Every courtesy was extended to the prisoners; the officers were allowed to keep their swords, and were treated by the Australians with such consideration as their refusal to give parole permitted. The wounded were tended with the utmost solicitude, and repaid the care lavished on them with expressions of the liveliest gratitude.
The Sydney rejoined her convoy at Colombo, one of the world's great ports of call. The great roadstead was swarming with friendly vessels, the city lay white above the cliffs of Galle Face, the houses nestling among the brilliant green of the palms, bisected with startling red roads. Above, a cloudless blue sky, and the British flag proudly floating over all. Colombo is one of those "places in the sun" which have aroused the covetous greed of his Majesty Wilhelm II.
The flagship Melbourne signalled her course to the Sydney, and the victorious cruiser swung round and steamed between the long rows of transports. The side of each swarmed with Australasian soldiers, all greeting the conqueror, hat in hand. The silence was so oppressive that the captured Germans looked uneasily at one another. Every ship in the harbour showed its bunting, but no whistle blew, no cheer was raised to greet the heroes of the fight.
Piqued into an unrestrainable curiosity by this apparent lack of emotion, one of the German captured officers asked an officer of the Sydney why there was no cheering. He was told, very simply, that as there were prisoners on the cruiser, suffering from serious wounds gallantly sustained, the Sydney had sent a message asking that no noisy demonstration should mark her return to the fleet. This reply unmanned him completely. With tears in his eyes he said, "You have been kind, but this crowns all; we cannot speak to thank you for it."
For Australians not the least proud of the memories of the first engagement fought by their navy will ever be that silent greeting of the returning conqueror. The restraint imposed upon that army of Australasians, going out for the first time to make war in Europe, was hardly natural, when the thrilling nature of the incident is considered. The chivalrous care for the wounded enemy will surely immortalize the gallant sailors who desired it, and the brave soldiers who respected their wish so thoroughly.
But elsewhere such restraint was not necessary. On November 10, the news of the destruction of the Emden was announced at Lloyd's in London, the parting knell of the raider being rung on the bell of the old Lutine. The underwriters, mindful of the £2,500,000 of damage done by the raider to British commerce, burst spontaneously into hearty cheering for the Sydney and her bold crew; also for the newest navy in the world, the navy of the Commonwealth of Australia.
From all parts of the world messages of congratulation were flashed to the Prime Minister of Australia. For the first time the man in the street realized that Australia really had a navy, efficient in the highest degree as to quality, though still limited in the number of its component vessels.
CHAPTER III
IN THE LAND OF PHARAOH
The fight that ended in the destruction of the Emden was the one exciting incident that broke the monotony of the tedious voyage from Australia. When they had left Albany, the last port of call in Australia, the men believed that they would go to Great Britain, there to train for service in Northern France. The intervention of Turkey in the war on the side of the Teutonic nations caused the original intention to be altered, and the men heard that they were to disembark at Egypt. This decision shortened the voyage originally undertaken by nearly one-half, but delays, especially at the Suez Canal, made the journey still a long one. The men who shipped in Tasmania spent nine weeks on the transports before finally disembarking in Egypt; while some of the New Zealanders had even a longer spell of troopship life.
All were glad, therefore, for the break in the monotony afforded by the Emden incident; for the whole fleet witnessed the sudden dash of the Sydney at break-neck speed, and shared the glad news flashed by the cruiser by wireless, that reached the convoy some six hours later. The one menace to the safety of the convoy was thus removed, and the remainder of the journey was devoid even of the interest arising out of the possibility of attack. All were correspondingly pleased when they left the transports and entered their Egyptian camps; the Australians at Mena in the shadow of the Pyramids, and the New Zealanders at Heliopolis.
It is doubtful whether the good people of Cairo have quite yet got over the surprise occasioned them by the proceedings of our Australasian army during their first few days in residence in Egypt. The men certainly behaved as no soldiers had ever behaved before, in Egypt's fairly wide experience. They were as unlike the traditional Mr. Atkins of the British regular army – the type to which Cairo has been accustomed – as it is possible for men of the same race to be. They were young men just freed from the restrictions of life on a troopship; many of them had plenty of money to spend; few of them had ever called any man master, or been subject to any will but their own.
Their frame of mind was well understood by those in control of them; and for the first few days a good deal of latitude was allowed the newly-landed Australasians. In those few days the word went round the bazaars that all the Australasians were surely millionaires; and that many of them were many times madder than the mad English. Taxicabs (at two shillings an hour) became unattainable things each evening in Cairo; they were monopolized by Australasian private soldiers seeing the sights.
They went into camp on December 8, at the very height of the Egyptian season. A night or two later, a table was set in the most prominent part of the dining-room of one of Cairo's costliest and most fashionable hotels. The place was crowded, and many visitors sought in vain for seats at dinner; this table was exclusively guarded by an unapproachable waiter, who averred that it had been set aside for a party of most particular gentlemen. Presently these gentlemen arrived, all attired in the uniforms of privates in the Australian army, and to the scandal of some of those present proceeded to enjoy, cheerfully but decorously, the best the house could produce.
One dragoman of Cairo was accosted by an Australian private, who engaged his services, explaining that he wished to buy carpets to send to Australia as presents to his friends there. The dragoman, wishing to overawe him by a display of the unattainable, took him to a merchant who exhibited three carpets as a beginning, one of which cost £100, and the other two £75 each. While the dragoman was explaining to the seller of carpets that his would-be customer was but a private soldier, and only able to buy very cheap goods, the Australian produced the cash for all three carpets, and leaving an address to which they were to be sent, strolled off. This case is but one of many incidents which excited the keen merchants of Egypt, and gave rise to the bazaar talk of the unlimited wealth of these Australians, even those who served in the ranks.
From Cairo to the Pyramids there runs a thin asphalt road, bordered by green irrigation patches and sandy wastes of desert. Each night in those first easy weeks in Egypt, this road was thronged at midnight by all the motley vehicles Cairo could produce, all crammed with happy soldiers returning to camp after a night's fun in the city. Every day the sights of the neighbourhood were visited by scores of curious Australasians; the desire to climb to the top of the great pyramid of Cheops consumed them; no less than seven men fell in attempting it. Four of them were killed outright, and another was maimed for life.
The wisdom of affording them an outlet for their high spirits was apparent when, a week or so after landing, the work of military training began in earnest. One and all, they settled down to the collar like veterans, and soon twenty-mile marches through the heavy sand became a joke, as battalion vied with battalion in breaking records of physical fitness. "Physically, they are the finest lot of men I have ever seen in any part of the world," wrote Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, when they came under his observation at this period in their training. At the end of the year both Australians and New Zealanders were able to show at reviews how much they had already benefited by their training.
The occasion of these reviews was the visit to Egypt of Sir George