want to see or hear of this commodity again; we were fed on it till most
of us loathed it, but as there was nothing else to eat when it was
served, we perforce had to eat that or dry bread, and several of us
chose the latter. How we groaned when we saw any more crab being
brought over from the _Wolf_! Bully beef, every variety of bean, dried
vegetables, dried fish that audibly announced its advent to the table,
bean soup, and pea soup (maggot soup would often have been a more
correct description), we got just as sick of, till, long before the end,
all the food served nauseated us. Tea, sometimes made in a coffee-pot,
sometimes even with salt water, was the usual hot drink provided, but
coffee was for some time available once a day. We owe a great debt to
one of our fellow-prisoners, a ship's cook, captured from one of the
other ships, who in return for his offer to work as baker was promised
his liberty, which fortunately he has now secured, though no thanks to
the Germans. He baked, under the most difficult conditions,
extraordinarily good bread, and over and over again we should have gone
without food but for this. We were often very hungry, for there was
nothing to eat between "supper" at 5.30 and breakfast next morning at
8.30. The Captain had given each lady a large box of biscuits from the
_Hitachi_, and my wife and I used to eat a quarter of a biscuit each
before turning in for the night. We could not afford more--the box might
have to last us for many months.

We could not buy much on board. The only thing of which there seemed to
be plenty was whisky, all stolen from the captured ships. When our ship
ran short of this, more was sent over from the _Wolf_. We could buy this
at reasonable rates, but the supply was always supposed to be rationed.
Soap and toilet requisites became very scarce or failed altogether as
time went on. We could buy an infinitesimal piece of stolen toilet soap
for a not infinitesimal price, and were rationed as to washing soap and