Under these conditions they were heading Northwards, daily approaching nearer to that Old World where the war flame burned so fiercely. For many days nothing occurred to break the regularity of the discipline by which they kept themselves fit for the great task they had undertaken; then the monotony of their journey was disturbed by an event which startled them into a sudden realization of the grim imminence of battle and death.
At 6.30 a.m. on the morning of November 9 the _Melbourne_ was steaming at the head of the three long lines of transports when she picked up a wireless message from the cable station at Cocos Island. The message was imperfect, but conveyed to the _Melbourne_ the fact that an enemy warship was then off the island. The convoy was at the time about sixty miles away from the island, so that it was obvious there was no time to be lost. The _Melbourne_ was the flagship, and her commander was responsible for the safety of the transports, he had, therefore, to deny himself the supreme pleasure of setting off to deal with the stranger. He sent instead instructions to the _Sydney_, which at once set off, gathering speed as she went.
The excitement on board the _Sydney_ was intense. It was an open secret that the notorious _Emden_ was somewhere in that neighbourhood, and every soul on board, from Captain Glossop to the two boys who had been taken aboard at Sydney from the training ship _Tingara_ at the last minute, was fervently praying that it might be the sea-raider which had sunk more than twenty British merchant vessels, and bombarded Madras. Down below the stokers were at work like demons; a significant sentence in Captain Glossop's official report afterwards revealed how well they worked. He reported that the engines worked splendidly, developing a higher rate of speed than upon the official trials of the ship; as a matter of fact, the crew worked her up to the great speed of twenty-seven knots.
Meanwhile it may be as well to explain just what had happened at Cocos Island. At five o'clock on the evening of November 8 the inhabitants, who were all officials connected with the cable and wireless stations there, noticed a strange warship approaching the island. She paid no heed to their wireless signals, but after approaching very close, stood away again at night time. Early in the morning she again appeared, and as nothing could be made of her, and she was lowering a boat, a wireless call for help was sent off at random. The stranger tried to obliterate this by sending strong wireless calls, which accounts for the message reaching the _Melbourne_ in a mutilated condition.