From this day onwards we lived in a condition of great misery, and death stared us in the face many times. The prospect was a gloomy one: just when my wife and I had reached the time to which we had been looking forward for many years it seemed daily increasingly unlikely that our lives could escape a violent and brutal ending. Such thoughts inevitably occurred to our minds during these dark and anxious days. But there was still to come even worse than we had yet experienced. It got colder and colder every day for a considerable time; the food got worse and worse, and we were on short rations; the ship became more and more dirty, smokes ran short--only some ancient dusty shag brought from Germany by the _Wolf_ and some virulent native tobacco from New Guinea remained--and conditions generally became almost beyond endurance. Darkness fell very early in these far northern latitudes, and the long nights were very dreary and miserable. What wretched nights we spent in that crowded saloon--crushed round the table attempting to read or play cards! It was too dismal and uncomfortable for words, but we had either to endure that or our cold, wet cabins. Sundays seemed to be the days on which the worst storms occurred, though on very few of the days from this time onwards did we have anything but very dirty weather. The Australian stewardess became very ill with asthma, and with no adequate medicine supply on board, no suitable food, and no warm or dry cabin for her, it is indeed a miracle that she lived through these last few weeks. She owes her life to the devotion of the Australian Major of the A.M.C. on board and the lady prisoners who assisted in nursing her. On February 5th we again met the _Wolf_--we had sighted her on the evening of the 4th, but it was too rough then to communicate, and, it was said, the _Wolf_ did not recognize our rocket signals. With the _Wolf's_ usual luck, the weather moderated next day, and the ships stopped. Just as the Germans on land always seemed to get the weather they wanted, so they were equally favoured at sea. This was noticed over and over again, and the _Hitachi_ passengers had very good reason to be sick about this. The two days previous to her capture the sea had been so rough that the "bird" could not go up, but on the actual day of the capture the sea had very much calmed down, enabling the seaplane to go up and spot the _Hitachi's_ position. Those who had written letters to be sent on the _Wolf_ sent them over on this day, and the Spanish chief mate expected to be sent on the _Wolf_, as we might not meet her again. Luckily for him, however, for some reason or other he was not transferred that day, and neither he nor we ever saw the _Wolf_ again after the morning of February 6th. Doubtless the _Wolf_ expected to meet us again before the final separation occurred, when the transference of the officer would have been effected.