LAST EXPLOITS OF BECKER
_September--November_ 1888
Brandeis had held all day by Mulinuu, expecting the reported real
attack. He woke on the 13th to find himself cut off on that unwatered
promontory, and the Mataafa villagers parading Apia. The same day Fritze
received a letter from Mataafa summoning him to withdraw his party from
the isthmus; and Fritze, as if in answer, drew in his ship into the
small harbour close to Mulinuu, and trained his port battery to assist
in the defence. From a step so decisive, it might be thought the German
plans were unaffected by the disastrous issue of the battle. I conceive
nothing would be further from the truth. Here was Tamasese penned on
Mulinuu with his troops; Apia, from which alone these could be
subsisted, in the hands of the enemy; a battle imminent, in which the
German vessel must apparently take part with men and battery, and the
buildings of the German firm were apparently destined to be the first
target of fire. Unless Becker re-established that which he had so lately
and so artfully thrown down--the neutral territory--the firm would have
to suffer. If he re-established it, Tamasese must retire from Mulinuu.
If Becker saved his goose, he lost his cabbage. Nothing so well depicts
the man's effrontery as that he should have conceived the design of
saving both,--of re-establishing only so much of the neutral territory
as should hamper Mataafa, and leaving in abeyance all that could
incommode Tamasese. By drawing the boundary where he now proposed,
across the isthmus, he protected the firm, drove back the Mataafas out
of almost all that they had conquered, and, so far from disturbing
Tamasese, actually fortified him in his old position.
The real story of the negotiations that followed we shall perhaps never
learn. But so much is plain: that while Becker was thus outwardly
straining decency in the interest of Tamasese, he was privately
intriguing, or pretending to intrigue, with Mataafa. In his despatch of
the 11th, he had given an extended criticism of that chieftain, whom he
depicts as very dark and artful; and while admitting that his assumption
of the name of Malietoa might raise him up followers, predicted that he
could not make an orderly government or support himself long in sole
power "without very energetic foreign help." Of what help was the consul
thinking? There was no helper in the field but Germany. On the 15th he
had an interview with the victor; told him that Tamasese's was the only
government recognised by Germany, and that he must continue to recognise
it till he received "other instructions from his government, whom he was
now advising of the late events"; refused, accordingly, to withdraw the
guard from the isthmus; and desired Mataafa, "until the arrival of these
fresh instructions," to refrain from an attack on Mulinuu. One thing of
two: either this language is extremely perfidious, or Becker was
preparing to change sides. The same detachment appears in his despatch
of October 7th. He computes the losses of the German firm with an easy
cheerfulness. If Tamasese get up again _(gelingt die Wiederherstellung
der Regierung Tamasese's)_, Tamasese will have to pay. If not, then
Mataafa. This is not the language of a partisan. The tone of
indifference, the easy implication that the case of Tamasese was already
desperate, the hopes held secretly forth to Mataafa and secretly
reported to his government at home, trenchantly contrast with his
external conduct. At this very time he was feeding Tamasese; he had
German sailors mounting guard on Tamasese's battlements; the German
war-ship lay close in, whether to help or to destroy. If he meant to
drop the cause of Tamasese, he had him in a corner, helpless, and could
stifle him without a sob. If he meant to rat, it was to be with every
condition of safety and every circumstance of infamy.
Was it conceivable, then, that he meant it? Speaking with a gentleman
who was in the confidence of Dr. Knappe: "Was it not a pity," I asked,
"that Knappe did not stick to Becker's policy of supporting Mataafa?"
"You are quite wrong there; that was not Knappe's doing," was the reply.
"Becker had changed his mind before Knappe came." Why, then, had he
changed it? This excellent, if ignominious, idea once entertained, why
was it let drop? It is to be remembered there was another German in the
field, Brandeis, who had a respect, or rather, perhaps, an affection,
for Tamasese, and who thought his own honour and that of his country
engaged in the support of that government which they had provoked and
founded. Becker described the captain to Laupepa as "a quiet, sensible
gentleman." If any word came to his ears of the intended manoeuvre,
Brandeis would certainly show himself very sensible of the affront; but
Becker might have been tempted to withdraw his former epithet of quiet.
Some such passage, some such threatened change of front at the
consulate, opposed with outcry, would explain what seems otherwise
inexplicable, the bitter, indignant, almost hostile tone of a subsequent
letter from Brandeis to Knappe--"Brandeis's inflammatory letter,"
Bismarck calls it--the proximate cause of the German landing and reverse
at Fangalii.
But whether the advances of Becker were sincere or not--whether he
meditated treachery against the old king or was practising treachery
upon the new, and the choice is between one or other--no doubt but he
contrived to gain his points with Mataafa, prevailing on him to change
his camp for the better protection of the German plantations, and
persuading him (long before he could persuade his brother consuls) to
accept that miraculous new neutral territory of his, with a piece cut
out for the immediate needs of Tamasese.
During the rest of September, Tamasese continued to decline. On the 19th
one village and half of another deserted him; on the 22nd two more. On
the 21st the Mataafas burned his town of Leulumoenga, his own splendid
house flaming with the rest; and there are few things of which a native
thinks more, or has more reason to think well, than of a fine Samoan
house. Tamasese women and children were marched up the same day from
Atua, and handed over with their sleeping-mats to Mulinuu: a most
unwelcome addition to a party already suffering from want. By the 20th,
they were being watered from the _Adler_. On the 24th the Manono fleet
of sixteen large boats, fortified and rendered unmanageable with tons of
firewood, passed to windward to intercept supplies from Atua. By the
27th the hungry garrison flocked in great numbers to draw rations at the
German firm. On the 28th the same business was repeated with a different
issue. Mataafas crowded to look on; words were exchanged, blows
followed; sticks, stones, and bottles were caught up; the detested
Brandeis, at great risk, threw himself between the lines and
expostulated with the Mataafas--his only personal appearance in the
wars, if this could be called war. The same afternoon, the Tamasese
boats got in with provisions, having passed to seaward of the lumbering
Manono fleet; and from that day on, whether from a high degree of
enterprise on the one side or a great lack of capacity on the other,
supplies were maintained from the sea with regularity. Thus the
spectacle of battle, or at least of riot, at the doors of the German
firm was not repeated. But the memory must have hung heavy on the
hearts, not of the Germans only, but of all Apia. The Samoans are a
gentle race, gentler than any in Europe; we are often enough reminded of
the circumstance, not always by their friends. But a mob is a mob, and
a drunken mob is a drunken mob, and a drunken mob with weapons in its
hands is a drunken mob with weapons in its hands, all the world over:
elementary propositions, which some of us upon these islands might do
worse than get by rote, but which must have been evident enough to
Becker. And I am amazed by the man's constancy, that, even while blows
were going at the door of that German firm which he was in Samoa to
protect, he should have stuck to his demands. Ten days before, Blacklock
had offered to recognise the old territory, including Mulinuu, and
Becker had refused, and still in the midst of these "alarums and
excursions," he continued to refuse it.
On October 2nd, anchored in Apia bay H.B.M.S. _Calliope_, Captain Kane,
carrying the flag of Rear-Admiral Fairfax, and the gunboat _Lizard_,
Lieutenant-Commander Pelly. It was rumoured the admiral had come to
recognise the government of Tamasese, I believe in error. And at least
the day for that was quite gone by; and he arrived not to salute the
king's accession, but to arbitrate on his remains. A conference of the
consuls and commanders met on board the _Calliope_, October 4th, Fritze
alone being absent, although twice invited: the affair touched politics,
his consul was to be there; and even if he came to the meeting (so he
explained to Fairfax) he would have no voice in its deliberations. The
parties were plainly marked out: Blacklock and Leary maintaining their
offer of the old neutral territory, and probably willing to expand or to
contract it to any conceivable extent, so long as Mulinuu was still
included; Knappe offered (if the others liked) to include "the whole
eastern end of the island," but quite fixed upon the one point that
Mulinuu should be left out; the English willing to meet either view, and
singly desirous that Apia should be neutralised. The conclusion was
foregone. Becker held a trump card in the consent of Mataafa; Blacklock
and Leary stood alone, spoke with an ill grace, and could not long hold
out. Becker had his way; and the neutral boundary was chosen just where
he desired: across the isthmus, the firm within, Mulinuu without. He did
not long enjoy the fruits of victory.
On the 7th, three days after the meeting, one of the Scanlons
(well-known and intelligent half-castes) came to Blacklock with a
complaint. The Scanlon house stood on the hither side of the Tamasese
breastwork, just inside the newly accepted territory, and within easy
range of the firm. Armed men, to the number of a hundred, had issued
from Mulinuu, had "taken charge" of the house, had pointed a gun at
Scanlon's head, and had twice "threatened to kill" his pigs. I hear
elsewhere of some effects (_Gegenstaende_) removed. At the best a very
pale atrocity, though we shall find the word employed. Germans declare
besides that Scanlon was no American subject; they declare the point had
been decided by court-martial in 1875; that Blacklock had the decision
in the consular archives; and that this was his reason for handing the
affair to Leary. It is not necessary to suppose so. It is plain he
thought little of the business; thought indeed nothing of it; except in
so far as armed men had entered the neutral territory from Mulinuu; and
it was on this ground alone, and the implied breach of Becker's
engagement at the conference, that he invited Leary's attention to the
tale. The impish ingenuity of the commander perceived in it huge
possibilities of mischief. He took up the Scanlon outrage, the atrocity
of the threatened pigs; and with that poor instrument--I am sure, to his
own wonder--drove Tamasese out of Mulinuu. It was "an intrigue," Becker
complains. To be sure it was; but who was Becker to be complaining of
intrigue?
On the 7th Leary laid before Fritze the following conundrum "As the
natives of Mulinuu appear to be under the protection of the Imperial
German naval guard belonging to the vessel under your command, I have
the honour to request you to inform me whether or not they are under
such protection? Amicable relations," pursued the humorist, "amicable
relations exist between the government of the United States and His
Imperial German Majesty's government, but we do not recognise Tamasese's
government, and I am desirous of locating the responsibility for
violations of American rights." Becker and Fritze lost no time in
explanation or denial, but went straight to the root of the matter and
sought to buy off Scanlon. Becker declares that every reparation was
offered. Scanlon takes a pride to recapitulate the leases and the
situations he refused, and the long interviews in which he was tempted
and plied with drink by Becker or Beckmann of the firm. No doubt, in
short, that he was offered reparation in reason and out of reason, and,
being thoroughly primed, refused it all. Meantime some answer must be
made to Leary; and Fritze repeated on the 8th his oft-repeated
assurances that he was not authorised to deal with politics. The same
day Leary retorted: "The question is not one of diplomacy nor of
politics. It is strictly one of military jurisdiction and
responsibility. Under the shadow of the German fort at Mulinuu,"
continued the hyperbolical commander, "atrocities have been
committed.... And I again have the honour respectfully to request to be
informed whether or not the armed natives at Mulinuu are under the
protection of the Imperial German naval guard belonging to the vessel
under your command." To this no answer was vouchsafed till the 11th, and
then in the old terms; and meanwhile, on the 10th, Leary got into his
gaiters--the sure sign, as was both said and sung aboard his vessel, of
some desperate or some amusing service--and was set ashore at the
Scanlons' house. Of this he took possession at the head of an old woman
and a mop, and was seen from the Tamasese breastwork directing
operations and plainly preparing to install himself there in a military
posture. So much he meant to be understood; so much he meant to carry
out, and an armed party from the _Adams_ was to have garrisoned on the
morrow the scene of the atrocity. But there is no doubt he managed to
convey more. No doubt he was a master in the art of loose speaking, and
could always manage to be overheard when he wanted; and by this, or some
other equally unofficial means, he spread the rumour that on the morrow
he was to bombard.
The proposed post, from its position, and from Leary's well-established
character as an artist in mischief, must have been regarded by the
Germans with uneasiness. In the bombardment we can scarce suppose them
to have believed. But Tamasese must have both believed and trembled. The
prestige of the European Powers was still unbroken. No native would then
have dreamed of defying these colossal ships, worked by mysterious
powers, and laden with outlandish instruments of death. None would have
dreamed of resisting those strange but quite unrealised Great Powers,
understood (with difficulty) to be larger than Tonga and Samoa put
together, and known to be prolific of prints, knives, hard biscuit,
picture-books, and other luxuries, as well as of overbearing men and
inconsistent orders. Laupepa had fallen in ill-blood with one of them;
his only idea of defence had been to throw himself in the arms of
another; his name, his rank, and his great following had not been able
to preserve him; and he had vanished from the eyes of men--as the Samoan
thinks of it, beyond the sky. Asi, Maunga, Tuiletu-funga, had followed
him in that new path of doom. We have seen how carefully Mataafa still
walked, how he dared not set foot on the neutral territory till assured
it was no longer sacred, how he withdrew from it again as soon as its
sacredness had been restored, and at the bare word of a consul (however
gilded with ambiguous promises) paused in his course of victory and left
his rival unassailed in Mulinuu. And now it was the rival's turn.
Hitherto happy in the continued support of one of the white Powers, he
now found himself--or thought himself--threatened with war by no less
than two others.
Tamasese boats as they passed Matautu were in the habit of firing on the
shore, as like as not without particular aim, and more in high spirits
than hostility. One of these shots pierced the house of a British
subject near the consulate; the consul reported to Admiral Fairfax; and,
on the morning of the 10th, the admiral despatched Captain Kane of the
_Calliope_ to Mulinuu. Brandeis met the messenger with voluble excuses
and engagements for the future. He was told his explanations were
satisfactory so far as they went, but that the admiral's message was to
Tamasese, the _de facto_ king. Brandeis, not very well assured of his
puppet's courage, attempted in vain to excuse him from appearing. No _de
facto_ king, no message, he was told: produce your _de facto_ king. And
Tamasese had at last to be produced. To him Kane delivered his errand:
that the _Lizard_ was to remain for the protection of British subjects;
that a signalman was to be stationed at the consulate; that, on any
further firing from boats, the signalman was to notify the _Lizard_ and
she to fire one gun, on which all boats must lower sail and come
alongside for examination and the detection of the guilty; and that, "in
the event of the boats not obeying the gun, the admiral would not be
responsible for the consequences." It was listened to by Brandeis and
Tamasese "with the greatest attention." Brandeis, when it was done,
desired his thanks to the admiral for the moderate terms of his message,
and, as Kane went to his boat, repeated the expression of his gratitude
as though he meant it, declaring his own hands would be thus
strengthened for the maintenance of discipline. But I have yet to learn
of any gratitude on the part of Tamasese. Consider the case of the poor
owlish man hearing for the first time our diplomatic commonplaces. The
admiral would not be answerable for the consequences. Think of it! A
devil of a position for a _de facto_ king. And here, the same afternoon,
was Leary in the Scanlon house, mopping it out for unknown designs by
the hands of an old woman, and proffering strange threats of bloodshed.
Scanlon and his pigs, the admiral and his gun, Leary and his
bombardment,--what a kettle of fish!
I dwell on the effect on Tamasese. Whatever the faults of Becker, he was
not timid; he had already braved so much for Mulinuu that I cannot but
think he might have continued to hold up his head even after the outrage
of the pigs, and that the weakness now shown originated with the king.
Late in the night, Blacklock was wakened to receive a despatch addressed
to Leary. "You have asked that I and my government go away from Mulinuu,
because you pretend a man who lives near Mulinuu and who is under your
protection, has been threatened by my soldiers. As your Excellency has
forbidden the man to accept any satisfaction, and as I do not wish to
make war against the United States, I shall remove my government from
Mulinuu to another place." It was signed by Tamasese, but I think more
heads than his had wagged over the direct and able letter. On the
morning of the 11th, accordingly, Mulinuu the much defended lay desert.
Tamasese and Brandeis had slipped to sea in a schooner; their troops had
followed them in boats; the German sailors and their war-flag had
returned on board the _Adler;_ and only the German merchant flag blew
there for Weber's land-claim. Mulinuu, for which Becker had intrigued so
long and so often, for which he had overthrown the municipality, for
which he had abrogated and refused and invented successive schemes of
neutral territory, was now no more to the Germans than a very
unattractive, barren peninsula and a very much disputed land-claim of
Mr. Weber's. It will scarcely be believed that the tale of the Scanlon
outrages was not yet finished. Leary had gained his point, but Scanlon
had lost his compensation. And it was months later, and this time in the
shape of a threat of bombardment in black and white, that Tamasese heard
the last of the absurd affair. Scanlon had both his fun and his money,
and Leary's practical joke was brought to an artistic end.
Becker sought and missed an instant revenge. Mataafa, a devout Catholic,
was in the habit of walking every morning to mass from his camp at
Vaiala beyond Matautu to the mission at the Mulivai. He was sometimes
escorted by as many as six guards in uniform, who displayed their
proficiency in drill by perpetually shifting arms as they marched.
Himself, meanwhile, paced in front, bareheaded and barefoot, a staff in
his hand, in the customary chief's dress of white kilt, shirt, and
jacket, and with a conspicuous rosary about his neck. Tall but not
heavy, with eager eyes and a marked appearance of courage and capacity,
Mataafa makes an admirable figure in the eyes of Europeans; to those of
his countrymen, he may seem not always to preserve that quiescence of
manner which is thought becoming in the great. On the morning of October
16th he reached the mission before day with two attendants, heard mass,
had coffee with the fathers, and left again in safety. The smallness of
his following we may suppose to have been reported. He was scarce gone,
at least, before Becker had armed men at the mission gate and came in
person seeking him.
The failure of this attempt doubtless still further exasperated the
consul, and he began to deal as in an enemy's country. He had marines
from the _Adler_ to stand sentry over the consulate and parade the
streets by threes and fours. The bridge of the Vaisingano, which cuts in
half the English and American quarters, he closed by proclamation and
advertised for tenders to demolish it. On the 17th Leary and Pelly
landed carpenters and repaired it in his teeth. Leary, besides, had
marines under arms, ready to land them if it should be necessary to
protect the work. But Becker looked on without interference, perhaps
glad enough to have the bridge repaired; for even Becker may not always
have offended intentionally. Such was now the distracted posture of the
little town: all government extinct, the German consul patrolling it
with armed men and issuing proclamations like a ruler, the two other
Powers defying his commands, and at least one of them prepared to use
force in the defiance. Close on its skirts sat the warriors of Mataafa,
perhaps four thousand strong, highly incensed against the Germans,
having all to gain in the seizure of the town and firm, and, like an
army in a fairy tale, restrained by the air-drawn boundary of the
neutral ground.
I have had occasion to refer to the strange appearance in these islands
of an American adventurer with a battery of cannon. The adventurer was
long since gone, but his guns remained, and one of them was now to make
fresh history. It had been cast overboard by Brandeis on the outer reef
in the course of this retreat; and word of it coming to the ears of the
Mataafas, they thought it natural that they should serve themselves the
heirs of Tamasese. On the 23rd a Manono boat of the kind called
_taumualua_ dropped down the coast from Mataafa's camp, called in broad
day at the German quarter of the town for guides, and proceeded to the
reef. Here, diving with a rope, they got the gun aboard; and the night
being then come, returned by the same route in the shallow water along
shore, singing a boat-song. It will be seen with what childlike reliance
they had accepted the neutrality of Apia bay; they came for the gun
without concealment, laboriously dived for it in broad day under the
eyes of the town and shipping, and returned with it, singing as they
went. On Grevsmuehl's wharf, a light showed them a crowd of German
blue-jackets clustered, and a hail was heard. "Stop the singing so that
we may hear what is said," said one of the chiefs in the _taumualua_.
The song ceased; the hail was heard again, "_Au mai le fana_--bring the
gun"; and the natives report themselves to have replied in the
affirmative, and declare that they had begun to back the boat. It is
perhaps not needful to believe them. A volley at least was fired from
the wharf, at about fifty yards' range and with a very ill direction,
one bullet whistling over Pelly's head on board the _Lizard_. The
natives jumped overboard; and swimming under the lee of the _taumualua_
(where they escaped a second volley) dragged her towards the east. As
soon as they were out of range and past the Mulivai, the German border,
they got on board and (again singing--though perhaps a different song)
continued their return along the English and American shore. Off Matautu
they were hailed from the seaward by one of the _Adler's_ boats, which
had been suddenly despatched on the sound of the firing or had stood
ready all evening to secure the gun. The hail was in German; the Samoans
knew not what it meant, but took the precaution to jump overboard and
swim for land. Two volleys and some dropping shot were poured upon them
in the water; but they dived, scattered, and came to land unhurt in
different quarters of Matautu. The volleys, fired inshore, raked the
highway, a British house was again pierced by numerous bullets, and
these sudden sounds of war scattered consternation through the town.
Two British subjects, Hetherington-Carruthers, a solicitor, and Maben, a
land-surveyor--the first being in particular a man well versed in the
native mind and language--hastened at once to their consul; assured him
the Mataafas would be roused to fury by this onslaught in the neutral
zone, that the German quarter would be certainly attacked, and the rest
of the town and white inhabitants exposed to a peril very difficult of
estimation; and prevailed upon him to intrust them with a mission to the
king. By the time they reached headquarters, the warriors were already
taking post round Matafele, and the agitation of Mataafa himself was
betrayed in the fact that he spoke with the deputation standing and gun
in hand: a breach of high-chief dignity perhaps unparalleled. The usual
result, however, followed: the whites persuaded the Samoan; and the
attack was countermanded, to the benefit of all concerned, and not least
of Mataafa. To the benefit of all, I say; for I do not think the
Germans were that evening in a posture to resist; the liquor-cellars of
the firm must have fallen into the power of the insurgents; and I will
repeat my formula that a mob is a mob, a drunken mob is a drunken mob,
and a drunken mob with weapons in its hands is a drunken mob with
weapons in its hands, all the world over.
In the opinion of some, then, the town had narrowly escaped destruction,
or at least the miseries of a drunken sack. To the knowledge of all, the
air of the neutral territory had once more whistled with bullets. And it
was clear the incident must have diplomatic consequences. Leary and
Pelly both protested to Fritze. Leary announced he should report the
affair to his government "as a gross violation of the principles of
international law, and as a breach of the neutrality." "I positively
decline the protest," replied Fritze, "and cannot fail to express my
astonishment at the tone of your last letter." This was trenchant. It
may be said, however, that Leary was already out of court; that, after
the night signals and the Scanlon incident, and so many other acts of
practical if humorous hostility, his position as a neutral was no better
than a doubtful jest. The case with Pelly was entirely different; and
with Pelly, Fritze was less well inspired. In his first note, he was on
the old guard; announced that he had acted on the requisition of his
consul, who was alone responsible on "the legal side"; and declined
accordingly to discuss "whether the lives of British subjects were in
danger, and to what extent armed intervention was necessary." Pelly
replied judiciously that he had nothing to do with political matters,
being only responsible for the safety of Her Majesty's ships under his
command and for the lives and property of British subjects; that he had
considered his protest a purely naval one; and as the matter stood could
only report the case to the admiral on the station. "I have the honour,"
replied Fritze, "to refuse to entertain the protest concerning the
safety of Her Britannic Majesty's ship _Lizard_ as being a naval
matter. The safety of Her Majesty's ship _Lizard_ was never in the least
endangered. This was guaranteed by the disciplined fire of a few shots
under the direction of two officers." This offensive note, in view of
Fritze's careful and honest bearing among so many other complications,
may be attributed to some misunderstanding. His small knowledge of
English perhaps failed him. But I cannot pass it by without remarking
how far too much it is the custom of German officials to fall into this
style. It may be witty, I am sure it is not wise. It may be sometimes
necessary to offend for a definite object, it can never be diplomatic to
offend gratuitously.
Becker was more explicit, although scarce less curt. And his defence may
be divided into two statements: first, that the _taumualua_ was
proceeding to land with a hostile purpose on Mulinuu; second, that the
shots complained of were fired by the Samoans. The second may be
dismissed with a laugh. Human nature has laws. And no men hitherto
discovered, on being suddenly challenged from the sea, would have turned
their backs upon the challenger and poured volleys on the friendly
shore. The first is not extremely credible, but merits examination. The
story of the recovered gun seems straightforward; it is supported by
much testimony, the diving operations on the reef seem to have been
watched from shore with curiosity; it is hard to suppose that it does
not roughly represent the fact. And yet if any part of it be true, the
whole of Becker's explanation falls to the ground. A boat which had
skirted the whole eastern coast of Mulinuu, and was already opposite a
wharf in Matafele, and still going west, might have been guilty on a
thousand points--there was one on which she was necessarily innocent;
she was necessarily innocent of proceeding on Mulinuu. Or suppose the
diving operations, and the native testimony, and Pelly's chart of the
boat's course, and the boat itself, to be all stages of some epidemic
hallucination or steps in a conspiracy--suppose even a second
_taumualua_ to have entered Apia bay after nightfall, and to have been
fired upon from Grevsmuehl's wharf in the full career of hostilities
against Mulinuu--suppose all this, and Becker is not helped. At the time
of the first fire, the boat was off Grevsmuehl's wharf. At the time of
the second (and that is the one complained of) she was off Carruthers's
wharf in Matautu. Was she still proceeding on Mulinuu? I trow not. The
danger to German property was no longer imminent, the shots had been
fired upon a very trifling provocation, the spirit implied was that of
designed disregard to the neutrality. Such was the impression here on
the spot; such in plain terms the statement of Count Hatzfeldt to Lord
Salisbury at home: that the neutrality of Apia was only "to prevent the
natives from fighting," not the Germans; and that whatever Becker might
have promised at the conference, he could not "restrict German
war-vessels in their freedom of action."
There was nothing to surprise in this discovery; and had events been
guided at the same time with a steady and discreet hand, it might have
passed with less observation. But the policy of Becker was felt to be
not only reckless, it was felt to be absurd also. Sudden nocturnal
onfalls upon native boats could lead, it was felt, to no good end
whether of peace or war; they could but exasperate; they might prove, in
a moment, and when least expected, ruinous. To those who knew how nearly
it had come to fighting, and who considered the probable result, the
future looked ominous. And fear was mingled with annoyance in the minds
of the Anglo-Saxon colony. On the 24th, a public meeting appealed to the
British and American consuls. At half-past seven in the evening guards
were landed at the consulates. On the morrow they were each fortified
with sand-bags; and the subjects informed by proclamation that these
asylums stood open to them on any alarm, and at any hour of the day or
night. The social bond in Apia was dissolved. The consuls, like barons
of old, dwelt each in his armed citadel. The rank and file of the white
nationalities dared each other, and sometimes fell to on the street like
rival clansmen. And the little town, not by any fault of the
inhabitants, rather by the act of Becker, had fallen back in
civilisation about a thousand years.
There falls one more incident to be narrated, and then I can close with
this ungracious chapter. I have mentioned the name of the new English
consul. It is already familiar to English readers; for the gentleman who
was fated to undergo some strange experiences in Apia was the same de
Coetlogon who covered Hicks's flank at the time of the disaster in the
desert, and bade farewell to Gordon in Khartoum before the investment.
The colonel was abrupt and testy; Mrs. de Coetlogon was too exclusive
for society like that of Apia; but whatever their superficial
disabilities, it is strange they should have left, in such an odour of
unpopularity, a place where they set so shining an example of the
sterling virtues. The colonel was perhaps no diplomatist; he was
certainly no lawyer; but he discharged the duties of his office with the
constancy and courage of an old soldier, and these were found
sufficient. He and his wife had no ambition to be the leaders of
society; the consulate was in their time no house of feasting; but they
made of it that house of mourning to which the preacher tells us it is
better we should go. At an early date after the battle of Matautu, it
was opened as a hospital for the wounded. The English and Americans
subscribed what was required for its support. Pelly of the _Lizard_
strained every nerve to help, and set up tents on the lawn to be a
shelter for the patients. The doctors of the English and American ships,
and in particular Dr. Oakley of the _Lizard_, showed themselves
indefatigable. But it was on the de Coetlogons that the distress fell.
For nearly half a year, their lawn, their verandah, sometimes their
rooms, were cumbered with the sick and dying, their ears were filled
with the complaints of suffering humanity, their time was too short for
the multiplicity of pitiful duties. In Mrs. de Coetlogon, and her
helper, Miss Taylor, the merit of this endurance was perhaps to be
looked for; in a man of the colonel's temper, himself painfully
suffering, it was viewed with more surprise, if with no more admiration.
Doubtless all had their reward in a sense of duty done; doubtless, also,
as the days passed, in the spectacle of many traits of gratitude and
patience, and in the success that waited on their efforts. Out of a
hundred cases treated, only five died. They were all well-behaved,
though full of childish wiles. One old gentleman, a high chief, was
seized with alarming symptoms of belly-ache whenever Mrs. de Coetlogon
went her rounds at night: he was after brandy. Others were insatiable
for morphine or opium. A chief woman had her foot amputated under
chloroform. "Let me see my foot! Why does it not hurt?" she cried. "It
hurt so badly before I went to sleep." Siteoni, whose name has been
already mentioned, had his shoulder-blade excised, lay the longest of
any, perhaps behaved the worst, and was on all these grounds the
favourite. At times he was furiously irritable, and would rail upon his
family and rise in bed until he swooned with pain. Once on the balcony
he was thought to be dying, his family keeping round his mat, his father
exhorting him to be prepared, when Mrs. de Coetlogon brought him round
again with brandy and smelling-salts. After discharge, he returned upon
a visit of gratitude; and it was observed, that instead of coming
straight to the door, he went and stood long under his umbrella on that
spot of ground where his mat had been stretched and he had endured pain
so many months. Similar visits were the rule, I believe without
exception; and the grateful patients loaded Mrs. de Coetlogon with gifts
which (had that been possible in Polynesia) she would willingly have
declined, for they were often of value to the givers.
The tissue of my story is one of rapacity, intrigue, and the triumphs
of temper; the hospital at the consulate stands out almost alone as an
episode of human beauty, and I dwell on it with satisfaction. But it was
not regarded at the time with universal favour; and even to-day its
institution is thought by many to have been impolitic. It was opened, it
stood open, for the wounded of either party. As a matter of fact it was
never used but by the Mataafas, and the Tamaseses were cared for
exclusively by German doctors. In the progressive decivilisation of the
town, these duties of humanity became thus a ground of quarrel. When the
Mataafa hurt were first brought together after the battle of Matautu,
and some more or less amateur surgeons were dressing wounds on a green
by the wayside, one from the German consulate went by in the road. "Why
don't you let the dogs die?" he asked. "Go to hell," was the rejoinder.
Such were the amenities of Apia. But Becker reserved for himself the
extreme expression of this spirit. On November 7th hostilities began
again between the Samoan armies, and an inconclusive skirmish sent a
fresh crop of wounded to the de Coetlogons. Next door to the consulate,
some native houses and a chapel (now ruinous) stood on a green. Chapel
and houses were certainly Samoan, but the ground was under a land-claim
of the German firm; and de Coetlogon wrote to Becker requesting
permission (in case it should prove necessary) to use these structures
for his wounded. Before an answer came, the hospital was startled by the
appearance of a case of gangrene, and the patient was hastily removed
into the chapel. A rebel laid on German ground--here was an atrocity!
The day before his own relief, November 11th, Becker ordered the man's
instant removal. By his aggressive carriage and singular mixture of
violence and cunning, he had already largely brought about the fall of
Brandeis, and forced into an attitude of hostility the whole non-German
population of the islands. Now, in his last hour of office, by this
wanton buffet to his English colleague, he prepared a continuance of
evil days for his successor. If the object of diplomacy be the
organisation of failure in the midst of hate, he was a great
diplomatist. And amongst a certain party on the beach he is still named
as the ideal consul.