It was here that the married folks with their wives along, sent a written petition to the Commander of the _Wolf_, begging to be given one of the _Hitachi_ life-boats and a supply of provisions, so that on the eve of the _Wolf's_ departure for parts unknown, we could make our way to one of these islands and there await the arrival of some trading schooner to take us to civilisation again. Nerger sent word back that he could not do that, and repeated the same old "bull" about landing us in some safe place, some time. Lord, he must have thought we were a bunch of "gillies" to believe that guff. On October 1st we were transferred from the _Wolf_ to the _Hitachi_ along with all the rest of the "top side" prisoners. Our quarters on the _Hitachi_ were splendid. We fell heir to the bridal suite. It seemed mighty good to sit down at a regular table with a white cloth and napkins again. I shall never forget my feelings as we sat there for the first meal, waiting for the whitecoated Jap waiter to bring on the food. I could feel myself getting up from the table with that satisfied, contented feeling amidships. Soon the waiter came and set before us each a plate containing two ordinary soda crackers or ships' biscuits, with a poor lonely god-forsaken sardine stranded on the top. This, and a cup of the regulation "near" coffee comprised our first evening meal on the _Hitachi Maru_. For the following morning's breakfast we had porridge with kerosene spilt on it. Absolutely uneatable. For dinner, rotten meat with good potatoes, water--or soda water, if you had money to buy it with--and in the evening canned crab and crackers. In the meantime our commander, Lieutenant Rose, was having a banquet in his room with his brother officers on the _Wolf_. On the _Hitachi_ it was noticed that Rose very seldom made his appearance in the dining room at mealtimes. Quite frequently at meals one of the Australian passengers who belonged to Lieut. Rose's bridge-playing clique, would send a card up to his room asking if it were not possible to have an extra slice of bread or a cracker. The answer would come back: "Sure, boys, just ask the steward." But on asking the Jap steward he would only smile and say: "Velly sorry, but Captain write his name each day on paper that speaks how much you eat." This was the fact, as I have seen the paper. The German chief engineer and chief mate used to eat at the same table as we did, and used to complain of the food as being inadequate; and one night the chief engineer took the matter up with Rose and told him a few truths. Rose said that it was "too bad," that he did not know anything about it before but now he would straighten it up. The engineer told Rose that if he cut out a lot of his private champagne suppers and looked into what the rest of us were getting it would not be necessary to make these complaints.