There was nothing suspicious to be seen—therefore we advanced. We approached the stern of the tugboat, slowed down, and, within calling distance, kept pace with him. Gröning, Petersen, Lohmann, and a sailor were with me in the conning tower. The tugboat flew the British flag. I shouted with the full power of my lungs:
“Take aboard the crew! Take aboard the crew!”
I waved with my left hand toward the sailing ship, in order to make my meaning clear. The commander of the “little bulldog,” as Petersen called the tugboat, took his short clay pipe out of his mouth, spat far out from the bridge where he was standing in a careless attitude, but otherwise took no notice of us except that he may have thrown a shrewd, cunning glance our way. I thought he was hard of hearing and drew a little closer and yelled again:
“Take the crew off!”
The wind had increased during the last few hours and the sea began to run higher and was washing over our deck. It was impossible for us to use our guns—the crew would have been swept away without any chance of being saved—and we were, for that reason, unable to emphasize our commands in a desirable manner, but we knew what to do when the commander on the “bulldog” did not display any inclination to comply with our ten-times repeated order. I had a revolver handed to me from below and let a bullet whistle close to the head of the stubborn rascal. The Englishman seemed to understand this language better. He abandoned his careless slouch, blew the tug’s siren, and yelled loud, sharp commands to the crew. Then he turned for the first time towards me, put his hand to his cap with a short salute, and next lifted his right hand vertically in the air, which, according to the international language of sailors, meant:
“I understand and will obey.”
The crew on the “bulldog,” which in reality bore the name Ormea, had, however, cast off the hawser and were now standing idly all around the deck with their hands in their pockets and looked at us curiously. The captain went to the engine telegraph and signaled “Half speed ahead.”
“Ha,” we thought, “now he’ll turn and lay himself alongside the sailing ship.”
What happened next took only a minute.
When the Ormea had gathered speed, it certainly turned—but not to port, which would have been the nearest way, but towards us. At the same time the skipper signaled to his engine room: