The ship, generally speaking, was filthy--she was never properly clean. I remember on one occasion a large bottle of castor-oil was smashed just outside the saloon door. The stuff remained there for hours before being cleaned up. The crew certainly was not large, but a great deal more could have been done in the direction of keeping the ship clean, and her condition was never a credit to her Captain. This was a surprise to those of us who had previously travelled on German ships.
We got thoroughly sick of the food provided, but the German officers and crew had just the same. The _Hitachi_ had been carrying ten thousand cases of Japanese canned crab to England. A great part of this was saved, and divided between the _Wolf_ and her prize. None of us ever want to see or hear of this commodity again; we were fed on it till most of us loathed it, but as there was nothing else to eat when it was served, we perforce had to eat that or dry bread, and several of us chose the latter. How we groaned when we saw any more crab being brought over from the _Wolf_! Bully beef, every variety of bean, dried vegetables, dried fish that audibly announced its advent to the table, bean soup, and pea soup (maggot soup would often have been a more correct description), we got just as sick of, till, long before the end, all the food served nauseated us. Tea, sometimes made in a coffee-pot, sometimes even with salt water, was the usual hot drink provided, but coffee was for some time available once a day. We owe a great debt to one of our fellow-prisoners, a ship's cook, captured from one of the other ships, who in return for his offer to work as baker was promised his liberty, which fortunately he has now secured, though no thanks to the Germans. He baked, under the most difficult conditions, extraordinarily good bread, and over and over again we should have gone without food but for this. We were often very hungry, for there was nothing to eat between "supper" at 5.30 and breakfast next morning at 8.30. The Captain had given each lady a large box of biscuits from the _Hitachi_, and my wife and I used to eat a quarter of a biscuit each before turning in for the night. We could not afford more--the box might have to last us for many months.