"You're escaped prisoners, eh? Our boys are doing their bit in France, and at home they can't even guard prisoners."
The Moa was a fine craft but as flat as a match box. Intended for coastwise trade, she had no keel and drew only three feet of water, but she had huge masts. A storm blew up, and we scudded before the wind. The Moa's captain rushed up bristling with excitement. His boat, he protested, was not adapted for sailing on the high sea, much less through a storm. We were risking our lives, he expostulated. We should take down sail.
"We are sailing for our lives, by Joe," I responded, and kept all canvas up.
The skipper stayed on deck all night and poured out oil to quiet the waves. We went on our watches, undisturbed. Ordinarily, we would have been somewhat worried, but the storm was taking us along swiftly—away from pursuit. The waves began to break over our stern, and the Moa bobbed up and down. She had a deckload of lumber. Overboard with it. We started to work and were ably assisted by a breaker that crashed over us and in an instant swept most of the lumber into the sea. We were towing the motor boat we had taken from the commandant at Motuihi. A wave swamped her, and she tore loose from the towline and sank.
We steered to the Kermadec Islands, an uninhabited group where the New Zealand government keeps a cache of provisions for castaway sailors. Curtis Island, one of the group, came in sight on December 21st. It appeared in a cloud of smoke, a land of volcanoes and geysers. Presently we spied the sheet-iron shed where the provisions were stored. Kircheiss and four men landed on the inferno-like coast and in due time returned, their boat loaded deep with provisions. The New Zealand government was kind enough to provide many useful things for shipwrecked sailors and sometimes for escaped prisoners of war. There were tools, oars, sails, fishing tackle, blankets, bacon, butter, lard, canned beef—in short, everything. We had intended to leave our prisoners on Curtis Island, but that den of steam and sulphur fumes seemed unfit for anyone. So we decided to take them on to near-by Macauley Island, there put them ashore with a supply of provisions, and send a wireless message to summon aid for them.
"Smoke to the north, behind island," sang the lookout.
Two men were still on the island. I sent hastily for them. The Moa raised sail and ran before the wind. The steamer was in sight now. She sailed toward us. We changed our course. She, too, changed her course. The skipper of the Moa recognized her as the New Zealand government's cable steamer, Iris, an auxiliary cruiser. She had cannon, and we had none. Our goose was cooked.
We still tried hopelessly to run away. She gained on us, and signalled us to stop. We kept on. A flash, a distant roar, a hissing in the air, a splash in front of us. She was firing on us.
"Heave to," I commanded, and we were prisoners once again.
The Iris was manned, not by naval men, but by a nondescript crowd that put pistols to our backs as we came aboard, and searched us to the soles of our shoes. Then these gentry robbed us of our personal possessions. They were wildly jubilant over their victory. I gathered from them that the ship that had escaped us having brought the news of our capture of the Moa to Auckland, the authorities there had surmised that we must be headed for the cache of supplies at Curtis Island. When we arrived at Auckland, the New Zealanders had their own little victory celebration. Sightseers in all sorts of boats came out to have a look as the Iris with the Moa in tow steamed into harbour, the victor of the Battle of the Kermadecs.