CHAPTER X
THE HURRICANE
_March_ 1889
The so-called harbour of Apia is formed in part by a recess of thecoast-line at Matautu, in part by the slim peninsula of Mulinuu, and inpart by the fresh waters of the Mulivai and Vaisingano. The barrierreef--that singular breakwater that makes so much of the circuit ofPacific islands--is carried far to sea at Matautu and Mulinuu; inside ofthese two horns it runs sharply landward, and between them it is burstor dissolved by the fresh water. The shape of the enclosed anchorage maybe compared to a high-shouldered jar or bottle with a funnel mouth. Itssides are almost everywhere of coral; for the reef not only bounds it toseaward and forms the neck and mouth, but skirting about the beach, itforms the bottom also. As in the bottle of commerce, the bottom isre-entrant, and the shore-reef runs prominently forth into the basin andmakes a dangerous cape opposite the fairway of the entrance. Danger is,therefore, on all hands. The entrance gapes three cables wide at thenarrowest, and the formidable surf of the Pacific thunders both outsideand in. There are days when speech is difficult in the chambers ofshore-side houses; days when no boat can land, and when men are brokenby stroke of sea against the wharves. As I write these words, threemiles in the mountains, and with the land-breeze still blowing from theisland summit, the sound of that vexed harbour hums in my ears. Such acreek in my native coast of Scotland would scarce be dignified with themark of an anchor in the chart; but in the favoured climate of Samoa,and with the mechanical regularity of the winds in the Pacific, itforms, for ten or eleven months out of the twelve, a safe if hardly acommodious port. The ill-found island traders ride there with theirinsufficient moorings the year through, and discharge, and are loaded,without apprehension. Of danger, when it comes, the glass gives timelywarning; and that any modern war-ship, furnished with the power ofsteam, should have been lost in Apia, belongs not so much to nautical asto political history.
The weather throughout all that winter (the turbulent summer of theislands) was unusually fine, and the circumstance had been commented onas providential, when so many Samoans were lying on their weapons in thebush. By February it began to break in occasional gales. On February10th a German brigantine was driven ashore. On the 14th the samemisfortune befell an American brigantine and a schooner. On both thesedays, and again on the 7th March, the men-of-war must steam to theiranchors. And it was in this last month, the most dangerous of thetwelve, that man's animosities crowded that indentation of the reef withcostly, populous, and vulnerable ships.
I have shown, perhaps already at too great a length, how violentlypassion ran upon the spot; how high this series of blunders and mishapshad heated the resentment of the Germans against all other nationalitiesand of all other nationalities against the Germans. But there was onecountry beyond the borders of Samoa where the question had aroused ascarce less angry sentiment. The breach of the Washington Congress, theevidence of Sewall before a sub-committee on foreign relations, theproposal to try Klein before a military court, and the rags of CaptainHamilton's flag, had combined to stir the people of the States to anunwonted fervour. Germany was for the time the abhorred of nations.Germans in America publicly disowned the country of their birth. InHonolulu, so near the scene of action, German and American young menfell to blows in the street. In the same city, from no traceable source,and upon no possible authority, there arose a rumour of tragic news toarrive by the next occasion, that the _Nipsic_ had opened fire on the_Adler_, and the _Adler_ had sunk her on the first reply. Punctually onthe day appointed, the news came; and the two nations, instead of beingplunged into war, could only mingle tears over the loss of heroes.
By the second week in March three American ships were in Apia bay,--the_Nipsic_, the _Vandalia_, and the _Trenton_, carrying the flag ofRear-Admiral Kimberley; three German,--the _Adler_, the _Eber_, and the_Olga_; and one British,--the _Calliope_, Captain Kane. Six merchantmen,ranging from twenty-five up to five hundred tons, and a number of smallcraft, further encumbered the anchorage. Its capacity is estimated byCaptain Kane at four large ships; and the latest arrivals, the_Vandalia_ and _Trenton_, were in consequence excluded, and lay withoutin the passage. Of the seven war-ships, the seaworthiness of two wasquestionable: the _Trenton's_, from an original defect in herconstruction, often reported, never remedied--her hawse-pipes leading inon the berth-deck; the _Eber's_, from an injury to her screw in the blowof February 14th. In this overcrowding of ships in an open entry of thereef, even the eye of the landsman could spy danger; andCaptain-Lieutenant Wallis of the _Eber_ openly blamed and lamented, notmany hours before the catastrophe, their helpless posture. Temper oncemore triumphed. The army of Mataafa still hung imminent behind the town;the German quarter was still daily garrisoned with fifty sailors fromthe squadron; what was yet more influential, Germany and the States, atleast in Apia bay, were on the brink of war, viewed each other withlooks of hatred, and scarce observed the letter of civility. On the dayof the admiral's arrival, Knappe failed to call on him, and on themorrow called on him while he was on shore. The slight was remarked andresented, and the two squadrons clung more obstinately to theirdangerous station.
On the 15th the barometer fell to 29.11 in. by 2 P.M. This was themoment when every sail in port should have escaped. Kimberley, who flewthe only broad pennant, should certainly have led the way: he clung,instead, to his moorings, and the Germans doggedly followed his example:semi-belligerents, daring each other and the violence of heaven. Kane,less immediately involved, was led in error by the report of residentsand a fallacious rise in the glass; he stayed with the others, amisjudgment that was like to cost him dear. All were moored, as is thecustom in Apia, with two anchors practically east and west, clear hawseto the north, and a kedge astern. Topmasts were struck, and the shipsmade snug. The night closed black, with sheets of rain. By midnight itblew a gale; and by the morning watch, a tempest. Through what remainedof darkness, the captains impatiently expected day, doubtful if theywere dragging, steaming gingerly to their moorings, and afraid to steamtoo much.
Day came about six, and presented to those on shore a seizing andterrific spectacle. In the pressure of the squalls the bay was obscuredas if by midnight, but between them a great part of it was clearly ifdarkly visible amid driving mist and rain. The wind blew into theharbour mouth. Naval authorities describe it as of hurricane force. Ithad, however, few or none of the effects on shore suggested by thatominous word, and was successfully withstood by trees and buildings. Theagitation of the sea, on the other hand, surpassed experience anddescription. Seas that might have awakened surprise and terror in themidst of the Atlantic ranged bodily and (it seemed to observers) almostwithout diminution into the belly of that flask-shaped harbour; and thewar-ships were alternately buried from view in the trough, or seenstanding on end against the breast of billows.
The _Trenton_ at daylight still maintained her position in the neck ofthe bottle. But five of the remaining ships tossed, already close to thebottom, in a perilous and helpless crowd; threatening ruin to each otheras they tossed; threatened with a common and imminent destruction on thereefs. Three had been already in collision: the _Olga_ was injured inthe quarter, the _Adler_ had lost her bowsprit; the _Nipsic_ had losther smoke-stack, and was making steam with difficulty, maintaining herfire with barrels of pork, and the smoke and sparks pouring along thelevel of the deck. For the seventh war-ship the day had come too late;the _Eber_ had finished her last cruise; she was to be seen no more saveby the eyes of divers. A coral reef is not only an instrument ofdestruction, but a place of sepulture; the submarine cliff is profoundlyundercut, and presents the mouth of a huge antre in which the bodies ofmen and the hulls of ships are alike hurled down and buried. The _Eber_had dragged anchors with the rest; her injured screw disabled her fromsteaming vigorously up; and a little before day she had struck the frontof the coral, come off, struck again, and gone down stern foremost,oversetting as she went, into the gaping hollow of the reef. Of herwhole complement of nearly eighty, four souls were cast alive on theb
each; and the bodies of the remainder were, by the voluminousoutpouring of the flooded streams, scoured at last from the harbour, andstrewed naked on the seaboard of the island.
Five ships were immediately menaced with the same destruction. The_Eber_ vanished--the four poor survivors on shore--read a dreadfulcommentary on their danger; which was swelled out of all proportion bythe violence of their own movements as they leaped and fell among thebillows. By seven the _Nipsic_ was so fortunate as to avoid the reef andbeach upon a space of sand; where she was immediately deserted by hercrew, with the assistance of Samoans, not without loss of life. Byabout eight it was the turn of the _Adler_. She was close down upon thereef; doomed herself, it might yet be possible to save a portion of hercrew; and for this end Captain Fritze placed his reliance on the veryhugeness of the seas that threatened him. The moment was watched forwith the anxiety of despair, but the coolness of disciplined courage. Asshe rose on the fatal wave, her moorings were simultaneously slipped;she broached to in rising; and the sea heaved her bodily upward and casther down with a concussion on the summit of the reef, where she lay onher beam-ends, her back broken, buried in breaching seas, but safe.Conceive a table: the _Eber_ in the darkness had been smashed againstthe rim and flung below; the _Adler_, cast free in the nick ofopportunity, had been thrown upon the top. Many were injured in theconcussion; many tossed into the water; twenty perished. The survivorscrept again on board their ship, as it now lay, and as it still remains,keel to the waves, a monument of the sea's potency. In still weather,under a cloudless sky, in those seasons when that ill-named ocean, thePacific, suffers its vexed shores to rest, she lies high and dry, thespray scarce touching her--the hugest structure of man's hands within acircuit of a thousand miles--tossed up there like a schoolboy's cap upona shelf; broken like an egg; a thing to dream of.
The unfriendly consuls of Germany and Britain were both that morning inMatautu, and both displayed their nobler qualities. De Coetlogon, thegrim old soldier, collected his family and kneeled with them in an agonyof prayer for those exposed. Knappe, more fortunate in that he wascalled to a more active service, must, upon the striking of the _Adler_,pass to his own consulate. From this he was divided by the Vaisingano,now a raging torrent, impetuously charioting the trunks of trees. Akelpie might have dreaded to attempt the passage; we may conceive thisbrave but unfortunate and now ruined man to have found a natural joy inthe exposure of his life; and twice that day, coming and going, hebraved the fury of the river. It was possible, in spite of the darknessof the hurricane and the continual breaching of the seas, to remarkhuman movements on the _Adler_; and by the help of Samoans, always noblyforward in the work, whether for friend or enemy, Knappe sought long toget a line conveyed from shore, and was for long defeated. The shoreguard of fifty men stood to their arms the while upon the beach, uselessthemselves, and a great deterrent of Samoan usefulness. It was perhapsimpossible that this mistake should be avoided. What more natural, tothe mind of a European, than that the Mataafas should fall upon theGermans in this hour of their disadvantage? But they had no otherthought than to assist; and those who now rallied beside Knappe braved(as they supposed) in doing so a double danger, from the fury of the seaand the weapons of their enemies. About nine, a quarter-master swamashore, and reported all the officers and some sixty men alive but inpitiable case; some with broken limbs, others insensible from thedrenching of the breakers. Later in the forenoon, certain valorousSamoans succeeded in reaching the wreck and returning with a line; butit was speedily broken; and all subsequent attempts proved unavailing,the strongest adventurers being cast back again by the bursting seas.Thenceforth, all through that day and night, the deafened survivors mustcontinue to endure their martyrdom and one officer died, it was supposedfrom agony of mind, in his inverted cabin.
Three ships still hung on the next margin of destruction, steamingdesperately to their moorings, dashed helplessly together. The_Calliope_ was the nearest in; she had the _Vandalia_ close on her portside and a little ahead, the _Olga_ close a-starboard, the reef underher heel; and steaming and veering on her cables, the unhappy shipfenced with her three dangers. About a quarter to nine she carried awaythe _Vandalia's_ quarter gallery with her jib-boom; a moment later, the_Olga_ had near rammed her from the other side. By nine the _Vandalia_dropped down on her too fast to be avoided, and clapped her stern underthe bowsprit of the English ship, the fastenings of which were burstasunder as she rose. To avoid cutting her down, it was necessary for the_Calliope_ to stop and even to reverse her engines; and her rudder wasat the moment--or it seemed so to the eyes of those on board--within tenfeet of the reef. "Between the _Vandalia_ and the reef" (writes Kane, inhis excellent report) "it was destruction." To repeat Fritze'smanoeuvre with the _Adler_ was impossible; the _Calliope_ was tooheavy. The one possibility of escape was to go out. If the enginesshould stand, if they should have power to drive the ship against windand sea, if she should answer the helm, if the wheel, rudder, and gearshould hold out, and if they were favoured with a clear blink of weatherin which to see and avoid the outer reef--there, and there only, weresafety. Upon this catalogue of "ifs" Kane staked his all. He signalledto the engineer for every pound of steam--and at that moment (I am told)much of the machinery was already red-hot. The ship was sheered well tostarboard of the _Vandalia_, the last remaining cable slipped. For atime--and there was no onlooker so cold-blooded as to offer a guess atits duration--the _Calliope_ lay stationary; then gradually drew ahead.The highest speed claimed for her that day is of one sea-mile an hour.The question of times and seasons, throughout all this roaring business,is obscured by a dozen contradictions; I have but chosen what appearedto be the most consistent; but if I am to pay any attention to the timenamed by Admiral Kimberley, the _Calliope_, in this first stage of herescape, must have taken more than two hours to cover less than fourcables. As she thus crept seaward, she buried bow and stern alternatelyunder the billows.
In the fairway of the entrance the flagship _Trenton_ still held on. Herrudder was broken, her wheel carried away; within she was flooded withwater from the peccant hawse-pipes; she had just made the signal "firesextinguished," and lay helpless, awaiting the inevitable end. Betweenthis melancholy hulk and the external reef Kane must find a path.Steering within fifty yards of the reef (for which she was actuallyheaded) and her foreyard passing on the other hand over the _Trenton's_quarter as she rolled, the _Calliope_ sheered between the rival dangers,came to the wind triumphantly, and was once more pointed for the sea andsafety. Not often in naval history was there a moment of more sickeningperil, and it was dignified by one of those incidents that reconcile thechronicler with his otherwise abhorrent task. From the doomed flagshipthe Americans hailed the success of the English with a cheer. It was ledby the old admiral in person, rang out over the storm with holidayvigour, and was answered by the Calliopes with an emotion easilyconceived. This ship of their kinsfolk was almost the last externalobject seen from the _Calliope_ for hours; immediately after, the mistsclosed about her till the morrow. She was safe at sea again--_una demultis_--with a damaged foreyard, and a loss of all the ornamental workabout her bow and stern, three anchors, one kedge-anchor, fourteenlengths of chain, four boats, the jib-boom, bobstay, and bands andfastenings of the bowsprit.
Shortly after Kane had slipped his cable, Captain Schoonmaker,despairing of the _Vandalia_, succeeded in passing astern of the _Olga_,in the hope to beach his ship beside the _Nipsic_. At a quarter toeleven her stern took the reef, her hand swung to starboard, and shebegan to fill and settle. Many lives of brave men were sacrificed in theattempt to get a line ashore; the captain, exhausted by his exertions,was swept from deck by a sea; and the rail being soon awash, thesurvivors took refuge in the tops.
Out of thirteen that had lain there the day before, there were now buttwo ships afloat in Apia harbour, and one of these was doomed to be thebane of the other. About 3 P.M. the _Trenton_ parted one cable, andshortly after a second. It was sought to keep her head to wind withstorm-sails and by the inge
nious expedient of filling the rigging withseamen; but in the fury of the gale, and in that sea, perturbed alike bythe gigantic billows and the volleying discharges of the rivers, therudderless ship drove down stern foremost into the inner basin; ranging,plunging, and striking like a frightened horse; drifting on destructionfor herself and bringing it to others. Twice the _Olga_ (still wellunder command) avoided her impact by the skilful use of helm andengines. But about four the vigilance of the Germans was deceived, andthe ships collided; the _Olga_ cutting into the _Trenton's_ quarters,first from one side, then from the other, and losing at the same timetwo of her own cables. Captain von Ehrhardt instantly slipped theremainder of his moorings, and setting fore and aft canvas, and goingfull steam ahead, succeeded in beaching his ship in Matautu; whitherKnappe, recalled by this new disaster, had returned. The berth wasperhaps the best in the harbour, and von Ehrhardt signalled that shipand crew were in security.
The _Trenton_, guided apparently by an under-tow or eddy from thedischarge of the Vaisingano, followed in the course of the _Nipsic_ and_Vandalia_, and skirted south-eastward along the front of the shorereef, which her keel was at times almost touching. Hitherto she hadbrought disaster to her foes; now she was bringing it to friends. Shehad already proved the ruin of the _Olga_, the one ship that had rid outthe hurricane in safety; now she beheld across her course the submerged_Vandalia_, the tops filled with exhausted seamen. Happily the approachof the _Trenton_ was gradual, and the time employed to advantage.Rockets and lines were thrown into the tops of the friendly wreck; theapproach of danger was transformed into a means of safety; and beforethe ships struck, the men from the _Vandalia's_ main and mizzen masts,which went immediately by the board in the collision, were alreadymustered on the _Trenton's_ decks. Those from the foremast were nextrescued; and the flagship settled gradually into a position alongsideher neighbour, against which she beat all night with violence. Out ofthe crew of the _Vandalia_ forty-three had perished; of the four hundredand fifty on board the _Trenton_, only one.
The night of the 16th was still notable for a howling tempest andextraordinary floods of rain. It was feared the wreck could scarcecontinue to endure the breaching of the seas; among the Germans, thefate of those on board the _Adler_ awoke keen anxiety; and Knappe, onthe beach of Matautu, and the other officers of his consulate on that ofMatafele, watched all night. The morning of the 17th displayed a sceneof devastation rarely equalled: the _Adler_ high and dry, the _Olga_ and_Nipsic_ beached, the _Trenton_ partly piled on the _Vandalia_ andherself sunk to the gun-deck; no sail afloat; and the beach heaped highwith the _debris_ of ships and the wreck of mountain forests. Already,before the day, Seumanu, the chief of Apia, had gallantly ventured forthby boat through the subsiding fury of the seas, and had succeeded incommunicating with the admiral; already, or as soon after as the dawnpermitted, rescue lines were rigged, and the survivors were withdifficulty and danger begun to be brought to shore. And soon thecheerful spirit of the admiral added a new feature to the scene.Surrounded as he was by the crews of two wrecked ships, he paraded theband of the _Trenton_, and the bay was suddenly enlivened with thestrains of "Hail Columbia."
During a great part of the day the work of rescue was continued, withmany instances of courage and devotion; and for a long time succeeding,the almost inexhaustible harvest of the beach was to be reaped. In thefirst employment, the Samoans earned the gratitude of friend and foe; inthe second, they surprised all by an unexpected virtue, that of honesty.The greatness of the disaster, and the magnitude of the treasure nowrolling at their feet, may perhaps have roused in their bosoms anemotion too serious for the rule of greed, or perhaps that greed wasfor the moment satiated. Sails that twelve strong Samoans could scarcedrag from the water, great guns (one of which was rolled by the sea onthe body of a man, the only native slain in all the hurricane), aninfinite wealth of rope and wood, of tools and weapons, tossed upon thebeach. Yet I have never heard that much was stolen; and beyond question,much was very honestly returned. On both accounts, for the saving oflife and the restoration of property, the government of the UnitedStates showed themselves generous in reward. A fine boat was fitlypresented to Seumanu; and rings, watches, and money were lavished on allwho had assisted. The Germans also gave money at the rate (as I receivethe tale) of three dollars a head for every German saved. The obligationwas in this instance incommensurably deep, those with whom they were atwar had saved the German blue-jackets at the venture of their lives;Knappe was, besides, far from ungenerous; and I can only explain theniggard figure by supposing it was paid from his own pocket. In onecase, at least, it was refused. "I have saved three Germans," said therescuer; "I will make you a present of the three."
The crews of the American and German squadrons were now cast, still in abellicose temper, together on the beach. The discipline of the Americanswas notoriously loose; the crew of the _Nipsic_ had earned a characterfor lawlessness in other ports; and recourse was had to stringent andindeed extraordinary measures. The town was divided in two camps, towhich the different nationalities were confined. Kimberley had hisquarter sentinelled and patrolled. Any seaman disregarding a challengewas to be shot dead; any tavern-keeper who sold spirits to an Americansailor was to have his tavern broken and his stock destroyed. Many ofthe publicans were German; and Knappe, having narrated these rigorousbut necessary dispositions, wonders (grinning to himself over hisdespatch) how far these Americans will go in their assumption ofjurisdiction over Germans. Such as they were, the measures weresuccessful. The incongruous mass of castaways was kept in peace, and atlast shipped in peace out of the islands.
Kane returned to Apia on the 19th, to find the _Calliope_ the solesurvivor of thirteen sail. He thanked his men, and in particular theengineers, in a speech of unusual feeling and beauty, of which one whowas present remarked to another, as they left the ship, "This has been ameans of grace." Nor did he forget to thank and compliment the admiral;and I cannot deny myself the pleasure of transcribing from Kimberley'sreply some generous and engaging words. "My dear captain," he wrote,"your kind note received. You went out splendidly, and we all felt fromour hearts for you, and our cheers came with sincerity and admirationfor the able manner in which you handled your ship. We could not havebeen gladder if it had been one of our ships, for in a time like that Ican truly say with old Admiral Josiah Latnall, 'that blood _is_ thickerthan water.'" One more trait will serve to build up the image of thistypical sea-officer. A tiny schooner, the _Equator_, Captain Edwin Reid,dear to myself from the memories of a six months' cruise, lived out uponthe high seas the fury of that tempest which had piled with wrecks theharbour of Apia, found a refuge in Pango-Pango, and arrived at last inthe desolated port with a welcome and lucrative cargo of pigs. Theadmiral was glad to have the pigs; but what most delighted the man'snoble and childish soul, was to see once more afloat the colours of hiscountry.
Thus, in what seemed the very article of war, and within the duration ofa single day, the sword-arm of each of the two angry Powers was broken;their formidable ships reduced to junk; their disciplined hundreds to ahorde of castaways, fed with difficulty, and the fear of whosemisconduct marred the sleep of their commanders. Both paused aghast;both had time to recognise that not the whole Samoan Archipelago wasworth the loss in men and costly ships already suffered. The so-calledhurricane of March 16th made thus a marking epoch in world-history;directly, and at once, it brought about the congress and treaty ofBerlin; indirectly, and by a process still continuing, it founded themodern navy of the States. Coming years and other historians willdeclare the influence of that.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 17 Page 11