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The better to ensure himself against Hojo designs, Shingen joined hands with the Satomi family in Awa, and the Satake family in Hitachi; while to provide against irruptions by the Uesugi family he enlisted the co-operation of the priests in Kaga, Echizen, and Noto. Shingen further established relations of friendship with Matsunaga Hisahide in the far west.
The next morning the transference of coal, cargo, and ship's stores from the Hitachi to the Wolf began, and went on without cessation day and night for the next five days. One of the German officers came over and took photos of the passengers in groups, and others frequently took snapshots of various incidents and of each other on different parts of the ship.
The natives on this atoll could have told the expedition that at any rate the Hitachi was not sunk there, as they saw the Wolf and her prize sail away at different times. The Hitachi's disappearance was attributed to a submarine, though it was not explained how one managed to operate in the Indian Ocean!
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.
Both the men under the poop and our fellow-passengers had armed guards over them those guarding the latter were good fellows and quite friendly and helpful to their charges. There were now more than four hundred prisoners on board, mostly British, some of whom had been captured in the February previous, as the Wolf had left Germany in November 1916, the Hitachi being the tenth prize taken.
One of our fellow-prisoners had been on the P. & O. Mongolia when she was sunk by one of the Wolf's mines off Bombay. Later on, on the Hitachi, he was caught by the mine-layer herself! But he defeated the enemy after all, as he escaped on the Igotz Mendi! One of the seafaring men with us had already been torpedoed by the Huns in the Channel. Within a fortnight he was at sea again.
Supper, consisting of tinned fruit and rice, was served out at 5.30, and we were then told that the married couples and one or two elderly men were to return to the Hitachi that night. So with some difficulty we clambered from the upper deck of the Wolf to the boat deck of the Hitachi and returned to find our cabins just as we had left them in a great hurry the day before.
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.
Along the Pacific coast, eastward of this fan, lie the provinces of Shimosa and Hitachi, where the Nitta and the Satake, respectively, gave employment for some time to the diplomatic and military resources of the Minamoto.
Both ships remained where they were for the night, abreast of and about four hundred yards distant from each other. At 9 a.m. on November 7th they moved off and manoeuvred. The Germans did not intend to sink the Hitachi where she was, but in deep water. To do this they had to sail some distance from the Nazareth Bank.
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