continued to signal for 30 minutes, after which those aboard the cruiser used flags to send the more common "VH" signal ("You should hoist your signal letters"), while the signal lamp was used to transmit the message in plain language. After another delay, Kormoran raised "PKQI"—the call-sign for the Dutch merchant ship Straat Malakka—on the triatic stay and hoisted a Dutch merchant ensign. As Sydney was approaching from just starboard of Kormorans stern and away, the call-sign was obscured by the raider's funnel; German accounts vary as to if this was to further the illusion of a civilian ship, a ruse to lure Sydney closer, or an error on the signaller's part. Sydney signalled "Make your signal letters clear", which the signals officer aboard Kormoran did by lengthening the halyard and swinging it around to starboard. By 16:35, with Sydney away, the malfunctioning engine aboard Kormoran was repaired, but Detmers chose to keep it in reserve. Sydney asked Kormoran "Where bound?", to which the raider responded "Batavia". Sydney may have then made signals asking for the raider's port of origin and cargo; the Germans who claimed this said their replies were "Fremantle" and "Piece-goods", respectively. At around 17:00, Detmers instructed his wireless operators to send a false distress signal indicating that Straat Malakka was being approached by a suspicious ship. The message, transmitted at 17:03 and repeated at 17:05, contained the distress call for a merchantman under attack from a raider instead of a warship (QQQQ, as opposed to RRRR), the latitude and longitude of the transmitting ship, the time per Greenwich Mean Time (the normal practice was to transmit local time; using GMT was to let the Kriegsmarine know that the ship was actually a raider about to be lost), and the ship's name. This signal was partially received by the tugboat Uco ("QQQQ [unintelligible] 1000 GMT") and a shore station at Geraldton ("[unintelligible] 7C 11115E 1000 GMT"). The Geraldton station broadcast a message to all ships asking if there was anything to report (which was interpreted by the Germans as acknowledgement of their signal), but after no response was forthcoming, they ignored it until a report on the signal was forwarded to the Naval Board on 27 November. During the exchanges and distress signal, Sydney positioned herself just off the raider's starboard beam on a parallel course, approximately from Kormoran. The cruiser may or may not have been