KING JAKOB (Part 11)


By KATZMAREK (C)


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This work is fiction. It remains the property of the author and
may not be used for profit without the author's express
permission in writing. It contains sex, so if this offends etc...


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Part 11


'SMS Scharnhorst' made landfall in the early morning of September 14th 1914 on a point of land called Faleapuna. Von Spee chose to close the coast of the island of 'Upolu, Western Samoa so he might approach Apia from the East, that is with the sun breaking behind him. It also had the added advantage that any warship anchored in the harbour would have to fire overland. As it was the German Armoured Cruiser arrived at Samoa completely undetected.


The Admiral sailed along the sparsely inhabited stretch of coast between Solosolo and Apia close inshore, perhaps no more than 1 kilometre from the beach. It was a skillful exhibition of seamanship to navigate a 16,500 ton vessel so close to the rocks and reefs.


That night von Spee had ordered the crew to change into clean linen. He expected casualties and believed fresh underwear would prevent the infection of wounds. He ordered that all orders were to be passed silently, no shouting or the blowing of whistles. Lights were extinguished as he approached the coast.


When the sky began to lighten he ordered the port main guns swung out and trained to the shore, the fore-turret on the headland of distant Apia. 5 'ready' rounds were stacked ready for use together with their brass propellant cartridges. At 5.35am the 8.3 and 5.9 inch guns were all loaded ready to fire.


Somewhere to the East of Apia, 'SMS Gneisenau' joined the flagship. Having sailed Southeast across the harbour entrance at night 'dragging her shirtails.' She reported that there was no sign of any warships at anchor in the harbour. Spee ordered her to take station behind the 'Scharnhorst' and continued to creep up the coast.


At 5.50am the strange ships were sighted from Telegraph Hill by a party of Naval Communications personel who were attempting to repair the radio. The German Operator, Stadler, had smashed the transmission valve and poured battery acid into the circuits. For this 'shocking vandalism' Colonel Logan had Stadler removed from the island for internment in New Zealand. This was despite the Radioman being an employee of the German communications company, AEG Telefunken, rather than a holder of any civic or military position. Logan's force had brought no radio themselves so, with the ships departed, he had no means of communication with Wellington.


The report of the sighting sent Colonel Logan and the headquarters staff of the 2000 man New Zealand occupation force into something approaching a blind panic. He immediately ordered the soldiers camped in town to man the shallow trenchs that Hoffmann's men had dug. Additionally he alerted the camp at Vailima and ordered the troops there to Apia as fast as they could run. The Colonel had convinced himself he was about to be invaded by the Germans.


The 'Scharnhorst' and 'Gneisenau' swung into Apia Harbour and came to a complete stop. The warships' turrets were all swung towards the town as were the casemented guns on their central 'zitadellen' and the hull sides. Twelve 8.3 and six 5.9 inch guns were now trained on the milling soldiers at point blank range. Just then, Logan's soldiers from Vailima arrived across the Vaisigano bridge fully exposed to the 'Gneisenau's' guns. Apparently no-one had told them why they'd been ordered to Apia. A desperate Logan ran to them telling them to disperse. Their Captain reportedly asked him if the warships were French. Logan's answer, alas, has not been recorded for posterity.


With no weapon heavier than a Vickers Machine Gun the soldiers waited nervously for the maelstrom to descend on them.


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Jakob Herzberg had been roused complaining by an excited servant, Yu. He and Gretchen climbed onto the roof of the house for a better view. Over at Apia they could see the streams of townsfolk running into the bush out of the town. He thought his worst nightmare was becoming a reality. His idyllic island home was about to be blasted to matchwood. Speechless he could think of nothing better to do then to hold Gretchen's hand and whisper a silent prayer.


Suddenly the water behind 'Scharnhorst' began to churn as her propellors started to revolve. With a slight bow wave it began to move at a dead slow back out to sea. Jakob could sea a small flag fluttering from her signal mast. Obediantly 'Gneisenau' too followed her sister out past the point and down the coast past Jakob's house.


As the flagship drew level with Herzberg manor, a large flag ran up the foremast to the crosstree. The wind caught it and it unfurled. It was the blue St Andrew's Cross of the Russian Navy. As Jakob watched, the flag dipped in salute before being brought back down. Jakob laughed so hard Gretchen had to hang onto his shirt lest he tumble from the roof.


Below on the coast road a line of soldiers ran past keeping pace with the slow-moving vessels. Logan was still convinced Spee was about to land soldiers. Somewhere opposite a place called, Luelomoega the warships stopped once more and a man in a small boat rowed out to them. After half an hour, the rowboat returned to shore to the waiting soldiers and the man was promptly arrested. It was Hoffmann and he would spend the rest of the war in an internment camp in New Zealand.


From Samoa, von Spee headed to a point near the Marquesas to rendezvous with the rest of the squadron. He then made course for the coast of South America.


Meanwhile, the soldiers on Samoa had been badly shaken by their experience. After a while it began to dawn on them how close they had come to obliteration. They were confused too as to why von Spee had not opened fire on them.


Colonel Logan was the worst shaken of the lot. Alone, vulnerable and without radio communications he began to see traitors and spies everywhere. He grew fixated about combinations of Germans, Sa Malitoa Samoans and Chinese descending on his badly outnumbered soldiers and driving them back into the sea. It wasn't long before his paranoia descended on that enigmatic character Jakob Herzberg.


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That afternoon a party of soldiers arrived at Herzberg Manor. Unceremoniously they began to search the house. Apparently Logan was looking for an illegal radio or some evidence of communication with the Germans. Jakob's files were boxed up and shipped to Logan's headquarters. Fortunately his forged 'commission' and 'orders from Berlin' had long since been burnt. Nevertheless, Jakob felt he'd been violated. The next day, both he and Gretchen were taken to headquarters for questioning.


They were shown into a windowless storeroom that had been converted into an interview room. A bewhiskered Captain sat at a desk reading through a pile of papers. He barely acknowledged the pair as they were brought in. An army guard stood stiffly by the door, a Naval rating stood beside the Captain.


"Mr Herzberg," he began, "this man is a German speaker. He will translate for us." He tipped his head towards the seaman. "Now sir," he began, "I understand you are some kind of retired merchant and that you're of Russian nationality?" Jakob nodded. "I also understand you have a reputation as something of a ladies' man?" The man twitched his nose as if encountering a bad smell. "I'm not interested, sir, in your morals but your allegiances. You have been on Samoa for how long?"


"Nine years," Jakob replied.


"And you have a boat? May I ask where it is now?"


"I believe it's at Pago Pago," Jakob told the man, "where your thieves can not get their hands on it." The Captain looked up suddenly.


"You'll do well not to be so... cocky, Herzberg. Under martial law we can do whatever we please," he told Jakob, "we're at war, sir, and while millions of your fellow countrymen are at this moment serving your Tsar, you are skulking here among the Hun. Why have you not returned to Russia to do your duty?" Stung, Jakob rose from his chair. Gretchen put a hand on his arm.


"He could not leave, Captain," she said hurriedly, "he remained here to see that Samoa was turned over to you English without bloodshed. He served us all," her voice turned sharp, "British and German."


"Quite!" the Captain retorted, "some kind of go-between was he? Well out of harm's way too, I suspect."


"And you sir!" Jakob replied, evenly, "will no doubt be anxious to go to France with your army?"


"I sir, will go wherever my senior Officers direct," the Captain told Jakob, barely concealing his anger, "once we have rooted out traitors, troublemakers and Boche sympathisers from these islands. Which one are you, Herzberg?"


"I have sympathy for no-one," Jakob told the man, "who chooses to place country over common sense and humanity. I merely wish to be left alone with my friends and family."


"Not practical," the Captain said, a smug smile on his face, "and damned treasonous if you ask me. Tell me, Herzberg, why does that fellow Spaete call you 'Oberst' do you suppose? Administrator Schapinski believes it some sort of ruse to control the more... 'patriotic' settlers. But then he might be trying to protect you, mightn't he?"


"Schapinski protecting me?" laughed Jakob, "why should he do that? He doesn't even like me."


"Yes," smirked the Captain, "clearly a shrewd judge of character. We shall be keeping an eye on you, Herzberg. If I were you I would not put a foot wrong. At the earliest we will be checking with the Russians just who you are and what you are doing here. There is something not right about you and I intend to find out. You may go."


Jakob and Gretchen walked back slowly to Herzberg Manor.


"I must get away from here," he told her, "they intend to ship me off to prison once they have their 'evidence'."


"How? Where to?" Gretchen asked, "all the boats are under their control."


"To Pago Pago perhaps? By canoe?"


"What will you do with the house? You can't give property away at the moment, everyone wants to leave. I hear Logan wants to ship all the Chinese out. That will destroy the economy here for the settlers. They won't be able to work the plantations without labour."


"Yes, I believe you are right, Gretchen dear. Logan wants to drive out all the Germans and replace them with his own people. Anyone too that worked with Germans will be marginalised and forced to leave. Even among the Samoans he is replacing the Sa Malietoa with his own canditates on the 'Fono.' Clearly Samoa is to become a New Zealand colony after the war. I see no future for me here anymore."


"If only we could get a message to the 'Borodino'," Gretchen said, "she could meet us out to sea. But how can we do that?"


"Of course!" Jakob stopped dead in his tracks, "we could ask one of Luakasione's fishermen to carry a message to Pago Pago. We'd need to be careful, though, if Logan or that weasel of a Captain should find out, he'd have us in irons."


"We're not 'communicating with an enemy'," Gretchen said, "what would be wrong with sending a message to an American Colony?"


"Ah, but there's a German Consul in Pago Pago is there not? Logan may well decide we are trying to contact him. In any case he has forbidden 'unauthorised' contact with even American Samoa. Everything must pass through his office."


"Logan, Logan," Gretchen rolled her eyes, "next he'll be telling us who or who not we are to sleep with."


"'Morality laws!'" Jakob replied, "already he has decreed that Chinese may not enter the house of a Samoan. Even if they are married, a Chinese and a Samoan may no-longer live in the same house together. I hear they have arrested Mr. Ah Khoi for 'immorality.' They say he is to be sent into exile back to Quangdong."


"But they cannot do that," Gretchen replied, outraged, "he and his wife have seven children to support. They have been married for years. He even joined his wife's church for Christ's sake!"


"Yes, and he is also the editor of the 'Samoan Times.' Perhaps that has something to do with it. Logan wants to silence the Press, discretely. Even though he censors the paper, I think he is afraid it may be used for sending messages in code to 'foreign agents'."


"So he breaks up a happy family?"


"He may do precisely what he likes at the moment. He merely justifies what he does to Wellington in terms of 'war emergency measures'."


"We must get to Pago Pago and tell the New Zealand government what is going on here."


"Ah Gretchen. I doubt they'll be at all interested. They will not want to 'undermine' Logan here and I suspect they have bigger fish to fry at the moment."


"Such as?"


"Such as Russia's defeat at a place called Tannenburg and the French fighting for their existance on the Marne river. The war is not going well for them at the moment. 'The war will be over by Christmas' they said, but I wonder what year they were meaning?"


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In Samoa the villages all lay strung out along the coast. The interior is  dominated by highlands covered with dense bush. The villages vary in size from small towns to half a dozen fales. Most of them are linked in some way to family or tribal afilliations.


The head of the family is called the 'Matai' who also acts as an advisor to the Chief. Decisions are often made by a process of discussion and concensus. A person's opinion, however, is weighted by his personal 'mana'. 'Mana' is determined by a person's 'good sense,' his ability as an orator and, most importantly, his lineage. Luakasione's position was hereditary, for instance, but his ability to command the Sa Malietoa had as much to do with his common sense as anything else. A foolish chief soon loses his mana and may be deposed by his people. 


The Sa Malietoa did not fight the NZ army because it was Luakasione's opinion that it would be pointless to do so. The cost of that decision, however, meant that the position of the Sa Malietoa, once the most powerful tribal grouping in all of Samoa, was on the wane. Under Logan the Savai'i tribes of the 'Gaga'emauga' and the 'Fa'asaleleaga' would come to dominate the Advisory Council and so be the dominant voice of the Samoan people.


The less developed Northern island of Savai'i was always restless under German rule. Mt Silisili is a dormant volcano and much of the island consists of barren lava fields. The soil is poorer and less conducive to commercial exploitation therefore the people of Savai'i tended to be not as 'polluted' by European ideas. The rigours of survival had bred an independence of spirit and self-sufficiency. They also played the political game hard.


The arrival of the Savai'i clans to 'Upolu began to cause fractures in the tribal political landscape. Some villages pledged their allegiance to the newcomers in hopes of sharing official patronage. Jakob knew he had to be careful on his journey to see Luakasione. The old chief could be in any number of villages, however he was uncertain which of the villages still supported the Sa Malietoa. Logan's new 'policemen' were everywhere.


Jakob set out early with his servant Yu by cart. He flatly refused to go by horseback. The recent rains had rutted the tracks and caused washouts. The journey was arduous. At the town of Vaitele he received some reliable information that Luakasione was at his home village of Fasito'outa further around the coast. Many of the smaller villages along the way, though, were under the control of Logan's policemen. It would be well to stay off the Coast Road and go inland. Jakob felt the handle of the ancient 1870 pattern 38 calibre Jeste 5-shot revolver the settler had given him. It was uncomfortable thrust in his belt. He hoped he didn't have to use it.


Logan's Policemen sported Lee-Enfield rifles borrowed from the army. The Colonel was still expecting some kind of insurrection by the Chinese coolies. He'd even handed back weapons confiscated from the settlers, 'for their own protection from the Chinamen.'


Rounding a bend Jakob encountered a simple log barrier manned by two policemen. Thinking quickly, Jakob pulled his revolver and pushed it into Yu's ribs.


"'Mogamoga togafiti,' (plotting cockroach)" Jakob told them, grinning broadly. It worked, they allowed them through. 


It took them almost a whole day to reach Fasito'outa, the going being so hard. Tired and exhausted, Jakob presented himself to the old Chief who offered him refreshments and a place to rest.


Sometime late in the evening Jakob was roused by a young warrior who shook his arm urgently.


"Soldiers!" he whispered, "you go, now!"


Jakob dressed quickly and followed the warrior in a circuitous route around the back of the fales to the beach. There he was met by four men with two outrigger canoes. Yu was there before him, an anxious expression on his face. Behind them came the sharp crack of a rifle shot sounding fearfully loud in the still night. The warriors jumped at the sound and frantically pushed the canoes into the surf.


"Come, come!" one said in near panic, "big trouble!"


Jakob and Yu scrambled into the canoes and the warriors paddled them quickly through the breakers out into the bay. Both Yu and Jakob were wet through instantly. Back on the beach they could see torches and men running. Another shot rang out haphazardly and all in the canoes ducked instinctively. They knew they could never return.


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From the island of 'Upolu, Western Samoa to Tutuila, American Samoa is about a three and a half to four hour trip depending on sea and wind conditions. The Sa Malietoa always maintained some contact with the other half of the Samoan islands using their big, outrigger, sail-driven canoes. Although they may be as long as 30 metres, the journey was near the limit for ocean sailing with these craft. Their shallow draft, limited capacity for provisions and exposure to the elements made it unsafe to venture too far.


Once beyond the surf, the sailors hoisted a single triangular sail on two poles lashed together. The poles could be moved individually along cleats fixed to the floor of the boat enabling them to angle the sail into the wind. A block wedge held the poles up, keeping the sail taut. It was a crude method but it worked well. They had no fixed rudder, just a crewman with a steering paddle at the stern. No keel, just an outrigger for stability, an idea copied by Westerners who called it the 'Catamaran.' It took a great deal of skill and experience to control these craft, but every Samoan boy learns how to sail as soon as they can walk.


Ocean journeys in these craft were very wet affairs and they shipped a great deal of water. Very bouyant, they were next to impossible to sink. They will, however, capsize in inexperienced hands. Jakob and Yu were quickly assigned baling duties, a constant chore on the high seas.


It was just after midnight when they sailed into the excellent, deepwater harbour at Pago Pago. Essentially an American Naval Coaling Station, nevertheless a thriving town had grown up around it. The US Navy maintained a small squadron there, surely one of the more pleasant assignments for a young Naval rating. An old, ram-bow cruiser was anchored in mid-stream. Jakob recognised her as the USS Newark, he'd seen her many times.


Unlike Apia, Pago Pago was full of shipping all aglow with lighting. Some German merchantmen had elected to be interned there rather than go into captivity at some allied port, probably a sensible decision. It was next to impossible to spot the 'Borodino' so the Samoans decided to put their passengers ashore. Once there Jakob asked some late-night revelling Americans if they knew of the schooner. They did, it was tied up to a jetty in the civilian harbour.


The 'Borodino' was showing a single masthead light but was otherwise in darkness when Jakob finally found her. He tip-toed down the gangway and finally set foot on the teak deck of his precious yacht. It seemed deserted and forlorn. There was no sound except the faint creaking of timbers. Walking quietly past the engine hatch he felt a faint wave of heat. Clearly the boiler had been lit recently, he heard the pinging of the slowly cooling boiler. Under his feet he felt the crunch of coal dust, someone had been maintaining her in his absence.


Jakob stepped down the ladder to the main cabin and opened the door. A single electric light showed an orderly, well-kept scene with clean white doilies still decorating the highly-polished, oak dining table. He stepped through to the corridor that led to the cabins. He was about to open the door to the master cabin when he heard a noise from one of the others.


He tip-toed quietly down the corridor and put his ear to the door. He heard a muffled woman's cry and the unmistakeable sounds of love-making. Perhaps one of his mistresses had not missed him as much as he expected? Curious, he pushed the door open a fraction and looked in.


There by the light of a dim, flickering, electric light he saw the expanse of a woman's naked back. Underneath were the outstretched legs of a man. As Jakob watched, the woman rose up and down, clenching and unclenching her bottom. He recognised that bottom anywhere. It was the perfect white peach of his mistress Julia Bentine!


But who was this man she was so lustily squirming on top of? The smear of coal dust on the soles of his feet provided irrefutable proof. No wonder the boiler has been so well maintained, it was none other than his faithful engineer Waisake!


'Damn!' Jakob thought, 'good engineers are so hard to find in these parts.' He felt a jab of jealousy, but the scene was so powerfully erotic he couldn't turn his face away. An odd feeling, he should be outraged but...


Julia pumped Waisake faster and faster, Jaokob could clearly see her stuffed full of his meat. She gasped and moaned unrestrained, the dim light reflecting the beads of sweat on their nude bodies. Fascinated by the so familiar body of Julia in the throes of ecstacy, Jakob was excited and felt the familiar stirring in his pants. He wished it was he underneath the grunting, groaning Englishwoman.


Reluctantly, he closed the door and retreated back down to the door of his own cabin. Entering it, he found his bed occupied by a sleeping Asmira and Qing Li.


In the balmy evening they slept naked on top of the covers. They lay on their side, Asmira behind her friend with her arm around the Chinese girls' rounded tummy.


Jakob eased off his clothes and got onto the bed behind his Indian mistress. She snuffled as he put his arm over her onto her breast, pressed his erection against her bottom.


"Wha...!" she awoke startled, "m,master!" Asmira said, excited, "you home?"


"Me home!" Jakob agreed, "I see some things have changed!" he nodded towards the next room.


"Julia!" Asmira whispered, "she cheat Master. She no patience. She hungry for cock. I'm sorry Master, I tell her no but she not listen. She had love fever."


"Love fever?" he asked her, amused, "like lust?"


"Yes lust, Master, I sorry."


"Like this?" he told her, pressing harder against her bottom.


"Oh yes, Master Jakob! Asmira is happy you home!"


She rolled towards him and accepted his open lips to hers. Jakob massaged her big breasts, squeezing the nipples between thumb and forefinger. As he came up for air, he looked across to see Qing Li had rolled onto her back with a big smile on her face. As he watched, she opened her legs and drew her hand up between her thighs. Jakob took the hint and rolled over Asmira to trail his tongue over Qing's tummy to her sex.


Her pussy twitched as Jakob sought her gash within the sparse black curly hair. Licking her, he felt the warm lips of Asmira close over his rock-hard cock.


"Oooh," came the muffled cry from next door.


Jakob pushed his tongue harder against Qing Li's clitoris eliciting a gasp and a grind of her pelvis. In the stillness of the night they could clearly hear the creak of the bed springs as Julia frantically pleased Waisake, and no doubt herself.


Qing Li turned over onto all-fours and presented her arse to Jakob's attack. He obliged with fingers and tongue before dislodging Asmira from his prick and getting in behind the pregnant Chinese nanny.


He gave her a few sharp, lustful stabs, luxuriating in the still-tight-pussy. Asmira, however, had got on all-fours beside them and presented her more experienced sex for Jakob's attention. Pulling out of Qing Li, Jakob inserted himself into Asmira replacing his cock with his fingers in his Chinese mistress. Concentrating, he tried to keep the same rhythm with both the women and was pleased to see them sliding against each other and moaning with excitement.


Exchanging mistresses a couple of more times ensured Jakob lasted as long as possible. However, it was Qing Li in whom he elected to spend his seed. At least, he reasoned, he could not get her pregnant at this time, unlike Asmira.


Lying within the arms of his two faithful mistresses, Jakob heard the springs start up again next door. 'Waisake has,' he thought, 'if nothing else, tons of stamina!' Pressing his ear to the wall, he heard Julia whispering,


"Yes... like that... uh... good boy! Come, from behind... quickly! Oooh!"


There followed a furious banging, no doubt the bed head on the cabin wall. Julia's cries rose in crescendo as she apparently reached her peak quickly. A deep grunting from Waisake indicated that he was filling her wanting pussy with another load.


Straddling Asmira, Jakob attended to his voyeuristically-fueled erection between her soft breasts. Asmira stretched her tongue down and stimulated him also with her hand till he splashed her chin with his now-depleted semen.


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In the morning, Julia went white as a sheet when she saw Jakob. Waisake quickly disengaged his arm from around her waist and swallowed. He told Jakob he had a boiler to attend to and bolted for the engine hatch.


"So," Jakob smiled evilly, "what have you been up to since I last saw you?"


"I can explain!" she babbled, quickly catching Jakob's drift, "I didn't think I'd see you again and..."


"Spare it, Julia!" Jakob said sternly, "clearly your libido has been overstimulated, I take that as a compliment. I'm more concerned with losing an experienced Engineer. Do you realise how difficult it would be to replace Waisake?"


"You wouldn't send him away?" she cried, alarmed.


"Of course not," he told her, "but Waisake might feel it's the only honourable thing to do!"


"Oh, I see," she considered, "I suppose you are correct. Waisake is a very, um, proud man!"


"And clearly well-endowed," Jakob added. Julia blushed red and chided him for being rude. "You must convince him to stay," Jakob said, "no doubt your powers of persuasion over him exceeds my own. And tell him," he called after her, "to kindly move cabins nearer the bow. If you wish to continue rutting then I don't desire to be a nightly witness!"


"You need not be so vulgar!" she replied, haughtily.


"On my own boat, I shall be precisely what I want to be!" he told her.


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The 'Borodino' had been well-provisioned during his absence thanks to his agent. He assembled the crew from shore and announced to them his intention of taking the schooner into the Dutch East Indies. There, he decided, he would be far enough away from the war and the attentions of suspicious officialdom. There were many islands there, he could lose himself for years. Those, he told him, that don't wish to embark on a voyage of adventure had better leave now. All, he was glad to see, chose to sign on for the duration.


Some of the crew had picked up local women and Jakob consented for them to accompany them. He also found that, rather then his fortune dwindling, he'd actually made a great deal of money from investments. The fighting armies needed more of everything and industry was running at full speed. Ironically, the war Jakob so-hated was providing the means of his escape from it.


Waisake elected to stay on board, after he'd talked to Jakob. Jakob knew it was pointless to break up the affair with Julia. He would just leave the boat and take Julia with him. In any case, Jakob had Asmira, Qing Li and the children.


He managed to contact Westermann through the German Consul in Pago Pago who told him that Katalin was now a war widow. Her Uhlan husband had been killed on the Marne by a French shell that came through the roof of the house he was hiding in. He never even saw a fighting Frenchman let alone killed himself any.


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EPILOGUE


Von Spee reached South America by the 1st of November and promptly ran into the British Cruiser squadron of Rear-Admiral Christopher Cradock. The British force consisted of the out-dated 'HMS's Monmouth' and 'Good Hope' together with the speedy modern light cruiser 'HMS Glasgow'. Spee's more-modern ships overwhelmed the British armoured cruisers and only the 'Glasgow' escaped anihilation. However, his whereabouts were now known as was his probable course.


The British Admiralty promptly sent out Vice Admiral sir Doveton Sturdee with two of the Grand Fleet's Battle Cruisers to block his progress into the South Atlantic. HMS's 'Invincible' and 'Inflexible' caught the South Seas Squadron south of the Falkland Islands and, in a long drawn-out battle, finally sank the SMS's 'Gneisenau' and the 'Scharnhorst'. 'Leipzig,' and 'Nuernberg' were run down by British light cruisers and the  'Dresden' was finally trapped in Chile and scuttled.


The 'Emden' and Captain von Mueller's exploits are legend and I could not do it adequate justice here. She was finally caught near the Cocos/Keeling islands after one of the most successful and audacious careers of any German surface raider.


Of the rest of von Spee's command, the 'SMS Prinz Eitel Friedrich' and the sloop of war, 'SMS Cormoran (Kormorant)' gave themselves over to internment in neutral ports.


Although colourful, the German raiders had a minimal impact on the course of the war. They did, though, tie up a lot of warships in their hunt for them. The most successful was the disguised raider 'Moewe,' the former SS Pungo, who sunk a total of 34 allied merchant ships. Her mines, however accounted for the likes of the old Battleship HMS King Edward VII. The most romantic, though, was Count von Lucknow's 'Seeadler,' the former sailing ship 'Pass of Balmaha'. It's worth another story!


Alas the magnificent SS Cap Trafalgar was armed in Brasil from an old gun boat and set out into the Atlantic. There she ran into the armed British liner SS Carpathia and in the ensuing fight, the Cap was sunk and the Carpathia set on fire. A scandalous ill-use for these magnificent vessels in my humble opinion.


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Much of the events surrounding the take-over of German Samoa by New Zealand troops is fact although some things have been exagerrated. Patey, Logan and Church are real people as is Mr Ah Khoi. The Chinese gentleman, whose crime was to fall in love and marry a Samoan woman, spent long years in exile before he was able to return to his family. Many of his decendents memorialise the family name today on the Rugby fields of the South Pacific.


Logan ruined the settler economy of Samoa with his progrom against the Chinese labourers. Once, too, the Samoans realised they were not to be given independence they formed the movement, the 'Mau'. A sad catelogue of injustices by a succession of NZ Governors culminated in the machine-gunning of a crowd of protestors and the slaying of the spiritual leader Tupoa Tamasese IV. This led to the unedifying sight of RNZAF fighter planes chasing ill-armed warriors through the interior of 'Upolu.


But bygones be bygones and now more Western Samoans live in New Zealand than in their island home. They've mostly forgiven us. I hope so!


KATZMAREK(C)