Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 108
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[Page 108]
res or two out of it.
Our day in Rio was cut short by the receipt of information from the admiral that we were to proceed as soon as possible to N3 W37 and await the coming of the Kampung which was to meet her collier. So in the afternoon we steamed out and made North again to the Abrolhos. We arrived two days later and began to coal.
At the Abrolhos we got a small Australian mail brought up from Rio in a collier - the first home news for nearly seven months. Amongst the Australian papers was a copy of the Melbourne Age of December 23rd wherein a report of the Emden action was published. It had been forwarded by the Age's correspondent with the Australian troops who had come aboard at Colombo for copy and had had his leg pulled. Amongst other gems it said: "The Padre was helping in the Sick Bay when the action began and it was he who carried on almost alone for a time when the first cases reached the doctors."
"The ghastly nature of the wounds had for a time incapacitated the others. The work on deck was declared to be almost heroic by his messmates."
Now our padre was a mild mannered little man who hated war and blood as something foreign to his calling and the spectacle of the ships surgeon prostrate on the deck and the padre all knives and chloroform bag carrying on was conjured up by one of the wardroom wags and eagerly swallowed by the innocent pressman.
The Padre was accused of writing the articles himself and threatened with legal proceedings by the senior surgeon.
The article was read with much joy in the wardroom.