"Stop at once! Do not use your wireless! We are sending a boat!"
The steamer did not seem to realize what was meant by this order. Perhaps she did not expect, here in the heart of Indian waters, to run across an enemy's man-of-war. Or she may have thought it the voice of a sea god, and therefore no concern of hers. At any rate, she continued on her way undeterred. So, to explain the situation, we sent a blank shot whizzing past her. This made an impression, and, pell mell, her engines were reversed—we truly regretted the start we had given her dozing engineers—and with her siren she howled out her willingness to obey our order.
One of our cutters, with a prize crew in it, glided swiftly to water, and thence to the steamer, of which we thus took possession. An unpleasant surprise was now in store for us, for soon there came flashing back to us a signal given by one of the men of our prize crew: "This is the Greek steamer, Pontoporros." ...
The Pontoporros was loaded with coal from India, the very dirtiest coal in the world....
I had, in jest, entreated our Commander to capture, as our first prize, a ship loaded with soap, instead of which we now got this cargo of dirty Indian coal. My disappointment was so great that I could not refrain from reproachfully calling our Commander's attention to it, and, with a laugh, he promised to do his best toward providing us with the much-needed soap. And he kept his word.
On the morning of the eleventh of September, only a few hours after we had made the first addition to our squadron, there appeared, forward, a large steamer, which, in the supposition that we were an English man-of-war, manifested her delight at meeting us by promptly running up a large English flag while still a long way off. We could not help wondering what sort of expression her captain's face wore when we ran up the German colors, and politely requested him to remain with us for a while.
The steamer hailed from Calcutta, had been requisitioned to serve as an English transport for carrying troops from Colombo to France, and was fitted out with an abundance of excellent supplies....
We also found aboard the ship a very handsome race horse. By a shot through the head, this noble creature was spared the agony of death by drowning. But our sympathy was hardly sufficient to extend to all the many mounts for artillery, which occupied as many neatly numbered stalls that had been built into the ship. They had to be left to become the prey of sharks a half hour later. The ship's crew was sent aboard our "junkman."...
During the next few days our business flourished. It was carried on in this way: As soon as a steamer came in sight, she was stopped, and one of our officers, accompanied by ten men, was sent aboard her. It was their duty to get the steamer ready to be sunk, and to arrange for the safe transfer of the passengers and crew. As a rule, while we were still occupied with this, the mast head of the next ship would appear above the horizon. There was no need of giving chase. When the next steamer had come near enough to us, the Emden steamed off to meet her, and sent her a friendly signal by which she was induced to join our other previously captured ships. Again an officer and men were sent off, boarded her, got her ready to be sunk, and attended to the transfer of all hands aboard her, etc., and, by the time this was accomplished, the mast head of the third ship had usually come in sight. Again the Emden went to meet her, and so the game went on....