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[Page 18]
NOT TO BE DESCRIBED.
At last the "SYDNEY" was able to return to the "EMDEN" about 10 a.m. on the second morning. She carried with her the Doctor from Cocos Island and other helpers. The condition of the "EMDEN"s people was pitiable. No-one could describe or could wish to describe the state of affairs on the cruiser herself. Her stern was simply unrecognisable. The greater part of the ship was nothing more than a mass of tangled steel. It was difficult even to get about her. The survivors were all in the forecastle - one fire had started there and had burnt itself out or been extinguished. There was not a drop of fresh water in the ship, and it is doubtful if any stores at all remained, except perhaps a few biscuits. The survivors had probably had nothing either to eat or drink since the action started the day before. Heavy seas washing past the ship had made it almost impossible to attempt to reach the shore. In spite of this about 20 of them, mostly badly wounded had struggled or been carried to the shore. It is almost certain that some must have been drowned in doing this, although the exact facts of this part of the story will probably never be known simply because the survivors were not in a condition to tell or remember them. The most experienced of her two doctors seems to have had his leg broken not in the action but in reaching the land, and it is said that he drank salt water and died on the evening of the day of the fight. There was no fresh water in the Island. It had been uninhabited for 10 years - and most of the men there were badly wounded.
For the whole of this second day the "SYDNEY" worked at bringing off the wounded. She had taken all those off the ship by 5 p.m., but there were still the men on the Island - 20 of them, badly wounded for the most part - and darkness came down before their rescue could be begun. The work started in the grey of the next morning. The wounded were brought down to the shore in stretchers, taken off in a cutter and slung on to the "SYDNEY"s poop by means of an improvised derrick. It was not until half past ten on the third day that the "SYDNEY" was able to steam off with her wounded to Colombo.
BT SPECIAL REQUEST.
A British Warship is already pretty congested when she carries her full crew, and the condition of the "SYDNEY" with all the survivors on board her passed description. The German wounded had been uncared for for days, - all the ship's medical comforts had either been destroyed during the action or else it was impossible to reach them through the fires. The only large space that could be rigged as a hospital in the "SYDNEY" was the waist of the ship, and in this the Germans were laid out side by side, and thended with the upmost care that was possible under such conditions. The "EMPRESS OF RUSSIA" afterwards met her and took off about half the wounded and prisoners.
The ships in this convoy and in Colombo naturally wished to give a hearty reception to the cruiser which had cleared the Indian Ocean of its worst scourge, but by the wish of eveybody on board, the "SYDNEY" forwent that demonstartion. No one had any wish that the signs of cheerful should reach those that were lying in the "SYDNEY"s waist. Only one ship in the harbour, a New Zealand Transport, which apparently had not received the message, broke this rule - the "SYDNEY" came up the lines of ships into the roadstead in almost absolute silence.
The "EMDEN"s casualties are not exactly known, and may never be