"You may be sure that the Wireless-station people were glad to see us, for they had never been sure until they had seen the last of Mucke and his men just how the Huns might use them in case the latter determined to fight it out to the last ditch on Direction Island. One of them told me that he had visions of being used as a human shield against the _Sydney's_ shells, like the Huns used the women and children in Belgium. They were a proper devil-may-care lot, those ones, and I can quite believe the story that they asked the Huns to come and play tennis with them when they got tired of watching the one-sided fight between the _Sydney_ and _Emden_. "As we were in a hurry to get back to the _Emden_, we did not remain long ashore on Direction. Their doctor came off with us to help with the wounded, and with him came two or three others of the Wireless people to have a hurried 'look-see' at the _Sydney_. These latter intended to return to shore at once in their own boat, but, by some mistake, the whaler was cast off and the _Sydney_ got under weigh while the Inspector was still in conversation with the Captain. They were about to ring down to stop the engines, when the chap, with a good-bye wave of his hand, ran to the port rail and disappeared in a header over the side. A moment later he reappeared, settled his helmet back upon his head, and struck out in a leisurely way for the boat which was pulling back to meet him. It was quite the coolest thing of the kind I ever saw, but I didn't appreciate it fully until an hour or so later when I saw the black triangular fins of countless 'tiger' sharks converging from every direction upon where the _Emden_ had been casting her dead into the surf of North Keeling Island. "Scarcely had we entered again the waters through which the battle had been fought than we began to sight floating bodies. This was only to be expected, of course, but what did surprise us was to come upon a wounded man, in a lifebelt, being pushed slowly shoreward by an unwounded mate who had nothing whatever to keep him up. Although they had been in the water all of twenty-four hours, both were in fairly good shape when we picked them up, and the unwounded chap was quite his own Hunnish self again after he had had a night's sleep and a couple of square meals. In fact, if I remember right, he was one of the worst of several of the prisoners who seemed to think it was their privilege to keep the stewards told off to look after them running day and night after 'bier.'