Life on the Wolf was very different from life on the Hitachi.  To begin with, all the single men of military age from the Hitachi were accommodated on the ’tween decks, and slept in hammocks which they had to sling themselves.  The elder men among them slept in bunks taken from the Hitachi, but the quarters of all in the ’tween decks 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 now the reverse of enviable, though it was a great deal better than that of the crews of the captured ships, who were “accommodated” under the poop—­where the Captains and officers captured had quarters to themselves—­and exercised on the poop and well deck, the port side of which was reserved for the Japanese.  The Germans did not forbid us to enter the quarters where our fellow-passengers were confined, but it was obvious that they did not like our doing so, after the lies they had told us concerning the wonderful alterations made in these quarters for their prisoners’ “comfort.”  One day I managed to sneak unobserved into the prisoners’ quarters under the poop in the ’tween decks, where hundreds of men were confined, but I had the misfortune to run up against the Lieutenant in charge and was promptly ordered out before I could have a good look round.  But I had seen enough!  Both the men under the poop and our fellow-passengers had armed guards over them—­those guarding the latter were good fellows and quite friendly and helpful to their charges.

There were now more than 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 taken.  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.  While anchored near Sunday Island in the Pacific some months earlier, two of the British prisoners taken from the first prize captured managed to escape.  Their absence was not noticed by the Germans till a fortnight later, as up to then there had been no daily roll-call, an omission which was at once rectified directly these two men were noted missing.  As a punishment, the prisoners aft were no longer allowed to exercise on the poop, but were kept below.  The heat and stifling atmosphere were inconceivable and cruel.  The iron deck below presented the appearance of having been hosed—­in reality it was merely the perspiration streaming off these poor persecuted captives that drenched the deck.  The attention of the ship’s doctor was one day called to this, and he at once forbade this inhuman confinement in future.  From then onwards, batches of the prisoners were allowed on the poop at a time, so that every man could obtain at least a little fresh air a day—­surely the smallest concession that could possibly be made to men living under such wretched conditions.