The Boy Allies under Two FlagsHayes, Clair W. (Clair Wallace)
General
The Boy Allies under Two Flags
Hayes, Clair W. (Clair Wallace)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Naval operations -- Juvenile fiction
"He is," said Lord Hastings. "But to continue. After sinking
the City of Winchester the Emden steamed into the Bay of Bengal,
five days later, and sent two more British vessels to the bottom.
Within three days she had sunk four vessels there. She was
accompanied by the Markommania, a converted liner, as a collier.
The collier was sunk off Sumatra October 16 by a British cruiser.
"Leaving the Bay of Bengal, the Emden sank three British steamers
in the Indian Ocean on September 14. September 22 she appeared
off Madras and shelled the city, and, extinguishing her lights,
disappeared when the forts replied. Then she renewed her
activity in the vicinity of Rangoon, where more British ships
fell to her prey. Where she is now I don't know."
"How large a vessel is she?" asked Jack, greatly interested.
"She has a complement Of 361 men," replied Lord Hastings. "Her
armament, besides the ten 4-inch guns I referred to before,
consists of eight five pounders and four machine guns. She is
also understood to be equipped with two submerged 17.7-inch
torpedo tubes. She displaces 3,600 tons. She is 387 feet long
and has a beam of 43 1/3 feet. She was built in 1908. That's
about all I can tell you about her."
"And Captain von Mueller," said Frank, "is he an elderly man?"
"No," replied Lord Hastings, "I should hardly call him that. I
don't know his age, of course, but he is under forty. I
understand that the Germans are bailing him as the modern Nelson
and Paul Jones, in memory of two of the greatest sea fighters of
all time."
"Well they may," declared Jack, "for he must be a man of
exceptional ability. I should like to see him."
"So you may, with good fortune," said Lord Hastings. "It is my
hope to see him again before he has done further damage to
England."
Lord Hastings' account of the brief history of the Emden made
quite an impression on Frank and Jack. The brief though active
career of probably the greatest of German sea fighters interested
them greatly, as it should all young readers.
The boys talked much of the gallant German captain as the Sylph
II continued on her course from the Adriatic into the sunny
Mediterranean once more, through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea,
after a stop for coal at Port Said, and on into the warm waters
of the Indian Ocean.
And more news of the Emden was not to be long forthcoming. Lord
Hastings had no means of knowing just in what part of the sea the
Emden might be in so, after two days of fruitless cruising, he
put into the port of Penang, on Malacca Straits. Here Lord
Hastings received first-hand information concerning the
whereabouts of the German "Terror of the Sea."
There were two Russian cruisers, two French destroyers and one
British vessel in the harbor, under the guns of the little fort,
when the Sylph steamed in. These vessels also had been in search
of the Emden, and had put in for coal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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