George Washington's Ghost

The cruiser’s screws went half astern, her bow slid free, continued to swing, slowly to the east, across the tide. This of course, was where it would have been damnably handy to have had a couple of tugs pulling and pushing, and an experienced harbour pilot standing on the bridge beside Claude Wallendorf.

Notwithstanding, Peter Cowdrey-Singh was mightily impressed with the way the Kaiserliche Marine man was going about his business, unflappably, phlegmatically, with only the memory of how the small boats which had greeted his ship outside the port, had slowly led the Emden to her berth, to guide him. Having to retrace that tortuous passage through the shifting sand bars of what was a rarely dredged anchorage in the middle of the night, with the tide running fast, ebbing and the bottom reaching up for the Emden’s keel, all the while knowing that shore batteries and other ships could open fire on his vulnerable command at point blank range, was perhaps, the greatest challenge of Claude Wallendorf’s long career.

There was a flash of light and huge explosion, or so it seemed for a moment. One of the 3- or 4-inch casemate-mounted guns of the San Miguel had put a shell into the side of the Emden

somewhere below where the Anglo-Indian had been standing.

Somebody grabbed him and hauled him back inside the conning tower; not that its seventy-centimetre-thick armoured carapace was going to keep out even a small calibre shell at a range of only a few hundred yards.

The ‘big explosion’ had actually been Turret Anton opening up with two of its three 5.9-inch rifles. As the hatch banged shut behind him the ship rocked as all three of Turret Bruno’s guns discharged.

Staggering to his feet, he squinted through one of the observation slits on the port side of the bridge just in time to see Turret Anton’s second salvo slam into the Weser and the San Miguel.

At a range of probably significantly less than four hundred yards the one hundred-and-twelve-pound armour-piercing rounds carved straight through the Weser

’s thin-plated side and probably, the four or five inches of cemented steel protecting the San Miguel’s vitals. Had that armour been inclined to deflect shell impacts, or manufactured to the specifications of that fitted to the ships of the great powers at any time in the last forty years, it might have offered some small protection to the dozen or so heavy shells which hit her in the next minute.

As it was, it was safe to assume that practically every 5.9-inch round which struck home penetrated her outer carapace and exploded in her vitals.

There was a blindingly white flash from a gun near the old ironclad’s stern as the Emden’s fourth salvo, and first full broadside, with the guns of her aft Caesar Turret joining in, in the instant before the old ironclad’s whole starboard side lit up like a Roman Candle.

It was impossible to say where the massive detonation which ensued began; it was as if the whole ship, from the bridge to the taffrail just disintegrated in a giant, crimson-yellow fireball, and when the spots in front of Peter Cowdrey-Singh’s eyes began to clear there was nothing, literally nothing recognisable, left of the five thousand ton cruiser while nearby, the wreck of the still burning Weser – her whole port side now stove in – was slowly capsizing, practically already on her beam ends.

Chunks of wood and metal began to rain down across the inner bay, thudding into Emden

’s upper works and driving the men manning her anti-aircraft guns scurrying, diving for cover.

On the other side of the bay searchlights began to play across the sky. It was as if the people over there thought there was an air raid in progress!

It was surreal.

Tracers looped lazily across the water, kicking up spray, pitter-pattering on steel somewhere far aft. Something whooshed through the air, a column of water rose between the ship and the abandoned port of the Imperial Concession.

“MAKE SMOKE!”

“All secondaries may return fire at will in local control!”

Rifle and machine gun bullets were clunking harmlessly off the armour of the conning tower.

Peter Cowdrey-Singh spared a thought for the men manning the Emden’s anti-aircraft gun pits; many of those positions amidships were protected only by relatively thin splinter guards which were liable to spalling if struck by even a rifle-calibre round.

Finally, the cruiser’s bow was swinging across the channel, clearing the wrecks of the San Miguel and the Weser. The water all around was fouled by floating debris, and dull with coal dust from the ironclad’s shattered bunkers.

Idly, Peter Cowdrey-Singh wondered if one of the Emden’s shells had ignited a magazine or perhaps, a gun room full of cordite might, or conceivably, simply triggered a chain reaction of coal-dust explosions along the flank of the old ship.

Astonishingly, it was as if the people on shore still could not make up their minds if the cruiser was a friend or a foe!