"Fire at will!" commanded the speaker in his ear.
"Fire at will," he repeated. "Jawohl!"
He was too busy for conversation after that. Shell after shell lobbed out and found its mark ashore, yet strangely enough, the English battery did not reply. Only once did a gun fire in their direction, and then they could not be sure where it was located. Von Hohenzollern thought he saw a winking flash near the end of the mole. An instant later a white geyser of water spurted skyward a hundred yards short of their position. No doubt the gunners had been blinded by the dazzling glare of their searchlights.
Then all at once it was over, only a moment or two, it seemed to von Hohenzollern, from the time it began.
"Cease fire!"
He was conscious of a sense of disappointment as the guns stilled and the ship ceased its spasmodic jerking and shuddering. It seemed to him that they had fired only a dozen times, and he was astounded to learn later that more than a hundred and twenty-five rounds had been flung ashore. The searchlights flickered out. There was no need for them now since all of the oil tanks on shore were blazing merrily, the westerly wind rolling the thick black billows out in their direction. String by string the onshore lights were going out as startled operators remembered to pull the switches. Underfoot the Emden trembled, then began to pulse and throb to the powerful beat of her engines. With her helm hard aport she swung in a tight half circle, bringing her portside to bear and heading north toward the edge of the rolling smoke. Instantly, on signal from the bridge, every light on board was switched on, and for a dozen minutes she stood out, plainly visible to all on shore, making no secret of her course. Then she plunged into the dense screen of smoke.
"Perfect!" von Mueller exclaimed. "We could not have done it better!"
For fully half an hour they stood northward at top speed, with all lights showing. Then at last, when they were well out of sight of the land, every light was extinguished and they came about once more on a southeasterly course, to flit away in the darkness.
As they did so, von Guerard appeared again on the bridge. "Message intercepted from the Hampshire, Herr Kapitan," he said. "She gives her position as off Puri and reports she is turning southwest towards Madras at top speed in anticipation of intercepting us."
"I expected that." Von Mueller smiled back almost triumphantly. "By the time she reaches Madras, we'll be far, far away!"
All through the night the glow of the fires reddened the skies behind them, and all through the following day a towering pillar of smoke rose from beyond the horizon. Toward midday they rejoined the Markomannia. Two days later they slipped into the steamer track between Colombo and Singapore, only a few miles to the south and east of Ceylon.
IV
MONSOON SEAS
October 1914
Ceylon hangs like a teardrop off the southeastern coast of India, a scant thirty-one miles distant from the Indian mainland, with her base in the Indian Ocean and her northern tip in the Bay of Bengal. For the most part her coastal plains are low and fairly level, and at some points heavily jungled. But in the interior, never very far back from the sea, her mountains rise to more than eight thousand feet and on a clear day are visible from a great distance, hanging; like hazy blue banks of cloud against the tropic sky, while the rest of the land lies hidden well below the watery rim of the ocean's horizon. Colombo is Ceylon's principal port, and but for Colombo the island would be little more than a backwash in a busy world.
Situated as it is, however, the port of Colombo is one of the world's major crossroads. The greater part of the traffic between Europe and the Orient passes this way. Ships from England, France, and the Mediterranean, through Suez and the Red Sea, find it a convenient stopping place on their way east to Malaya, the East Indies, China, and Japan. By the same token ships from the East, often even from Australia and the other lands down under, on their way to European ports make it a convenient way station. Even traffic from the east to the west of India; from Calcutta to Bombay and Karachi, and vice versa, must pass its doorstep.
As a result even in wartime its waters swarm with shipping of all nations. As a result, too, it is a center of naval activity —an Admiralty' headquarters in the area.
These facts were well known to Karl von Mueller. But the risks the Emden ran were worth the stakes in his estimation. Besides, the morale of both his officers and men ran high after the swift strike at Madras. Champagne toasts had been exchanged in the wardroom, and young von Hohenzollern, perhaps under their influence, had even gone so far as to promise Chief Engineer Ellenbroek a shipload of the best Cardiff coal within a week or six boxes of the best Dutch Sumatra cigars, of which Ellenbroek was particularly fond.
The chief, of course, had been complaining, after the fashion of all engineers, of the quality of the coal they were using. But at least he had been sporting enough to promise von Hohenzollern three cases of fine Bavarian beer if the coal was forthcoming, so making it a wager and a sporting proposition in whose outcome all took a lively interest.
They were twenty miles offshore, directly in the line of Colombo—Penang—Singapore, and within sight of the mountaintops, if not the shore—certainly well within the properly patrolled area of the British fleet—when they made their first capture. Twenty-four hours had passed since the wager, and Franz had only six more days.
The ship was the S/S King Lud, Suez to Calcutta. She yielded good stores of meal and potatoes and other odd items, but she carried no coal. Her crew was transferred to the Mark, and she was sunk.
A few hours later they overtook a lighted tanker, which proved to be Norwegian. They merely spoke and released her with a cryptic "Good voyage." Their next interception, a good thirty miles from the regular route, heaved to with almost evident petulance.
She was the British S/S Tyrneric, with some four thousand tons of sugar for London, and she gave them the first— and indeed the only—unpleasantness of all their captives. Lauterbach and Franz von Hohenzollern went on board with the Emden's boarding party, and were met by the first mate with a nearly empty bottle in his hand.
"You may sink us," he snarled, "you bloody Hun, but I'll have a warm belly on the way down!"
"Don't play the martyr, mister!" Lauterbach retorted. "All you'll get from this will be heartburn. Where's your Captain?"
The Captain was in his cabin. Apparently he, too, had taken refuge in the bottle. "What do you want?" he demanded belligerently. "Bloody Admiralty! They told me this would be a safe route!"
Without warning he snatched the bottle from his desk and flung it at Lauterbach's head. Lauterbach twisted slightly to one side, and the bottle smashed against the bulkhead.
"Captain!" Lauterbach barked. "I understand your feeling. But do you consider this fitting? You are in command of this ship, I take it?"
"I'm in command, an' I'll stay in command, you bloody, baby-killing Boche!" the man swore. "Damned Admiralty! Swore there was nothing in the way, the dirty bastards!"
"There probably wasn't when they told you that." Lauterbach smiled grimly. "I doubt if they are aware of it even now. It is our duty to be where we're least looked for. Now, will you give the order to abandon ship? You and your men will be put on board the Markomannia and released as soon as possible. I can give you half an hour."
"I'll be damned if I will!" the English Captain snarled. "We'll go down with the ship first!"
"I'm sorry, Captain," Lauterbach told him, "but I'll remind you that you are a prisoner of war and have no choice in the matter."
"The Admiralty assured me—" the Captain began. "Oh, shut up!" said Lauterbach, and turned to von Hohenzollern, who entered the cabin at that moment with the chief engineer in tow. "Is the black gang out?"