The next day we entered the Arctic Circle.  The cold was intense, the cabins were icy, the temperature falling as low as 14 deg.  F. in some of them.  There was no heating apparatus on the ship, with the exception of a couple of small heating pipes in the saloon.  These were usually covered with the officers’ thick clothes, and some of the passengers’ garments drying.  The cabin curtains froze to the ports; all the cabin roofs leaked, and it was impossible to keep the floors and bedding dry; and in our cabin, in addition, we had water constantly flowing and swishing backwards and forwards between the iron deck of the ship and the wooden floor of the cabin.  This oozed up through the floor and accumulated under the settee, and on many nights we emptied five or six buckets full of icy water from under the settee, which had also to be used as a bed.  At last I persuaded the Captain to allow one of the sailors to drill a hole in the side of the cabin so that the water could have an outlet on to the deck.  I had asked that this might be done directly the water appeared in our cabin, but was told it was against the regulations of the Board of Trade!  Quoting the Board of Trade under such conditions—­was this a sample of German humour?  We managed to secure a piece of matting for our cabin floor—­it was soaked through every day, but we had it dried daily in the engine-room.  Since the great storm on the Kaiser’s birthday our feet had never been dry or warm, and were in this condition till some hours after we got ashore.

The ports of the cabins had all long ago been painted black in order that no light might show through, and the darkness at night, especially in these stormy seas, was always very sinister and ugly, not to say dangerous—­not a spark of light showing on deck.  We had to sit in these cold and dark cabins during the day.  The weather prevented us from being on deck, which was often covered with frost and snow, and often there was nowhere else to sit.  The electric light was on for only a limited time each day, so, as the ports could not be opened, it being far too cold, we asked and obtained permission to scratch a little of the paint off the ports in our cabin.  This made things a little more bearable, but it can easily be imagined how people who had been living in tropical climates for many years fared under such conditions.  As for our own case, my wife had spent only two winters out of Siam during the last twenty years, while I had spent none during the last twenty-one, and it is no exaggeration to say that we suffered agonies with the cold.  It was nothing short of cruel to expose women and children to this after they had been dragged in captivity over the seas for many months.  The Captain had ordered a part of the bunkers to be cleared, so that the prisoners might sit there in the cold weather.  But the place was so dirty and uncomfortable, and difficult of access, in addition to it being in darkness, and quite unprovided with seats, that most of the prisoners preferred the crowded little saloon.  Luchs was provided with a swanky kennel for the cold weather.  The Spanish carpenter contrived it, and it looked like a small model of a Norwegian church—­painted the Allied grey!  Even the Captain’s dog was more comfortable than we were!