas, thus altering altogether the appearance of his ship.
The Jemtchug saluted her with “Who are you?”
“Yarmouth!” was the audacious answer. “Coming to anchorage!” And the Emden immediately swung round stern on to the Jemtchug. Forthwith she loosed one of her deadly torpedoes at the Russian, following it up with a shower of shells from her 4-inch guns. Down went the Jemtchug, the French boat going after her almost immediately, stricken to death by the crafty Emden.
Having thus completed the destruction of her unsuspecting foes, the German corsair went into hiding again, but on November 9 appeared off the Cocos Islands—to meet her doom.
For the Australian cruiser Sydney received an interrupted wireless message from the Cocos to the effect: “Strange warship ... off entrance,” and at once sped off at full steam, and at 9.15 the look-out saw the tops of the coco-nut trees of the Keeling Islands in the distance. Five minutes later the Emden’s funnels were sighted, twelve or fifteen miles away. Game, the German opened fire at a long range, the Sydney waiting for a little while, and then sending her explosive replies. It was a gallant fight; the Emden made some fine firing practice, smashing the Sydney’s No. 2 starboard gun almost immediately, and putting practically all the crew out of action. The Australian’s aft control was blown to pieces, and a fire broke out, which her men soon got under while the fight raged.
The crew of the Sydney worked well that morning, as the letter of one of her officers testifies: