From here on all I could see ahead of me was the Gates of Germany and the certainty of spending from one to five years a hungry prisoner in a Teuton detention camp. I would have sold out cheap at this time, believe me. By this time I had given up all hopes of getting free and had reconciled myself to going to Germany.... If it had not been for the family I would have jumped overboard and had a swim for neutral land at some place when we passed fairly close. The following day while crossing from Norway to the northern end of Denmark, Jutland, it set in foggy and Lieutenant Rose was strutting around with a smile on his mug, saying: "Just the weather I want; made to order; I am all right now." I didn't argue the point with him, as I thought he was right. About 3.30 in the afternoon we picked up a fog whistle ahead, of the character we call a "blatter" on the Pacific Coast. I was standing on deck just under the bridge, talking to Rose. I nodded my head toward the signal and asked him what it was, and he said: "Oh, that is the lightship." I thought at the time it was a peculiar character for a lightship, but dismissed the thought, thinking, "different ships, different fashions." Rose had told the British Colonel that this signal was a German torpedo boat with which he had arranged a meeting, and that the Colonel had gone inside to tell the rest of the prisoner passengers, which would give them all a scare. He also suggested that I should go inside and tell them it was a U-boat, and that I recognised the sound of her signal. I laughed, and told him I had made so many remarks regarding the blockade that I was afraid to speak to them. Shortly after this I went into my cabin and was standing looking out of the port-hole and talking to my wife, when I noticed that we had altered our course, by the bearing of the fog signal, and knew that Rose wanted to pass the lightship close aboard. Suddenly I felt the vessel smell the bottom. I looked at the wife and said: "Holy Poker! I thought I felt her smell the bottom." No sooner had I said this than the _Igotz Mendi_ ran slap bang on the beach, about 350 yards off shore and less than half mile away from the lighthouse. Rose's mistaking the lighthouse signal for the lightship's signal was a lucky piece of business for us because I knew for an absolute certainty when I felt the _Igotz Mendi_ had taken the beach that it would require the assistance of a powerful tug to get her off again. I guess we all realised just how much this stranding meant to us, and the very nearness of freedom kept everybody quiet and busy with his own thoughts and plans. I know that for one I had decided to get over the side and swim for it, provided the vessel should give any indications of getting off the beach.