The three prisoners signified their assent. After all, the German's stipulations were reasonable.
Von Riesser turned and conversed for a few minutes with his ober-leutnant. O'Hara, being ignorant of German, and Stirling having but a slight knowledge of the language, were unable to understand the drift of the conversation. Denbigh, on the other hand, was a fluent linguist, but he had already decided to keep that knowledge from his captors.
Presently Kapitan von Riesser produced a British Navy List. Somewhat to the British officers' surprise they noticed that it was dated "April 1916", or more than a twelvemonth since the last list had been obtainable by the public.
"You have qualified as an interpreter, I see," remarked von Riesser. "For what languages?"
"Hindustani, Swahili, and Arabic
