With their usual thoroughness, the Germans one day examined all our passports and took notes of our names, ages, professions, maiden names of married ladies, addresses, and various other details. My passport described me as "Principal of Training College for Teachers." So I was forthwith dubbed "Professor" by the Germans, and from this time henceforth my wife and I were called Frau Professor and Herr Professor, and this certainly led the sailors to treat us with more respect than they might otherwise have done. One young man, who had on his passport his photo taken in military uniform, was, however, detained on the _Wolf_ as a military prisoner. He was asked by a German officer if he were going home to fight. He replied that he certainly was, and pluckily added, "I wish I were fighting now."
On October 1st the married prisoners from the _Wolf_, together with three Australian civilian prisoners over military age, a Colonel of the Australian A.M.C., a Major of the same corps, and his wife, with an Australian stewardess, some young boys, and a few old sea captains and mates, were sent on board the _Hitachi_. They had all been taken off earlier prizes captured and sunk by the _Wolf_. The Australians had been captured on August 6th from the s.s.[2] _Matunga_ from Sydney to what was formerly German New Guinea, from which latter place they had been only a few hours distant. An American captain, with his wife and little girl, had been captured on the barque _Beluga_, from San Francisco to Newcastle, N.S.W., on July 9th. All the passengers transferred were given cabins on board the _Hitachi_. We learnt from these passengers that the _Wolf_ was primarily a mine-layer, and that she had laid mines at Cape Town, Bombay, Colombo, and off the Australian and New Zealand coasts. She had sown her last crop of mines, 110 in number, off the approaches to Singapore before she proceeded to the Indian Ocean to lie in wait for the _Hitachi_. Altogether she had sown five hundred mines.
During her stay in the Maldives the _Wolf_ sent up her seaplane--or, as the Germans said, "the bird"--every morning about six, and she returned about eight. To all appearances the coast was clear, and the _Wolf_ consequently anticipated no interference or unwelcome attention from any of our cruisers. Two of them, the _Venus_ and the _Doris_, we had seen at anchor in Colombo harbour during our stay there, but it was apparently thought not worth while to send any escort with the _Hitachi_, though the value of her cargo was said to run into millions sterling; and evidently the convoy system had not yet been adopted in Eastern waters. A Japanese cruiser was also in Colombo harbour when we arrived there, preceded by mine-sweepers, on September 24th. The _Hitachi_ Captain and senior officers visited her before she sailed away on the 25th. The Germans on the _Wolf_ told us that they heard her wireless call when later on she struck one of their mines off Singapore, but the Japanese authorities have since denied that one of their cruisers struck a mine there.