A ship lost in the desert: What happened to the sailors of the Ayesha? (Part 2)

When the sailors arrived in Hodaidah, people looked at them as if they were aliens from another planet. Imagine that, they had never seen a westerner before! After resting and recovering, they went to the local turkish garrison, the city fort, and once inside it they talked(rudimentarily) to the officers in charge, but Von Mücke got the feeling that their turkish allies wanted to keep them there as reinforcements. Constantinople was the current seat of the Ottoman Empire, and it was in turmoil because several regions have started insurrections clamoring for independence. Those insurrections, combined with the saturated political climate, were the reasons why the railway construction was seriously behind schedule and only had just gotten to Medina, 1400 km away from their current location.

The sailors learned that the railway construction plans were real, but they didn´t actually know where the railway ended at that time, they just new from the locals it never arrived at where they were. Disillusioned by this fact, they had however to press onwards, since reaching the railway terminal was their only hope of ever returning to their own land. Along their travel towards what they thought was their best bet: somewhere across the tall Yemenese mountains, the unfamiliar climate and food made several of them fall ill with diphtheria, malaria and dysentery. They had no way of treating their ill, so they had to reach the railway soon, or they would start losing people. Only 1 person in the group spoke Arabic, and could dialogue with the locals. This man, seaman Pinkert thought their best chance was to get to Sanaa, a city beyond the mountains, but they had no maps and it was all uphill, and they had to alter their course greatly to the east. Nevertheless, they got their ill who felt too badly to walk on improvised stretches and kept on walking towards Sanaa. After 1 long week of walking, they reached the mountain town of Manakhah, in their way to Sanaa(Saná). The first piece of news that hit them in the head was that the Turks had lost control of most of the Yemen peninsula. They had to leave soon or they would get dragged into the middle of a civil war. They continued along a series of spiraling and zigzagging mountain roads and after a while, they finally arrived to Sanaa. According to their logs, it seemed to them as something taken right out of the book "One Thousand and One Nights". Pinkert browsed the local market for spices and herbs that the locals used to treat ilnesses, and thanks to that, and to some good food cooking, the sick men started showing signs of recovery. After 16 days, the sick men were eigher completely healed or well enough to continue the march.

However, the Turkish military governor didn´t allow them to leave just yet. He claimed he had to wait for orders from distant Constantinople before allowing their departure. Von Mücke waited, and waited, and then waited some more before losing his patience. After two whole months had passed, Von Mücke was convinced that the real reason they were holding them there was to deploy them against the approaching rebels and he was having none of that. He didn´t travel half the world to mercilessly spill foreign blood in a conflict that didn´t concern them. After sending an ultimatum to no avail, Von Mücke decided he was going to try to sneak his troops out of Sanaa. After a little round of information gathering from the locals conducted by Pinkert, he got to know a retired Turkish general who had a big stash of cash and also a big concerns that the coming rebels would take it. He was prepared to loan it to Von Mücke´s landing force, and it was to be repaid later when they arrived in Germany. He also learned that the rebel troops were encircling all the region, and only the path to Hodaidah remained in Turk control. And so they snuck out at night, traveling back to Hodaidah, and even though this time they knew the road, it took them more than a week to get there. When they arrived, they acquired two innocent looking fishing boats. The red sea was now their only hope of ever reaching the railway. So they left again under the cover of darkness in those boats and they set course for the north, praying to not encountering any British cruiser. They covered the distance passing through coral reefs which they believed to were impassable to anything but boats. They were wrong, since one of the two boats, the one with the deeper bottom, two days later hit the coral reef with such force that the bottom was ripped open and it sank. Sharks were lurking nearby, and Von Mücke had half of his men openly swimming in the water. What would become of them?