Diary of George Booley, 5th Battalion, AIF, 1914 - Part 3 of 8

they were beat, just before they left I saw 
one fellows plant, he had about 3/- worth 
of pennies & a two shilling piece so he had 
a good days pay, he would knock his 
elbows on his ribs & sing, ta.ra.ra.ra. 
dum-de-ay to something like the tune 
we used to sing. The prisoners from the 
Emden or at last some of them came 
aboard today, they were a sorry looking 
lot, poor beggars they didn't appear to 
have much luggage with them some 
had whiskers some clean shaven, some 
old & some young, some of them looked 
as if they were glad the war was over as 
far as they were concerned, the chaps were 
dead keen on getting a look at them, 
the novelty will soon wear off especially 
as we will have to have special guards 
There are 36 men & petty officers & 4 officers 
the men are barricaded off on the stern 
of the well deck & the Officers have 1^st Class 
Cabins, the chaps all behaved like men 
as they came aboard they neither cheered 
the Sydney nor showed any bad feeling 
towards them, no doubt I will have more 
to say about them as we mount guard 
on them & I am on too, it is a bit sudden 
seeing as we only came of at 6 last night 
Tuesday. Nov. 17^th. I was put on the post 
last night watching the officers it was

the hardest post I have struck on guard 
yet, I had to watch 5 windows 4 on one 
side & 1 on the other that meant I had 
to stand in the one position all the 
time so that I could see bot all the w 
windows at once, I had 10 cartridges in 
the magazine of my rifle, & bayonet fixed 
My orders were to shoot at any one of them 
if they attempted to get out of the window 
but I had no trouble they did not try 
to get away, the Emden Captain is a 
shrewd looking chap, the four officers are 
the Captain, the Doctor, a Lieutenant & 
Prince 
who is a Sub Lieutenant & a Nephew to 
the Kaiser, I never expected to have the 
guarding of such; especially only 3 weeks 
out from Melbourne, they do not take 
things nearly so easy as the men do, they 
refused to give Parole & of course that meant 
that they would escape the first chance 
they got, they look like birds in a cage, 
there are only 4 Officers on board who 
are allowed to speak to them & when 
they are on the promenade deck for exercise,  
none of our Officers or ships officers 
are allowed to go along past them, so 
they dont get much chance, one of the Sent 
Sentries on the stern of the boat had 
orders to fire on any boat that came 
near & did not get away when

17th Nov. we left Colombo this morning 
accompanied by some British 
Men-o-war    
challenged, a native boat came close 
up & of course they did not go when they 
were challenged, so he fired at them 
they did not wait to argue the point 
but got for their lives, by the time I was 
relieved I could hardly stand on my 
legs my ankles ached terribly, we have 
not been wearing boots lately & wearing 
them for 24 hours at a stretch must have 
been the cause of it. Wed Nov 18^th This morning  
my ankles were very sore & one swollen 
a lot so I went on the Doctors list, he gave 
me two pills & painted my ankles with 
Iodine, I dont have to work now just 
sit & watch the others drill, I am sore 
both ends now, my arm has taken well 
& I have two big bonzer sores so have 
to be very careful, the Doctor seems quite 
proud of it each time he sees it, I have 
cut the sleeve out of my flannel, all the 
clothes we wear is a pair of pants & a 
flannel. From Thursday 19^th to Saturday 21^st 
there was only the usual routine to follow 
my ankle it still sore but the arm does 
not feel too bad but still looks bad 
enough to keep me from doing any 
work, this afternoon there were sports 
up on the boat deck we had a half 
holiday, it is all one beg holiday to 
my idea. Sunday 22^nd Nov. The usual 
Church parade in the morning, the

Hampshire came alongside this after 
noon & two Naval Officers went aboard 
off our boat, all these kind of things 
help to break the monotony as it gets 
a bit that way now, late in the after 
noon we sighted a school of some small 
specie of whales they were queer looking 
affairs, flying fish are very plentiful in 
these parts, they fly out of the water 
& skid along & in some places you 
see the surface of the water fairly moving 
with them. Monday 23^rd Nov. In the morning 
we sighted land ahead it was the 
Island of Sokotra, it is a fairly big Island 
& took us all day to pass it, I examined 
it closely through glasses when we got 
up near & it seemed devoid of life of any 
kind, you can't even see a tree it is 
just a big mountain of rock to all appearances,  
one of the highest parts looked 
very well buried in a big cloud late in 
the afternoon, I heard some of the fellows 
talking about the Island & they say that 
some men came out from England 
to build an light house on it & that 
they were killed & eaten by some Cannibals  
who hang out on the Islands 
if there are people living on it, I dont 
wonder at them eating any one they lay

their hands on of course there may be 
some life on the other end. Tuesday Nov 
24^th Today we left the rest of the fleet 
& came on ahead our boat does 17 
knots an hours & as the others are 
only doing 10 it did not take us long 
to leave them behind, I posted no 
end of letters today, I am afraid there 
wont be many letters when we get 
to the other side, I cant see where the 
time is coming from, it takes up a lot 
of time & I have plenty of it at present. 
This afternoon we were given a lecture 
on the fight between the Sydney & the 
Emden, by all accounts it was a great 
go in, the Emden put up a good scrap 
but stood no chance against the Sydney 
the facts were much the same as we first 
heard only this lot was more detailed 
they estimate that the Sydney fired 
650 shots & the Emden 1300 but it takes 
a lot of believing, the Emden guns were 
not heavy enough for the Sydney, & when 
a shell would hit it was spent, one hit 
the side & put a big dent in it, there were 
some men near at the time & they took 
no time getting away there were some 
very narrow escapes, but the Emden 
was a terrible sight she took fire very 
early in the fight & was getting very hot

& most of the gunners were killed some 
of them were knocked overboard & were 
picked up after by the Sydney, some 
of them were in the water 8 hours, those 
left on the Emden must have fared even 
worse as there was very little of the boat 
that was not on fire & most of them were 
wounded, early in the fight the water 
works was damaged & they could not 
get any water those that where dead on 
the deck were almost burned away, 
some got overboard & swam to the 
Island & were not picked up for about 
2 days, after the Emden was done the 
Sydney at once gave chase to the Collier 
& by the time she caught & sunk her 
it was too late to take the wounded 
off the Emden so they had to stay on 
all night, in fact when the Sydney 
returned from sinking the Collier 
the Emden flag was still up & the Sydney 
fired on her again, it appears the flag 
could not be pulled down by the ropes 
as all the works were broken one 
of the men had to climb up & pull 
it down, they all said when they came 
on that they had seen enough of the 
war to last them a life time, they are

all being well treated now, much better 
than they are treating our prisoners in 
Germany, some of them have lived in 
Melbourne & Suburbs for some time & were 
called home before the war, one was a 
Baker in Footscray, it was a paper 
reporter who gave us the lecture so perhaps  
it was stretched a bit. On parade 
today we saw a beg shoal of porpoises 
hundreds of them right alongside the 
boat ther chaps got quite excited over 
them some of them would jump 5 or 6 feet 
out of the water, they were like a mob 
of Kangaroos hopping along, we had 
another fire alarm today, we got to 
our places in good time today, there is 
a great scatter, each Company has a 
certain place to fall in, in case of an 
alarm. Wednesday Nov. 25^th We arrived 
at Aden about 7.30 A.M., it is not nearly 
as big a place as Colombo & altogether a 
different place to what I thought it, it is 
certainly much more interesting, we are 
close in to the town if such it can been 
called, it is a very scattered place, there 
are no piers or jettys the coal & water comes 
alongside in barges, there appears to be 
a fair garrison here, you can see some of 
the forts, it is a very easy place to fortify 
The town is at the foot of great bare 
cliffs or mountains they run up hundred

of feet, you can see foot tracks running 
winding round the hills right to the 
top of them & on the different peaks 
away up you can see signal stations 
light houses & houses of one kind & 
another some of them are just specks 
when you get the glasses on them, there 
are a few nice houses buildings in the town proper 
to my idea if it was'nt for being a an important  
watering & coaling station it 
would not be worth mentioning on the 
map, the buildings here again are 
different in shape to those of Colombo. 
From where we are anchored we can 
see the main Street, you see a motor 
now & again & some funny looking carts 
something like the old Phaeton with 
mules or donkeys pulling them, the 
heavier work is done by camels you 
see them mouching about pulling 
some queer looking carts, sometimes you 
see a fellow riding one of them jogging 
along in fine style, it is all interesting 
to up almost as as soon as we dropped 
anchor you could see natives coming 
at us from all directions in boats 
loaded with goods mostly fruit, dates 
figs, cigarettes, post cards, etc, for an 
article worth 6'^s they ask you 2/- & by the 
time you finish the bargain they come down

to the price, they sell a poor class of stuff 
the funny part of it is they declare that 
they will be ruined if they sell it under 
what they ask; the fellow started buying 
cigarettes by the hundreds & found out 
they were composed of half Camel dung 
at least the Officer told us they were 
& the fellows seemed to think so too after 
they had smoked a few of them, we had 
orders not to eat anything in the line of 
food or fruit as they are afraid of Cholera 
breaking out, the Natives here are a far 
superior lot to what we saw at Colombo 
here they have decent boats. It was great 
sport for us to see the darkies on the 
coal barge, two of them started having 
a scrap & all the rest got into it pulling 
& scruffing I expected to see them all 
go over board, it started over a penny. 
They have a very poor system of coaling 
here, some shovel the coal into bags, & 
others carry it up planks & tip it into 
the shoots, they have forbidden us to 
throw pennies now as it interferes with 
the work. Things look very busy here all 
the Transports are in the harbour & 
most of them are taking water & coal. 
It is a great sight to see the harbour 
tonight all the boats are lit up & the 
lights of the town as well, away up on 
the top of the peaks you can see

morse lamps signalling to the boats 
down below & further down the harbour 
a search light is at work searching 
all around & up & down the harbour. 
The Sentries over the prisoners are very 
keen now we are in port, they fired on 
some native boats that did not go when 
ordered, they we just beneath the 
part of the boat where the prisoners 
are. We saw two of the boats pull out 
of line one day between Colombo & here 
I have not got the date of it because 
I thought the reason of it was not 
what was told us, it appears two 
of the boats had a collision, but we hear 
so many tales that I dont believe any 
thing, I am told of a sensational nature, 
I am satisfied it is right now 
as I saw the big hole in the fore part 
of the boat, as far as I can hear there 
was no one hurt, it is a wonder as we 
can see right to the troop deck from 
here & they were all asleep just on 
there at the time, for some time now 
we have had orders to always sleep with 
a life belt for a pillow, most likely 
it is for that reason. One of the chaps 
off one of the other boats swam ashore 
over to our boat, it seems he cant 
get on with the officers there, he must 
have been pretty desperate as it is a