to which the Spanish officers had been accustomed, i.e.
breakfast at 9 and supper at 4, but these times were soon afterwards
changed to breakfast at 8.30, tiffin 12.30, and supper 5.30. We were
lucky to get fresh food for some days. But this soon came to an end,
though the stock of muscatels, a quince preserve--called membrillo--and
Spanish wine lasted very much longer. It would have lasted much longer
still but for the stupidity of the German sailor who "managed" the
canteen. He allowed stores to be eaten in plenty while there were any,
instead of arranging to spread their consumption over a much longer
period.

There was on board a certain amount of live stock; some chickens, which
seemed to thrive quite well on coal-dust, and a couple of cows, each of
which had a calf born on board; these all met the usual fate of such
things on appropriate occasions. There were also a few cats and kittens,
which later on were joined by a couple of mongrel dachshund pups born on
the _Wolf_. The Spanish carpenter had a sporting hen, which had some
lively scraps with the dogs, the latter always coming off second best.

For many days after we parted company with the _Wolf_ we ambled and
dawdled through the sea on a south-westerly course, sometimes going back
on our tracks for half a day, sometimes stopping altogether for an hour
or two, sometimes for half a day, sometimes for a whole day. The
monotony of this performance was deadly beyond words. On one of these
days the Captain offered to land us at Mauritius on the following
morning and give himself up with the crew and ship if we could raise
L100,000 for him. Unfortunately, we couldn't!

On the afternoon of the 23rd the Germans became very agitated at the
sight of smoke on the horizon. At first we all thought it was the
_Wolf_, but before long we could see two columns of smoke, evidently
coming from two steamers travelling together. The prisoners then became
very agitated also, as help might be at hand. But the Germans at once
changed the course, and manoeuvred at full speed in such a way that we
soon got out of sight of the smoke, when we resumed our original course
again, after having boxed the compass more than once, and the German
Captain came down from the bridge and told us there was no relief for us
yet. We all felt that if the _Hitachi_ had only avoided distant smoke as
the German Captain had done we need never have made the acquaintance of
the _Wolf_.

On the 24th we aga