the _Wolf_ picked up the message.

Once again wireless had been our undoing. The _Hitachi_ had wirelessed
the hour of her arrival at and departure from Singapore and Colombo; the
_Wolf_, of course, had picked up the messages and was ready waiting for
her. One other ship, if not more, was caught in just the same way. The
_Matunga_ had wirelessed, not even in code, her departure, with the
nature of her cargo, from Sydney to New Guinea, and she wirelessed again
when within a few hours of her destination. The _Wolf_ waited for her,
informed her that she had on board just the cargo the _Wolf_ needed,
captured, and afterwards sunk her. The _Wolf's_ success in capturing
ships and evading hostile cruisers was certainly due to her intercepting
apparently indiscriminate wirelessing between ships, and between ships
and shore--at one time in the Indian Ocean the _Wolf_ was picking up
news in four languages--and to her seaplane, which enabled her to scout
thoroughly and to spot an enemy ship long before she could have been
seen by the enemy. Thus the _Wolf's_ procedure when hunting for her prey
was simplicity itself. Even without wireless her seaplane was of
enormous assistance to her. If her "bird" had revealed the presence of a
ship more heavily armed than the _Wolf_ chose to tackle, she could
easily make herself scarce, while if the ship seen was not at all, or
but lightly armed, all that the _Wolf_ had to do was to wait for her on
the course she was taking.

Soon after leaving the Indian Ocean the seaplane had been taken to
pieces and placed in the 'tween decks, so that if the _Wolf_ had been
seen by another steamer, her possession of a seaplane would not have
been revealed.

The two ships proceeded on their new course at full speed for the next
two days. On the 21st they slowed down, hoping to coal in the open sea.
The next day both ships stopped, but the condition of the sea would not
admit of coaling; we were then said to be about 700 miles E. of Monte
Video. It was a great disappointment to the Germans that they were
prevented from coaling and spending their Christmas under the shelter of
Trinidad, but it became quite clear that all the holes for German
raiders in this part of the ocean had now been stopped, and that they
would have to coal in the open sea or not at all. Some of us thought the
Germans might go back to Tristan da Cunha, or even to Gough Island--both
British possessions in the South Atlantic--but the Germa