Part 23
After weeks of hard labour, we were ready. At night we cut the wires connecting the island with the mainland and set a barracks afire. That created the diversion we needed. Everybody, guards and all, flocked to put the blaze out. I was among the foremost, and attracted all attention to myself. I seemed to have a passion for fighting fires. My boys were with me. When the excitement was at its highest, we stole away singly and boarded the motor boat. The engine purred, and we were away in the darkness.
We were safe from pursuit for a while, anyway. There was no other boat at the island, and Motuihi could not communicate with the mainland. It was only when the wires were repaired or when the mainland was due to get its next report that the chase after us could begin. When our escape did become known on the mainland on that night of December 13, 1917, every kind of craft available went out to look for us. Private owners took up scouting for us as a sport. Boats chased one another and shot at one another, and one steamer went on the rocks. Finally, a false rumour spread that we had capsized and drowned, and the weary pursuers were glad to accept it as true and return home.
We had our difficulties in finding our way in the night through the Hauraki Gulf on which Auckland lies, but at an hour or so past midnight we saw sweeping shafts of light. The authorities at Auckland were looking for us with a searchlight, a ridiculous procedure, but one calculated to impress the population. We steered by the searchlight beams now, and picked our way along easily enough.
Of course, it would take a separate volume to record all of the details of our work of preparation and our final escape. I am only giving you a description of the high spots. But, by the way, I almost forgot to tell you how we were dressed. We all had New Zealand uniforms. Mine was the most interesting of the lot and provided material for Australian humorists and cartoonists for many weeks. As the commander of a man-o'-war, even of a twelve-foot wooden one, with the unwarlike name of _Pearl_, I absolutely had to have a sword. One of my boys, just an hour before our escape, slipped into the wardrobe of the prison camp commandant. Not only did he take Colonel Turner's best dress uniform, but he also swiped his sword and scabbard.
We lay off an isolated bay of Red Mercury Island, northwest of the Bay of Plenty, for two days, during which we had a couple of narrow escapes from searching boats. A government cutter had almost sighted us when she damaged her propeller on the rocks and had to limp back home. The third day we put out to sea, and as we bounced about on the waves I swore in the cadets as regular midshipmen of the Imperial Navy and promoted Vice Corporal von Egidy to the rank of naval junior lieutenant. As commander of a war vessel, even though she was only the colonel's motor boat, I had the authority to do this. Then each helped the other cut his hair short in naval fashion.
Two sailing vessels came by. We decided to seize them both, sink one, and keep the other. We went after the first one, but a sudden puff of wind carried her along at a great rate, and we could not catch her. This was very unfortunate, for she reported our capture of the second boat, which she witnessed. Bombs poised, machine gun pointing, and German flag raised, we swiftly approached the _Moa_. She hove to. My boys and I clambered on deck. With Colonel Turner's sword in my hand, I ordered the captain and crew herded below, the captain, an excellent old salt, growling:
"You're escaped prisoners, eh? Our boys are doing their bit in France, and at home they can't even guard prisoners."
The _Moa_ was a fine craft but as flat as a match box. Intended for coastwise trade, she had no keel and drew only three feet of water, but she had huge masts. A storm blew up, and we scudded before the wind. The _Moa's_ captain rushed up bristling with excitement. His boat, he protested, was not adapted for sailing on the high sea, much less through a storm. We were risking our lives, he expostulated. We should take down sail.
"We are sailing for our lives, by Joe," I responded, and kept all canvas up.
The skipper stayed on deck all night and poured out oil to quiet the waves. We went on our watches, undisturbed. Ordinarily, we would have been somewhat worried, but the storm was taking us along swiftly--away from pursuit. The waves began to break over our stern, and the _Moa_ bobbed up and down. She had a deckload of lumber. Overboard with it. We started to work and were ably assisted by a breaker that crashed over us and in an instant swept most of the lumber into the sea. We were towing the motor boat we had taken from the commandant at Motuihi. A wave swamped her, and she tore loose from the towline and sank.
We steered to the Kermadec Islands, an uninhabited group where the New Zealand government keeps a cache of provisions for castaway sailors. Curtis Island, one of the group, came in sight on December 21st. It appeared in a cloud of smoke, a land of volcanoes and geysers. Presently we spied the sheet-iron shed where the provisions were stored. Kircheiss and four men landed on the inferno-like coast and in due time returned, their boat loaded deep with provisions. The New Zealand government was kind enough to provide many useful things for shipwrecked sailors and sometimes for escaped prisoners of war. There were tools, oars, sails, fishing tackle, blankets, bacon, butter, lard, canned beef--in short, everything. We had intended to leave our prisoners on Curtis Island, but that den of steam and sulphur fumes seemed unfit for anyone. So we decided to take them on to near-by Macauley Island, there put them ashore with a supply of provisions, and send a wireless message to summon aid for them.
"Smoke to the north, behind island," sang the lookout.
Two men were still on the island. I sent hastily for them. The _Moa_ raised sail and ran before the wind. The steamer was in sight now. She sailed toward us. We changed our course. She, too, changed her course. The skipper of the _Moa_ recognized her as the New Zealand government's cable steamer, _Iris_, an auxiliary cruiser. She had cannon, and we had none. Our goose was cooked.
We still tried hopelessly to run away. She gained on us, and signalled us to stop. We kept on. A flash, a distant roar, a hissing in the air, a splash in front of us. She was firing on us.
"Heave to," I commanded, and we were prisoners once again.
The _Iris_ was manned, not by naval men, but by a nondescript crowd that put pistols to our backs as we came aboard, and searched us to the soles of our shoes. Then these gentry robbed us of our personal possessions. They were wildly jubilant over their victory. I gathered from them that the ship that had escaped us having brought the news of our capture of the _Moa_ to Auckland, the authorities there had surmised that we must be headed for the cache of supplies at Curtis Island. When we arrived at Auckland, the New Zealanders had their own little victory celebration. Sightseers in all sorts of boats came out to have a look as the _Iris _with the _Moa_ in tow steamed into harbour, the victor of the Battle of the Kermadecs.
We were jailed at Mount Eden, the local prison of Auckland, as a punishment for our flight. For a calaboose, it was not bad. After twenty-one days there, we were distributed among various prison camps. Kircheiss and I went to River Island near Lyttelton on the south island of New Zealand. Even the yard of our prison in Fort Jervois was a veritable cage. It was screened not only around but also across the top with lines of barbed wire. The commander of the camp, Major Leeming of Tasmania, was one of the best fellows I have ever met. He, too, felt himself a prisoner here on this lonely island and soon became our third man at cards, which we played to while away the hours during the long evenings.
A drawbridge that had been smashed by a hurricane was being repaired, and we prisoners had access to the waterside for a while. In the yard stood a row of empty tar barrels. One of the barrels fell over, and I happened to notice that it was picked up by a small coastwise schooner that often lay at dock farther down the shore. I threw in another barrel. It floated. The boat picked it up. My plan was made. I could arrange one of those barrels so that I could float out in it. I would pick the time when the little schooner was at shore. Then I would get into the barrel and roll myself off the dock. The boat would pick the barrel up. It might seem a bit heavy, but they would think it had tar in it. The barrel once aboard, its lid would open and a man armed with a knife would step out, like a jack-in-the-box. Thus I would have a boat. I would pick up Kircheiss, who would be waiting, and we would go sailing and perhaps get to some neutral island.
I had everything, and waited. Major Leeming had been so kind to me that I did not want to embarrass him by escaping under his command. He, expecting an addition to his family, was to take a furlough. I would do my jail-breaking while he was away. But soon after Major Leeming went on his furlough, Kircheiss and I were ordered back to the prison camp at Motuihi. Of course, there was a new commandant at Motuihi now, a Major Schofield. Most of the prisoners there received us with enthusiasm. Even the treacherous Polish doctor brought me a bottle of champagne, hoping that I would not mention our former little business transaction in which he was to get a percentage of that $25,000.
Some of our own countrymen who had spent so many hours learning parts for that theatrical show seemed to hold it against us. But, after all, had I not treated them to a far better melodrama from the life of a sailor?
Presently, several fellows came to me and asked if I did not think something could be undertaken. They had already contrived to get a few pistols and build a folding canvas boat. We could not very well go to sea in that. But if we could contrive to station ourselves at some other part of the island, we could wait until a sailing ship came along, put out in our flimsy little craft, and attack her. We consulted with the former governor of German Samoa, Dr. Schultz-Ewarth by name, who was a prisoner at Motuihi. He with his personal servant, a giant fellow, formerly a German baker, was allowed to wander where he pleased on the island. It was his man who hit upon the idea of hiding in the interior of the island by building a cave in the side of a dry river bed that he had discovered, the cave to be so disguised that searchers would not notice it. We could easily get out of the camp and into the other parts of the island, and, at the same time, give the impression that we had escaped over a cliff to the shore and been picked up by a boat. We could keep to our retreat until the search had died down, and then we could watch for a passing sailship and attack it. The plan seemed an excellent one.
We gathered more weapons, while Dr. Schultz-Ewarth and his man, on their long rambles, began the construction of the cave. Things progressed rapidly. Then the Armistice came. If it had been delayed a week, there would have been another escape at Motuihi.
After the Armistice, we were prisoners for four more months on the north island near Auckland, but were allowed visitors. One day, a Maori chieftain's wife from the tribe of the Waikotas, a people who made a name for themselves as warriors against the English in their heroic struggle for freedom in 1860-61, called with her retinue. This lady, whose name was Kaihau, handed me a letter. It was written in Maori, and translated read as follows:
I come to you, O illustrious chieftain, and pass on to you for the future preservation of an old tradition the mat of the great chieftain Wai-Tete.
As she handed me the letter, she brought forth from under her dress a mat that she had hidden there while passing the prison guard.
My surprise was great, and I nudged Kircheiss, but he was as mystified as I. Fortunately, there was a German lady present who had been living in New Zealand for some time. She understood the customs of the handsome aborigines who once ruled in New Zealand, and explained to me that I was about to receive the highest honour that the Maoris can bestow upon anyone.
The chieftain's wife began to dance around me with great rapidity and wild abandon. The name of this dance was the Haka-Haka, or something like that, and at the conclusion of it she presented me with a green stone found only in New Zealand. Again she spoke.
"O great warrior from across the seas, we greet you as a chieftain of the Waikatos, and among my people you shall be known henceforth as 'Ai-Tete,' meaning 'Holy Water.' We believe that the spirit of our Maori hero Ai-Tete has returned to us in you."
I accepted the stone and pressed the Maori woman's hand to express my gratitude. As she was about to take her departure, she requested that I hide the mat and stone and carry them to Germany with me, which I did. But before concealing them, I had my picture taken wearing nothing but the garb of a Maori chieftain, this simple mat. Except for the absence of full war paint and the usual tattooing, my friends said I made a perfect aborigine. Perhaps so. Even in Germany there are those who look upon me as more of an aborigine than a civilized being.
When the day on which we were to sail drew near, the president of the Soldiers' Mothers' League visited me and wished me a pleasant trip on behalf of the mothers of 80,000 soldiers. She said she came because New Zealand's sons who had been war prisoners in Germany had returned home in good health to their mothers. Therefore, she considered it her duty to pray God that I, too, might soon be restored to my mother's arms.
So at last we sailed away from New Zealand, "the land down under," where we had had the last of our adventures, enjoyed a few hardships, spent many weary and delightful hours, and met many hospitable and kindly people. On the whole, I have happy memories of the Antipodes.
In July of 1919, I stepped on German soil again and hurried home, just in time to pass a few more weeks with my father, who died on September 3d. The old warrior held steadfast to his faith in the Fatherland to the last. But to his dying hour he was filled with regret because his government would not let him take an active part in the Great War.
On January 3, 1920, all my men returned--that is, all save one. Their clothes were faded from the tropical sun and corroded by the sea water, but they returned without a stain upon either their honour or their loyalty.
The only gap in our ranks after those long adventures was the excellent Dr. Pietsch, our ship surgeon. The news of Germany's collapse reached the remote part of Chile where he was living. When he heard it, he fell dead of heart failure.
Returned to my beloved Fatherland, I found so many things changed and different from what I had hoped. In this connection, there is one memory always before me. It is of my mother. I was sitting at her sick bed when even the doctors had given up hope. Only then did I realize how much I loved her, but I also realized with sorrow and regret how much more I should have done for her. Exactly the same feeling I have to-day when I find my country lying low. Never have I loved my homeland so much as now.
To the youth of America I would like to send a message: Europe is one continent attached to still another even greater land mass. That other is the continent of Asia, filled with many strange races, all speaking different languages. Even Europe itself is split up into many nations speaking more than thirty different tongues. This I believe is largely responsible for the constant wars that are the curse of Europe. As an old sailor who has sailed before the mast around this world many times, I want to tell you Americans how lucky you are to live in a great country occupying a large part of this continent, with the wide Atlantic for a barrier on one side and the Pacific on the other. Yours is a great inheritance. You should be proud of it. You should make yourselves worthy of it.
As a sailor who has sailed under many flags and whose friends and pals are the citizens of many countries and many climes, it is my dream that one day we shall all speak the same language and have so many common interests that terrible wars will no longer occur. But keep your bodies fit, and if your country needs you, just remember the motto of the sea:
"Don't jump overboard! Stay with the ship!"
To all my countrymen, wherever they may be, I would like to say: Look up to the bright sun and not into mouse holes where it is dark. Take my lads for your example. When their ship was wrecked on the coral reef of that atoll in the South Seas there was one thing that was not wrecked--their courage. Even when the _Seeadler_ met her fate, from stem to stern went up the cry, taken from an old refrain, "The German oak still stands."
AUF WIEDERSEHEN!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Mopelia]
Mopelia, a coral atoll of the Society Islands, where the Sea Devil planned a brief sojourn, and where the _Seeadler_ was wrecked by a tidal wave. "A circular reef studded with waving palms and within the reef a lovely, placid lagoon. The coral shore was snow white and, with the sun's rays reflecting from it, it looked like a sparkling jewel set in an alabaster ring, like emeralds set in ivory."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
APPENDIX
(Note A, see page 107.) Lloyd's Register of 1917-18 describes the _Pass of Balmaha_ as follows: Steel ship (captured and taken to Cuxhaven), built 1888 by R. Duncan & Co., Port Glasgow, gross tonnage 1571, length 245.4, breadth 38.8, depth 22.5.
Until the World War, she was British-owned, and up until her fatal voyage her master was Capt. "Dick" Lee of Nova Scotia.
* * *
(Note B, see page 209.) Author's note: Since the War, it has developed that the Count was mistaken regarding the identity of this cruiser. Instead of the _Kent_, she was the _Lancaster_, and her commander was Captain Phillips, now of the British battleship _Queen Elizabeth_. Recently an American newspaper man, Robert H. Davis of the New York _Sun_, met him in the Mediterranean, loaned him a copy of one of the early editions of this book, and asked him: "Is it romance or truth?" "Quite accurate, I should say," replied Captain Phillips, "and in accordance with the records."
* * *
(Note C, see page 216.) "Count Luckner is to be congratulated on getting his ship through without being seen. Every effort was made to intercept him.... Those messages came from the cruiser _Lancaster_ and not from the _Kent_. I was commander of the _Lancaster_. The raider must have passed within 200 miles of us on the inside waters as we lay off the west coast of Chile," said Captain Phillips of the British Navy.--New York _Sun_, May 24, 1928.
[Transcriber's note: several spelling variants have been preserved as printed.]