when my wife and I had reached the time to which we had been looking
forward for many years it seemed daily increasingly unlikely that our
lives could escape a violent and brutal ending. Such thoughts inevitably
occurred to our minds during these dark and anxious days. But there was
still to come even worse than we had yet experienced. It got colder and
colder every day for a considerable time; the food got worse and worse,
and we were on short rations; the ship became more and more dirty,
smokes ran short--only some ancient dusty shag brought from Germany by
the _Wolf_ and some virulent native tobacco from New Guinea
remained--and conditions generally became almost beyond endurance.
Darkness fell very early in these far northern latitudes, and the long
nights were very dreary and miserable. What wretched nights we spent in
that crowded saloon--crushed round the table attempting to read or play
cards! It was too dismal and uncomfortable for words, but we had either
to endure that or our cold, wet cabins. Sundays seemed to be the days on
which the worst storms occurred, though on very few of the days from
this time onwards did we have anything but very dirty weather. The
Australian stewardess became very ill with asthma, and with no adequate
medicine supply on board, no suitable food, and no warm or dry cabin for
her, it is indeed a miracle that she lived through these last few weeks.
She owes her life to the devotion of the Australian Major of the A.M.C.
on board and the lady prisoners who assisted in nursing her.

On February 5th we again met the _Wolf_--we had sighted her on the
evening of the 4th, but it was too rough then to communicate, and, it
was said, the _Wolf_ did not recognize our rocket signals. With the
_Wolf's_ usual luck, the weather moderated next day, and the ships
stopped. Just as the Germans on land always seemed to get the weather
they wanted, so they were equally favoured at sea. This was noticed over
and over again, and the _Hitachi_ passengers had very good reason to be