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Authors: Ian Watson, Ian Whates
Craddock’s cruiser squadron. Bride warns me that the coming fight could occur near our present location, about two hundred miles south of the Brazilian island of Trindade (not to be confused with the West Indies island of Trinidad). We would be well advised to sail far away from here, though in which direction God only knows.
* * * *
14 September 1914
Lat. 22°15’ S, Long. 29°52’ W
A dizzyingly eventful day. Approaching Trindade, we were abruptly caught up in the Great War, bystanders to a furious engagement between the Carmania and the Kronprinz Wilhelm. There is blood on our decks tonight. Bullets and shells have shredded our sails. From our infirmary rise the moans and gasps of a hundred wounded German and British evacuees.
I had never witnessed a battle before, and neither had any other Adaland citizens except Major Butt and Colonel Weir, who’d seen action in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. “Dover Beach” came instantly to mind. The darkling plain, the confused alarms, the ignorant armies clashing by night, or, in this case, at noon.
For two full hours the armed freighters pounded each other with their 4.1-inch guns, whilst their respective supply vessels - each combatant boasted a retinue of three colliers - maintained a wary distance, waiting to fish the dead and wounded from the sea. On board the Ada , the children cried in terror, the adults bemoaned the folly of it all, and the dogs ran in mad circles trying to escape the terrible noise. With each passing minute the gap separating the Carmania and the Kronprinz Wilhelm narrowed, until the two freighters were only yards apart, their sailors lining the rails and exchanging rifle shots, a tactic curiously reminiscent of Napoleonic-era fighting, quite unlike the massed machine-gun fire now fashionable on the Western Front.
At first I thought the Carmania had got the worst of it. Fires raged along her decks, her bridge lay flattened by artillery shells, her engines had ceased to function, and she’d started to lower away. But then I realized the Wilhelm was fatally injured, her hull listing severely, her crew launching life-boats, her colliers drawing nearer the fray, looking for survivors. Evidently some shells had hit the Wilhelm below her waterline, rupturing several compartments. A North Atlantic iceberg could not have sealed her doom more emphatically.
Owing to the relentless explosions, the proliferating fires, the rain of bullets, and the general chaos, nearly three hundred sailors - perhaps three dozen from the Carmania, the rest from the Wilhelm - were now in the water, some dead, some wounded, most merely dazed. Fully half the castaways swam for the colliers and lifeboats of their respective nationalities, but the others took a profound and understandable interest in the Ada. And so it happened that our little republic suddenly found itself in need of an immigration policy.
Unlike the Titanic , the Wilhelm did not break in two. She simply lurched crazily to port, then slowly but inexorably disappeared. Throughout the sinking I consulted with the leaders of Parliament, and we soon reached a decision that, ten hours later, I am still willing to call enlightened. We would rescue anyone, British or German, who could climb aboard on his own hook, provided he agreed to renounce his nationality, embrace the founding documents of Adaland, and forswear any notion of bringing the Great War to our waterborne, sovereign, neutral country. As it happened, every sailor to whom we proposed these terms gave his immediate assent, though doubtless many prospective citizens were simply telling us what they knew we wanted to hear.
Being ill-equipped to deal with the severely maimed, we had to leave them to the colliers, even those unfortunates who desperately wanted to join us. I shall not soon forget the bobbing casualties of the Battle of Trindade. Even Major Butt and Colonel Weir had never seen such
* * * *
14 September 1914
Lat. 22°15’ S, Long. 29°52’ W
A dizzyingly eventful day. Approaching Trindade, we were abruptly caught up in the Great War, bystanders to a furious engagement between the Carmania and the Kronprinz Wilhelm. There is blood on our decks tonight. Bullets and shells have shredded our sails. From our infirmary rise the moans and gasps of a hundred wounded German and British evacuees.
I had never witnessed a battle before, and neither had any other Adaland citizens except Major Butt and Colonel Weir, who’d seen action in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. “Dover Beach” came instantly to mind. The darkling plain, the confused alarms, the ignorant armies clashing by night, or, in this case, at noon.
For two full hours the armed freighters pounded each other with their 4.1-inch guns, whilst their respective supply vessels - each combatant boasted a retinue of three colliers - maintained a wary distance, waiting to fish the dead and wounded from the sea. On board the Ada , the children cried in terror, the adults bemoaned the folly of it all, and the dogs ran in mad circles trying to escape the terrible noise. With each passing minute the gap separating the Carmania and the Kronprinz Wilhelm narrowed, until the two freighters were only yards apart, their sailors lining the rails and exchanging rifle shots, a tactic curiously reminiscent of Napoleonic-era fighting, quite unlike the massed machine-gun fire now fashionable on the Western Front.
At first I thought the Carmania had got the worst of it. Fires raged along her decks, her bridge lay flattened by artillery shells, her engines had ceased to function, and she’d started to lower away. But then I realized the Wilhelm was fatally injured, her hull listing severely, her crew launching life-boats, her colliers drawing nearer the fray, looking for survivors. Evidently some shells had hit the Wilhelm below her waterline, rupturing several compartments. A North Atlantic iceberg could not have sealed her doom more emphatically.
Owing to the relentless explosions, the proliferating fires, the rain of bullets, and the general chaos, nearly three hundred sailors - perhaps three dozen from the Carmania, the rest from the Wilhelm - were now in the water, some dead, some wounded, most merely dazed. Fully half the castaways swam for the colliers and lifeboats of their respective nationalities, but the others took a profound and understandable interest in the Ada. And so it happened that our little republic suddenly found itself in need of an immigration policy.
Unlike the Titanic , the Wilhelm did not break in two. She simply lurched crazily to port, then slowly but inexorably disappeared. Throughout the sinking I consulted with the leaders of Parliament, and we soon reached a decision that, ten hours later, I am still willing to call enlightened. We would rescue anyone, British or German, who could climb aboard on his own hook, provided he agreed to renounce his nationality, embrace the founding documents of Adaland, and forswear any notion of bringing the Great War to our waterborne, sovereign, neutral country. As it happened, every sailor to whom we proposed these terms gave his immediate assent, though doubtless many prospective citizens were simply telling us what they knew we wanted to hear.
Being ill-equipped to deal with the severely maimed, we had to leave them to the colliers, even those unfortunates who desperately wanted to join us. I shall not soon forget the bobbing casualties of the Battle of Trindade. Even Major Butt and Colonel Weir had never seen such
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