heir homes and families, they were to languish
for months in a German internment camp. Neither must be forgotten the
old captains and mates and young boys--some of the latter making their
first sea voyage--taken into captivity in Germany, where they have
probably been exhibited as illustrating the straits to which the war,
and especially the U boat part of it, has reduced the glorious British
mercantile marine. Our young men friends on the _Hitachi_, and the
hundreds of prisoners, some of them captured more than a year before
from British ships, were all taken into Germany, there to remain in
captivity till the war was over.

I thought, until our timely rescue came, that our own case was a fairly
hard one. I had retired from Government service in Siam, after spending
twenty years there, and we had decided to spend some months at least,
possibly "the duration," or even longer, in South Africa before
proceeding home. It seemed hard lines that after twenty years in the Far
East we were to come to Europe only to be imprisoned in Germany! We have
escaped that, but our plans have gone hopelessly astray, for which I
will _never_ forgive the Huns, and our health has not improved by the
treatment on our long voyage. But although we took six months to get
from Siam to London, the Germans have succeeded in getting us home much
earlier than we, or they, anticipated. I had been shipwrecked on my
first voyage out to Siam in 1897, and on my last voyage home, twenty
years after, had been taken prisoner and again shipwrecked! So my
account was nicely balanced! But the culminating touch of escaping
imprisonment in Germany by shipwreck was indeed wonderful!

Fortunately, one usually forgets the miseries of sea travel soon after
one gets ashore. But never, I think, will one of us forget our long
captivity at sea with our enemies; neither shall we forget the details
of our capture and imprisonment, the dreary days and still drearier
nights on the _Wolf_ and _Igotz Mendi_, especially those spent in the
icy north. Every detail of it all and of our wonderful escape at the
last moment stands out so vividly in our memories. And assuredly, not
one of us will ever forget the canned crab, the bully beef, the beans,
_and_ the roll of the _Igotz Mendi_.

Printed in Great Britain by
UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED
WOKING AND LONDON

Selection from Headley's List of Books

THE YEAR 1918 ILLUSTRATED

EDITED BY S. GR