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 _Woelfchen_ 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.

If only there had been a couple of crui