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- Herausgeber: Eland Publishing
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Lewen Weldon was mapping the desert of Egypt when the First World War broke out. A fluent Arabic speaker, he was recruited to run a network of spies and confidential agents from a steam yacht onto the Syrian coast behind Turkish lines. He took his men ashore in small boats at night, which also allowed him to land and conduct personal interviews before returning back through the surf. This vivid tale of adventure becomes eyewitness history as we encounter Armenians escaping the massacres, passionate Arab nationalists, resolute Turkish soldiers and a heroic network of Jewish volunteers. Weldon's modesty and self-deprecating Irish wit, complete with a few prejudices, take us to the vivid heart of his experience. This is a story that simply had to be told.
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Hard Lying
An Intelligence Officer on the Levantine Shore 1914–19
LEWEN WELDON
with an afterword by Barnaby Rogerson
Contents
Foreword
This work is merely the contents of a diary kept by me from 1914–1915, and so naturally there appears to be only one person of any importance in it, viz. ‘LBW’. I can assure my readers, however, that this is not the case. If only the men I had the honour to serve with had kept diaries they would be of far more interest than mine.
There is, however, one person who merits all and more than he was awarded, Lieutenant-Commander Alan Cain, RNR, DSC, who was Captain of HMY Managem from 1917–1919.
When I mention in my diary how I went ashore on dark nights in a boat from the Managem while lying off a hostile coast, I should also call the attention of my readers to the seamanship and clever navigation required to bring the Managem to a correct position off a coast bereft of lights and in many cases badly charted: this, however, was successfully accomplished by Captain Cain on every occasion during the two years I was in his ship.
In connection with this work I must also mention Lt R. Gaskell, RNR, Captain of Aenne Rickmers; Lt-Cdr John Kerr, RNR, DSC, of HMS Anne; Lt-Cdr S. B. Smith, RNR, DSC, Captain of HMT Veresis; Lt-Cdr Morewood, RNR, who commanded HMY Managem during the first six months of her commission: and Lt-Cdr Shotton, RNR, Captain of HMS Devany.
The difficulties under which they worked can only be fully appreciated by ‘those who go down to the sea in ships’.
I would also like to pay a tribute to the great tact shown by these officers during their most difficult commands, in the treatment of my brother officers (both French and British) and myself, and our weird mixture of ‘agents’.
LBW 8
Note ‘Hard Lying’ is a term applied to a special allowance granted to men serving in small craft, such as destroyers, torpedo-boats, trawlers, etc.
The Eastern Mediterranean
1
First Months
August, 1914–January, 1915
The british declaration of war found me at Marseilles. For just over fourteen years I had been in the service of the Egyptian Government, in the Survey Department, and I was on my way home for my usual biennial leave. Naturally ever since the Worcestershire (Bibby Line) left Port Said all of us passengers had been busy discussing the international situation, and the unanimous opinion on board was that we should never be able to hold up our heads again if we did not back up the French – materially as well as with words. Most of us took it as a matter of course that England should throw her weight into the struggle, but we had a particular reason for wanting to know the exact moment at which she was likely to do so. For the Goeben and Breslau were both cruising in our direct road and we knew it.
We arrived, however, at Marseilles without mishap and picked up our pilot, who informed us – quite erroneously – that both France and England were at war with Germany and that HMS Suffolk had sunk several German liners in the Atlantic. But the burst of enthusiasm with which these rumours were greeted was short-lived. Once alongside the quay the true facts of the case were quickly apparent. The French were fighting right enough, but England was still hesitant, and we were made to feel it too. The barges from which we had intended to coal and which were lying ready near us were suddenly towed away again, and I was told by our Captain that we were to be given no facilities of that kind unless England joined forces with France. A minor form of blackmail. 14 Shortly after this incident most of the passengers left the ship to visit the town. As I was walking up the famous Rue Cannebière I was more than once greeted with the contemptuous remark of ‘anglais’. The tone in which this was invariably said left no doubt as to what the French were thinking of us at the moment. Decidedly we had not entered the war.
But the next day – 4th August – things were changed indeed, as I was very soon made to understand. The cabman who drove me from the quay into the town absolutely refused to take his six-franc fare. Instead, he stood up in the box, took off his hat and shouted ‘Vive l’Angleterre’ at the top of his voice. I was so overcome that I went into the nearest café and called for a Bock. But when I was about to pay the waiter I felt myself tapped on the shoulder, and turned round to face a bearded Frenchman who, with his hat in his hand, was murmuring, ‘Non, non, avec moi, Monsieur.’ Most certainly we had entered the war. On returning to the ship, I found that the barges had returned and that coaling was proceeding merrily.
From Marseilles to London nothing much occurred to remind us that half the earth was ablaze. Off Ushant a French warship sent a shot across our bows, but after one of her officers had interviewed our Captain we pursued our way peacefully enough and arrived in London without further incident. It was there that one was really drawn into the vortex, so to speak. But my stay in England was not fated to be a long one. I was offered a commission in either the Dublin Fusiliers or Leinsters, but when I was about to accept this I received a cable ordering me to return to Egypt at once. It was not the kind of order one can argue about and I went.
Luckily it was not a civilian job that awaited my arrival. Apparently General Sir John Maxwell, who was then GOC in Egypt, had applied to the Director-General Egyptian Survey Department for someone to act as Map Officer, and I had been recommended. Therefore I soon found myself temporary and local (the ‘local’ part disappeared later) captain attached to General Staff Intelligence, of which Colonel G. Clayton was at that time chief. The work that I had to do at first was not exactly exciting. It was to organise an 15 office from which all OCs could draw the maps they required. At times indeed I had to leave Cairo and interview various officers with regard to their cartographical wants. Then I always felt like a commercial traveller. But I found that I had to tell many of my ‘clients’ – even generals – what they did want.
About this time I heard rather an amusing story, though I cannot vouch for the truth of it. One night at some dinner a lady asked Sir John Maxwell how many troops he had on the Canal. ‘I don’t really know,’ replied the General, ‘but I do know that if I am sent any more I shall have to lengthen the Canal.’
The organisation of a map office was not a very long job, and once it was done I found myself employed as an Intelligence Officer pure and simple. In this billet life was not without its excitements. I remember that one of the final missions that I was sent on was to take some very confidential papers to Port Said and to deliver them personally to the Captain of HMS Swiftsure. But when I had knocked up that officer at about midnight it was only to be informed that my papers were for HMS Doris, which had just sailed for the Syrian coast. The only way to reach her was to set off in pursuit in a torpedo-boat, and this I promptly did. I should think that torpedo-boat belonged to the oldest class in the Navy, and directly we were clear of the harbour her captain, a warrant officer, asked me if I knew anything about the coast. I answered that I did – from the land. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s more than I do. I’m a gunner, I am, not a navigator.’ He must have been a modest fellow though as we carried on all night and came up with the Doris while it was still dark. I was dressed in civilians and had to answer a good many questions before I was allowed to board her and do my job. But I handed over my despatches all right in the end, and returned in the TB to Port Said. All of us were very glad when we reached harbour again. We had put to sea at a moment’s notice, and had no provisions on board barring cocoa, bread and margarine. The cocoa was A1.
But such jaunts as this were few and far between. Most of my time was spent either in the office or in the ‘commercial travelling’ I have already described. When engaged in the latter occupation 16 Ismailia was one of my most pleasant ports of call. There I was put up by Colonel Jennings Bramly, who was nominally Governor of Sinai, but had been forced to take up a strong position on the Canal as the Turks were in possession of his territory. Also at Ismailia there was the club, the memory of whose excellent cuisine haunts me still at times. Originally this club had been for the use of the Canal Company’s pilots, but with the large influx of British troops it had become an international affair, and a perfect godsend to many a hungry khaki officer.
Office work and travelling! So the weeks passed, and I must admit that in spite of my military rank I felt anything but martial. But such a state of affairs was not to continue for long so far as I was concerned, and early in January, 1915, I was given the first hint of my future employment.
I had just returned to Cairo from Port Said, where I had been helping to make a report on the inundation which had been made by cutting through the banks of the Salt Company’s canal and flooding a large depression in the desert – another little obstacle for Johnny Turk: about 130 square miles of nice clean water – when I was informed that I was Intelligence Officer, Liaison Officer and OC of a ship which had just been taken over by General Maxwell, and in which it was proposed to place two French seaplanes. The composite nature of the job made me catch my breath for a second, but as soon as I got the hang of it I was delighted at the prospect. I had always been keen on the sea. In fact when I was a boy I had only been prevented from trying for the Navy by my father’s remarks that no Weldon had ever yet crossed the Irish Channel without being violently seasick. The idea of that weakness, however, no longer daunted me. I had long ago proved myself to be the exception to my family rule so that I was much pleased at the idea of a change of scene. But there should be moderation in all things, as I quickly realised when Colonel Newcombe, my direct chief, asked me if I thought that before I joined the ship I could get hold of a native boat, run down the north coast of Sinai, get into touch with the Arabs and carry out some propaganda work amongst them. That 17 prospect did not please me, and I replied that I could easily get into touch with the Arabs, but the difficulty would be to get out of it again. I had mentioned that I had no wish to be shot or taken prisoner. My lack of enthusiasm saved me as it happened, but a few days later Captain White, who attempted to carry out this scheme, did get into touch with the Arabs and was taken prisoner, with the result that he spent the next four years in retirement somewhere in Asia Minor. The fates obviously intended me for a more restless existence.
2
The Aenne Rickmers
January–March, 1915
It was on the 16th January, 1915, that I arrived at Port Said to take up my new job. The instructions I had received in Cairo had prepared me for something rather out of the ordinary, but it was not until I had talked matters over with Colonel Elgood, the Base Commandant, that I began to realise the complexity of the duties which I was expected to perform. I have already said that I was to be a kind of mixture of Liaison, Intelligence and Commanding Officer rolled into one, and that the seaplanes with which I was to work were French, but it soon appeared that this was not all. I was wanted to distribute spies, or more politely ‘agents’, behind the Turkish lines, and this little job also fell to my lot. At that time we knew that there were many people in Palestine and Syria who were willing to help us with information of enemy movements, etc., if we could arrange some system for collecting that news. The only way of doing this was to land agents on the coast behind Turkish positions, and to pick them up again when they had found out all our friends had to tell them. This landing and picking up was to be my share of the work, and I was to be lent a small naval steamboat, five Bluejackets and six Marines on purpose to do it.
As soon as I gathered exactly what I was in for, I realised that to land my agents at all I should need a boat fit for surf work, and boatmen who knew the coast to man it: so I spent most of my first day in Port Said hunting for recruits. Luckily they were not hard to find, for there happened to be four Syrian-Christian boatmen in the town who had been stranded there on the outbreak of war and were 19 then at a loose end. These agreed to work with me at a price. So the next day I was able to join the ship.
The Aenne Rickmers was a German cargo-boat of about 7,000 tons, steel built and single screw. Formerly she was owned by the Rickmers family of Hamburg, but had been commandeered and was now attached to the French seaplane squadron. Her accommodation being much the same as is found on all cargo-boats of her size, a saloon to sit eight, a couple of two-berth cabins and a single bathroom. In the saloon was a portrait of ‘Aenne’, the daughter of Rickmers, and there it remained throughout all the cruises on board. In passing, I may mention that when I joined I was told that the ship had been borrowed for only six weeks. Little did I guess that she was to be my home for over two years.
The personnel was nearly as mixed as my job, and rather more cosmopolitan. The Captain, the chief engineer, the observers and the Bluejackets and Marines were English; the pilots and mechanics French; the mates and the crew Greek; one of the engineers was Maltese; and I myself, the OC, Irish. Moreover, the Captain was not then holding a companion, and the crew mostly belonged to a country – Greece – which had not come into the war. Also, we flew the Red Ensign: and the original cargo, worth about £250,000, was still on board. Yet two aeroplanes rested each on a hatch cover on the after well deck, and the uniformed sailors and mariners – lent by HMS Swiftsure – were obviously not men of peace. Taken all together, a regular Harry Tate shipload, reminiscent of the London Hippodrome at its best!
It was found out that our captain, Gaskell by name, was something of a character. Before the war he had been skipper of the Milo, a good steamer engaged on the Syrian coastal trade, and when I was introduced to him I mentioned that I had heard he was the best smuggler in those seas. I meant to pull his leg, but I think there must have been some truth in my remarks, because he took tremendous pains to explain that he could not have been anything of the sort.
In appearance he was enormous – well over six feet in height and weighing twenty-three stone. But in spite of his bulk he was 20 very active, a wonderful swimmer – couldn’t sink – and played a fine game of ‘soccer’ in goal. He should by rights have sat at the head of the table during meals, but as he could not fit into the chair, he sat on the settee which ran down one side of the table. He was the only one of us who could kick the beam in the ceiling of the saloon. Yet he had a high alto voice which sounded most comical from one of his bulk. Luckily he could speak Greek, otherwise the crew would never have understood him, and he had a thorough knowledge of the Eastern Mediterranean.
The only other Englishman amongst the ship’s officers was Bishop, the chief engineer, a most capable man and a very pleasant companion, who had been in the Ports and Lights Department of the Egyptian Government and had volunteered for war service. We were together for nearly three years.
Before going on to relate any of my personal adventures I would like to say something about the French seaplane squadron with which I had become so suddenly connected. This squadron was commanded by Lieut. de Vaisseau de l’Escaille, one of the foremost French aviators, and had been sent to Egypt at the urgent request of General Maxwell. For some weeks the machines had been used flying from Port Said to reconnoitre the Sinai Peninsula, and their crews were symbolic of the Franco-British alliance, the pilots as a rule being French and the observers English.
Shortly before I arrived at Port Said one of these machines had been sent to the Gulf of Akaba on board the British cruiser Minerva. From there the plane, having as pilot a French quartermaster, Grall by name, and as observer Captain Stirling, late of the Dublin Fusiliers and Egyptian Army, was despatched on a flight inland, the idea being that it should reconnoitre Maan, a Turkish desert outpost. Owing to engine trouble, however, the machine made a forced landing at Wadi Arabi, some 29 miles from the sea. Both men were badly shaken, but having set fire to their ‘bus’, managed to crawl a good distance away and hide in the scrub. Of course it was impossible for them to remain where they were for long, but Grall was too weak to move far, so that it was agreed that Captain 21 Stirling should attempt to reach the shore alone, communicate with the ship, and bring back assistance. Delay meant certain disaster: and Stirling, leaving Grall his water bottle and chocolate, set off at once on his hazardous journey. Eventually, in a state of collapse, he reached the Minerva and gave the necessary information about the position of his companion. An armed party, 200 strong, landed and marched to the spot where he had left Grall, but no sign of the pilot could be found. After looking everywhere in the neighbourhood, the party returned reluctantly to the ship, which, after searching the coast, had to sail. A few hours later, however, the Captain said that he had a feeling that he ought to return. Luckily, he followed his intention and did so. It was night when the Minerva again arrived off the spot from which Stirling had been brought off, but the searchlight was turned on and it was not long before a figure of a man was observed on the shore. At once a boat was sent in, and Grall was rescued. It turned out later that when in hiding he had seen the search party in the distance and had mistaken them for Turks. So naturally he had lain doggo. But as soon as they had disappeared he had set off for the coast, which he reached at last after crawling painfully the whole 20 miles. A lucky escape!
Some of the French officers, who did not know the whole circumstances, were inclined to blame Stirling for what they called deserting Grall. This was most unjust. A more gallant officer than Frank Stirling does not exist, and as I knew both men personally I take this opportunity of stating exactly what happened. When I told Grall what was being said he was most indignant. In his opinion it was only Stirling’s journey to the coast and the information he gave which saved him.
To return to the Aenne.
My period of comparative inaction at Port Said was not of long duration. I joined the ship as OC on the evening of 17th January, and at 1 a.m. the following day we sailed for the Syrian coast. The flying men with me on this my first trip were the two French pilots Lieut. de Vaisseau, Comte de Saizieu, and Quartermaster Grall, and two English observers, Captain J. R. Herbert and Captain Todd, late RAMC. 22
At noon on the 18th January we arrived off El Arish, which is about 30 miles from the border of Palestine, and is the only real town in Sinai. I had visited it in 1903 when employed on the survey of Northern Sinai. It is a clean town standing amidst sand- dunes about 10 miles from the sea and on the banks of the Wadi el Arish, the old river of Egypt. There was an old Turkish fort in the town which could easily be seen from the sea. It was now occupied by the enemy.
In the afternoon we hoisted out one of the ’planes with de Saizieu and Herbert for a flight to Kosseima. They returned safely after 2.5 hours. During their absence the second ’plane also carried out a successful reconnaissance along the coast, visiting El Arish, Rafa, Khan, Yunis and Gaza. Before the war no seaplane had been allowed ever to fly more than a mile away from the sea, and here we were doing flights of 90 miles overland.
The next day we lay off Gaza and sent a ’plane to Bir Saba (Beersheba of the Bible), which returned safely to the ship and reported considerable movement of the enemy troops on the Bir Saba–Hebron Road. From the first I made it a practice that immediately a ’plane returned to the ship the observer should write out a short report of what he had seen, which I then coded and sent out by wireless to GHQ Egypt. How I grew to hate coding as time went on! But reconnaissance was not our only business in that part of the world. We had brought an ‘agent’ with us from Port Said, and he had to be landed somewhere on the coast. So about midnight the Aenne stood in to about 3 miles from the shore, where she lay to while we launched the steamboat and our small native craft. Into the latter I tumbled the spy and two native boatmen, and deciding to be moderately comfortable for as long as possible, boarded the former. Then fixing up a tow-rope for the surf-boat, we headed for the shore.
The ‘jumpy’ part of the job began as soon as we reached the surf, when I had to transfer myself from the launch and trust myself to the boatmen to get me safely to the beach. There was a fair sea running, and the surf on the Palestine coast is never to be laughed 23 at. Often it is impossible to run through it at all, and later on I had to often abandon the attempt. But the danger of capsizing was as nothing to the thought that, for all we could tell, we might reach the land only to find a Turkish patrol waiting for us. And once fairly in the surf there was no turning back. We simply had to go on and trust to luck. It was rather like taking a high dive without knowing whether there was water or a cement floor below. Even after I had got through the business successfully a few dozen times I never got over the uncomfortable feeling that I was heading straight for the hangman’s rope or at best a Turkish prison and as we neared the shore that first time I could have sworn that I could see half the Turkish Army drawn up to meet us.
Actually, when we did bump the sand the beach was deserted, and all I had to do was to send off my man and row back to the steamboat, which I did with no unnecessary delay. I had no relish for hanging round a moment longer than I could help. The Aenne seemed to me about as near heaven as I cared for, for the time being, so turned round and headed for where we thought the Aenne was. After steaming a considerable time and not sighting her we began to get anxious. It was a pitch-dark night, and to make matters worse a big sea had got up and at every plunge the steamboat made we shipped water. I was sitting alongside the quartermaster, who was steering. He suddenly said in a hoarse whisper into my ear, ‘It was a night like this when a steamboat same class as ours, sir, was lost off Sheerness with thirteen ’ands.’ Comforting! We steamed on, but still no signs of the ship. At last we discovered that one of the Marines had been sitting with his sidearms-bayonet almost touching our compass. No wonder it was erratic!
The sea got so bad that at last I resorted to burning a flare in the hopes that the ship would see it. She did, and answered with three quick flashes of her masthead signal lamp. We reset our course, and after more severe buffeting at last reached her. Quite how glad I was when I saw her looming ahead out of the darkness it is impossible for me to say now. But ‘very glad’ is much too mild an expression. 24
The next day the ’planes were out again reconnoitring over El Arish and Lifan, and in the evening we headed for Gaza, where I intended to pick up the agent I had landed the previous night. I had arranged with him that he was to come down to the water’s edge at 11 p.m. and show a light, and I had warned him to take care that his signal should only be visible from the sea. So when at about the given time we saw a light on the beach, I immediately repeated my performance of the night before and went ashore. But, once on the beach I found – nothing! For nearly an hour I stumbled about the neighbourhood, searching every nook and cranny: but all to no purpose. My man had disappeared. I was certain from his signal that he had been there, but he was there no longer: so at last, tired and disappointed, I returned to my boatmen and was rowed back through the surf. Some years afterwards I heard what had happened. My agent had been seen by some Turkish coastguards who had pounced on him while he was waiting for me on the beach, and shortly afterwards he had been hanged. The coastguards would only have had to wait another twenty minutes or so and I should have run straight into their arms. Why they did not guess what our man was up to when they found him with his light I have never been able to understand. But for their stupidity I am still sincerely thankful.
The next day (23rd January) we returned to Port Said. Not then knowing the fate of our agent, I had meant to send a ’plane over Gaza to show him we were still about if he could get down to the shore, but the glass was falling rapidly and a big sea was getting up so that it was impossible either to launch the machine or to go ashore through the surf. None of us enjoyed turning away from the job half-finished as it were but there was nothing else for it. As it happened, we should have gained nothing by waiting.
I have described in some detail this first cruise of mine in the Aenne, as it was fairly typical of many that followed. For the next six weeks we were working up and down the Syrian coast reconnoitring with our ’planes, landing and picking up agents, and generally making ourselves useful in the ways our superiors thought fit. As a rule our programme was to steam to a spot about 25 five miles off shore and more or less opposite where the ’planes were to reconnoitre. Then we would lay to – and often actually drop our anchor, for there were no German submarines in the Mediterranean in those early days – and if the weather permitted hoist one or both machines over the side. This was always rather a ticklish job as the only winch we had to do it with was the ordinary one for hoisting cargo. A calm day was essential, and we had several mishaps through trying to get a ’plane away in a choppy sea, which was much worse than a big swell.
During one of our many cruises, I forget which, we hoisted out a seaplane one morning with de Saizieu as pilot and Herbert as observer for a flight over the Turkish lines. The ’plane rose well from the sea and commenced circling the ship so as to obtain a fair height before proceeding inland. Just as she was about 200 feet up, to our horror she suddenly seemed to stagger and then noseddived into the sea with an appalling crash. We at once sent away our steamboat to rescue the crew. On arriving at the wreck – she was smashed badly – we found Herbert and de Saizieu in the water hanging on to what was left of the machine. We quickly got them into the steamboat. The sea in the vicinity was covered with blown-out bladders, which had escaped out of the burst floats of the ’plane. One of these bladders Herbert had, very wisely, tied round his neck to assist him to float in case there was any delay in our getting to them. Neither of the men were hurt, although when they hit the water de Saizieu was held underwater, having got entangled in some wire stays. Herbert, on coming to the surface and not seeing him, dived and managed to free him. Poor de Saizieu was greatly depressed over losing his ’plane.
Fairly calm weather was also a necessity when it came to my night landing work. One can’t run a small boat through the surf on the Syrian coast with anything like a real sea running. So we spent a large proportion of our time cruising about waiting for fair days, amusing ourselves as best we could by playing backgammon (for pennies) and having singsongs. The Frenchmen and our Bluejackets got on extremely well together, and never allowed the 26 language difficulty to stand between them. They simply understood each other by instinct.
But we were seldom for any length of time without some grim reminder that war was tragedy. One such reminder I remember in particular. One morning towards the end of January, when we were lying off El Arish, we received a wireless telling us that a seaplane which had flown from Port Said in the direction of Bir-el-Abel (in Sinai) had not returned. I gave orders for the ship to cruise westwards keeping close inshore, for I hoped that the machine might have managed to reach the sea, and sure enough about midday we sighted a ’plane in the water. At first glance we thought that we could make out the figure of a man standing on the fusilage. But on closing in, we found that this was only the propeller blade and that the ’plane was derelict: so we launched a boat, towed the machine alongside the Aenne and hoisted it on board. The pilot’s helmet and the observer’s map and notes were still there. From the latter we gathered that they had left Port Said in the early afternoon of the day before and had flown to Kantara (on the Canal), where, owing to fog, they could see nothing, so had decided to return. The notes went on to state that owing to engine trouble they had come down in Bardawil Lake (Sinai), from which they rose to descend much in the same place a few minutes later. There the notes ended, so we concluded they must have risen again, had more engine trouble, landed in the sea near the beach, waded ashore, and that they must have either been captured or be even then walking to Port Said. Later we found out that the latter alternative was the right one. The pilot and observer had tried to reach Port Said on foot, and had almost reached their goal when they ran into one of our own posts, manned by Indian troops, and were fired at and were killed. No one was to blame as it was dark at the time, and it was only natural that coming from the direction they did, they should have been mistaken for the enemy. It was just bad luck. Patridge, late of the Ceylon contingent, was the observer, and the pilot was a French Bluejacket. Their bodies were brought in and buried in the Port Said cemetery. 27
Even at sea in those early days one was never quite safe from his own side. The Aenne had then no ‘recognition number’, and once we came precious near to being shelled by one of our own cruisers, HMS Philomel. She passed us at night and signalled asking who we were. As we were close inshore we did not think it wise to give our name, so hesitated before answering. Captain Russell of the Philomel told me some time afterwards that it was lucky we made up our minds when we did – another half-minute’s silence and he would have put a shot into us! To quicken us up, I take it.
Shortly afterwards, not to be outdone by the Philomel, we challenged the Rabenfels (a sister ship of the Aenne
