yet experienced.  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!  It was too dismal and uncomfortable for words, but we had either to endure that or our cold, wet cabins.  Sundays seemed to be the days on which the worst storms occurred, though on very few of the days from this time onwards did we have anything but very dirty weather.  The Australian stewardess became very ill with asthma, and with no adequate medicine supply on board, no suitable food, and no warm or dry cabin for her, it is indeed a miracle that she lived through these last few weeks.  She owes her life to the devotion of the Australian Major of the A.M.C. on board and the lady prisoners who assisted in nursing her.

On February 5th we again met the Wolf—­we had sighted her on the evening of the 4th, but it was too rough then to communicate, and, it was said, the Wolf did not recognize our rocket signals.  With the Wolf’s usual luck, the weather moderated next day, and the ships stopped.  Just as the Germans on land always seemed to get the weather they wanted, so they were equally favoured at sea.  This was noticed over and over again, and the Hitachi passengers had very good reason to be sick about this.  The two days previous to her capture the sea had been so rough that the “bird” could not go up, but on the actual day of the capture the sea had very much calmed down, enabling the seaplane to go up and spot the Hitachi’s position.

Those who had written letters to be sent on the Wolf sent them over on this day, and the Spanish chief mate expected to be sent on the Wolf, as we might not meet her again.  Luckily for him, however, for some reason or other he was not transferred that day, and neither he nor we ever saw the Wolf again after the morning of February 6th.  Doubtless the Wolf expected to meet us again before the final separation occurred, when the transference of the officer would have been effected.

We heard from the Wolf that she was getting very short of food, and that there was much sickness, including many cases of scurvy, on board.  The pigeons must have gone the way of all flesh by this time, and perhaps the dachshunds had too—­in the form of German sausages!  Some of the prisoners, we knew, had very little clothing, and positively none for cold weather, and our hearts were sore at the thought of so many of our fellow-countrymen, many of whom we had known, in good and ill fortune, being taken into captivity in Germany.