Five Months on a German Raider | Page 8

officers and men did
all they could to render our position as bearable as possible. The men
amongst us were also allowed to go to the ship's canteen and buy

smokes. We were steaming gently in a westerly direction all day,
occasionally passing quite close to some small islands and banks of
sand, a quite picturesque scene. The sea was beautifully calm and blue,
and on the shores of these banks, to which we sailed quite close, the
water took on colours of exquisite hues of the palest and tenderest blue
and green, as it rippled gently over coral and golden sands.
Tiffin, consisting of rice, and bacon and beans, was dealt out to us on
deck at midday, and the afternoon passed in the same way as the
morning. The _Wolf's_ chief officer, a hearty, elderly man, came aft to
speak to us. He chaffed us about our oarsmanship in the lifeboats,
saying the appearance of our oars wildly waving reminded him of the
sails of a windmill. "Never use your wireless or your gun," he said,
"and you'll come to no harm from a German raider."
The long hot day seemed endless, but by about five o'clock the two
ships arrived in an atoll, consisting of about fifteen small islands, and
the Hitachi there dropped anchor. The Wolf moved up alongside, and
the two ships were lashed together. Supper, consisting of tinned fruit
and rice, was served out at 5.30, and we were then told that the married
couples and one or two elderly men were to return to the Hitachi that
night. So with some difficulty we clambered from the upper deck of the
Wolf to the boat deck of the Hitachi and returned to find our cabins just
as we had left them in a great hurry the day before. We had not
expected to go on board the Hitachi again, and never thought we
should renew acquaintance with our personal belongings. We ourselves
were particularly sad about this, as we had brought away from Siam,
after twenty years' residence there, many things which would be quite
irreplaceable. We were therefore very glad to know they were not all
lost to us. But we congratulated ourselves that the greater part of our
treasures gathered there had been left behind safely stored in the Bank
and in a go-down in Bangkok.
CHAPTER III
BACK TO THE "HITACHI MARU"

The Hitachi was now a German ship, the Prize Captain was in
command, and German sailors replaced the Japanese, who had all been
transferred to the Wolf. The German Captain spoke excellent English,
and expressed a wish to do all he could to make us as comfortable on
board as we had been before. He also told us to report at once to him if
anything were missing from our cabins. (He informed us later that he
had lived some years in Richmond--he evidently knew the
neighbourhood quite well--and that he had been a member of the
Richmond Tennis Club!) There was of course considerable confusion
on board; the deck was in a state of dirt and chaos, littered with books
and chairs, and some parts of it were an inch or two deep in water, and
we found next morning that the bathrooms and lavatories were not in
working order, as the pipes supplying these places had been shot away
when the ship was shelled. This state of affairs prevailed for the next
few days, and the men passengers themselves had to do what was
necessary in these quarters and haul sea-water aboard. The next
morning the transference of coal, cargo, and ship's stores from the
Hitachi to the Wolf began, and went on without cessation day and night
for the next five days. One of the German officers came over and took
photos of the passengers in groups, and others frequently took
snapshots of various incidents and of each other on different parts of
the ship.
We know now that we were then anchored in a British possession, one
of the southernmost groups of the Maldive Islands! Some of the islands
were inhabited, and small sailing boats came out to the Wolf,
presumably with provisions of some kind. We were, of course, not
allowed to speak to any of the islanders, who came alongside the Wolf,
and were not allowed alongside the Hitachi. On one occasion even, the
doctor of the Wolf went in the ship's motor launch to one of the islands
to attend the wife of one of the native chiefs! On the next day--the
28th--all the Hitachi passengers returned on board her, and at the same
time some of the Japanese stewards returned, but they showed no
inclination to work as formerly. Indeed, the German officers had no
little difficulty in dealing with them. They naturally