Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 257
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[Page 257]
in the conning tower with fires all round, his men rapidly falling and his ship being battered under his feet; and then he came aboard the Sydney up her starboard after gangway to find his enemy apparently undamaged, for no shell had landed near this part of the ship at all. For a couple of days he scarcely spoke, but stood right aft and gazed out to sea. This was the end of all his striving - his ship gone, his men mostly dead or wounded, and himself a prisoner of war.
Just as we were thinking that our task was done, the Germans told us that some of their number, wounded and unwounded, maddened with thirst had got ashore in the hope of finding water. The boats put back once more to the beach and searched till nightfall. The Sydney lay off all night, and in the morning the search began again. Several were found dead and covered with huge land crabs a foot or more in diameter. Others sorely wounded, with their wounds crawling, were picked up and brought aboard. The body of one of the German surgeons was found in the scrub. He had gone raving mad and swum ashore, there to perish miserably. At last all were aboard, and the Sydney shaped a course for Colombo, about four days' rapid steam away.
Then the surgeons busied themselves with the wounded who seemed to fill every available space, and for three days and nights worked incessantly on friend and enemy alike to save life. The wounds owing to exposure in a moist tropical climate had soon become foul and septic and infested with huge maggots which made an un pleasant business still more unpleasant. The surviving German surgeon was sadly rattled and not of much use,