A PIRATE CRUISE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 260, 28 July 1921, Page 6

A PIRATE CRUISE

NEW ZEALAND PRISONER IN GERMANY' TALES OF THE SAXON SALT MINES BAYONET WOUND SEWN WITH THREAD 11. To-day, James Donnelly concludes his story of the cruise of the Wolf, and tho prison camps of Germany, commenced in yesterday’s Dominion. He says, in tho course of the interview with ft reporter : —• Now comes tho story of the entrance Into Germany, a Germany still obsessed with the war fever, with the bloody teachings of Nietzsche and of Bernhardi, with the Hymn of Hate still drumming in its ears. For 14 days, Donnelly continues, the pirate lay outside Kiel, in company with another cruiser that had advanced gingerly out of the fastness of tho canal to meet her. But the captured Spaniard never saw Germany, for her prize crew was not good enough to take her through the perilous channels of the Skagerack, and she ran ashore on the Danish coast. There tho German crew were interned, and the English civilian passengers sent back to England. Donnelly's description of tho triumphal entry of the Wolf is graphic. "As we approached the canal,"' he said to the reporter, "we could see for miles two rows of German warships—that fleet that trajned its men to be carpet-knights in the Kiel pond. Ah wo approached, there came flying down at full speed— would you “think ?—the new Emden, with a. gigantic iron cross painted on her hows. Tho Germans evidently thought the sinking by the Sydney of Die other Emden was not a defeat. On sides tho bands were playing the ’Watch on the Rhine’ and 'DeutschUnd über Alles.’ It was an imposing sight. . . . When we got to Kiel itself, all the high admirals and staff, together with army officers, camo aboard. Things were in a state with us prisoners. One hundred and fifty of us were suffering from ecurvy, owing to the lack of fresh food, ami were in a bad way. Some of the Wolf’s crew also had the complaint. Beforj we landed they gave us each a- quarter of a pound of beef and tobacco. Our allowance of tobacco on board had been two ounces each a month!" To Prison Camps. The transportation to the prison camps soon followed. Tho first batch, of which Donnelly was a member, went to Mecklenburg, on the shores of tho Baltic Sea. The unfortunate men were placed 50 in a truck, without any seating accommodation, on a journey that took from G a.m. on one day until 2 p.m on the other. "For that journey, grimly smiled the Dominion's informant, "the only food we were given was one bowl of soup. None of us had overcoats, although it was snowing hard, and the majority of us were dressed jn dungarees. It was March, and bitter. When we got to tho camp it was snowin" hard, there being about three feet of°snow on the ground. One old man Dick Ball, from Auckland—had bare feet, and when we arrived he bravely walked along in the snow. this was o’clock in the morning, for »we had been herded at the station for some hours and set. out on a five hours march at about 9 o’clock. The crowning insult was when wo got there. The s e " t ”® s shouted out to us to get our two blankets. 'Those blankets were lying in the snow! It was heart-breaking. M o were then shoved into huge sheds, each of which, contained IGO men. Next mornin- we could hardly move from cold and rheumatism. M'e got some relief about inkt-dav when the British Red > prisoners brought us each a cup of cocoa and a biscuit.” in the Salt Mines. Donnelly has vivid recollections of "transport." Each prisoner was given a number and hud to look every day to see if he was picked for transport. Donnelly was picked two days after his arrival. It was then that he was sent to the famous salt mines in Saxony. His experiences there were terrible; some of them cannot even be mentioned, but he tells of them with thq same smile that was the hall-mark of tho British merchant seaman throughout the war. •*We lived in the mines lor a month at a time,” ho said. “They are huge places electrically lighted, and extending miles and miles under tho ground. Me had our kitchens and our sleeping quarters there, and wereonly allowed up once a month for a breath of fresh air. Then the respite was very short. It was a'N-ny. I bad only three months of it, but there were men who were there for years. And your leg wound? asked the reporter. ~ 1 "Well,” answered Donnelly, I smacked a sentry,” he smiled. "IVe had 'been missing food from the packets sent us by the New Zealand Red Cross. At last we found a sentry stealing our tea, so wo accosted him and charged him with the ft it. He called us liars, and we called him a liar, and the r&ult was that I hit him and he 'bayoneted me. I was practically unconscious for a fortnight.” . Was there any ambulance in the san mines? askoed the interviewer. Donnelly laughed. "Ambulance? My dear man, had not a friend of mine stitched up the flesh with brown thread like a pig hunter sewing up a ripped dog I would have died. There was no chloroform, and 1 fainted a few times during the sewing up, I can tell you. The Huns aro a charitable crowd! But it’s all healed now. The wound in my back ran for about a year, and I was never bandaged by the Germans aR the time I was in Germany. . . . From there I did a month’s imprisonment for my 'crime’ in hitting tho sentry, and then was sent to a strafe lager, or punishment camp, in Lille. My next period of slavery was at the Nord Deutscher Fabriken, where they made railway trucks, and from there I went to Bremen, whore I was employed as a mail carrier. Tint was the German way of making one mortified. I had to wheel a mailcart round the streets, followed by an armed soldier. The Inhabitants showed their dislike on severe! occasions. They gave mo a paper suit there—and it was not fashionable. I can ball you.'* End at Last. Then the war ended. Donnelly was still working in Bremen when the armistice was signed. He was at a doctor’s residence one morning when he was told of tho news, and on arrival back at the Prisonnier Gefangen Lager lie found that 2000 prisoners had refused duty I'ranch, Russians, Irish Guardsmen, Australians, and New Zealandein. "The guards were furious," he said, "and refused to gave us any food. Then they shot through tho walls of the hut to keep us quiet, and killed about ten men. . . ." “Tho coming of the revolution made us free men, and tho Spartacists eaid wo could go to the border. But none of us had any money—wo were only given three marks n week, and one cigarette cost a mark—so we just walked around Bremen until the interchange of prisoners started. I went to Rulileben, ami then, with the first batch of released men,’ to Denmark. I spent a month in hospital, and was sent to Leith by the Willochra. That was in January, 1919. We got off the boat in our wooden boots and paper suits, and there was no one to meet us, and we had no money, until the Prinoj M M’ales Fund helped us. In London, chj High Commissioner, fet, Thomas Mackenzie, gave us further assistance—and here I am.’’

Donnelly walked towards the Queen’s Wharf. “I siiv.” he concluded, “just say I was one of t' lo treated, wiH you? Other poor chaps got much worse.”