"How is it with Germany?" comes a voice from the crowd.
That's what they all want to know. The men bathe, and then look happily at the special train in the desert.
THE SURVIVORS.
TABUK, (via Damascus,) May 8, noon.—They're still asleep. Last night the joy lasted a long while. But I couldn't help admiring the discipline, which did not break down even on that well-deserved joy day. Earnestness, the basic characteristic of the soldier, lay under all their merriment. As the engine was reported to be ready to start, Mücke called out: "All abroad! Youngsters, only once in my life do I command a railroad train." Then he and the officers sat down among the sailors. At every station they made jokes, because they were real stations that followed one another automatically and without the danger of adventures!
But all have only one wish—to get quickly back to Germany. Mücke wants to shorten all the festivities in his honor; he longs for nothing more than a command in the North Sea. I go down the aisle of the cars and watch them sleeping—comrades held together by the bonds of nine months on seas and desert, and I think how young they all are. None of them over 30, and their commander only 33. Of the officers, only Lieutenant von Gyssing was on the Emden. Wellman joined the party at Padang, Dr. Lang and Lieutenant Gerdts were taken over from the steamer Choising. This steamer of the North German Lloyd, the third and last ship to carry the expeditionary corps of the Emden, took over the men and provisions on Dec. 16, and on the same evening the Ayesha was sunk. On Jan. 9 they left this ship, too, before Hodeida, in the hope of being able to take the overland route through Arabia. After the loss of two months, on March 17, they again had to take a small sailboat of 75 feet length and beat about the Red Sea amid new adventures. All are in good health and spirits; they're astonished, however, and laugh, because they see themselves featured as heroes in the papers.
CRUISE OF THE EMDEN.
OASIS OF MAAN, 620 Kilometers South of Damascus, May 9.—As we ride through Arabia, Mücke and Lieutenant Gyssing, the only returning Emden officers, narrate:
"We on the Emden had no idea where we were going, as on Aug. 11, 1914, we separated from the cruiser squadron, escorted only by the coaler Markomannia. Under way, the Emden picked up three officers from German steamers. That was a piece of luck, for afterward we needed many officers for the capturing and sinking of steamers, or manning them when we took them with us. On Sept. 10 the first boat came in sight. We stop her. She proves to be a Greek tramp, chartered from England. On the next day we met the Indus, bound for Bombay, all fitted up as a troop transport, but still without troops. That was the first one we sunk. The crew we took aboard the Markomannia. 'What's the name of your ship?' the officers asked us. 'Emden! Impossible. Why, the Emden was sunk long ago in battle with the Ascold!'
"Then we sank the Lovat, a troop transport ship, and took the Kabinga along with us. One gets used quickly to new forms of activity. After a few days capturing ships became a habit. Of the twenty-three which we captured, most of them stopped after our first signal. When they didn't, we fired a blank shot. Then they all stopped. Only one, the Clan Mattesen, waited for a real shot across the bow before giving up its many automobiles and locomotives to the seas. The officers were mostly very polite and let down rope ladders for us. After a few hours they'd be on board with us. We ourselves never set foot in their cabins, nor took charge of them. The officers often acted on their own initiative and signaled to us the nature of their cargo; then the Commandant decided as to whether to sink the ship or take it with us. Of the cargo, we always took everything we could use, particularly provisions. Many of the English officers and sailors made good use of the hours of transfer to drink up the supply of whisky instead of sacrificing it to the waves. I heard that one Captain was lying in tears at the enforced separation from his beloved ship, but on investigation found that he was merely dead drunk. But much worse was the open betrayal which many practiced toward their brother Captains, whom they probably regarded as rivals. 'Haven't you met the Kilo yet? If you keep on your course two hours longer, you must overhaul her,' one Captain said to me of his own accord. To other tips from other Captains we owed many of our prizes. I am prepared to give their names," Captain Mücke added.
"The Captain of one ship once called out cheerily: 'Thank God, I've been captured!' He had received expense money for the trip to Australia, and was now saved half the journey!