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The Captain said we might write these letters, which would not be posted if the Igotz Mendi with us on board got back safely to Spain. "But," he added, "we have changed our plans, and now intend that you should be landed in Norway. It will be safer for you all, and you will not have to risk meeting our submarines in the Atlantic again.
There was, too, the case of the Australians taken prisoner on the S.S. Matunga. The women and military doctors had certainly escaped on the Igotz Mendi, but there were taken into Germany from the Matunga three military officers and three elderly married civilians over military age.
There did not seem much point in censoring letters, as the prisoners on the Igotz Mendi and the Wolf were allowed to talk to each other a day or so after the letters were sent, and although a German sentry was on guard while these conversations were going on, it was possible for the prisoners to say what they liked to each other, as the sentry could only have caught an occasional word or two.
The Igotz Mendi was some time afterwards towed off into deep water, and after repairs left Danish waters and proceeded to Spain, after loading up with a full cargo of coal at Newcastle.
The same end would probably have been attained on this occasion if a wireless message had been sent from Delagoa Bay to Colombo saying that the Igotz Mendi had left the former port for the latter with 5,000 tons of coal on board.
She bumped into us with considerable force when she came up, and not many of us on board the Igotz Mendi will ever forget that night of terror. Both ships were rolling heavily, and repeatedly bumping into each other, each ship quivering from end to end, and the funnel of the Igotz Mendi was visibly shaking at every fresh collision.
For the men amongst us feared we might all be put upon the Wolf to be taken to Germany, leaving our wives on the Igotz Mendi. This, so we had been told, had been the intention of the Wolf's Commander when the prisoners were first put on the Spanish boat.
The Igotz Mendi had come off better. None of her plates were dented, she was making no water, and the only visible signs of damage to her were many twisted and bent stanchions on the port side that met the Wolf.
We had been encouraged by the Germans to think they had in fact definitely told us that the Igotz Mendi with us on board was to be sent to Spain when the Germans released her.
Lieutenant Rose, however, was au fait with the latest English slang, and always used it correctly. The Igotz Mendi, 4,600 tons, had been completed in 1916, and was a ship admirably fitted for her purpose, which, however, was not that of carrying passengers. Ordinarily she was a collier, or carried iron ore. Her decks were of iron, scorchingly hot in the tropics and icy cold in northern latitudes.
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