The "catched" vessel had stopped and was lying very near the _Wolf_. The name on her stern proclaimed her to be the _Igotz Mendi_, of Bilbao, and she was flying the Spanish flag. In a short time a prize crew, with Lieutenant Rose in command, left the _Wolf_ in her motor launch, and proceeded to the other ship. After they had been aboard her a few minutes, a message came back that the Spanish ship was from Delagoa Bay to Colombo with a cargo of 5,800 tons of coal for the British Admiralty authorities in Ceylon. So the Germans would not after all have to intern the _Wolf_ and her prize in a neutral country--if she could reach one--at any rate from lack of coal, as we fondly imagined might have been the case. Here was just the cargo our captors wanted to annex, but the chagrin of the Germans may be imagined when they realized that they had captured this ship just three days too late to save the _Hitachi_. Here was a ship with ample coal which, had it been captured a few days before, would have enabled the Germans to save the _Hitachi_ and take her as a prize to Germany, with all of us on board as prisoners, as they had always desired to do. Other German raiders had occasionally been able to do so with one or two of their prizes. Had the _Hitachi_ arrived in Germany, she would have been rechristened the _Luchs_, the name of a former German war vessel with which the Prize Captain had had associations.
The _Igotz Mendi_ had left Lourenço Marques on November 5th, and was due at Colombo on the 22nd. Before 9 a.m. on the morning of the capture both ships had turned about, the prize now being in command of the Germans, and were going back on the course the _Wolf_ had followed since the destruction of the _Hitachi_. Discussion was rife among the prisoners as to what would be done with the new capture, and whether the Commander of the _Wolf_ would redeem his promise to transfer the married couples to the "next ship caught."
The two ships steamed along in company for the next three days, usually stopping towards sunset for communications and sending orders. On Sunday, the 11th, we were invited to a band performance on the well deck forward. It was quite a good one. The first mate came along and jokingly said to us, "What more can you want? We give you a free passage, free food, and even free music." I replied, "We only want one more thing free." "What is that?" he asked. "Freedom," I answered. "Ah!" he said, smiling, "I am afraid you must wait for that a little time."