He apologized profusely for the discomfort which the ladies and ourselves would have to put up with—­“But it is war, you know, and your Government is to blame for allowing you to travel when they know a raider is out”—­assured us he would do what he could to make us as comfortable as possible, and that we should not be detained more than two or three days.  This was the first of a countless number of lies told us by the Germans as to their intentions concerning us.

We had had nothing to eat since tiffin, so we were ordered below to the ’tween decks to have supper.  We clambered down a ladder to partake of our first meal as prisoners.  What a contrast to the last meal we enjoyed on the Hitachi, taken in comfort and apparent security! (But, had we known it, we were doomed even then, for the raider’s seaplane had been up and seen us at 11 a.m., had reported our position to the raider, and announced 3 p.m. as the time for our capture.  Our captors were not far out!  It was between 2.30 and 3 when we were taken.) The meal consisted of black bread and raw ham, with hot tea in a tin can, into which we dipped our cups.  We sat around on wooden benches, in a small partitioned-off space, and noticed that the crockery on which the food was served had been taken from other ships captured—­one of the Burns Philp Line, and one of the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand.  Some of the Japanese officers and crew were also in the ’tween decks—­later on the Japanese Captain appeared (we had not seen him since he left the Hitachi saloon after tiffin), and he was naturally very down and distressed—­and some of the German sailors came and spoke to us.  Shortly after, the young Lieutenant came down and explained why the raider, which the German sailors told us was the Wolf, had fired on us.  We then learnt for the first time that many persons had been killed outright by the firing—­another direct result of the Hitachi’s failure to obey the raider’s orders to stop.  It was impossible to discover how many.  There must have been about a dozen, as the total deaths numbered sixteen, all Japanese or Indians; the latest death from wounds occurred on October 28th, while one or two died while we were on the Wolf.  The Lieutenant, who we afterwards learnt was in charge of the prisoners, told us that the Wolf had signalled us to stop, and not to use our wireless or our gun, for the Hitachi mounted a gun on her poop for the submarine zone.  He asserted that the Hitachi hoisted a signal that she understood the order, but that she tried to use her wireless, that she brought herself into position to fire on the Wolf, and that preparations were being made to use her gun.  If the Hitachi had manoeuvred at all, it was simply so that she should not[1] present her broadside as a target for a torpedo from the raider.