THE RETURN PUSH. BY QUEX, 794 THE TEST. BY OSWALD WILDRIDGE, 641 THE UNKNOWN COLT. A STORY OF THE GALWAY PLATE. Br 502 THE WAR OFFICE IN WAR TIME. BY MAJOR-GENERAL SIR C. E. INDEX, 843 were LIFE on the Wolf was very different to life on the Hitachi. To begin with, all the single men of military age accommodated on the 'tween decks, and slept in hammooks, which they had to sling themselves. The elder men slept in bunks taken from the Hitachi, but the quarters of all in the 'tween dooks were very restricted; there was no privacy, no convenience, and only a screen divided the European and Japanese quarters. The condition of our fellow-countrymen from the Hitachi was the reverse of enviable, though it was a great deal better than that of the crews of captured ships, who were "accommodated" under the poop-where the captains and officers captured had quarters to them selves-and exercised on the VOL. CCIV.-NO. MCCXXXIII. V. poop and well-deck, the port side of which was reserved for the Japanese. There were between three and four hundred prisoners on board, mostly British, some of whom had been captured in the February previous, as the Wolf had left Germany in November 1916, the Hitachi being the tenth prize caught. The condition in which these prisoners lived cannot be too strongly condemned. The heat in the Tropics was insufferable, the overcrowding abominable, and on the poop there was hardly room to move. notwithstanding these hardships the men seemed to be merry and bright, and showed smiling faces to their captors. They had all evidently made up their minds to keep their end up to the last, and were not to be downed by any bad A But news or bad treatment the Germans might give them. The Wolf of course picked up wireless news every day, printed it, and circulated it throughout the ship in German and English. We did not, however, hear all the news that was picked up, but felt that what we did hear kept us at least a little in touch with the outside world; and we have since been able to verify that, and also to discover that we missed 8 great deal too. were dried, and had to be The accommodation provided for the married couples on the Wolf was situated on the port-side upper deck. The The "cabins" had been improvised when the first women and The deck we were only civilian prisoners were cap- allowed the port side-was tured, and other cabins had about six feet wide, and been carved out 88 the part of this was occupied by number of of these prisoners spare spars. Sailors and offiincreased. The cabins were cers and prisoners, to fetch of course small-there was their food, were passing along very little room to spare on this deck incessantly all day, the Wolf-and, at the best, so it can easily be imagined makeshift contrivances; but it there was not much room for must be admitted that our sitting about on deck-chairs. German captors did all they We were, however, allowed to could to make us 88 com- go down to the well-deck to fortable as possible under see our friends during the the conditions prevailing. The daytime. They had their meals married couples, the Austra- in the 'tween decks at differlian military officers, and a ent times to us, but the food few elderly civilians, messed provided was usually just the together in the officers' ward- same. same. The evenings were the room, quite quite a tiny saloon, deadliest hours of all on the which was placed at our Wolf. At dusk, the order disposal after the officers had "Schiff abblenden !" finished their meals. The food sounded all through the ship; on the Wolf was better cooked sailors came round to put tin than it had been on the plates over all the portholes, Hitachi, but there was of and from thence onward course no fresh food of any throughout the night comEven the potatoes potatoes plete darkness prevailed on kind. re 4 deck, not a glint of light showing anywhere. When the Wolf considered herself in dangerous waters, and when laying mines, even smoking was forbidden on deok. All the cabins had a device by which, directly the door was open, the light went out, only to be relit when the door closed. So it was impossible for any one to leave his cabin with the door open and the light on. There was nothing to do in the evenings after the last meal, which was over before eight o'clock, There was nowhere to sit, except on the dark deck or in the dark cabins, for it was so hot that the cabin doors had to be kept open; and the evenings spent on the Wolf were certainly very dreary. Most of us felt we would rather be in jail 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 jail would at least have been stationary and not rolling about, though, it must be confessed, the Wolf was a good sea boat, She had been one of the Hansa Line before the war, was about 6000 tons, with a speed of about ten knots at the outside. She had been thoroughly adapted for her work as a raider: had four torpedo tubes and six guns (said to be 4'7), not to mention machine and smaller guns, none of which could be seen by a passing ship, to which the Wolf looked, as she was intended to look, exactly like an innocent tramp. When in action her bulwarks dropped, giving free play to her guns and torpedoes. There was telephone 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; among her crew of more than three hundred were representatives of every trade; she was thoroughly well equipped in every way; the officers had the best and most powerful binoculars, and absolutely nothing seemed to have been forgotten. There were, it was said, only three of the officers who were Imperial Navy men- the Commander, the artillery officer, and the lieutenant in charge of the prisoners. All the other officers and a great many of the crew were from the German mercantile marinę, who had travelled with, mixed with, and lived with Englishmen in many parts of the world. To this fact we undoubtedly owed the kindly treatment we received on board-treatment which was infinitely better than we expected to receive. The majority of the officers and men were certainly kindly disposed towards us. There is no doubt, however, the fear that we might be taken by a British cruiser also had something to do with this treatment; for if we had been treated badly the Germans knew they would have cause to regret it. We were forbidden to talk to the crew, but under cover of the darkness some, a great number of whom spoke English, were only too glad to speak to us. We learned from them that the Wolf had been out a year, that they were all very "fed up" with it, tired of the life, tired of the sea, tired of the food, longing to get home, and longing for the war to end. They had, too, no doubts as to how the war would end, and were certain that the Wolf would get back to Germany whenever she wished to do so. They were certain three things would bring them victory their submarines, the defection of Russia, who would soon be made to conclude peace with Germany, and the fact that in their opinion America had entered the war too late. The interests of the Wolf were now to a certain extent identical with our own that we should not meet an Allied oruiser. A notice was posted in some of our cabins saying in that event the women with their husbands, and some other prisoners, would be put into boats with a white flag, "if weather and other conditions permitted." The other prisoners, however viz., those under the poop and on the 'tween decks-would have had no chance of being saved. They would all have been battened down under hatches (this, indeed, was done whenever the Wolf sighted or captured a ship, and when gun and other drill was carried on), and armed guards supplied with hand-grenades sent among them. Their fate, if the Wolf had gone into action, would have been too terrible to contemplate, and it is certain very few of them could have been saved. The Wolf, with a company of over 700 on board, sailed away on 8 south-westerly course for the next two days, and the usual routine of the ship went on, but no further drills took place. Soon after daybreak on Nov. 10, a sailor locked us all in our cabins, armed guards patrolled the deck, and a short time after an officer came to each cabin and informed us that there was a steamer on the starboard side which the Wolf intended to capture. He told us the Wolf would fire on her to stop, and provided all of us with cotton wool to insert in our ears while the guns were being fired! We waited for the sound of the guns, but nothing happened, and in about half an hour the same officer came along and said to us, "Don't be fearful, the other ship has stopped and there will be no firing!" Our cabin doors were unlocked, the men on the upper deck were allowed out, the ladies were requested not to show themselves, and another officer ran along the deck saying, "We've catched her, we've catched her-a neutral this time." The "catched " vessel had stopped and was lying very near the Wolf. The |