In the afternoon I made the acquaintance of a German officer who had been on board the _Goeben_ during the last three years. He told me that the ship had not suffered any serious damage; something went wrong with the helm, but it would be all right in the evening.
My new friend seemed most proud of the exploits of his ship during the last month, and when I flattered his vanity by telling him that the _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ had been the talk of all Europe for many weeks, he was so pleased that he willingly told me all that had happened on board since the outbreak of war.
"It is a wonderful story," he began. "Two days before the outbreak of hostilities the _Goeben_ was at Fiume loading coal, while the _Breslau_ was in the southern part of the Adriatic Sea.
"We got orders to meet her at a certain spot in the open Mediterranean, and we sailed, leaving ashore a few of our men who had obtained short leave. Even our wireless operator was ill, and had to be left in the hospital at Fiume, but luckily enough we had somebody else on board who understood wireless as well as he did. If not, I don't know how we could have managed it, as when we were in the Ionian Sea the meeting-place with the _Breslau_ was suddenly changed on account of some English ships which were reported leaving Malta that day, and likely to discover our route.
"As the declaration of war was expected at any moment, we were trying to go as far westward as possible in order to be able to do some damage either on the Algerian or Tunisian coast. We got another wireless message, and the order to show ourselves on the African coast, and to retreat as soon as possible to the Dardanelles. If necessary, the Turkish fleet would have protected our retreat into the Straits.
"We went straight to Bona and Philippeville, which were the only places of importance not too far from our position at that moment. You know what a lot of damage we managed to do in a few hours. Of course, the most important thing was not to destroy the towns, but to call the attention of the British and French fleets to that spot so that they would rush down there and leave us free the route to the Dardanelles.
"We left the African coast in the afternoon and made our way eastward as fast as our engines would allow us to go. Twice we saw British ships scouting, but we managed to avoid being seen and coming to an engagement which would have brought all the united fleet against us in a few hours' time. Later on we met two more British ships, which started to chase us.