THRILLING ADVENTURE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 45, 18 November 1918, Page 9

THRILLING ADVENTURE

■RESCUE OF THE EMDEN'S MEN ' .-■ THE STORY TOLD BY.LIEUT. X—. 'I'bei'o N is iv lino articlo by Lewis R, Freeman in the -Scptcinber' "Cornhill," hliicli, ivhilfl intciulud to show bow tho Gel'innn Navy hns poisoiied ''tho snored bi'otiierhqod. of the sen," shows still Inort). vividly the splendid nature of the men who limn the British 'Navy. ■ It npntnins soma fiisciniitiiijr details of the Falkland iilkl Cocos Island battles, which nil should toad. The Stowaway. • Here is the story. told to Jlr. Freeman by Lieut. X —, of H.JI.tS. Sydney, and how he rescued some of the Germans who escaped from tho Emdcit when our men ended the Eniden off North Keeliiig Island. Lieut. X. sot out in the galley to rescue these men, most of whom wero wounded. They hnd no food and water, and their sufferings "during the day nnd .half before help reached them were unspeakable." "Just as I was about to go over the side," said Lieut. X., "a young Australian lad—some kind of a Boy rating —came and nsked- to. be taken nlong. I refused bun rather shortly, as I thought he. would be of more hindrance tlian help in the kind of jab we had on-hand.i Ho disappeared quickly, ami I did 'not see him , again" until we had taken the galley hi through the suit and were pulling it up on the bench. Then he was discovered, curled up under the thwarts, where he had managed to stow himself away before wo pulled off from the Sydney. It was a hicljj , thing he came along, for, as it turned out, he was the only one tf 't'ho. lot of us vho knew how to climb a cocoanut palm.

Through the Siurf, "It was impossible to take a boyt through the surf anywhere near the point where the Emden had grounded, bui; some miles up tho beach there appeared to bo an opening in the reef through which a, lauding might be made, Watching our chance, we managed to shoot the galley in without an upset, incidentally showing the ivay to tho whaler, which liiul been on the point of giving up the job after staving a holp in its bottom in attempting a passage at a less favourable point. Mustering my men, I set out to find the Huns. It wsis. here that I went wrong. "Knowing that tho island was but a small- one, and having seen a -lumber of the Emden's men 'making off .to the right from the point where she was grounded, I figured that I would be likely to intercept them more quickly if I circled round to the loft and met them face to face than by trying to overtake thorn.- It iwas getting. : liito, snil' I was nnxioiis to lose no time in .bringing them together and into the.boats while there was. still daylight,to see to running the latter through the surf.- If the. island hail been anything but a coral atoll my reckoning would have worked out all right; as it was it upset things completely. . . . Millions of S»a Birds. "I never saw the place' in daylight which .we stumbled into, and so can't Siiy.jnst what it was; it seemed, hojvI'ver, to bo a sort of wilderness of reeils peopled with a million sea-birds, many of tlwm nesting.' The roar of our puns in thejjiittle was as nothing to'.tho bedlam of f'crrnma which arose when I went slitherin? thromrlv -.a lot of eggs and lloppcil full length into a rising maps of bontinir wines. My hair, was mthor long fit, tho and hadn't bew combed sinco morning. One of the birds wit a foot through a tangle cf it. and thon , •nearly, bent mo into'- insensibility with its winqs i.n.tryinor to I'iek loose. Thpy camn bnttimr. ngainst. 'i -iii the darkness throughout tho Fovrii' ii)inntes wo' were groping our way to the open of 'ho lionch... '

"It was well towards midnight when wo got back fo where the , boats were, nnd-so quite, out of the question trying to .do anything, further .in the way .of searching for the Huns till- daylight. Several of the- later had struggled in and given themselves, up., and .they told us that tho rest-were all at tho point where, they had first come ashore from tho Emden, and-suffering greatly , from hunger, and thirst. ..As we had expected to bo putting back to the Sydney within an hour or two nf the time wo landed; wo had littlo food and water , save that in. the boats, and this .wouldn't have gone very far with the lot of ,iis if it had not. been supplemented by tho coconuts our young stowaway brought-down for us. . ;•-.-. ..v ..-'.

A.Terrible Night, -. "There was not. much, clian.ee to rest that'night on. account of-tho small land crabs which kept.crawling over you themoment you 'dropped .oft' to sleep, and. it. was not pleasant to think of how-those more or less. helpless Huns - were faring a Tow miles. farther down ; the beach.. Wo started-oil' at--the first-streak- of dawn,-, and reached them by siln-up. The lnost'df them wero'in even, .worse condition that I had feared, .for it seemed inconceivable to me that they should not- have contrived .in some' way or'other to get hold of some coconuts,.to eat..and drink. It turned out that'they had not done so, however, and that;-as,a, cohscciuence, number of them;.had- died of thirst. The worst.-.case,.-; perhaps, was that of the: assistant surgeon... ■Delirious from thirst, he had managed• .to, induce a sailor to-fetch him a. drink-of salt water, and. had. died shortly afterwards, as a result .pf-driiikingit. ■..Ail the. open: wounds, since they'had .gone froni.twelve to eighteen •■•hours- longer without attention were in oven-'-moro;-terrible condV tion than those of. the men ..we had found on the Emden the previous day."Finally, we got all \ the helpless of the wounded.-on to stretchers .ami started on their way to the boats;. Schall was the greatest help .throughout, but I can't say as much for many of. the others of the unwoiimled, ;who; were very grudging in the wiiy they, lonta hand.; Schall put up a-still' protest .against-going off without burying the dead, declaring that-he' was not going to leave' them there for tho .crabs to. eat- up. When I pointed out that we had no implements for digging, and that-1 needed his help in getting, the living off, he saw-the reason: of it, and said he would comu along. ■ AVe did tho best we could for the dead by covering them with' palm leaves and coral clinkers. The Lieutenant's Uniform. "We readied the Sydney all right, and the whaler was just being hoisted in when I beard the captain's voice from the bridge asking where Lieutenant X was. I looked up just in timo to catch him staring down at me with open-eyed amaztlnent. "'Oh, there he is!' he exclaimed, turning away wjth n griiron his face. That led me, lor the first time in twenty-four hours, to take ,a look at what I could see nf myself without a glass: It was my turn to grin—and to blush. Absolutely the sum-total of my wardrobe was my shirt and a seaman's straw hat! Nothing else. . ' "To ease my feet from boob after standing on the scorching iron decks the Eniden, I had shifted to an old pair of (inncing pumps when 1 returned lo the , Sydney, and these, in the rush of departure, 1 had- worn ashore. They, nnd-my socks, must have been scoured off among Ihe coral c,linkers, and my cap probably went when the sea bird tangled'its feet in my hair. But where I lost my trousers, and what sailor gave mo his'liat, 1. have never been able to make out."