Max Hastings - The Secret War - Spies, Codes and Guerrillas 1939–1945

Second Officer Donald Stewart regained consciousness on the bridge to find his captain lying dead beside him. First Officer Peter Evan, knowing that protracted resistance was impossible, had dashed for the ship’s safe to destroy the confidential papers as soon as the enemy opened fire, but fell victim to the same shell that killed Ewan: Evan collapsed seriously wounded on the threshold of the captain’s cabin where the safe key was kept. In all, six crew members were now dead and twelve others wounded. Both ships stopped. Stewart and the deckhands watched grimly as a launch bore a boarding party from Atlantis to Automedon . A stream of shocked and scalded Chinese firemen emerged from a hatchway leading to the freighter’s engine room, where blast had caused steam leaks.

The Germans had planned to commandeer Automedon as a supply ship, but on seeing the scale of damage caused by their shells, instead they began to set scuttling charges. Lt. Ulrich Mohr, Atlantis ’s adjutant, made a hasty tour of the capture during which he blew open its safe, removing cash and confidential papers along with a weighted green canvas bag found in the chartroom, which Automedon ’s dead officers had been tasked to throw overboard in any emergency. The Germans enlisted the aid of British seamen to shift frozen meat, whisky and cigarettes to Atlantis , before the crew was transferred to the German ship. Personal money was confiscated, though their captors issued receipts for the contents of each man’s wallet. Captain Rogge was not only an excellent seaman and tactician, but a man of honour who took pains for the welfare of prisoners from the ships he seized on his remarkable eight-month cruise. Among the British personnel transferred to Atlantis were three passengers, including a chief engineer of the Straits Steamship Company named Alan Ferguson, and his thirty-three-year-old wife Violet, on passage to Singapore. Encountering the Atlantis was only the latest of several unfortunate adventures that had befallen Mrs Ferguson since her marriage in 1936, including a miscarriage and an enforced flight from France in June 1940 aboard the last ferry out of Bordeaux. Now, intensely emotional, she went to Captain Rogge and pleaded with him through tears to save her luggage – two trunks which contained almost all her worldly possessions, including a prized tea set. The German took pity. He signalled Mohr, still on the doomed Automedon

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