5. I lay on and off all night, and communicated with Direction Island at
8.0 a.m., November 10th, to find that the _Emden's_ party, consisting of
three officers and forty men, one launch and two cutters, had seized and
provisioned a 70-ton schooner (the _Ayesha_), having four Maxims with
two belts to each. They left the previous night at six o'clock. The
wireless station was entirely destroyed, one cable cut, one damaged, and
one intact. I borrowed a doctor and two assistants, and proceeded as
fast as possible to _Emden's_ assistance.
6. I sent an officer on board to see the captain, and in view of the
large number of prisoners and wounded, and lack of accommodation, etc.,
in this ship, and the absolute impossibility of leaving them there, he
agreed that if I received his officers and men and all wounded, "then as
for such time as they remained in _Sydney_ they would cause no
interference with ship or fittings, and would be amenable to the ship's
discipline." I therefore set to work at once to tranship them--a most
difficult operation, the ship being on weather side of island, and the
send alongside very heavy. The conditions in the _Emden_ were
indescribable. I received the last from her at 5.0 p.m., then had to go
round to the lee side to pick up 20 more men who had managed to get
ashore from the ship.
7. Darkness came on before this could be accomplished, and the ship
again stood off and on all night, resuming operations at 5.0 a.m., on
November 11th, a cutter's crew having to land with stretchers to bring
wounded round to embarking point. A German officer, a doctor, died
ashore the previous day. The ship in the meantime ran over to Direction
Island to return their doctor and assistants, send cables, and was back
again at 10 a.m., embarked the remainder of wounded, and proceeded for
Colombo by 10.35 a.m., Wednesday, November 11th.
8. Total casualties in _Sydney_: killed, 3; severely wounded (since
dead), 1; severely wounded, 4; wounded, 4; slightly wounded, 4. In the
_Emden_ I can only approximately state the killed at 7 officers and 108
men from captain's statement. I had on board 11 officers, 9 warrant
officers and 191 men, of whom 3 officers and 53 men were wounded, and of
this number 1 officer and 3 men have since died of wounds.
9. The damage to Sydney's hull and fittings was surprisingly small; in
all about ten hits seem to have been made. The engine and boiler rooms
and funnels escaped entirely.
10. I have great pleasure in stating that the behaviour of the ship's
company was excellent in every way, and with such a large number of
young hands and people under training it is all the more gratifying.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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