New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915: April-September, 1915Various
History
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915: April-September, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
"Everything went well, the only trouble was that our prize, the
Markomannia, didn't have much coal left. We said one evening in the
mess: 'The only thing lacking now is a nice steamer with 500 tons of
nice Cardiff coal.' The next evening we got her, the Burresk,
brand-new, from England on her maiden voyage, bound for Hongkong. Then
followed in order the Riberia, Foyle, Grand Ponrabbel, Benmore,
Troiens, Exfort, Grycefale, Sankt Eckbert, Chilkana. Most of them were
sunk; the coal ships were kept. The Eckbert was let go with a load of
passengers and captured crews. We also sent the Markomannia away
because it hadn't any more coal. She was later captured by the English
together with all the prize papers about their own captured ships. All
this happened before Oct. 20; then we sailed southward, to Deogazia,
southwest of Colombo. South of Lakadiven on Deogazia some Englishmen
came on board, solitary farmers who were in touch with the world only
every three months through schooners. They knew nothing about the war,
took us for an English man-of-war, and asked us to repair their motor
boat for them. We kept still and invited them to dinner in our
officers' mess. Presently they stood still in front of the portrait of
the Kaiser, quite astounded. 'This is a German ship!' We continued to
keep still. 'Why is your ship so dirty?' they asked. We shrugged our
shoulders. 'Will you take some letters for us?' they asked. 'Sorry,
impossible; we don't know what port we'll run into.' Then they left
our ship, but about the war we told them not a single word.
"Now we went toward Miniko, where we sank two ships more. The Captain
of one of them said to us: 'Why don't you try your luck around north
of Miniko? There's lots of ships there now?' On the next day we found
three steamers to the north, one of them with much desired Cardiff
coal. From English papers on captured ships we learned that we were
being hotly pursued. The stokers also told us a lot. Our pursuers
evidently must also have a convenient base. Penang was the tip given
us. There we had hopes of finding two French cruisers.
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