"All clear below, Herr Oberleutnant," Franz replied smartly. "The men seem to recognize the futility of resistance, but I'm afraid the chief shares the same romantic notions as the Captain."
"I am sorry, gentlemen," said Lauterbach irritably. "I regret what must be done, but there will be no mock heroics here. Your ship will be sunk, and you will be made prisoners —in irons if necessary. Franz, see that they pack their own belongings and lower them away to the boats. When that is done, have the demolition crew set their charges, and stand by to open the sea cocks!"
Even then the matter was not so simply settled. Had they been at all co-operative, Lauterbach would have allowed them to follow the Emden until the next day, when the transshipment of officers and crew and all personal belongings could have been carried out thoroughly. As it was, both the Captain and the chief engineer refused to pack and carry their own gear to the waiting boats. As a consequence both officers had to be manhandled into the launch with only such small possessions as Franz von Hohenzollern could fish from their cabins and stuff into a convenient laundry bag. The two were then removed to the brig on board the cruiser, while the rest of the crew was transferred to the Mark. In the meantime Lauterbach, by blinker, requested and received permission to sink the vessel at once. Long before midnight it was done, and the Emden had resumed her stealthy prowl westward.
In the shuttered, curtained wardroom, from which no light could leak, the off-duty officers chuckled over newspapers, seized aboard the Tyrneric, which were full of accounts— from the English point of view, of course—of the Emden's raid on Madras. Casualties had been remarkably light, owing, as the Emden's people well hoped, to the fact that the city had not been shelled indiscriminately. Their fire had been concentrated on strategic targets. But the damage was estimated at more than twenty million Marks, and what was even more important, insurance rates had soared as a result, while refugee trains out of the city had been packed to the rooftops with panic-stricken residents.
While von Mueller was still pondering the account, they overtook the British steamer Gryfevale, from Aden for Colombo. Since she was without cargo, she suited von Mueller's purpose well, for there was plenty' of room in her empty cabins for all his prisoners. Accordingly, he placed Lauterbach in command and ordered him to follow the Emden until such time as she could be released.
For a time matters went quietly. Shortly after dawn they passed a large Dutch ship at a considerable distance, but since they had already learned her identity through intercepted wireless messages they did not molest her. Later that afternoon, while their prisoners were being transferred to the Gryfevale, they overheard, with some satisfaction, a wireless conversation between a British warship and the Dutch wayfarer.
Have you seen anything of the German raider Emden? asked the Englishman.
There was a long pause. Then the Dutchman replied:
For reasons of neutrality answer refused.
Aboard the Emden they were jubilant. "There is a neutral who knows how to play the game!" remarked von Muecke.
"I wonder if she did see us," Bunte Lange said.
"She could hardly miss three ships in company," von Hohenzollern put in.
"What about that, Anton?" demanded von Levetzow. "What do you think?"
Von Guerard shrugged. "I'm hanged if I could tell," he replied. "She left me as much in the dark as the Englishman."
"Well, whether she saw us or not," said von Muecke, "she did us a decent turn. I don't suppose we'll ever know the answer. But we can still be grateful."
As the days slipped past, Franz von Hohenzollern was beginning to grow apprehensive. Cigars were expensive. Already the week was more than half gone. He had made his boast to Chief Ellenbroek on the twenty-third, and as he came to his watch on the bridge one midnight he realized it was already the twenty-seventh—and Sunday at that! What, he asked himself disgustedly, could be expected on such a day? He made his entries in the log, noting their course, speed, and position, together with the disposition of the other ships, then took to pacing, first out one wing of the bridge, then restlessly out the other. He had made that solitary patrol perhaps a half a dozen times when all at once the buzzer in the wheelhouse rang.
"Bridge!" he answered. "Von Hohenzollern."
The lookout's voice came over the wire. "Vessel with all lights burning bright, bearing two points on the starboard bow, course due east. I can't be sure, Herr Leutnant, but it looks to me as though there were another ship trailing her without lights."
"So?" said Franz. This sounded interesting. "What distance do you make it?"
"About six or seven miles, Herr Leutnant."
"Good! Report any change to me promptly."
"Jawohl, Herr Leutnant!"
Franz hung up and rang the Captain's cabin. "I'll be right up," said von Mueller, and his promptness was evidence of his concern.
Quietly all hands were summoned once more from their beds and sent to their battle stations, where they stood tense and waiting as the Emden crept slowly in the direction of the stranger.
The other ship's lights were the first to appear, and von Mueller and his aides on the bridge studied her carefully through their night glasses. There was no question about the ship herself. She at least was real and quite evidently a merchantman. But trailing her at a distance was another, shadowy, almost formless mass. Von Mueller voiced the thoughts of all as he lowered his glasses.
"The lighted ship could be a decoy." he said. "The other— if it is another—could be a warship hoping to draw us into a trap."
"At least they'll not take us by surprise," von Hohenzollern remarked.
Von Mueller nodded approvingly. There had been no hint of apprehension in the younger man's voice, only a sort of veiled eagerness, as if he might welcome the adventure. Von Mueller knew that ever)' man on board would echo the sentiment.
But as it turned out, the dark mass trailing behind the stranger was only a dense cloud of her own smoke, which by a freak of the wind and the obscuring darkness had assumed the shape of another ship.
As If to make up for the disappointment the real vessel proved to be the British collier S S buresk, 3450 tons, out of Cardiff for Hong Kong with 6600 tons of the best Welsh coal! Von Hohenzollern whooped when he heard the news, and went at once to inform Chief Ellenbroek that he owed him three cases of beer.
The capture, however, was more than just a sporting event. It was important because it released the Markomannia to certain other essential duties long since overdue.
Von Mueller explained his plans the following morning in the wardroom. Kapitanleutnant Klopper, with the nucleus of his crew and the marine Kommandos. together with the bulk of the supplies, oil and water carried by the Mark, would be transferred to the buresk. The Arab stokers of the latter would be retained, but all the rest, together with the prisoners from the Tyrneric and King Lud, would be transferred to the Gryfevale, which would then be sent into port under cartel. In the meantime such coal as remained in the Mark would be transferred to the Emden, after which their old comrade would be released to make her way to the most convenient neutral port, probably in the Dutch East Indies, where she would mail letters home for all hands in the cruiser—cheers that shook the ship!—and buy such supplies as she could for the Emden. She would then meet the Fontoporros, take on the rest of her coal, and rendezvous with the Emden once more, south of Sumatra.
He concluded with a broad smile, and there was no doubt that the program he proposed met with everyone's approval. It would no doubt meet with even heartier approval from the crew when they were told of it, for everyone on board had some tie on shore whose mere memory had been nagging at him. This might provide an opportunity, if not to be back with them once more, at least to let them know that they were still alive and safe!