I was woken by music. Beams of light were spreading over me, and through my heavy lids I saw Vao was not there. I pushed myself up and went outside, where I found her on the edge of the stream playing a kind of improvised pipe made of a hollow stick of bamboo. She seemed at peace.
“It is beautiful.”
“I only like to play music when the birds are singing; that is why I wake up with them,” she replied. “My father would never allow a bird or any animal to be injured. He was called ‘the bird chief.’”
“If we find Belial . . .” I began, trying to think how to remind her delicately that a confrontation could become violent.
She stared up into the sky. “He is lower than the smallest animal or insect, lower than any brute, for he sings only false notes. Tulagi would tell me that I must free my mind from thoughts of revenge.”
“Perhaps he would have been right.”
“As a woman, I am to inspire and support the men in their fights, but not fight my own, just as a dwarf he was never to be a soldier, never to be a husband, no matter how much a woman—”
Here she ended her comments abruptly and she played her pipe to hide fresh tears.
“My dear,” I said, gasping. “Forgive me. I never realized.”
She had loved Tulagi and, not allowed to, had to live through the torments of being presented one candidate after another for marriage by him. There it was. Had this driven her into the arms of Davenport, or had she been trying to show herself there could be a man for her other than the dwarf who had held her heart for so long—instead breaking his into pieces?
• • •
IF, MR. CLOVER, you happen to find yourself in the South Seas one day, you might notice the way many of the islands of importance divide themselves naturally into the places the whites plant themselves and those places the natives live, from which they observe the whites. Most of the white settlers and officials seem content in this. But the Germans in Samoa were an exception. They were never willing to keep their distance. The German consulate buildings and the German Commercial and Trading Firm, together referred to simply as the Firm, occupied almost 150,000 acres of land on Upolu, making it the largest portion of land controlled by a foreign entity in Samoa.
The coat of arms, a picture of a soaring eagle, greeted us when we rode up to the consulate the next day. German guards in bright blue jackets stood outside the door watching our every move. There was a moment when we simultaneously took deep breaths.
“We do not have many choices left,” I reassured her about what we were there to do.
She gathered herself. “I trust in you, Chief Fergins. I only wish I did not have to step foot on their so-called property. Their greed to have the lands my people deserve is what killed so many, including my father.”
The government building was rather plain and not very large, at least in the shadow of the commercial structure. After we sat for a while staring at the whitewashed walls, we were greeted by a peculiar bureaucrat whose sloppy smile directed itself nowhere in particular.
“First thing in the morning, so much business to be done,” he said, his interest in us flagging immediately. “I do apologize if you have been waiting. If you please follow me.”
The first man left us in a private room, then a new and less friendly arrival introduced himself as Becker, the consul, and asked our business.
“We wish some information about a friend of ours who is missing,” I said.
“I see,” Becker said in a neutral voice.
“The Marist missionary, Thomas.”
“I have met him on occasion. But as to his location, I’m afraid I cannot help. This island has many places where a man can disappear.” His English was fluent but the words were rocked uncomfortably by sharp Germanic pronunciation.
I looked at Vao and nodded. She removed a pouch, pinching her eyes closed with distaste as a mixture of American and British coins slid out from it. It did not add up to very much, perhaps twenty American dollars in all, but it was what Vao had been able to bring with her from Vailima.
The consul made a clucking noise in his throat. “I am afraid my hands are tied,” he said ambiguously, never denying he knew where Belial could be found.
“Herr Becker, I know the Firm watches all that happens on these islands, and this is of some importance,” I said. His laconic expression did not change. I looked away from Vao as I continued: “Perhaps there is something else to trade. Information for information. It concerns the Solomon Islanders who escaped your plantation. The ones who still have their heads.”
You appear shocked, Mr. Clover, at my ruthless tactic in my dialogue with the consul. But do not forget I had been in the presence of Whiskey Bill and Davenport many times over the years in negotiations such as this where securely held information was extracted using quiet aggression.
“What are you doing?” Vao hissed at me.
“I’m afraid you have been misled,” Becker said.
“Oh?” I replied.
“Our consulate, like those of our American and British friends, is a resource to the native islanders. We are merely observers here.”
“It was my understanding that you burn down houses that do not accept the king you chose.”
Becker shook his head and offered an expression approximating compassion. “Houses! They are not houses. They are merely native huts, Mr. Fergins, no more substantial than the trees. The village I believe you speak of could have incited the king’s followers into violence against the villagers. We protected them.”
“Very well. I wonder if you wish to know information on the location of the camp of cannibals who escaped from your plantation.”
“Traitor! Vile traitor!” Vao shouted at me. “This is your plan to get what you need? To lead those runaways to massacre?”
“Please, Vao, they are not your people. You must stay quiet while I do business.”
“What is the meaning of this girl’s outburst?” Becker demanded, pointing at her.
“I am the daughter of a man you murdered, sir,” she replied vociferously in German, “in your attempt to prop up the marionette Tamasese, a devil who traded his soul and his island for power and riches. You believe you control our land because you amass warships and money. No. It is part of nature and does not belong to you. Who else will you betray for what you want, Chief Fergins?” she turned back to me, much to the other man’s apparent relief. “Tusitala? Me? After I rescued you from the mountains and brought you safely to the beach.”
I kept my eyes locked straight ahead: “I am sorry.”
When she had begun screaming, the consul had clapped for his guards, who now came in and held her back. She struggled against them, and broke free long enough to land an elbow against my cheek.
“Off this man, you savage harlot!” Becker yelled.
I watched as the fiery girl was carried out.
The consul, wiping sweat from his face, folded his hands and rubbed his thumbs together in a performance of casualness. “Unfortunate that some of these brown women debase themselves, even the pretty ones, by trying to fight like their native brothers. It is, as I say, our role to improve the position of the natives any way we can. They will learn how to act more like we do. I will tell you about these runaways you spoke of. We give them the opportunity to lead lives here of hard work and productivity. Alas, sometimes they succumb to nostalgia for their heathen lands. Some of these, unfortunately, present a danger to the peaceful inhabitants of the island and we would certainly be a willing party to their capture alongside the native authorities.”
I sat silently, still looking in the direction of where Vao was taken away.
“Never mind her. You wish to share what you know?” Becker pressed. “Perhaps to sketch a map?”
“I hardly know the island well enough,” I said, shoving away some paper Becker brought over.
“How is it you would come upon the location of such savages, then?”
“An accident. I came to know Robert Louis Stevenson—Tusitala, as he is called here. While riding with him, he happened to tell me where the cannibals could be found.”
Becker propped up a contemptuous smile, though just barely a smile, by jutting his large front teeth over his bottom lip. “Mmhmm,” he murmured. “Herr Stevenson thinks he can be like a character in one of his sensational tales who leads men to glory by revealing secrets. Tell me, though, if you have become so friendly with Herr Stevenson—”
“We have had some differences over a mutual friend that left me aggrieved, and have led me here,” I interrupted him.
He rose at his chair and waited for me to do the same. “Yes, I heard that Herr Stevenson, or shall we call him the Chief Justice of Vailima, even had you placed in that awful prison. Please, follow me, Herr Fergins.”
I pretended to deliberate on my decision, as I smiled widely on the inside.
• • •
VAO WAS NOT HELD for questioning for very long. “They merely asked some questions about my intentions toward the king,” she told me when we reunited. She laughed and called them “a dull lot.” It took me some hours working with a charcoal pencil on a piece of paper to re-create what I had discovered in the consulate. The consul had promised me he would find out where Belial was, which of course I knew would not happen. More important, they had brought me into a long room filled with maps for me to show them where the runaway group congregated.
Vao had informed me of this room the night before, as we designed the scheme. She had said: “It is a room believed to be highly guarded in the consul. It is said in there they keep details of their plans, inch by inch, to control all Samoa and force the natives and the other foreign powers under their thumb.”
As we had planned, I refused to show them anything on the maps until they agreed to all my conditions. This included a request for a lucrative official position in the German commercial firm, as preposterous a demand by a British bookseller as if I had asked to be made a Samoan chief. When they excused themselves to debate my terms, I examined the maps displayed around the room. Everything was marked in German, but fortunately it has long been one of my best languages because of its importance in collecting philosophical and scientific texts. As soon as I had examined everything in reach, I put them on a wild goose chase for the cannibals.
With the charcoal and paper, and Vao’s help with geography, I sketched the locales to the best of my recollection.
“I hope I didn’t catch your jaw too hard,” Vao said as I worked on the map, examining my chin.
I felt myself turn beet red at her touch, and shrugged a little. “It needed to be convincing. I know Tulagi would be proud of you.”
I did not mean to sadden or embarrass her, and though she blushed, I believe the thought of Tulagi’s delight in her brought her comfort. With her further assistance, I marked the locations that seemed to match those places on the Germans’ maps that had appeared to indicate the isolated outposts and hiding places controlled by the Tamasese government. With what Vao had already discovered, we concluded that the information Belial traded on Stevenson must have gained him sanctuary in one of these places.
We rode off as soon as we could gather our belongings; one of the spots on our list was a remote encampment that had been completely blocked off early on in the storm, eliminating it as a possibility. There was one locality we concluded was farther from the harbor than Belial would be willing to go. Another one was a cavern high up on one of Upolu’s lush, treacherous mountains. We stopped at the foot of it and squinted up through the mist, then went around from another side. We could see hints of life: small fires that were lit on the outer ledges that contained entrances.
“He’s been in there,” Vao said.
“Someone looks like they have. How do you know it is him?” I asked.
She smiled at my ignorance. “Because no Samoan would enter, not without a man like him, anyway.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You see, Chief Fergins, the caves are filled with the banished spirits of our former gods, the ones forced out by the Christian religions brought by white missionaries. They have long since turned into aitu, demonic ghosts. That is why you will see no caves on maps made by us. But if a white man is inside the cave, the devils will be kept safely at bay. So if there are Samoans inside those caverns, then so is a white man.”
Vao’s description of the aitus made me remember Tulagi, streaks of lightning in the sky creating a glow across his face, reciting the history of the island to himself. She became quiet and contemplative, maybe carried away by her own memories of her champion.
We waited many hours without progress until a soldier passed along the way alone, returning from some chore, and Vao called after him. He was armed with a blade, but Vao’s beauty stopped him in his tracks, and gave her time to explain that she was a tapo and daughter of a deceased chief, and had some questions. He seemed to recognize her, or at least her dialect, and he invited us to walk with him.
This was the story the soldier told us.
A week or so after the worst of the last hurricane had ended, one of Tamasese’s advisers was working to repair a broken fence in a remote parcel of his land when he was approached by a bedraggled white man, pulling a leather satchel alongside him. It seemed he had been walking through the bush for miles. As frightening as was his entire aspect, the adviser said the man’s eyes were the most fearsome trait about him—dark and deadly.
This adviser sent for a buggy and the man was transported to the king’s village. Once the man was recognized as Thomas, the powerful Marist missionary, word was immediately brought to Tamasese. Belial asked for sanctuary from enemies, and in return he would provide information on various enemies of the king’s whom he had come into contact with as a missionary.
The missionary was sequestered as he had requested, taken from the king’s palace to these secret caverns. He announced the rules to all soldiers who guarded him: Samoans were not to speak to him without their heads bowed; they were never to look into his eyes. When one native was slow to understand this request, and asked Belial if he could bring him anything to eat, Belial took a riding whip and slashed him across the neck and back until the whip unraveled.
The king at once began asking the new white chief advice on various political issues. It was said that their new white premier decided to write a codification of laws for the king—he called those the Heathen Codes—while he lingered in the caves. He began suggesting new laws for the king’s followers to abide by regarding women’s clothes (there should be more) and dancing (there should be none). Belial seemed very content and rarely went above the surface.
“Sometimes, he spoke to himself down there, but not just words,” said the soldier regarding Belial. “Almost a chant, and sometimes he dances.”
“Then he is still inside there?” I asked him, after Vao translated his words for me.
The soldier ignored me, justifiably appalled by my twopenny Samoan, so Vao repeated my question.
The soldier shook his head with relief. “When we brought news of a white man released from Tale-Pui-Pui, and that one had visited the German consul to find out where he was, he demanded to be carried to another location. Carried, I mean, on a litter decorated with flowers of his choosing—it took six of us eight hours.”
• • •
WE WERE ON HIS TRAIL—and yet still he eluded us. The soldier told us where he believed Belial had ultimately been taken after being carried by the soldiers. So we rode on. But our guess was that Belial was moving every couple of days to stay ahead of us. I kept a close eye on Vao to try to observe whether her resolve had wavered. Hers were the eyes of youth—easily swayed toward excitement and despair. She was becoming more determined even as our joint quest increasingly seemed hopeless.
&nb
sp; I did not find any hesitation on her part, but her earlier talk of needing to be free and liberated from her keepers gave way to looking to me for commands and direction. The truth was, she had always had a protector and with or without her rifle and warrior costumes and her command of languages, part of her had not learned what to do without one.
The next section of jungle where we found ourselves was so thick it was pitch-black. I could hardly see in front of my face. Despite the covering of trees, there was no shelter from the fierce heat, and the mud baked in the high temperatures and oozed with noxious gases. My eyes stung, my other senses rebelling in equal measure.
When we reached a slight clearing in the trees, I was more relieved than I would have admitted. But in the bush, relief is transitory. The ground was bubbling and sinking in; the horse bucked and I was thrown forward. I had to keep leaping until I was on rocky but solid surface inside an even smaller clearing, strangled above and on all sides by heavier woods. But I had lost Vao, and my heart sank. I began calling for her.
Then I heard the first sets of noises. They sounded like short bursts of air, or low menacing whispers. I was almost certain they were human sounds even though they were unlike any I’d heard. I could not go back through the sinking ground, but this clearing offered no room to hide from an attack.
Then there was a shout. A word. Not Samoan. I still could not see anything through walls and walls of trees and vines. I tilted my head back very slowly, dreading what I might find and whether—whatever it was—it could be the last thing I’d see. There was the point of a blade inches from my face, held there by a man perched in an impossible position in one of the trees. I started to reach for a cutlass given to me by Vao, before noticing that the trees were filled with men and boys, each armed with deadly, handmade weapons. Their skin was darker than that of Samoans. All the men were physically powerful, statuesque, and poised for a strike.
The Last Bookaneer Page 30