Five Months on a German Raider / Being the Adventures of an Englishman Captured by the 'Wolf'

by Frederic George Trayes

ANOTHER PRIZE—OUR FUTURE HOME

The two ships steamed along in company for the next three days, usually stopping towards sunset for communications and sending orders. On Sunday, the 11th, we were invited to a band performance on the well deck forward. It was quite a good one. The first mate came along and jokingly said to us, "What more can you want? We give you a free passage, free food, and even free music." I replied, "We only want one more thing free." "What is that?" he asked. "Freedom," I answered. "Ah!" he said, smiling, "I am afraid you must wait for that a little time."

I had asked him earlier in the day if he would allow us the use of a room and a piano for a short time in the afternoon, so that we could keep up our custom of singing a few hymns on Sunday. Later on, he told me we might, with the permission of the officers, have their wardroom for half an hour. The officers and he had kindly agreed to this, a concession we much appreciated, and the little wardroom was crowded indeed on that occasion.

At daybreak on the 13th both ships arrived at the Nazareth Bank, and before 9 a.m. were lashed together. On such occasions the Wolf never dropped anchor, for she might have to 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 the Wolf from the Igotz Mendi 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. The prisoners aft were also very busy, catching fish over the side. No sooner had the ships stopped than lines were dropped overboard and many fine fish were caught. The prisoners aft wore very little clothing and often no head-gear at all, though we were in the tropics, where we had always thought a sun-helmet was a sine qua non. But the prisoners got on quite well without one.

On the morning of the 14th, just six weeks after our capture, orders were given to the married couples on the Wolf to get their light baggage ready at once 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. We did not understand at the time why the Germans were so considerate to us in the matter of baggage, but later on, a great deal later on, light dawned on us! It is doubtful, to say the least of it, if we should have been allowed to keep our baggage if we should be taken to Germany, a possibility that was always present in our minds. We know now that it always was the intention of the Germans to take us to Germany, and that being the case, it would be just as simple to relieve us of our luggage when we got there as to deprive us of it while we were en route.

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 at great haste on the well deck. The Wölfchen went up about 4.20 and returned about 5.30, and in the interval our heavy baggage had been brought up from the Wolf's hold ready to be transferred to the Igotz Mendi.

At dusk that evening the married people were transferred to the Spanish ship. We felt very sad at leaving our Hitachi and other friends on the Wolf, and feared that whatever might happen to us, they would never be free. For ourselves, too, the prospect was not a very pleasing one. The whole ship was smothered in coal-dust, the saloon was almost pitch-dark, as awnings had been hung over all the ports, the atmosphere was stifling, the cabins we were to occupy were still littered with the belongings of their former occupants, and the outlook was certainly very dreary. To make things worse a thick drizzle came on, converting the coal-dust on deck into an evil, black, muddy ooze.

The next morning we were still alongside the Wolf, and remained there till the morning of the 17th, our heavy baggage being transhipped in the interval. There had also been transferred the Colonel of the A.A.M.C. already mentioned, and three other men—including the second mate of one ship previously captured—who were in ill-health. One of the Hitachi prisoners, a man over military age, who had come on board at Colombo straight from hospital, and was going for a health voyage to South Africa, had been told in the morning that he was to be transferred to the Spanish ship. But later on, much to the regret of every one, it was found that the Germans would not release him. A German officer came up to him and said in my hearing, "Were you not told this morning that you were to go on the Igotz Mendi?" "Yes," he replied. "Well," said the officer, "you're not to." Comment on the brutal manner of this remark is unnecessary.

The message the seaplane had brought back had evidently been a reassuring one, and we heard a long time afterwards that the Wolf had picked up a wireless from a Japanese cruiser, presumably looking for the Hitachi, only thirty miles away. Hence the alarm! Unfortunately for us, if this report were true, the cruiser did not turn aside to look in the most obvious place where a ship like the Wolf would hide, so once more the Wolf was safe.