but they would at
least serve to reassure our friends that we had been less unfortunate
than only too many British captives in German hands.

The same afternoon we walked back to the beach to see if we could go
aboard the stranded ship to retrieve our luggage, but the sea was far
too rough to allow of this, and the German and Spanish crew had not been
taken off. While on the beach we saw two floating mines exploded by a
Danish gunboat. We had not only had a narrow escape from the Germans,
but also from the dangers of a minefield. The next day was also too
rough for us to go aboard; in fact, it was so rough that the lifeboat
went out and took everybody off the ship, both Spanish and German. The
Spanish first mate was thus saved, and after all did not serve his
sentence in Germany. We congratulated him once more on his lucky escape.
He had escaped even more than we had. It was reported that a German
submarine appeared to take off the German officers on this day, but as
it was too rough to lower the boats this could not be contrived.

The _Igotz Mendi_ was now deserted, but as the Danish authorities had
adjudged her, twenty-four hours after her stranding, to be a Spanish
ship, she had reverted to her original owners. Accordingly, before
leaving her the Spanish Captain had hoisted the Spanish flag at her
stern, the first time that or any other flag had appeared there since
that November morning when the Germans had captured her far away in the
Indian Ocean. She was no longer a German prize. She would have been the
only one the _Wolf_ had secured to take home--a neutral ship with only a
few tons of coal on board, and a few married couples, and sick and
elderly men as prisoners--not much to show for a fifteen months' cruise;
and even that small prey was denied the Germans, though the _Wolf_ had
certainly carried home a valuable cargo and some hundreds of prisoners,
besides doing considerable damage to the shipping of the Allies.

The position of the stranded ship was a unique one. She was a neutral
ship, a German prize, stranded in neutral waters, with a crew composed
of Germans and neutral prisoners, and carrying twenty passenger
prisoners of many enemy nationalities--English, Australian, American,
Japanese, Chinese, and Indian; of these fifteen were European, and in
the company were nine women and two children.

Never was there a more dramatic turning of the tables; the Germans were
now interned and we were free. The Ger