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 felt very sore at the deaths of so many of their countrymen at the hands of the Germans, and they did as little work as possible. The stewards were said to be now paid by the Germans, but as they were no longer under the command of their own countrymen, they certainly did not put themselves out to please their new masters.
With their usual thoroughness, the Germans one day examined all our passports and took notes of our names, ages, 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. 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 previously packed.
5. Nobody is allowed to go on the boat deck beyond the smoke-room. All persons living in first-class cabins are to stay amidships, and are not allowed to go aft without special permission; all persons living aft are to stay aft.
6. The Japanese crew is kept only for the comfort of the one-time passengers, and is to be treated considerately, as they are also d.e.s.
7. The d.e.s. are not allowed to talk with the crew.
At sea, October 6, 1917.
Kommando S.M.H. Hitachi Maru,
C. Rose,
Lt. z. See & Kommandant.
Lieutenant Rose very kindly told me that as I was leaving the East for good and therefore somewhat differently situated from the other passengers, he would allow me to take in the lifeboat, in addition to a handbag, a cabin trunk packed with the articles from Siam I most wanted to save.
It was evident from this that the Germans intended sinking the ship if we came across a British or Allied war vessel. We were of course unarmed, as the Germans had removed the Hitachi gun to the Wolf, but the German Captain anticipated no difficulty on this score, and assured me that it was the intention of the Commander of the Wolf that we should be landed in a short time with all our baggage at a neutral port with a stone pier. We took this to mean a port in either Sumatra or Java, and we were buoyed up with this hope for quite a considerable time. But, alas, like many more of the assurances given to us, it was quite untrue.
There were now on board 131 souls, of whom twenty-nine were passengers. On Saturday, October 6th, the seaplane returned in the afternoon and remained about half an hour, when she again flew away. She brought a message of evidently great importance, for whereas it had been the intention of our Captain to sail away on the following afternoon, he weighed anchor the next morning and left the atoll. He had considerable trouble with the anchor before starting, and did not get away till nearly eight o'clock, instead of at daybreak. Evidently something was coming to visit the atoll; though it was certain nothing could be looking for us, as our capture could not then have been known, and there could have been no communication between the Maldives and Ceylon, or the mainland. Before and for some days after we sailed, the ship was cleaned and put in order, the cargo properly stowed, and the bunkers trimmed by the German crew, aided by some neutrals who had been taken prisoner from other ships. Some of the sailors among the prize crew were good enough to give us some pieces of the Wolf's shrapnel found on the Hitachi, relics which were eagerly sought after by the passengers.
The passengers were now under armed guards, but were at perfect liberty to do as they pleased, and the relations between them and the German officers and crew were quite friendly. Deck games were indulged in as before our capture, and the German Captain took part in them. Time, nevertheless, hung very heavily on our hands, but many a pleasant hour was spent in the saloon with music and singing. One of the Australian prisoners was a very good singer and pianist, and provided very enjoyable entertainment for us. The Captain, knowing that I had some songs with me, one afternoon asked me to sing. I was not feeling like singing, so I declined. "Shot at dawn!" he said. "Ready now," I replied. "No!" said he. "I can't oblige you now. Either at dawn, for disobedience to Captain's orders, or not at all." So it was made the latter! On Sunday evenings, after the six o'clock "supper," a small party met in the saloon to sing a few favourite hymns, each one choosing the ones he or she liked best. This little gathering was looked forward to by those who took part in it, as it formed a welcome break in the ordinary monotonous life on board.
The only Japanese left on board were some stewards, cooks, and the stewardess. A German chief mate and chief engineer replaced the Japanese, and other posts previously held by the Japanese were filled by Germans and neutrals. The times of meals were changed, and we no longer enjoyed the good meals we had had before our capture, as most of the good food had been transferred to the Wolf. Chota-hazri was done away with, except for the ladies; the meals became much simpler, menus were no longer necessary, and the Japanese cooks took no more trouble with the preparation of the food.
However, on the whole we were not so badly off, though on a few occasions there was really not enough to eat, and some of the meat was tainted, as the freezing apparatus had got out of order soon after the ship was captured.
There was no longer any laundry on board, as the dhobi had been killed. Amateur efforts by some Japanese stewards were not successful, so the passengers had to do their own washing as best they could. They were helped in this by some of the young boys sent on board. The walls of the alley-ways were plastered with handkerchiefs, etc., drying in Chinese fashion, the alley-ways became drying-rooms for other garments hung on the rails, and ironing with electric irons was done on the saloon tables. Some of the men passengers soon became expert ironers.
We steamed gently on a south-westerly course for about five days, and on the succeeding day, October 12th, changed our course many times, going north-east at 6.30 a.m., south-east at 12.30 p.m., north-east again at 4 p.m., and north at 6.30 p.m., evidently waiting for something and killing time, as we were going dead slow all day. The next morning we had stopped entirely; we sighted smoke at 10.20 a.m.—it was, of course, the Wolf, met by appointment at that particular time and place. She came abreast of us about 11.20 a.m., and we sailed on parallel courses for the rest of the day. She was unaccompanied by a new prize, and we were glad to think she had been unsuccessful in her hunt for further prey. She remained in company with us all next day, Sunday, and about 5 p.m. moved closer up, and after an exchange of signals we both changed courses and the Wolf sheered off, and to our great relief we saw her no more for several days. There was always the hope that when away from us she would be seen and captured by an Allied cruiser, and always the fear that, failing such happy consummation, when she came back to us we might again be put on board her. The Germans seemed to have a perfect mania for taking photographs—we were, of course, not allowed to take any, and cameras were even taken away from us—and one day Lieutenant Rose showed me photos of various incidents of the Wolf's cruise, including those of the sinkings of various ships. I asked him how he, a sailor, felt when he saw good ships being sent to the bottom. Did he feel no remorse, no regret? He admitted he did, but the Germans, he said, had no choice in the matter. They had no port to which they could take their prizes—this, of course, was the fault of the British! (I saw, too, on this day a photo of the Hitachi flying the German flag, and one showing the damage sustained by her from the Wolf's firing. There were ugly holes in the stern quarters, but all above the water-line.) The German officers would take with them to Germany hundreds of pictures giving a complete photographic record of the Wolf's expedition.
We cruised about again after the Wolf had left us for a couple of days, and on the 17th were stationary all day. Several sharks were seen around the ship, and the German sailors caught two or three fairly large ones during the day and got them on board. One particularly ravenous shark made off with the bait three times, and was dragged halfway up the ship's side on each occasion. So greedy was he that he returned to the charge for the fourth time, seized the bait, and was this time successfully hauled on board. On the 18th the sea was rough, and we were gently steaming to keep the ship's head to the seas, and on the following day we again changed our course many times. Saturday morning, October 20th, again saw the Wolf in sight at 6.30. She was still alone, and we proceeded on parallel courses, passing about midday a few white reefs with breakers sweeping over them. Shortly after, we came in sight of many other reefs, most of which were quite bare, but there were a few trees and a little vegetation on the largest of them, and at 2 p.m. we anchored, and the Wolf tied up alongside us at a snug and sheltered spot. We were almost surrounded by large and small coral reefs, against which we could see and hear the breakers dashing. It was a beautiful anchorage, and the waters were evidently well known to the Germans. Some of the seafaring men amongst us told us we were in the Cargados Carajos Reef, south-east of the Seychelles, and that we were anchored near the Nazareth Bank.