“The aeroplane spotting had been fair, but now someone else started in and made the signals unintelligible. Then we got spotting corrections from two sources--both differing widely. Finally, the aeroplane made “W. O.” (going home). We weighed and took up station again by the _Mersey_. She moved to get out of our way, and when another aeroplane came we started it again. The replies from the _Koenigsberg_ were not so frequent, and nothing like so accurate. It was as if they could not spot the fall of shot. The aeroplane soon disappeared, and as we could see the mast of the _Koenigsberg_ (I could only see one personally) and a column of smoke which varied in thickness from time to time, we tried to spot for ourselves. It was useless as, though we saw the burst (or thought we did) in line with the masts, we did not know whether they were over or short. Finally, we moved up the river nearer, still keeping on the right side, and set to work again. “There were two cruisers--_Weymouth_ and _Pyramus_, I think--at the mouth. The _Weymouth_ did a good deal of firing at Pemba Hill and a native village close to us, where there might be spotters. “When we reached W/T corrections now they were of no use. Most were ‘did not observe fall of shot,’ or 600 short. We went up 1,000, but still received the same signal--whether from the aeroplane or the _Koenigsberg_, I don’t know. It was most confusing. We crept up the scale to maximum elevation. Finally, we moved up the river again, but put our nose on the mud. We were soon off, and moved over to the other side and continued firing, spotting as well as we could (but getting nothing definite) till four o’clock, when we packed up and prepared to come out. We swept the banks again on both sides, but only at the entrance was there opposition. We made such a noise ourselves that we drowned the report of any shots fired at us. Two field-guns made good practice at us from the right bank (looking at the _Koenigsberg_). One came very close indeed to the top--so much so that we all turned to look at each other, thinking it must have touched somewhere. One burst about five yards over us. Another burst fifteen yards from the _Mersey_, and a second hit her sounding boom. We could see the white smoke of the discharge and fired lyddite, but the object was invisible. “It was getting dusk as we got outside at full speed. The secure was sounded at about 4:45. We had been at general quarters for thirteen hours, and eleven of them had been under fire. Outside the other ships were waiting for us near Komo Island, and we went straight alongside the _Trent_. Each ship cheered us as we passed. The _Mersey_ put her wounded on the _Trent_, and then pushed off to bury the dead.