the Turkish Government,
and had done good service as a guide in the last months of the
adventure. He procured for us a larger boat of fifty-four tons. We
sailed from the 20th of March, 1915, to the 24th, unmolested to Lith.
There Sami Bey announced that three English ships were cruising about
in order to intercept us. I therefore advised traveling a bit
overland. I disliked leaving the sea a second time, but it had to be
done."

Captain Muecke explained that Lith is nothing but desert, and therefore
it was very difficult to get up a caravan at once. They marched away
on March 28, 1915, with only a vague suspicion that the English might
have agents here also. They could travel only at night, and when they
slept or camped around a spring, there was only a tent for the sick
men. Two days' march from Jeddah, the Turkish Government having
received word about the crew, sent sixteen good camels.

"Suddenly, on the night of April 1, 1915, things became uneasy," said
Captain Muecke. "I was riding at the head of the column. All our
shooting implements were cleared for action, because there was danger
of an attack from Bedouins, whom the English had bribed. When it began
to grow a bit light I thought: 'We're through for to-day'; for we were
tired--had been riding eighteen hours. Suddenly I saw a line flash up
before me, and shots whizzed over our heads. Down from the camels! We
formed a fighting line. You know how quickly it becomes daylight
there. The whole space around the desert hillock was occupied. Now we
had to take up our guns. We rushed at the enemy. They fled, but
returned again, this time from all sides. Several of the gendarmes
that had been given to us as an escort were wounded; the machine-gun
operator fell, killed by a shot through the heart; another was
wounded. Lieutenant Schmidt was mortally wounded. He received a bullet
in the chest and another in the abdomen.

"Suddenly, they waved white cloths. The sheik, to whom a part of our
camels belonged, went over to them to negotiate, then Sami Bey and
his wife. In the interim we quickly built a sort of wagon barricade, a
circular camp of camel saddles, of rice and coffee sacks, all of which
we filled with sand. We had no shovels, and had to dig with our
bayonets, plates, and hands. The whole barricade had a diameter of
fifty meters. Behind it were dug trenches, which we deepened even
during the skirmish. The camels inside had to lie down, and thus
served very well