The interests of the _Wolf_ were now, to a certain extent, identical with our own--that we should not meet an Allied cruiser. A notice was posted in some of our cabins saying that in that event the women with their husbands, and some other prisoners, would be put into boats with a white flag, "if weather and other conditions permitted." We often wondered whether they _would_ permit! The other prisoners, however, viz. those under the poop and on the 'tween decks, would have had no chance of being saved. They would all have been battened down under hatches (this, indeed, was done whenever the _Wolf_ sighted or captured a ship, when mines were being sown, and when gun and other drill was carried on) and armed guards with hand grenades sent among them. It made us furious to see, as we did many times, our friends being driven below by armed guards. Their fate, if the _Wolf_ had gone into action, would have been too terrible to contemplate. For the lifeboats on the _Wolf_ could not possibly have accommodated more than 350 souls, and it is certain no prisoners would have been among this number. The Captain and officers of the _Wolf_ must have had some very anxious moments on many occasions. When passing close to other ships, as she had done in the comparatively narrow waters of the Java Sea, all the prisoners were sent below, and we were told that the few officers and crew visible to a passing ship discarded their naval uniform and appeared in kit suitable for the officers and crew of a tramp. We also heard that on one occasion in narrow waters in the Far East the _Wolf_ passed quite close to a Japanese cruiser at night. Both ships were in darkness, every man on the _Wolf_ was at his station, and at the slightest sign from the cruiser the _Wolf's_ guns and torpedoes would have immediately come into action. But the _Wolf's_ good luck did not desert her, and the Japanese cruiser passed away into the night without having given any sign that she had seen the raider.