CHAPTER II
BEAUTIFUL DAYS IN KIAO-CHOW
FOR days the train took me farther and farther through the steppes and desert spaces of Russia towards my destination—the Far East.
Mukden at last! We soon passed Peking. Then—Osinanfou! The first German sounds again smote upon my ear. And then for ten hours we passed through a beautifully cultivated country full of gardens, fields and flowers; and at last the train slowly steamed into the station of Kiao-Chow.
I thus saw it again after six years! Once more I stood on German soil, in a German city of the Far East!
My brother officers met me. The Mongolian ponies pranced off and carried me to my new home.
At first we went to Iltis Place, which was our race-course, and was at the same time destined to become my aerodrome. It was festively decorated, for all Kiao-Chow had foregathered to watch a big football match between German sailors and their English comrades from the English flagship Good Hope.
The latter was on a visit at Kiao-Chow, and the game was brilliant and ended in a draw—one all.
Who could have foreseen this? A short six months hence these same adversaries opposed each other in a terrible game, which admitted but of two issues—victory or death. At the battle of Coronel the German bluejackets sent the English flagship Good Hope to her doom at the bottom of the Pacific in twenty-seven minutes.
But on that day none knew of the events to come and, united by bonds of sincere friendship, the German sailors invited their English guests to their cantonments. Two days later the English Squadron left our port followed by our Cruiser Squadron under Admiral Count von Spee.