Although the departure of the Gryfevale was delayed by the capture and sinking of two more British ships, toward midnight she was released and sent away to Colombo—and once again the Emden's crew knew the strange satisfaction of being cheered by their enemies.
At least it was something to know that these men, whom they had been forced to take, recognized the Emden's obligations and acknowledged the fair treatment given them. There was something heart-warming in that. They blinked out "Thank you, and good voyage" by way of farewell, and slipped away in the darkness.
When the Gryfevale was finally gone, the Emden and her companions turned their bows toward the lower Maldives. There in the quiet, unfrequented waters, well to the southward of Male, the Markomannia was brought alongside the Emden and the work of transferring her remaining coal reserves begun. At the same time, the Buresk was brought up and made fast to the other side of the Mark and the transshipment of oil, water, livestock, and other supplies broached. Even as this was being done, both officers and men were excused from work by groups in rotation in order that they might write such letters as they wished to send home.
Naturally, all of the mail had to be rigidly censored, and Kapitanleutnant von Braun was assigned to read the officers', while Franz von Hohenzollern, von Guerard, Schall and Lange were responsible for that of the crew.
The task was a tedious though not a difficult one. In the case of the officers' letters it was merely a matter of routine, since the officers themselves were already well aware of what they could and could not say. But the men's letters were a different matter. They were sometimes crude, frequently misspelled, and often almost illegible. All of them were poignant with longing for home and shore, and some were almost pathetically funny. Herman Schultz, for instance, described the birth of the kittens in terms that were methodically—and ludicrously—serious, causing the censors to rock with laughter. But in between the lines each one could read the big cook's concern for Hilde's safety in Tsingtao and his desperate yearning to be there with her to share her danger. An oiler with neither kith nor kin, nor even a true sweetheart, wrote to his favorite Hamburg whore that he dreamed at night of her white belly and her professionally adept caresses. A youngster in the port watch told his mother that he had learned to sew, but not as well as she; and that while the food on the Emden was good, the cooking could not compare with hers. All spoke in general terms of their exploits, and each expressed a hope for more of the sort of action they had anticipated at the outbreak of the war. But all also recognized the need for the sort of work they had been doing, and took a decent pride in doing it well. None criticized or complained, and all praised their officers and expressed the hope that the war would soon end in victory for the Fatherland, with an early return home for them all.
Lange, as the junior officer, drew the task of tying the letters up in their regulation mail sack before delivery to the Markomannia. "I wonder how many of these will ever be read," he said almost bitterly.
"I wouldn't care to bet on it," von Hohenzollern replied. It was midafternoon of the following day before the Emden's bunkers were filled and all the spare stores and supplies of oil, water, and foods moved to the Buresk. Zahlmeister Applikant Bordeaux was sent to the Mark with a fat purse and instructions to attend the business of buying at some neutral port—preferably Dutch, since they seemed the most meticulous in observing the rules of neutrality. Klopper and his men were transferred to the Buresk, and late in the afternoon, as the sun dipped behind the tall palms of the atolls, the three ships cast off from one another. The Markomannia dipped her flag and bore around, hard to port, cutting straight for the underside of the East Indies. Emden also dipped her flag. So did the Buresk.
As long as they were on the horizon, Karl von Mueller watched them through his glasses. They were almost gone from sight when von Muecke spoke at his elbow.
"Will they get through?" the exec asked, not so much posing a question to the Captain as voicing his own thoughts.
Von Mueller turned slowly. "We can hope. And we can try. Herr Kapitanleutnant, the ship needs scraping, painting, and repairs—at least such as we can give it. The waters to the north are too dangerous to attempt anything of the sort at this time. But to the south we may find a moment of quiet. Bear south a quarter west. I think I know a safe place.''
The Chagos Archipelago lies far to the south of India; far to the southward of the Maldive Islands, well below the equator, and almost in the middle of the vast Indian Ocean. Though the islands' closest neighbor is probably the Seychelles group, about fourteen hundred miles to the westward, they are officially administered by Mauritius, some fifteen hundred miles or more to the southwest, with whom in 1914 only desultory and usually unpredictable communications were maintained. Since they lay well off the track of any regular steamer lanes, they were almost completely isolated and as a rule visited only three or four times a year by an official mail and supply schooner. Most of the group were uninhabited and uninhabitable. A few, however, supported coconut plantations which exported a small amount of palm oil and copra. One, Diego Garcia, boasted as snug a harbor as any to be found in those seas, and was the seat of the local administrator, a Frenchman from Madagascar, who also doubled as the manager of the island plantations.
It was in the direction of this island that von Mueller turned after the departure of the Markomannia. Since there was much to be done that could be accomplished at sea without risking discovery at the island, they cruised very slowly while the entire crew turned to, both below decks and aloft, to put everything in good order and make both vessels as shipshape as possible so that their stop at the island might be brief.
The work progressed slowly but inexorably in the nine days in which they flirted south. By luck the weather held good and the sea was calm, though the days were almost unbearably hot. They crossed the equator, but owing to the urgency of the moment, von Mueller postponed the usual ceremonies at the line. Little by little the Emden began to look respectable again, though one would scarcely refer to her as the "Swan of the East" yet. Then the day came—on Sunday, which was enough to alert everyone—when all hands were mustered aft and Kapitan von Mueller spoke to them.
"Men!" he said. "You have worked hard and well during this last fortnight, and I want to compliment you all on what you have done to put our Little Old Lady back into proper shape. Now, however, we have two tasks remaining that cannot conveniently be done at sea. First, we must refuel from the Buresk. I know that is not impossible at sea. But it can be done more quickly and efficiently in harbor. Second, the Emden's bottom is foul and must be cleaned. That is impossible at sea. To do a proper job of it we should go into dry dock, but you all know what chance we have of that. Consequently we must do the best we can with such facilities as are available. We must find some sheltered harbor where we can careen ship as far as possible without too much fear of being disturbed in the operation."
When he paused, the men stirred uneasily and glanced at one another curiously. Most of them scarcely knew the meaning of the word, and those few old hands who did were aware only that it was a measure that had been successfully employed on the old wooden ships in windjammer days. They had never heard of it being applied to a modem man-of-war, or even a rusty old tramp steamer.
Von Mueller cleared his throat and went on. "That will be a very considerable task, I realize—especially since it must be done as swiftly as is humanly possible. Tomorrow we will have our chance to prove to the world that it can be done. Tomorrow we will come to anchor in the bay of Diego Garcia, God willing. There the conditions should be ideal for our purpose."