Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 43
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[Page 43]
The Sydney now sent a boat over to the Emden with one of the German Officers captured in the Buresk, empowering them to inform their Captain that the Sydney would return in the morning and render assistance.
The Sydney then steamed off, and the ship was put into fighting trim lest the Telefunken wireless which had been filling the air should prove to be from the Konigsberg, a German cruiser which, had we known it, was then safely tucked away up the Rufiji River in German East Africa.
The Germans from the Buresk had under cross examination admitted that a landing party was ashore at Direction Island destroying the wireless and cable station, and its strength was given as one officer and twelve men; so in the early morning the Sydney stood in to the island to investigate. An armed boat's crew from the ship with the first lieutenant in charge and a maxim in the bows put into the little cove which does duty as a Harbour.
The remaining German officer on board the Sydney steadfastly refused to go ashore and act as interpreter, and for a very good reason as it afterwards turned out, for the German landing force resolved itself into two officers forty men and four maxims [machine guns], a nasty handful for our one boat's crew to meet; and no doubt the Hun on our quarter deck was chuckling at the thought of what was awaiting that unsuspecting boat's crew as they neared the beach.
To his chagrin however nothing happened, and our people got ashore to find that the Germans had commandeered the "Ayesha", the Cable station schooner, and in the dusk of the previous evening had gone put to sea.
It was a merciful escape, for with four maxims hidden near the landing stage it is doubtful if any in our crowded boat would have made the beach alive.
The Cocos islanders were naturally delighted to have the