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[Page 3]
The water around the Sydney was lashed to fury as with a flail, the spray being driven all over her and for the first ten minutes or so the hits were fairly frequent. It was in her fourth salvo (in her case it means a discharge of five guns at once) which did the first damage to the Sydney. A shell entered a position containing an officer & several men. It almost brushed the arm of one man, scored a deep groove along the whole of one wall & passed through, to fall harmlessly off the deck below. Nobody was hit but the structure was shaken to such an extent that all were thrown down They were just clambering up on their hands & knees when the second shell coming from precisely the same direction burst beneath the floor. Every man in the structure was wounded. By this time the Sydney's shells were undoubtedly hitting the Emden; The bursting of a shell however can only be told when something falls.The first sign that those on board the Sydney saw of their own fireon the Emden was when the Emden's foremost funnel fell overboard. Shortly afterwards the Emden's foremast lurched over the side of the ship. Part of it remained there sticking out like a boom.: the rest of it went into the sea. The Emden had her main fire control positions on a platform high up on this mast & and the men in it were all thrown into the sea. It was just after this – about a quarter of an hour after the first shot was fired that a salvo from the Sydney entered the Emden's stern & burst below her after deck. The effect of this shot was astonishing. The deck itself which was steel, covered with corticene, was lifted, torn from its beams, & left with a surface of the sea waves. It was rent and riddled with holes. The after guns were immediately put out of action.Seven men, probably the greater part of one gun crew were blown alive overboard into the sea, where they swam about with no wreckage to help them & most of them wounded until the Sydney came across five of them, about eight hours afterward & picked them out of the water still alive. The same salvo set the Emden furiously on fire aft, a fire which could not & would not be put out, & most serious of all it completely destroyed her steering geer. Those on the Sydney saw the effects of this fire first when they noticed the smoke pouring out of the Emden's after deck. The very paint on the ship's side was furiously burning. It was noticed from time to time that the Emdem's speed was much decreased but it was not known till after the fight that the Emden's steering gear was destroyed. The cause of the decrease of speed from this time to the end was owing to the Emden steering by her screws which meant an enormous loss of speed. This part of the action was all the spectators on Cocos saw. During these fifteen minutes all the British casualties occurred, whilst the battle was more or less even but the moment the German landing party saw the Emden's funnel fall they ordered the inhabitants into a room from where they could not see the result of the fight. The behaviour of the landing party is said to have been , but from this time onwards they were occupied in very important business. They realised which way the fight was proceeding & occupied themselves in seizing every useful article they could find on the island, loading it into a schooner lying in the port. They desired no interference during these operations. Before her steering gear was destroyed, the Emden had ported her helm and made a rush at the Sydney, but the Sydneu eluded it, slipping far ahead and & keeping at her favourite range. The Emden now doubled back in an endeavour to close but the Sydney simple doubled & steamed parallel to her. The Emden was still firing rapidly but from this time onwards the Sydney was practically unhurt by any of her shots. Two telling shots had been fired from the Emden previously. The first of these was a lyddite or high