Five Months on a German Raider | Page 9

professions, maiden names of married ladies, addresses, and various other details. My passport described me as "Principal of Training College for Teachers." So I was forthwith dubbed "Professor" by the Germans, and from this time henceforth my wife and I were called Frau Professor and Herr Professor, and this certainly led the sailors to treat us with more respect than they might otherwise have done. One young man, who had on his passport his photo taken in military uniform, was, however, detained on the Wolf as a military prisoner. He was asked by a German officer if he were going home to fight. He replied that he certainly was, and pluckily added, "I wish I were fighting now."
On October 1st the married prisoners from the Wolf, together with three Australian civilian prisoners over military age, a Colonel of the Australian A.M.C., a Major of the same corps, and his wife, with an Australian stewardess, some young boys, and a few old sea captains and mates, were sent on board the Hitachi. They had all been taken off earlier prizes captured and sunk by the Wolf. The Australians had been captured on August 6th from the s.s.[2] Matunga from Sydney to what was formerly German New Guinea, from which latter place they had been only a few hours distant. An American captain, with his wife and little girl, had been captured on the barque Beluga, from San Francisco to Newcastle, N.S.W., on July 9th. All the passengers transferred were given cabins on board the Hitachi. We learnt from these passengers that the Wolf was primarily a mine-layer, and that she had laid mines at Cape Town, Bombay, Colombo, and off the Australian and New Zealand coasts. She had sown her last crop of mines, 110 in number, off the approaches to Singapore before she proceeded to the Indian Ocean to lie in wait for the Hitachi. Altogether she had sown five hundred mines.
During her stay in the Maldives the Wolf sent up her seaplane--or, as the Germans said, "the bird"--every morning about six, and she returned about eight. To all appearances the coast was clear, and the Wolf consequently anticipated no interference or unwelcome attention from any of our cruisers. Two of them, the Venus and the Doris, we had seen at anchor in Colombo harbour during our stay there, but it was apparently thought not worth while to send any escort with the Hitachi, though the value of her cargo was said to run into millions sterling; and evidently the convoy system had not yet been adopted in Eastern waters. A Japanese cruiser was also in Colombo harbour when we arrived there, preceded by mine-sweepers, on September 24th. The Hitachi Captain and senior officers visited her before she sailed away on the 25th. The Germans on the Wolf told us that they heard her wireless call when later on she struck one of their mines off Singapore, but the Japanese authorities have since denied that one of their cruisers struck a mine there.
The Wolf remained alongside us till the morning of October 3rd, when she sailed away at daybreak, leaving us anchored in the centre of the atoll. It was a great relief to us when she departed; she kept all the breeze off our side of the ship, so that the heat in our cabin was stifling, and it was in addition very dark; the noise of coaling and shifting cargo was incessant, and the roaring of the water between the two ships most disturbing. Before she sailed away the Prize Captain handed to my wife most of her jewels which had been recovered from the bottom of our lifeboat. As many of these were Siamese jewellery and unobtainable now, we were very rejoiced to obtain possession of them again, but many rings were missing and were never recovered.
The falls of the lifeboats were all renewed, and on October 5th we had places assigned to us in the lifeboats, and rules and regulations were drawn up for the "detained enemy subjects" on board the Hitachi. They were as follows:--
RULES AND REGULATIONS FOR ON BOARD THE GERMAN AUXILIARY SHIP "HITACHI MARU" DETAINED ENEMY SUBJECTS (d.e.s.).
1. Everybody on board is under martial law, and any offence is liable to be punished by same.
2. All orders given by the Commander, First Officer, or any of the German crew on duty are to be strictly obeyed.
3. After the order "Schiff abblenden" every evening at sunset no lights may be shown on deck or through portholes, etc., that are visible from outside.
4. The order "Alle Mann in die Boote" will be made known by continuous ringing of the ship's bell and sounding of gongs. Everybody hurries to his boat with the lifebelt and leaves the ship. Everybody is allowed to take one small bag