Five Months on a German Raider | Page 5

upon the world; what other thoughts were in our minds, as we
imagined our last moments were so near, will remain unrecorded.
However, to our intense relief, nothing of what we had feared happened,
and as the raider came slowly nearer to us--up till now we had not even
seen one of the enemy--an officer on the bridge megaphoned us to
come alongside. This we did; three boats went astern, and the one in
which we were remained near the raider's bows. An officer appeared at
the bulwarks and told us to come aboard; women first, then their
husbands, then the single men. There was no choice but to obey, but we
all felt uneasy in our minds as to what kind of treatment our women
were to receive at the hands of the Germans on board.
The ship was rolling considerably, and it is never a pleasant or easy
task for a landsman, much less a landswoman, to clamber by a
rope-ladder some twenty feet up the side of a rolling ship. However, all
the ladies acquitted themselves nobly, some even going up without a
rope round their waists. The little Japanese stewardess, terrified, but
showing a brave front to the enemy, was the last woman to go up
before the men's ascent began. Two German sailors stood at the
bulwarks to help us off the rope-ladder into the well deck forward, and
by 5.20 we were all aboard, after having spent a very anxious two hours,
possibly the most anxious in the lives of most of us. We were all wet,
dirty, and dishevelled, and looked sorry objects. One of the passengers,
a tall, stout man, was somewhat handicapped by his nether garments

slipping down and finally getting in a ruck round his ankles when he
was climbing up the ladder on to the raider. A German sailor, to ease
his passage, went down the ladder and relieved him of them altogether.
He landed on the raider's deck minus this important part of his
wardrobe, amid shrieks of laughter from captives and captors.
It was at once evident, directly we got on board, that we were in for
kindly treatment. The ship's doctor at once came forward, saluted, and
asked who was wounded and required his attention. Most of the
passengers--there were only twenty first and about a dozen second
class--were in our boat, and among the second-class passengers with us
were a few Portuguese soldiers going from Macao to Delagoa Bay.
Some of us were slightly bruised, and all were shaken, but luckily none
required medical treatment. Chairs were quickly found for the ladies,
the men seated themselves on the hatch, and the German sailors busied
themselves bringing tea and cigarettes to their latest captives. We were
then left to ourselves for a short time on deck, and just before dark a
spruce young Lieutenant came up to me, saluted, and asked me to tell
all the passengers that we were to follow him and go aft. We followed
him along the ship, which seemed to be very crowded, to the well deck
aft, where we met the remaining few passengers and some of the crew
of the Hitachi. We had evidently come across a new type of Hun. The
young Lieutenant was most polite, and courteous and attentive. He
apologized profusely for the discomfort which the ladies and ourselves
would have to put up with--"But it is war, you know, and your
Government is to blame for allowing you to travel when they know a
raider is out"--assured us he would do what he could to make us as
comfortable as possible, and that we should not be detained more than
two or three days. This was the first of a countless number of lies told
us by the Germans as to their intentions concerning us.
We had had nothing to eat since tiffin, so we were ordered below to the
'tween decks to have supper. We clambered down a ladder to partake of
our first meal as prisoners. What a contrast to the last meal we enjoyed
on the Hitachi, taken in comfort and apparent security! (But, had we
known it, we were doomed even then, for the raider's seaplane had been

up and seen us at 11 a.m., had reported our position to the raider, and
announced 3 p.m. as the time for our capture. Our captors were not far
out! It was between 2.30 and 3 when we were taken.) The meal
consisted of black bread and raw ham, with hot tea in a tin can, into
which we dipped our cups. We sat around on wooden benches, in a
small partitioned-off space, and noticed that the crockery on which the
food was served had been taken from other ships captured--one of the
Burns Philp