Ten months in a German raider

by John Stanley Cameron

One of the lady passengers during the excitement lost a lot of jewels. Some days later a German sailor clearing out one of the life-boats found these jewels. He came down the deck to where there were several of the passengers standing and asked: "Does anybody belong to these things?" He held out for their inspection a handful of diamonds, rubies, pearls and other valuable articles. Needless to say, he had no difficulty in finding an owner. This sailor earned 18 marks per month and the value of the find was in the neighbourhood of ten thousand dollars. I wonder how many men, under the circumstances, would have returned these jewels.

The Wolf and the Hitachi now steamed to the southernmost group of the Maldive Islands, arriving there on September 27th. The vessels tied up alongside of each other and coal and cargo were transferred from the Hitachi to the Wolf. The cargo of the Hitachi Maru was valued at over a million and a half pounds sterling, chiefly copper, tin, rubber, thousands of tons of silk, tea and hides. It always seemed uncanny to me that these "deep-sea vultures" seemed to be able to capture a vessel loaded with any particular kind of cargo they wanted. About a month before this capture, I heard the officers talking among themselves and one of them remarked, "Now the next ship we get should be loaded with copper and rubber and tin." Sure enough the Hitachi had what they wanted.

It seemed a pity to me to see the thousands of bales of silk goods, ladies' blouses and silk kimonos being dumped from one hold to another and trampled on. When the Hitachi was finally sunk there were a couple of thousand tons of expensive Japanese lingerie and other ladies' wear and miscellaneous department store merchandise sunk with her. The mermaids must have had "some" bargain sale.

It was the intention of Nerger to pick up, if possible, a vessel that could furnish him with enough coal to take both the Hitachi and Wolf back to Germany. At this time there was a lot of talk about landing us on one of the islands where there were missionaries. However, none of us took any stock in this "landing talk," as it was too apparent what their intentions were.

It was here that the married folks with their wives along, sent a written petition to the Commander of the Wolf, begging to be given one of the Hitachi life-boats and a supply of provisions, so that on the eve of the Wolf's departure for parts unknown, we could make our way to one of these islands and there await the arrival of some trading schooner to take us to civilisation again. Nerger sent word back that he could not do that, and repeated the same old "bull" about landing us in some safe place, some time. Lord, he must have thought we were a bunch of "gillies" to believe that guff.

On October 1st we were transferred from the Wolf to the Hitachi along with all the rest of the "top side" prisoners. Our quarters on the Hitachi were splendid. We fell heir to the bridal suite. It seemed mighty good to sit down at a regular table with a white cloth and napkins again. I shall never forget my feelings as we sat there for the first meal, waiting for the whitecoated Jap waiter to bring on the food. I could feel myself getting up from the table with that satisfied, contented feeling amidships. Soon the waiter came and set before us each a plate containing two ordinary soda crackers or ships' biscuits, with a poor lonely god-forsaken sardine stranded on the top. This, and a cup of the regulation "near" coffee comprised our first evening meal on the Hitachi Maru. For the following morning's breakfast we had porridge with kerosene spilt on it. Absolutely uneatable. For dinner, rotten meat with good potatoes, water—or soda water, if you had money to buy it with—and in the evening canned crab and crackers. In the meantime our commander, Lieutenant Rose, was having a banquet in his room with his brother officers on the Wolf.

On the Hitachi it was noticed that Rose very seldom made his appearance in the dining room at mealtimes. Quite frequently at meals one of the Australian passengers who belonged to Lieut. Rose's bridge-playing clique, would send a card up to his room asking if it were not possible to have an extra slice of bread or a cracker. The answer would come back: "Sure, boys, just ask the steward." But on asking the Jap steward he would only smile and say: "Velly sorry, but Captain write his name each day on paper that speaks how much you eat." This was the fact, as I have seen the paper.

The German chief engineer and chief mate used to eat at the same table as we did, and used to complain of the food as being inadequate; and one night the chief engineer took the matter up with Rose and told him a few truths. Rose said that it was "too bad," that he did not know anything about it before but now he would straighten it up. The engineer told Rose that if he cut out a lot of his private champagne suppers and looked into what the rest of us were getting it would not be necessary to make these complaints.

This is a condition that could not exist on the Wolf because there we were under the charge of a gentleman and an officer and we got square treatment, but on the Hitachi and later on the Igotz Mendi we were under a sub-lieutenant, a snob and a man who did not know the meaning of the word gentleman. In my opinion it is this class of "under officer" that gives the Germans the unenviable reputation that they have.

My wife at this time was convalescing rapidly and regaining her strength; and it was of the utmost importance that she be provided with sufficient food. Luckily I was able to purchase from one of the stewards a couple of large cans of biscuits, some preserved ginger and an occasional piece of cheese. This helped out a whole lot, although even at that she was under-nourished. Little Juanita did not fare so badly as she was given as much as her elders, and being only a child did not require so much as they.