Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 81
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[Page 81]
Commander was asked what he could whack her up to.
[sentence deleted]
The Admiralty played an unpleasant joke upon us by telling off for our assistance the armed merchantmen Edinburgh Castle which was at that time further off the rendezvous than we and could in no circumstances arrive earlier than two days late.
At any rate we had 2000 miles to go and four days and a half to do it in and the problem arose as to how it was to be done. This programme went on speed of something in the neighbourhood of twenty knots, a not innordinate task for a ship like the Sydney built to do 25 and more, but with every knot over sixteen the coal consumption goes up in bounds and we had the option of arriving with almost empty bunkers with the probability of fighting an action where our maximum speed would be desirable or of slowing down and turning up late for the party.
However we pushed on and risked it.
The weather was hot. We had no mail for months and there was nothing to read on board and it rained every night so we sweated and cursed and tried to sleep while the ship hurried South.
On the night of the 18th we crossed the equator and entered the Southern Hemisphere again and the Southern Cross was a friendly sight in the sky.
All went well till the nineteenth, the night before we were due to arrive at the rendezvous. Suddenly a merchantship called up by wireless all British men-o-war and foolishly one thinks, the Sydney replied. the other ship shut up promptly and the cat was out of the bag! She had heard all she wanted.
It was probably a German ruse to discover if