Gallipoli (14 page)

5 NOVEMBER 1914, AHOY TO THE CONVOY

Day after day, the sun rises, soars high and then low in its searing arc across a sky nearly as blue as the sea all around. To the 20,758 Australians and 8427 New Zealanders aboard the 38 troopships – also bearing 11,294 horses
¹⁸
– it almost seems as if their convoy is the only thing that leaves a momentary mark in the eternal blueness.

All alone? They certainly hope so – but at least they have some protection against whatever enemy craft might be out there. On the far western horizon, five miles out in the lead, they can see the pillar of smoke that represents
Minotaur
, their key cruiser escort. Not only does the smoke provide the direction for all the other ships in the convoy to follow, and pace, but most crucially
Minotaur
is riding shotgun, its officers scanning their own horizons in every direction for any sign of an enemy force.

To one young soldier, Lance-Corporal Percival Langford, it looks like their very own ‘formidable monster … with her big guns fore and aft'.
¹⁹

The two pillars of smoke far to starboard and to port equally show where, respectively,
Ibuki
and
Sydney
lie, while
Melbourne
brings up the rear. Most particularly, all officers on the bridges of these vessels are on the lookout for the German cruiser
Emden
, which has wrought such havoc in recent weeks. Armed with two torpedo tubes and a main armament of ten 4.1-inch guns, and skippered by one of the Imperial German Navy's best, Kapitänleutnant Karl von Müller,
Emden
already has two warships and no fewer than 21 Allied merchant ships on its ledger of kills. This includes a spectacular raid just three days earlier on Penang Harbour, where it unleashed shocking destruction, sinking first a Russian ship,
Zemtchug
, and then a French warship,
Mousquet
. Should
Emden
ever get among the Australian and New Zealand convoy, the result would be catastrophic.

In addition to keeping a sharp lookout, lights are extinguished at night and there is a strict rule against throwing any refuse overboard – as it has been established that in one case a cruiser was able to follow such a trail for 100 miles until catching up with the convoy and sinking the ships. It is a precaution that might mean the difference between life and death. For it is on this day that disturbing war news breaks upon the convoy.

Two of von Spee's armoured cruisers,
Scharnhorst
and
Gneisenau
, had engaged with a British squadron off the South American coast in the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, and two British cruisers,
Good Hope
and
Monmouth
, had been sunk. Added to this, for several weeks
Emden
has been rumoured to be near Sumatra. Given the convoy is Colombo-bound, who knows how close
Emden
is now to their current position?

Another bulletin that has been eliciting great comment around the water cart is that, as reported by the Foreign Office, ‘Owing to hostile acts committed by Turkish forces under German officers, a state of war exists between Great Britain and Turkey as from to-day.'
²⁰

Well, that settles that. Aboard several ships in the convoy there had been great discussion a couple of days previously, after
Osterley
had passed at 6.30 pm and given them the news by semaphore that Kingsburgh had won the Melbourne Cup – hooray! – and that Turkey had declared war with Germany. The debate had been whether that meant that Turkey was
for
or
against
Germany? Now they know.

The most urgent query they have now, as expressed by Charles Bean, is, ‘Shall we be stopped in Egypt?'
²¹

In the meantime, there on the high seas, a more pressing problem is seasickness, which most soldiers are experiencing for the first time, as reported in the
Kan-Karroo Kronikle
, the journal of the troopship
Karroo
:

6.25 AM, 9 NOVEMBER 1914, COCOS ISLANDS, FROM
BURESK
TO BERSERK

The Cocos Islands, a former British annexation granted in perpetuity by Queen Victoria to the Clunies-Ross family in 1886,
²³
slumbers and simmers out in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Little happens here from one week to the next. But on this morning, something different …

A ship is approaching. A
war
-ship.

The man on duty at the wireless station on the high point of the island looks for the reassuring British ensign on the unidentified ship fast approaching. There is none! Feverishly, he taps out a message to all ships in the vicinity:

In fact, not only strange but also obviously dangerous, as the German warship soon disgorges ‘a small steam pinnace with two cutters in tow … full of men, who … are armed and wear unusual-looking tropical helmets'.
²⁵
There is just time for the operator to send out one other message:

before German soldiers from the
Emden
– of course! – led by Kapitänleutnant Hellmuth von Mücke, burst into the radio room. They have come to obliterate this very station just on principle. The operator has no way of knowing whether his signal has been received by anyone.

Less than 50 miles away, the radio operator on
Melbourne
is just passing the time, filling out the logbook after another boring night, when suddenly he hears the famous signal:

… ---… … ---… … ---…

SOS! SOS! SOS!

All because a strange warship is approaching the – where is it? – Cocos Islands.

Running now, the radio operator passes on the message to
Melbourne
's captain, Mortimer L'Estrange Silver, who gives the orders to proceed to the islands at full steam.

Aboard
Orvieto
, Charles Bean immediately realises something is up – a hint of sudden action.

‘Look at
Ibuki
,' someone says within his earshot.

Bean turns his head and torso as he unfolds his long legs, almost like a giraffe, and he stands, squinting out to sea from behind his wire frames. And indeed, just ahead, the Japanese ship is racing across the bows of the convoy to join
Melbourne
, smoke billowing from her funnels as never before.

‘Aloft at the peak,' Bean would describe, ‘planted fair against the black smoke-cloud, flew one huge Japanese ensign. As she passed ahead of the fleet she broke from the mainmast a second great ensign of the rising sun, her battleflag.

‘She was moving fast, punching great masses of white out of the dark water and spreading the seas wide on either side of her bluff bows. When she reached the
Melbourne
in the distance, she was seen once to turn and head for the horizon in the direction of the fight. She had signalled, “I wish to go and help
Sydney
.” But the captain of
Melbourne
refused the permission requested.'
²⁷

For Captain Silver has only just realised that
Melbourne
and
Ibuki
have a higher duty, which is to stay with the convoy, protecting its 30,000 troops, sailors and 25 nurses spread over seven ships. Captain John Glossop, on
Sydney
, is ordered to take his light cruiser to find out what is going on.

Just over two hours later, on the Cocos Islands, Kapitän von Müller is relieved to see the smoke of an approaching ship, knowing it must be his collier, the captured English vessel
Buresk
, which is overdue, and …

And
mein Gott!
That is not
Buresk
; it is
ein australischer Kreuzer
– an Australian light cruiser!
²⁸

Leaving Kapitänleutnant von Mücke and his men on shore behind – for there is simply no time – the German skipper gives the orders:

‘
Dampf auf in allen Kesseln!
– Steam up in all the boilers!'

‘
Anker lichten!
– Up anchor!'

‘
Klarschiff zum Gefecht!
– Clear ship for action!'

‘
Maschine beschleunigt Dampf auf für höchste Geschwindigkeit!
– Full steam ahead!'
²⁹

Sydney
is ten nautical miles off the Cocos Islands, approaching from the north-east, when, just after 9.30 am, Captain Glossop – with his glasses fiercely trained on the low smudge of land in the distance – sees something. There!

Emerging from the smudge now is a tiny dot, billowing black smoke. It is … it is … it is a warship! Very likely a German warship, to judge from the SOS, and very likely that scourge of the South Seas,
Emden
!

As the two combatants close, the German light cruiser four years the Australian's senior, the question is who will throw the first punch and when?
Emden
's 4.1-inch guns can go as far as six miles – about 10,500 yards – while the
Sydney
's six-inch guns can reach further, to 15,000 yards. But, under full steam, rolling from side to side on the swell, is it worth firing from so far, now that the six-mile limit has been reached?

Captain Glossop does not think so, even though his ship is over 1000 tons heavier and so cuts through the swell more easily. He says to his senior officers, ‘I think we had better get a thousand yards nearer before we fire …'
³⁰

Kapitän von Müller doesn't think so, and at 9.39 am gives the order. ‘
Feuer frei!
– Fire!'

First, Captain Glossop sees puffs of smoke from four for'ard guns on
Emden
, and about 15 seconds later he hears a high-pitched whistle, as if from a train coming straight at them … and then all hell breaks loose.

One shell hits the spot on the aft-deck from where the ship's guns are controlled, grievously wounding many men. Another shell lands in the most forward part of the bridge and,
without exploding
, first knocks the cap of Gunnery-Lieutenant Dennis Rahilly off his head, then destroys the range finder and kills the man in charge of it, before finally, mercifully, bouncing off the deck and disappearing overboard.
³¹

Everywhere now there is blood, screams and moans … but very little panic. In fact, the body of the man working the range finder has landed on a 16-year-old lad, Able Seaman Roy Millar, who had been working the telescope beside him – and knocked him out. But look now. He is stirring, under the weight of his dead colleague. Now, pushing the bloodied corpse off him, the lad rises to his feet and says, ‘Where's my bloody telescope?'
³²

Picking it up, he gets back to work, training that telescope on
Emden
, eyes peeled for torpedo tracks and doing his calculations as everyone else who has survived gets back to the job at hand.

The gun captain, receiving instructions from fire control, yells to his men: 10,300 yards and closing, 10,200 yards and closing, 10,000 yards and closing … The two ‘trainers' of the guns peer through their sights with their beady eyes, coordinating with each other – ‘Right-a-lot' … ‘Hair-to-right' … ‘Mark' – and as the thin wires in both of their sights cross, one of the trainers says, ‘Target.' They're on. ‘Ready,' they yell to the gun captain.

‘Shoot!'
³³

One of the early shells from
Sydney
not only destroys
Emden
's wireless room but also damages her steering, meaning Kapitän von Müller must slow his ship down to re-establish control.

Speeding up once more,
Sydney
continues to pour shells into the grievously wounded
Emden
, though the German cruiser does manage to turn to bring her port guns to bear – a manoeuvre quickly matched by
Sydney
.

After 35 minutes of battle, carnage reigns supreme aboard
Emden
, while catastrophe waits in the wings. By now,
Sydney
has fired over 500 rounds, each bearing just over 13 pounds of high explosives, and while more than a hundred have hit home, the most crucial are those that have damaged
Emden
's weapons systems. Though the German cruiser has been able to fire many more shells, only 14 have hit … of which only five have exploded.

Still
, the men of
Emden
have fight in them, and when Kapitän von Müller gives the order, ‘
Hol alles raus!
– Everything you can get out of the engines!' they respond immediately.
³⁴

Alas, even then they can get no closer to
Sydney
than 5500 yards. When word comes that the torpedo room has to be abandoned because of ‘a shot under water', the captain knows he has no choice. Much of the ship is on fire, many of the crew are either dead or dying, and as the shells continue to slam into
Emden
and explode, the blizzard of shrapnel continues to cut a swathe through survivors.