Читать книгу Australia in Arms - Phillip F. E. Schuler - Страница 12

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Taking events in their chronological order, I halt here in the narrative of the advance of the Australian Contingent into Egypt to deal with the incidents relating to the chase and destruction of the notorious raiding cruiser Emden by the Australian cruiser Sydney, which, together with her sister ship, the Melbourne, at the time of the action was part of the Convoy. It was singularly significant that this first page of Australia's naval history—a glorious, magnificently written page—should have occurred in the very presence, as it were, of an Australian army. Well did it merit the enthusiasm and relief that followed the exploit not only throughout India, but through the Straits Settlements and amongst all the Allied merchant service that sailed the seas. About this time the Minotaur, till then the Flagship of the escort, had departed and was over 300 miles away on the route, I believe, to the Cape of Good Hope to replace the Good Hope, sunk by the German Pacific Squadron off Valparaiso a few days before. She left at 5.30 on the evening of the 8th November with the parting message: "Off on another service. Hope Australians and New Zealanders have good luck in Germany and give the Germans a good shaking." This had reduced our escort to the two Australian cruisers and the Ibuki. It was, however, very evident that there was nothing now to fear from the German ships after their short-lived victory off the South American coast, so only the Emden remained at large (the Königsberg meanwhile having been successfully bottled up on the South African coast). At the risk of tiring the reader's patience I will tell first of the relative position of the Convoy, believing that the knowledge that this great fleet, carrying 30,000 Australasians, had so narrow an escape will strengthen the dramatic interest of the naval battle when it shall be told. I intend to quote from a letter written at this time, but which the Censor in Australia, for some reason I have been unable to discover, refused to allow to be published, although approved by the naval officers directly connected with the fight and the escort. In consequence of which action, I may mention, much nonsense appeared in the Press from time to time relating to the closeness of the Emden to the fleet.

Little did the people in Australia, when the news of the victory was announced, know of the danger which their transports had run. The bald announcement made some days later by the Minister of Defence (when the news leaked out) that the Convoy had been within 100 miles of the sea fight, was the only information vouchsafed. Sea romances have been written by the score, but I doubt if there is any more thrilling than the tale from mid-Indian Ocean of a fight to the finish which took place quite unexpectedly in a calm tropical sea on a bright morning in November. It seemed, indeed, nothing short of a fairy-tale (Captain Silver's own words were: "It seems like a fairy-tale just to think that when we are trying our utmost to avoid the Emden we should run across her tracks") that the ship for which the fleet—and no mean fleet—was seeking high and low, which had eluded capture so long, should be caught red-handed in the very presence of a Convoy of forty ships that were creeping across the ocean, anxious above all else to avoid such an awkward meeting.

In the light of what actually occurred, events previous to the fight (which I described in the last chapter) had a curious significance. I suppose that none of us at the time fully appreciated the reasons which actuated the very drastic precautions against detection which were taken three days before we reached Cocos Islands. We had boat drills and day and night alarms. "On the evening of the 8th," I find I wrote, "we were called to our evening meal earlier than usual, and by dusk the fleet was plunged in darkness for the whole night. Of all conjectures for this action, the one which gained most support was that before dawn we would reach the danger-point of our voyage—the Cocos Islands—the only possible rendezvous for a hostile ship in mid-Indian Ocean. We knew that our course would carry us 50 miles to the eastward of the islands and was far away from the ordinary trade route, but still danger might lurk at this spot. Even mast-head lights were extinguished, and not a gleam could be seen from any ship. So they travelled through the night, while barely three hours ahead of them the Emden was crossing their path, silently, very secretly, bent on a very different mission from what she might have undertaken had she known of the proximity of the fleet. One, however, can only conjecture what might have happened had the lights not been doused."

On Monday morning, 9th November, the troops were already astir when they saw, at seven o'clock, the Sydney preparing for action. Half an hour previously they had watched the Melbourne, then in charge of the Convoy and at the head of the line, dart away towards the south-west. Captain Silver had not gone far on this course when he remembered he was in charge, and there remained for him but to stay at his post and send forward the sister ship, the Sydney, into action. It was a sad blow for him and for the keen crew on board, who saw thus the opportunity for which they had been longing snatched from under their eyes. Nevertheless, he honourably stuck to his post, and I saw him gradually edge his cruiser towards the Convoy until it almost came alongside the Orvieto, the Flagship. Meanwhile the searchlight on her forward control was blinking speedily, in the pale, chill morning air, messages in code that sent the Sydney dashing away to the south from the position she had held on the port beam of the Convoy. In less than ten minutes she disappeared behind a cloud of smoke. When the troops saw, as I could with good glasses, a warship travelling at 26 knots an hour with a White Ensign run up to her fore-peak, an Australian ensign at her truck, and the Union Jack floating from her after-mast, with the decks being cleared for action, they realized that some trouble was brewing, though the Convoy as a whole knew nothing very definitely for hours. On the Flagship we knew that a strange warship had been seen at the entrance to the harbour of Keeling Island, then 40 miles away. As the officers came on deck at 7.30, the Melbourne was still signalling and the Ibuki was preparing for action. The wireless calls for help had ceased abruptly, and we could see nothing but the two threatening warships. For all on board it was a period of supreme suspense and suppressed excitement. Captain Gordon Smith, Mr. Parker (Naval Secretary), and General Bridges were on the bridge waiting for the messages coming through from the Sydney as she raced south. Scraps of news were reaching me as they were taken by the operators in the Marconi-room amidships. "It was Cocos Island that had called, about 50 miles away—it might not be the Emden, but some other ship—probably there was more than one, perhaps five!" Who was the enemy? Would the Sydney reach her in time? Would the other ships go? Those were the thoughts drumming in our ears. The Melbourne, quite near us again, was semaphoring rapidly, and then she darted away between the lines of ships to a position 10 miles on our port-beam, lying almost at right angles to the course we were taking. Obviously she was waiting to catch any messages and act as a shield against the approaching enemy should she escape the Sydney and try and push in on the Convoy.

H.M.A.S. "SYDNEY" IN COLOMBO HARBOUR AFTER THE COCOS ISLAND ENGAGEMENT.

To face p. 42.

Meanwhile the Japanese cruiser Ibuki presented a magnificent sight. Long shall I remember how her fighting flags were run up to the mast-heads, as they had been on the Sydney, where they hung limp until the breeze sprung up and they floated out great patches of colour. The danger was imminent enough for her to move, slowly at first, and then rapidly gaining speed as she swept across our bows towards the west. So close did she pass that I could see plainly enough the white figures swarming over her decks. They worked in squads of twenty or thirty and very rapidly, standing on the gun-turrets and on the fire-control stations fastening the sandbags and hammocks round the vulnerable points to stop the flying splinters of the shells. The sun caught the dull colour of the guns and they shone. Masses of thick smoke coiled from her funnels, growing denser every minute. Each thrust of the propeller she was gaining speed. As the cruiser passed, there flew to the truck of her after-mast the national ensign, with another at her peak, half-way down the mast. Lit by the sun's rays, these flags looked blood-red streaks on a background of white. In battle array the cruiser won the admiration of all. Barely ten minutes after being signalled was she ready. The breeze was so light that the smoke rose in a column 40, 60 feet in the air; but as she gathered way the wind caught it, and drew it back behind, just as it caught and stretched the limp flags. And all the while were the great 12-in. guns being turned this way and that, as if anxious to nose out the enemy. We watched them swing in their heavy turrets.

Both Melbourne and Ibuki during the hours of the battle were constantly changing their course, the latter turning and twisting, now presenting her broadside, now her bows only, to the direction in which the Sydney had disappeared. Both were edging farther away, but always lay between the enemy and the Convoy. Warning had come from the Sydney that the enemy was escaping northward, and a thrill ran through the watchers on board as it was spread around. It seemed as if any moment the Japanese guns might boom with their long range of fire. At five minutes to ten we heard from the Australian cruiser, "I am engaging the enemy," and again that "The enemy is escaping north." In suspense for another hour we waited, until the message arrived at 11.20, "Enemy ran ashore to save sinking." Though sent to the Melbourne, these signals were received on the Orvieto, being the Flagship of the Convoy, and knowing the code, as we had the chief naval transport officer on board, they were quickly interpreted. At 11.28 we heard, "Enemy beached herself to save sinking; am pursuing merchant collier." Meanwhile the Minotaur had been asking for information, and accordingly the Sydney sent the message, "Emden beached and done for" at 11.44 to that cruiser, which, I believe, had turned back ready to give assistance if needed. A cheer rose from the troop decks and spread through the fleet as the message, definitely stating it was the Emden that was destroyed, was semaphored from ship to ship down the lines. By noon flashed the message across the calm, vivid blue waters that our casualties had only been two (later three) killed and thirteen wounded. I well recall what relief that news brought, no one daring to hint how much the Sydney had suffered. I thought, as I watched the troops talking excitedly on deck, of Wordsworth's line:—

Smiles broke from us and we had ease.

That tense two hours had bathed us all in perspiration. The troops had broken from their drill to look longingly in the direction of the battle which was raging 50 miles away. Not even the distant rumble of a gun reached us on the transports. A little calculation showed that the Sydney must have steamed nearly 70 miles in the three and a half hours before she dispatched her quarry. The victory seemed to draw us all closer together. A kind of general thaw set in. That night at mess, besides the toast of "The King," General Bridges proposed "The Navy, coupled with the name of the Sydney." Need it be related how it was honoured by soldiers?

Now that it was known that the other enemy ship was but a collier, there was no need for the other cruisers to remain in fighting trim. But before I saw the fighting flags stowed away on the Japanese cruiser there was yet another instance of the fine spirit which animated our Ally. From the captain of the Melbourne she sought permission a second time to enter the fight and join the Sydney, with the request, "I wish go." Indeed, at one time she started like a bloodhound straining at the leash towards the south, believing that her services were needed, when Captain Silver reluctantly signalled, "Sorry, permission cannot be given; we have to rest content in the knowledge that by remaining we are doing our duty." So in accordance with that duty she doubled slowly, and it seemed reluctantly, back, and went, unbinding her hammocks and sandbags, to her former post. Now, early in the morning there had come the same message sent from Cocos Island from the Osaki, a sister ship of the Ibuki, which ship, too, had picked up the call for help. This led us to the knowledge that a Japanese squadron was cruising off the coast of Java, a few hundred miles on our right, as part of that net which was gradually being drawn round the Emden.

It will be realized that amongst the crews of the two warships excluded from a share in the fight there should be a certain disappointment. Captain Silver's action showed that high sense of, and devotion to, duty of which the Navy is justly proud. And feeling for brother officers, Captain Gordon Smith, as officer in charge of the Convoy, sent across to the two cruisers the typically facetious naval message:—

"Sorry there was not enough meat to go round."