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the barque, she gave her name and said she was a Norwegian ship, and so was released. The Wolf, they said, had afterwards discovered from her shipping register that she was British-owned before the war, and therefore to be destroyed. We had hoped our captors might have put us all on the sailing-ship and sent us off on her to S. America, as the Wolf would have been well away and out of danger before we could have got ashore. But they did not entertain any such idea. Some of us requested that the lifeboats of the sailing-ship might be sent over to the Igotz Mendi, as we had only two lifeboats, a couple of small dinghies, and an improvised raft, not sufficient for sixty-five people; but the Germans would not send us these lifeboats, as they said they were leaky!

We remained in company of the Wolf for the next few days, and at 7 P.M. on the 10th the Wolf again came alongside in the open sea and coaled from us till 4 P.M. on the next day. Conditions were slightly better than on the previous occasion, but still quite sufficiently unpleasant. More fenders were lost, and the Wolf was further damaged, and the great uproar caused by the winches going all night, the periodic emptying of ashes, dragged in iron buckets over the iron decks, the shifting of coal from the bunkers immediately underneath our cabins, and the and the constant bumping of the ships, made sleep quite out of the question, and we were very glad indeed when the Wolf

sheered off. On this occasion the way in which she came alongside and sheered off was a beautiful piece of seamanship. On the 11th we again saw and spoke to our Hitachi friends on the Wolf-the last opportunity we had of speaking to them. On the next day we crossed the Equator, and then for some days we saw the Wolf no more.

I

On January 14 I approached the captain and asked him if the Germans on the Wolf, when they got to Germany, would have any means of finding out whether we on the Igotz Mendi had safely arrived in Spain. He replied that they would. then asked him whether, if we were all lost on the Igotz Mendi on her return voyage to Spain, the German Government would inform the British Government of our fate. He replied that would certainly be done. I further asked him whether we might send letters for the Wolf to have posted in Germany in the event of our not arriving in Spain. Most of us had to settle up our affairs in some way in case we might be lost at sea, and wished to write farewell letters to our home people. The captain said this might also be done, and the letters would not be posted if the Igotz Mendi, with us on board, got back safely to Spain. "But," he added, "we have changed our plans, and now intend that you shall be landed in Norway. It will be safer for you all, and you will not have to risk meeting our submarines

in the Atlantic again. When we arrive in Norwegian waters the German prize crew will be taken off this ship after the Wolf has got home, the ship will be handed over to the

Spaniards, and you will all be landed in Norway, from where you can easily make your way to England." Here was quite a new plan-how much truth there was in this declaration will be seen hereafter. From now onwards definite promises began to be made to us concerning the end of our captivity-"in a month you'll be free"; "the next full moon will be the last you will see at sea," &c.

We were, of course, proceeding north every day, keeping in mid-Atlantic, always well off the trade-routes, though of course we crossed some on

our way north. We did not meet the Wolf on the 22nd, as our Captain evidently expected to do, and we waited about for her several hours. But next day we did meet her, and we were then told that in eighteen days we

We were

should be ashore. then about 30° N., and we parted from the Wolf the same afternoon. It was always a great relief to us all when we parted from her keeping our ship's company of prisoners intact. For the men amongst us feared we might all be put upon the Wolf to be taken to Germany, leaving our wives on the Igotz Mendi. This, so we had been told, had been the intention of the Wolf's commander when the prisoners were first put on the Spanish boat. He had ordered that only women and prisoners above sixty and under sixteen should be put on the Igotz Mendi; but the German doctor, a humane and kindly man, would have nothing to do with this plan, and declared he would not be responsible for the health of the women if this were done. So we owe it to him that wives were not separated from their husbands during this anxious time, as the Commander of the Wolf had inhumanly suggested.

A last effort was made to persuade the captain to ask the Wolf's commander to release the Spanish ship here, take all the prize crew off, and send us back to Cape Town, for a suspicion began to grow in our minds that Germany and nowhere else was the destination intended for us. But our captain would not listen to this suggestion, and said he was

IX.

sure that the Spanish captain would not go back to Cape Town even if he promised to do so.

On the next day, January 24, relief seemed nearer than it had done since our capture, four months before. I was sitting on the starboard deck, when suddenly I saw coming up out of the mist, close to our starboard bow, what looked like a

cruiser with four funnels. The Spanish officer on the bridge had apparently not seen it, neither apparently had the German sailor, if indeed he was even on the bridge at that moment. I rushed to inform the American sailing-ship captain of my discovery, and he confirmed my opinion that it was a four-funnelled warship. The Germans were by this time fully alarmed, and slowed down a little; the captain, evidently also thinking that the vessel was a cruiser, went to his cabin to dispose of the ship's papers, the crew got into their best uniform to surrender, and it looked as if help were at hand at last. We were all out on deck, delighted beyond words, and saw the ship-it must be remembered that it was a very misty day-resolve itself into two two-funnelled ships, apparently transports, one seemingly in distress and the other standing by. Soon, however, they proceeded on their course and crossed our bows fairly close. We were then all ordered to our cabins, and we saw the two ships steam off to the westward without having spoken us or given any evidence of having seen us at all.

ports and that each mounted a gun.

In the middle of the excitement the Spanish chief mate had rushed on to the bridge into the wireless room, and while the wireless operator was out of the room or his attention had been diverted, he took from their place all the six or eight bombs on board and threw them overboard. It was plucky act, for had he been discovered by the armed sentry while doing it, he would undoubtedly have been shot on the spot. On the next day an inquiry was held as to the disappearance of the bombs, which would of course have been used to sink the ship, and the chief mate owned up. He said that he did it for the sake of the women and children on board; as the sea was rough their lives would have been in danger if they had been put in the lifeboats when the ship was bombed. He was confined to his cabin for the rest of the voyage, and later sentenced by the Commander of the Wolf to three years' imprisonment in Germany and a fine of 2000 marks. From this time all the Spanish officers were relieved of their duties.

bombed. Soon, however,

It was a most bitter disappointment, comparable to that of shipwrecked sailors on a desert island watching a ship expected to deliver them pass out of sight. But it was a great relief to the Germans. We never discovered what ships they were, but the American said he believed them to be American trans

VOL. CCIV.—NO. MCCXXXIII.

The Germans had told us that, in the case of the prize being captured captured while the weather was rough, the ship would not be bombed or sunk, as they had no desire to endanger the lives of the women and children amongst us. In fact, so they said, the ship would not be bombed under any conditions when once the Wolf had got all the coal she

B

wanted. Nevertheless, the next time we met the Wolf a new supply of bombs was put on board our ship. At the same time, an extra lieutenant came aboard, additional neutrals were sent over to help work the ship, and the prize crew was increased from nine to nineteen.

The Kaiser's birthday, which fell on a Sunday, was marked by a most terrific storm. The seas were between 30 and 40 feet high, and it seemed impossible that the ship could live. However, notwithstanding terrible rolling, she shipped very little water, though all of the prisoners were alarmed at the rough weather and the rolling of the ship. From this day onwards we lived in a condition of great misery, and death stared us in the face many times. It got colder and colder every day for a considerable time; the food got worse and worse and we were on short rations, the ship became more and more dirty, smokes ran short-only some ancient dusty shag brought from Germany by the Wolf and some virulent native tobacco from New Guinea remained and conditions generally became almost beyond endurance. Darkness fell very early in these far northern latitudes, and the long nights were very dreary and miserable. From this time onwards we had very dirty weather, and the worst storms seemingly on Sundays. On February 5 we again met the Wolf-we had sighted her on the evening of the 4th, but it was too rough then to

communicate. With the Wolf's usual luck the weather moderated next day, and the ships stopped. Just as the Germans on land always seemed to get the weather they wanted, so they were equally favoured at sea. This was noticed over and over again.

Those who had written letters to be sent on the Wolf sent them over on this day, and the Spanish chief mate expected to be sent on the Wolf, as we might not meet her again. Luckily for him, however, he was not transferred, and neither he nor we ever saw the Wolf again after the morning of February 6.

We heard from the Wolf that she was getting very short of food, and that there was much sickness, including many cases of scurvy, on board.

The next day we entered the Arctic circle. The cold was intense, the temperature falling as low as 14° F. in some of our cabins. There was no heating apparatus on the ship, with the exception of a couple of small heating pipes in the saloon. The cabins were icy cold. The curtains froze to the ports, all the cabin roofs leaked, it was impossible to keep the floors and bedding dry, and in our cabin, in addition, we had water constantly flowing and swishing backwards and forwards between the iron deck of the ship and the wooden floor of the cabin. On many nights we emptied five or six buckets full of icy water from where it accumulated under the

settee which had to be used as a bed. At last I persuaded the captain to allow one of the sailors to drill a hole in the side of the cabin, so that the water could have an outlet on to the deak. The ports of the cabins had all long ago been painted black, in order that no light might show through at night. We had to sit in these cold and dark cabins during the day, and often there was nowhere else to sit, as the weather prevented us from being on deck, which was frequently covered with frost and snow. The electric light was on for only a limited time each day, so, as the ports could not be opened, it being far too cold, we asked and obtained permission to scratch a little of the paint off the ports in our cabin. This made things a trifle more bearable, but it can easily be imagined how people who had been living in tropical elimates for many years fared under such conditions. It was nothing short of oruel to expose women and children to this after they had been dragged in captivity over the seas for many months. The captain had ordered a part of the bunkers to be cleared, so that the prisoners might sit there in the cold weather. But the place was so dirty and uncomfortable, and difficult of access, in addition to being in darkness and quite unprovided with seats, that most of the prisoners preferred the crowded little saloon.

On the morning of February 7 we for the first time encountered ice-floes, when at

tempting the Northern passage between Greenland and Iceland. About 11 A.M. we stopped and hooted for the Wolf, as a fog had come on. We waited for some hours in the ice, but no no answering signal came; so the captain decided to turn back, as he thought it impossible to force a way through the ice. We therefore went back again on our course, the captain hoping that the wind would change and cease blowing the ice-floes from off the shores of Greenland. After a day or two on this course we resumed our attempt to go to the north of Iceland, evidently to escape the attention of the British ships which the Germans expected to encounter between the south of Iceland and the Faroes. But before long it became evident that ice was still about, and in the darkness of the early morning of February 11 we bumped heavily against ice several times. This time the attempt to go through the Northern passage was abandoned, and the ship turned round to try her luck in the passage which was not expected to be so free from British attentions.

To add to our miseries, the captain told us on February 11, for the first time, that it was, and always had been, the intention to take us on the Igotz Mendi to Germany, there to be interned in civilian prisoners' camps.

He told us,

too, that the women and those of the men over military age would be released at once;

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