Under the Wide and Starry Sky

CHAPTER 84

On a heavenly morning in early July, one of the workers appeared in the yard with black paint on his nose and stripes across his cheekbones. War was at hand.
For the past two months, heated talk had only grown hotter. The consuls of the Three Powers  were  united  behind  Malietoa  Laupepa  and  eager  to  put  down  any  attempt  by Mata’afa at a takeover. Every trip into Apia turned up more hysterical gossip. Recently, Louis and Belle had ridden down to one of the balls that the Europeans and Americans put on  to amuse themselves.  A normally  sensible Englishwoman  told Louis that he and his family were marked for murder by Laupepa’s soldiers the moment the fighting began.
He  had  come  back  that  night  and  taken  stock  of  their  armory.  There  were  eight revolvers, a half-dozen Colt ri?es, and a variety of old swords hanging on walls. He made a drawing of the house and its vulnerabilities. And then he set about cleaning weapons. From that night on, they heard war drums pounding in the distance.

“Poor Lafaele begged to stay here. I told him yes, of course,” Fanny said one morning at breakfast. “Whether they support Laupepa or Mata’afa, nearly all the men want to stay out of the fighting.”

“I don’t know what more I can do,” Louis said. His recent attempts to intercede had come to naught. “It will be any day now, I think,” he said. “I fear for Mata’afa.”
“I will have Lafaele butcher the big pig,” Fanny said. “Our people should eat it instead of some party of foragers.”

The war would last nine days. It was brie?y colorful, as Moors said it would be. And then it was bloody.

“Do you remember what Clarke told us about Samoans choosing sides in a war?” Louis asked.  “He said,  ‘You will know where they stand when the ?rst shot is ?red, and not before.’”

“Apparently, a shot has been fired somewhere,” Fanny said sadly.

They were on  the verandah, watching a  group  of their workers talking intently in  a huddle on the lawn. Several of the young men had come to her and asked that their wages be held back until the fighting was over.

“Lafaele says that those who go will not support Mata’afa, even though he is a Catholic,”

she said. “He says they will fight as Malietoa Laupepa’s soldiers.”

Louis shrugged. “I have no in?uence over that. I’m going to ride down to town to get the lay of the land. I will speak to Lloyd and Talolo and Lafaele before I go. You will be safe here.”

“I’m going as well.” “Absolutely not. “ “Louis … “

“I won’t go, then.”

Fanny looked up at his eyes.  “Louis, you are a chivalrous man. And I know that you admire the British standard of womanhood. But I have never been very good at staying in the back room while the action is out front. I’ve been in tough situations, and I have always kept my head. If you’re afraid that I’m not recovered enough, I can assure you I haven’t seen any ghosts today.” She patted his arm.  “Really, I am tip-top. And I want to to see Reverend Clarke. I heard he is setting up an in?rmary in the mission house. If this truly is war, they will need me.”

He sighed. “Very well.”

Is it every former madwoman’s worst nightmare to be thought crazy when she isn’t? Fanny felt that each conversation with Louis required clear proof of her sanity. Lately, she noticed people’s eyes linger a little too long on her, as if weighing the soundness of her remarks. Did they think she was a danger to herself or, worse, to them? She drew in a deep breath.

One foot in front of the other, Fanny.

In town, they found the streets full of warriors, some of them mere children, with blackpainted faces and red bandannas tied around their foreheads, signifying  their status as Laupepa’s troops. All of them were in a high state of excitement, even the women, who carried  food  to  the  front  and  sometimes  followed  the  men  into  battle  to  feed  them ammunition. Along the main street, some Samoans were trying to sell their belongings. Old cherished tapa mats were being sold for a pittance so the families could get out of town. In the harbor, boatloads of men were coming from other islands to join in the fight.
They went into the general store and talked to the fellow standing in for Moors, who had gone with his wife and a handful of Samoans to Chicago for the Exposition.
“Rich,  ain’t  it?”  said  the  stand-in. “Moors  is  up  in  Chicago  giving kava-making demonstrations, and here I stand, trying to ?nd more ammunition and red kerchiefs and

wondering if I got enough bullets to hold down my own fort.”

At the mission house, they found Reverend Clarke, who con?rmed that war was under way.  “Three dead came in,” he said,  “and several wounded. There is a doctor from the German man-of-war in the other room, doing surgery. I heard eleven heads were taken to the camp of Laupepa. One of the heads belonged to a girl.”

“Dear God, how can that be?” Louis said.

“She was probably mistaken for a man,” Clarke said. “Her hair was cut short.” Louis went into the surgery room and came back looking pale.  “Two men in there are
dying.”

days,  Mata’afa  was  thoroughly  routed  and  taken  as  a  prisoner  of  war  to  the Marshall Islands, while twenty-three of his subchiefs were jailed in Apia. The war stories ?owed into Vailima. Villages burned. Many dead. Mata’afa’s son was killed in battle, along with his wife, who refused to stay behind. Fanny and Louis knew them both.
“Never,”  Lafaele  assured  Fanny.  Never  before  had  women’s  heads  been  taken.  One warrior was said to have carried a man’s head triumphantly to Laupepa, only to discover upon washing off the black war paint that it was the head of his brother.
Mata’afa’s men did not take heads, the Vailima men insisted. Fanny didn’t know what to believe.