This they did most thoroughly,
but the officials seem to have kept their heads in the most praiseworthy
manner, as, just as soon as they discovered that the enemy was upon
them, they sent out distress signals by wireless, and warned adjacent
stations by cable that they were about to be smashed up.
The landing party now blew up the wireless mast and the store in which
spare cable and cable gear was kept; a third explosion wrecked the
wireless hut, and completed the destruction of the installation. The
dynamo rooms and workshops were destroyed with flogging hammers and
axes, everything breakable, including clocks, being smashed to atoms.
Their next proceeding was to cut the shore ends of the submarine cables,
and this was done in full view of the prisoners. There are three cables
from the Cocos--to Perth, to Batavia, and to Rodriguez--and the pleasure
of the prisoners can be imagined when they saw the Germans spend much
hard labour in destroying a dummy cable. Eventually the Perth cable and
the dummy were cut, the others being left, presumably because the
Germans did not know that they existed.
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