LIFE on the Wolf was very different to life on the Hitachi. To begin with, all the single men of military age were accommodated on the 'tween decks, and slept in hammooks, which they had to sling themselves. The elder men slept in bunks taken from the Hitachi, but the quarters of all in the 'tween decks were very restricted; there was no privacy, no convenience, and only a screen divided the European and Japanese quarters. The conThe condition of our fellow-countrymen from the Hitachi was the reverse of enviable, though it was a great deal better than that of the crews of captured ships, who were accommodated" under the poop-where the captains and officers captured had quarters to themselves and exercised on the

VOL. CCIV.NO. MCCXXXIII.

poop and well-deck, the port side of which was reserved for the Japanese.

There were between three and four hundred prisoners on board, mostly British, some of whom had been captured in the February previous, as the Wolf had left Germany in November 1916, the Hitachi being the tenth prize caught. The condition in which these prisoners lived cannot be too strongly condemned. The heat in the Tropics was insufferable, the overcrowding abominable, and on the poop there was hardly room to move. But notwithstanding these hardships the men seemed to be merry and bright, and showed smiling faces to their captors. They had all evidently made up their minds to keep their end up to the last, and were not to be downed by any bad

A

deck, not a glint of light showing anywhere.

When the Wolf considered herself in dangerous waters, and when laying mines, even smoking was forbidden on deck. All the cabins had a device by which, directly the door was open, the light went out, only to be relit when the door closed. So it was impossible for any one to leave his cabin with the door open and the light on. There was nothing to do in the evenings after the last meal, which was over before eight o'clock. There was nowhere to sit, except on the dark deck or in the dark cabins, for it was so hot that the cabin doors had to be kept open; and the evenings spent on the Wolf were certainly very dreary. Most of us felt we would rather be in jail on shore, for then we should be in no risk of being killed at any moment by our own people, our cells would have been larger than our cabins, and our food possibly not much worse; and our jail would at least have been stationary and not rolling about, though, it must be confessed, the Wolf was a good sea boat.

She had been one of the Hansa Line before the war, was about 6000 tons, with a speed of about ten knots at the outside. She had been thoroughly adapted for her work as a raider: had four torpedo tubes and six guns (said to be 4·7), not to mention machine and smaller guns, none of which could be

seen by a passing ship, to which the Wolf looked, as she was intended to look, exactly like an innocent tramp. When in action her bulwarks dropped, giving free play to her guns and torpedoes. There was telephone communication between her bridge and every gun and every part of the ship; she carried a huge searchlight; her masts and funnel were telescopic, and she could rig an extra funnel. She carried large supplies of bombs, hand - grenades, rifles, and small arms, had hospitals with two doctors on board; among her crew of more than three hundred were representatives of every trade; she was thoroughly well equipped in every way; the officers had the best and most powerful binoculars, and absolutely nothing seemed to have been forgotten. There were, it was said, only three of the officers who were Imperial Navy men- the Commander, the artillery officer, and the lieutenant in charge of the prisoners. All the other officers and a great many of the crew were from the German mercantile marine, who had travelled with, mixed with, and lived with Englishmen in many parts of the world. To this fact we undoubtedly owed the kindly treatment we received on board-treatment which was infinitely better than we expected to receive. The majority of the officers and men were certainly kindly disposed towards us. There is no doubt, however, the fear that we might be taken by a British cruiser

also had something to do with this treatment; for if we had been treated badly the Germans knew they would have cause to regret it. We were forbidden to talk to the crew, but under cover of the darkness some, a great number of whom spoke English, were only too glad to speak to us. We learned from them that the Wolf had been out a year, that they were all very "fed up" with it, tired of the life, tired of the sea, tired of the food, longing to get home, and longing for the war to end. They had, too, no doubts as to how the war would end, and were certain that the Wolf would get back to Germany whenever she wished to do so.

They were certain three things would bring them viotory their submarines, the defection of Russia, who would soon be made to conclude peace with Germany, and the fact that in their opinion America had entered the war too late.

The interests of the Wolf were now to a certain extent identical with our own that we should not meet an Allied oruiser. A notice was posted in some of our cabins saying in that event the women with their husbands, and some other prisoners, would be put into boats with a white flag, "if weather and other conditions permitted." The other prisoners, however viz., those under the poop and on the 'tween decks-would have had no chance of being saved. They would all have been battened down under hatches (this, indeed, was done

whenever the Wolf sighted or captured a ship, and when gun and other drill was carried on), and armed guards supplied with hand grenades sent among them. Their fate, if the Wolf had gone into action, would have been too terrible to contemplate, and it is certain very few of them could have been saved.

The Wolf, with a company of over 700 on board, sailed away on a south-westerly course for the next two days, and the usual routine of the ship went on, but no further drills took place. Soon after daybreak on Nov. 10, a sailor looked us all in our cabins, armed guards patrolled the deck, and a short time after an officer came to each cabin and informed us that there was a steamer on the starboard side which the Wolf intended to ospture. He told us the Wolf would fire on her to stop, and provided all of us with cotton wool to insert in our ears while the guns were being fired! We waited for the sound of the guns, but nothing happened, and in about half an hour the same officer came along and said to us, "Don't be fearful, the other ship has stopped and there will be no firing!" Our cabin doors were unlocked, the men on the upper deck were allowed out, the ladies were requested not to show themselves, and another officer ran along the deck saying, "We've catched her, we've catched her-a neutral this time." The "catched " vessel had stopped and was lying very near the Wolf. The

name on the stern proclaimed her to be the Igotz Mendi of Bilbao, and she was flying the Spanish flag. In a short time a prize orew left the Wolf in her motor launch, and proceeded to the other ship. After they had been aboard her a few minutes, a message came back that the Spanish ship was from Delagoa Bay to Colombo, with a cargo of 5800 tons of coal for the British Admiralty authorities in Ceylon. The chagrin of the Germans may be imagined when they realised that they had captured this ship just too late to save the Hitachi. Here was a ship with ample coal, which, had it been captured a few days before, would have enabled the

Germans to save the Hitachi and take her as a prize to Germany, as they had always desired to do. The Igotz Mendi had left Lorenco Marques on November 5, and was due at Colombo on the 22nd.

Before 9 A.M. on the morning of the capture both ships had turned about, the prize now being in command of the Germans, and were going back on the course the Wolf had followed since the destruction of the Hitachi. Discussion was rife among the prisoners as to what would be done with the new capture, and whether the Commander of the Wolf would redeem his promise to transfer the married couples to the "next ship caught."

The two ships steamed along in company for the next three days, usually stopping towards sunset for communications and sending orders. At daybreak on the 13th both arrived at the Nazareth Bank, and before 9 A.M. were lashed together. On such occasions the Wolf never dropped anchor, so that she could be up and away at the slightest warning; the prize ship was always the one to drop anchor. On the previous Tuesday the Wolf had been lashed alongside the Hitachi; here, on this Tuesday, was the Wolf lashed alongside another captured ship in the very same place! Again the daring and coolness of our captors amazed us. Coaling from the Igotz Mendi to the Wolf at

once began, and a wireless installation was immediately rigged up by the Germans on the Spanish ship. Coaling proceeded all that day, and the German officers and crews on both ships were very busy.

On the morning of the 14th orders were given to the married couples on the Wolf to get their light baggage ready for transference to the Spanish ship, as she and the Wolf might have to separate at any moment. Our heavy baggage would be transferred if time allowed. Evidently something was in the air, some wireless message had been picked up, as the seaplane was being brought up from the 'tween decks and assembled in great haste on the well-deck.