Frederic George Trayes

“ It is pleasing to be able to record, in a German-made war which has crowded into its four years such heartbreaking sorrow, misery, horror, and destruction as has surely never been known in a similar period in the world's history, and with Germany's unparalleled record of wickedness and calculated cruelty to her captives and those she wished to terrorize on land and sea, that there were still remaining some Germans who had retained some idea of more humane treatment towards those who had the misfortune to fall into their hands. ”

“ The Wolf was secure from all interference—nothing could avert the final tragedy. The many witnesses who would have helped the victim were powerless; we could but stand and watch with impotent fury and great sorrow and pity the inevitable fate to which the Hitachi was doomed, and of which the captors and captives on the Wolf were the only witnesses. But one man among us refused to look on—the Japanese Captain refused to be a spectator of the wilful destruction of his ship, which had so long been his home. ”

“ What would the New Year bring forth? Liberty, or continued captivity; life, or death at sea? On New Year's morning we wished each other good luck and a Happy New Year, but with the news of our captors' intentions given us on the preceding day our prospects were the reverse of rosy.
The two ships had parted on the evening of the 30th, both going north, and we did not see the Wolf again till the morning of January 4th. She was then seen to be overhauling a ship on the horizon. We followed at a short distance, and before long saw a ship in full sail. ”

“ We owe a great deal to her genial Captain and all her officers and crew, who one and all did what they could for us and were invariably kind and sympathized with us in our misfortunes and rejoiced with us at our escape. It may even have been due to the gentle persuasion of her Spanish crew that the Igotz Mendi made such a thorough job of running aground at Skagen. The Spaniards naturally regarded their captors with no friendly eye, and were as anxious as we were that their ship should not get to Germany. ”

“ There was telephonic communication between her bridge and every gun and every part of the ship; she carried a huge searchlight, her masts and funnel were telescopic, and she could rig an extra funnel. She carried large supplies of bombs, hand grenades, rifles and small arms; had hospitals with two doctors on board; the officers had the best and most powerful binoculars; among her crew of more than three hundred were representatives of every trade; she was thoroughly well equipped in every way, and absolutely nothing seemed to have been forgotten. ”

“ The two steamers had stopped; we did not know what was happening on board either of them, but saw the raider's motor launch going between the raider and her prize, picking up some of the men who had fallen into the sea when the boat capsized. Luckily, the sharks with which these waters are infested had been scared off by the gunfire. We realized, when we were in the lifeboats, what a heavy swell there was on the sea, as both steamers were occasionally hidden from us when we were in the trough of the waves. ”

“ Both ships were rolling heavily, and repeatedly bumping into each other, each ship quivering from end to end, and the funnel of the Igotz Mendi was visibly shaking at every fresh collision. Sleep was impossible for any one on our boat; in fact, many feared to turn in at all, as they thought some of the plates of the boats might be stove in. We wandered about from cabin to deck, and from deck to cabin, trying in vain to get to sleep. The Spanish Chief Engineer came to us on the deck about 4 a.m. ”

“ It got colder and colder every day for a considerable time; the food got worse and worse, and we were on short rations; the ship became more and more dirty, smokes ran short—only some ancient dusty shag brought from Germany by the Wolf and some virulent native tobacco from New Guinea remained—and conditions generally became almost beyond endurance. Darkness fell very early in these far northern latitudes, and the long nights were very dreary and miserable. What wretched nights we spent in that crowded saloon—crushed round the table attempting to read or play cards! ”

“ If only there had been a couple of cruisers disguised, like the Wolf, as tramps, each one carrying a seaplane or two, in each ocean free from submarine attentions, the Wolf could have been seen and her career brought to an end long before. The same end would probably have been attained on this occasion if a wireless message had been sent from Delagoa Bay to Colombo saying that the Igotz Mendi had left the former port for the latter with 5,000 tons of coal on board. ”

“ The German officers had a great feast and a jolly time on the Wolf. One cow and three pigs had been killed for the Christmas feast, but they did not go far between eight hundred people. The day before we had been served with some of the "in'ards," or, as the American said, the "machinery" of the poor beasts cut up into small pieces, even the lungs being used. Some of us turned up our noses at this, but the Captain assured us that if we ever did get to America or England we should find that the U boats had reduced our countries to such straits that even such "machinery" would be welcome food! ”

“ Even if she had stopped after the warning shots had been fired, no more firing would have taken place and nobody need have left the ship at all. What a vast amount of trouble, fear, anxiety, and damage to life and property might have been saved if only the raider's orders had been obeyed! It seemed too, at the time, that if only the Hitachi had turned tail and bolted directly the raider's smoke was seen on the horizon by the officer on watch on the bridge—at the latest this must have been about 1.30—she might have escaped altogether, as she was a much quicker boat than the German. ”

“ I have since been asked why the prisoners and Spaniards on the Spanish ship did not attack the prize crew and seize the ship when we were not in company with the Wolf. It sounds quite simple, but it must be remembered that although the prize crew was certainly a small one, they were well supplied with arms, bombs, and hand grenades, while the prisoners and Spaniards had no arms at all, as they had all been taken away by the Germans. Further, an attack of this kind would have been far worse than useless unless its absolute success could have been definitely assured. ”

“ For the men amongst us feared we might all be put upon the Wolf to be taken to Germany, leaving our wives on the Igotz Mendi. This, so we had been told, had been the intention of the Wolf's Commander when the prisoners were first put on the Spanish boat. He had ordered that only women, and prisoners above sixty and under sixteen should be put on the Igotz Mendi, but the German doctor, a humane and kindly man, would have nothing to do with this plan and declared he would not be responsible for the health of the women if this were done. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With Christmas Day came to an end for us a quarter of a year's captivity, and all the prisoners, at least, were glad when the dismal farce of Christmas under such conditions was over.
"This is the life," said the German sailor who supplied us with water twice daily. He was a very hardworked member of the prize crew, doing all sorts of odd jobs and always willing to help, and was said to be the black sheep of a high German family, which numbered among its members officers holding high commands in the German army and navy. ”

“ On such occasions the Wolf never dropped anchor, for she might have to be up and away at the slightest warning; the prize ship was always the one to drop anchor. On the previous Tuesday the Wolf had been lashed alongside the Hitachi; here, on this Tuesday, was the Wolf lashed alongside another captured ship in the very same place! Again the daring and coolness of our captors amazed us. Coaling the Wolf from the Igotz Mendi at once began, and a wireless installation was immediately rigged up by the Germans on the Spanish ship. ”

“ The American Captain had abandoned his sea calling for six years, and decided, at his wife's request, to make one more trip and take her to see her relatives in Newcastle, N.S.W. They never got there, but had eight months' captivity and landed in Denmark instead. Many sailors had left the Atlantic trade after encounters with the U boats in that ocean, only to be caught by the Wolf in the Pacific. One of the members of the Spanish crew had been a toreador, but his mother considered that calling too dangerous and recommended the sea as safer. Her son now thinks otherwise; perhaps she does too! ”

“ It must not be supposed that the life of the prisoners on the Igotz Mendi in any way approximated to that of passengers on an ordinary passenger ship. To begin with, there were no ship's servants to wait on us with the exception of the Spanish steward, a youth who "waited" at table and excelled in breaking ship's crockery. Often he poured the coffee over us, or into our pockets, instead of into our cups, and on one occasion, during a heavier roll than usual, he fell down in the middle of the saloon while carrying a tureen full of soup. ”

“ On one occasion even, the doctor of the Wolf went in the ship's motor launch to one of the islands to attend the wife of one of the native chiefs! On the next day—the 28th—all the Hitachi passengers returned on board her, and at the same time some of the Japanese stewards returned, but they showed no inclination to work as formerly. Indeed, the German officers had no little difficulty in dealing with them. They naturally felt very sore at the deaths of so many of their countrymen at the hands of the Germans, and they did as little work as possible. ”

“ The food we had was just sufficient to keep us alive, and that was all. This weather of course pleased the German Captain, who said that no enemy ship would or could board him under such conditions. In fact, he said no enemy vessel would be out of port in such weather! Only those supermariners, the Germans, could manage a ship under similar conditions! He told us we were much safer on the Igotz Mendi than we should be on a British cruiser, which might at any time be attacked by a German armed ship. ”

“ We shall have to live up to them now! We heard from the Nippon Yushen Kaisha in London that the Japanese authorities had sent an expedition to look for the Hitachi. The expedition called at the Maldives, and had there found, in the atoll where we had first anchored in the Wolf's company, a door from the Hitachi splintered by shell-fire and a case of cocoanut identified as having been put on board the Hitachi at Colombo. The natives on this atoll could have told the expedition that at any rate the Hitachi was not sunk there, as they saw the Wolf and her prize sail away at different times. ”

“ Some passengers had asked for boat drill when the ship left Singapore, but were told there was no need for it, or for any similar preparations till after Cape Town, which, alas, never was reached. Accordingly passengers had no places given to them in the boats; the boats were not ready, and confusion, instead of order, prevailed. It was nothing short of a miracle that more people were not drowned. ”

“ Johnson that "the man in gaol has more room, better food, and commonly better company than the man in the ship, and is in safety," and felt we would rather be in gaol on shore, for then we should be in no risk of being killed at any moment by our own people, our cells would have been larger than our cabins, and our food possibly not much worse, and our gaol would at least have been stationary and not rolling about, though it must be confessed the Wolf was a good sea boat. ”

“ The Germans had told us that, in the event of the prize being captured while the weather was rough, the ship would not be bombed or sunk, as they had no desire to endanger the lives of the women or children amongst us. In fact, so they said, the ship would not be bombed under any conditions when once the Wolf had got all the coal she wanted. It was indeed difficult to see what purpose would be served by the Germans sinking the Spanish ship, if she were overhauled by an Allied cruiser. The Allies could not keep her, as she would have to be restored to Spain ”

“ This we did; three boats went astern, and the one in which we were remained near the raider's bows. An officer appeared at the bulwarks and told us to come aboard; women first, then their husbands, then the single men. There was no choice but to obey, but we all felt uneasy in our minds as to what kind of treatment our women were to receive at the hands of the Germans on board.
The ship was rolling considerably, and it is never a pleasant or easy task for a landsman, much less a landswoman, to clamber by a rope-ladder some twenty feet up the side of a rolling ship. ”

“ Neither must be forgotten the old captains and mates and young boys—some of the latter making their first sea voyage—taken into captivity in Germany, where they have probably been exhibited as illustrating the straits to which the war, and especially the U boat part of it, has reduced the glorious British mercantile marine. Our young men friends on the Hitachi, and the hundreds of prisoners, some of them captured more than a year before from British ships, were all taken into Germany, there to remain in captivity till the war was over. ”

“ But the long-delayed opportunity had at last arrived, and our wildest hopes and dreams were realized. They had become solid fact, and the words flashed over the wires from Denmark to friends in Siam and relatives in England were: "Captured September 26th—proceeding Germany—ashore Denmark—lifeboat rescue—both well." The last two words were not, of course, strictly true, but they would at least serve to reassure our friends that we had been less unfortunate than only too many British captives in German hands. ”