With the other people on the station the Germans then proceeded to the roof of the largest of the cable buildings, where they watched the fight from beginning to end. With absolute confidence they seemed to have anticipated a victory for the Emden, and it was not till the broadsides from the Sydney carried away the funnel that the inhabitants were hurried below and placed under a guard. With what feelings the gunners must have seen their cruiser literally blown to pieces under their eyes can but be imagined. They hardly waited until the Sydney went off after the collier before they seized a schooner lying in the harbour. She proved to be the Ayesia, of 70 tons burden only. She had no auxiliary engine, so that if the raiders were to escape, which they had now determined to attempt, their time was very limited. The party, on landing, at first had proceeded to put out of action the cable and wireless instruments, which they smashed, while they managed to cut one of the cables. Fortunately, a spare set of instruments had been buried after the experience of a station in the Pacific, raided some weeks before by the German Pacific Squadron. Beds were next requisitioned, and supplies taken for a three months' cruise. Water was taken on board, and the schooner was loaded, so that just before dusk she slipped out and round the southern end of the island at what time the Sydney was again approaching from the north after her last shots at the Emden. In fact, had not the Sydney stopped to pick up another German sailor struggling in the water, she in all probability would have sighted the escaping schooner, which was later to land this party of Germans on the coast of Arabia. Having learned of the situation, the Sydney was unable to land any men on the island, as it was imperative that she should lie off and be ready for any emergency, such as I have already hinted. This prohibited her going to the aid of the Germans on the vanquished Emden. All night she cruised slowly and her crew cleared away the wreckage, while the doctor tended to the wounded and made what arrangements were possible for the reception of the prisoners and wounded next day. The space on a cruiser is always cut to a minimum, so not much could be done. Fortunately, her own casualties had been slight for such an action. There were three killed, five seriously wounded (one of whom subsequently died), four wounded, and four slightly wounded.
Early next morning the Sydney once again steamed back to the Emden. The task before her was as difficult as it was awful. The ship was a shambles and the decks too appalling to bear description. The Germans lent what assistance they could, but the whole ship was in the most shocking condition. The men who remained alive on board were either half-mad with thirst or so stunned and stupefied with the detonation of the guns that they did not comprehend anything at all, or were unable to appreciate their position. They had all been without water for almost two days, as the Sydney's salvos had wrecked the water-tanks. The fires had to burn themselves out, and though the decks were now cooled, the charred bodies that lay around showed only too plainly what an inferno the vessel must have been when she ran ashore. "At 11.10 a.m.," writes an officer, "we arrived off the Emden again in one of the cutters. Luckily, her stern was sticking out beyond where the surf broke, so that with a rope from the stern of the ship one could ride close under one quarter with the boat's bow to seaward. The rollers were very big and surging to and fro, and made getting aboard fairly difficult. However, the Germans standing aft gave me a hand up, and I was received by the captain of the Emden." Nevertheless, it was a work of the utmost difficulty getting the wounded (there were fifteen bad cases), and even those who were only slightly injured, into the boats. Water was what the men wanted most, and a cask was hauled on board and eagerly drunk. The boarding party found the stern of the cruiser a twisted mass of steel, and her decks up to the bows were rent and torn in all directions, while plates had buckled, bolts had sprung, and the vessel was falling to pieces in some parts. Nearly every gun had been put out of action, and whole gun's crews had been incinerated inside the armoured shield. Our lyddite had done appalling, even revolting, execution. The aim of the gunners was deadly in the extreme. As one prisoner quite frankly admitted to an officer, "Your artillery was magnificent."
The last man was rescued from the ship at 5 p.m. The captain and a nephew of the Kaiser, Prince Joseph of Hohenzollern, who was torpedo officer and just twenty years of age, were amongst those who had not sustained any injuries. During the absence of the Sydney a party of twenty Germans had managed in some way to get ashore to the island. Either they had scrambled from the bows of the wrecked cruiser on to the reef and taken their chance in the surf or they had been washed ashore. It was, at any rate, too late that evening to rescue these men, and it was not till the next morning that a cutter and some stretchers were put off and ran up on the westward side of the island on a sandy beach, just at 5 a.m. The Germans on shore were in a terrible state. They had been too dazed to attempt even to get the coco-nuts for food and drink. The ship's doctor, through the strain, had insisted on drinking sea-water, and had gone mad and had died the previous night. In the meantime the Sydney had returned overnight to Direction Island and brought another doctor to tend the wounded. She was back again off Keeling Island by ten o'clock, and the remaining wounded and prisoners embarked at 10.35 and the Sydney started to steam for Colombo.
PRISONERS FROM THE "EMDEN" ON THE FLAGSHIP GUARDED BY SENTRY AS THEY TAKE EXERCISE ON DECK.
The group, from the left, is the German Doctor Captain Finklestein, Captain Debussy (in charge of prisoners), the Prince of Hohenzollern, Captain Gordon Smith, who is talking to Captain Müller, hidden behind sentry.
THE DIRK OF PRINCE FRANCIS JOSEPH OF HOHENZOLLERN.