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[Page 16]
Some of the gun's crew picked up this cordite and dumped it overboard, getting themselves burnt in doing so, but saving the ship from fire. They had just finished when a second shell, said by the "SYDNEY"s people to be shrapnel, exploded just behind them. Almost every portion of the gun bore some mark of the fragments from this explosion, but curiously enough the gun itself was found to be absolutely undamaged. Of the gun's crew, however, only two men escaped, two being killed and the rest wounded. The second hit was from a shell which passed over the shoulders of the Gunnery Lieutenant in another fire control position, and struck a youngster who was sitting at the range finder behind him, stunning him, taking off one leg near the thigh and killing him almost instantly. A fourth shot tore a great hole in the forecastle deck, and left its traces all over the flay below, tearing the men's kit bags, defacing the general order posted there, and indenting decks and tables, but doing no other damage.
THE LAST HOUR.
This was the last damage that the "EMDEN" did. Her failure to hit after the first quarter of an hour must have been due in the first place to the mental suffering which her crew were undergoing in the awful hail that now began to rain upon them; but from this time also her guns began one by one to disappear. Smoke was pouring from every part of her, except her forecastle, and, finally, as she turned and doubled again, she was entirely hidden from the "SYDNEY" by a cloud of smoke, and stopped firing altogether. The "SYDNEY"s men thought that she had either sunk or surrendered, and a cheer went up; but presently the "EMDEN" came round out of her smoke, and began firing again. The action continued for nearly as long again after this incident. Gun after gun in the "EMDEN" ceased fire. Again and again bodies of her men were seen floating in the sea. An explosion had made havoc of the deck just aft of the bridge, the second funnel fell over the port side and hung there as if draped from the ship's gunwale, with the inner casing lolling out of its mouth into the water. The last and only remaining funnel subsided and lay across the second one, the smoke from all three streaming along the deck. From the bridge aft she seemd to be one continuous fire. At last only one little gun was left, a gun forward on the port side, which spat occassionally with long intervals between shots. The ship was so crumpled that it was hopeless to think of getting ammunition up through the hoists. It was necessary to send it up by hand, and there were few men left on deck for this. It was a matter of difficulty to find a way through the ship, and when that gun fired it simply meant that some instalment of its ammunition had arrived.
At a certain stage in the battle there had appeared on the scene a merchantman. This ship looked for a while as if she were anxious to join in the fight, and, suspecting that she might be a merchant cruiser, the "SYDNEY" kept some of her guns trained on her at various periods, but did not fire them. The ship turned out to be a collier which had been summoned by the "EMDEN" to meet her here. She seems to have come up with the idea of joining in the action and helping the "EMDEN" in her peril, and it is said that at one time she intended to ram the "SYDNEY". The idea was very gallant, but it was a hopeless one, as the "SYDNEY"s engines were in a condition which enabled her to get any speed she liked as soon as it was asked for, while the collier could only manage about 10 knots. When the result of the action became obvious the collier made off.
"EMDEN" BEACHED.