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Chapter XII.
Rumours and Alarms.

During the night of 4th September ships' lights were reported off the port, which later disappeared in a suspicious manner, and the troops were roused and stood to arms from 3 a.m. Daylight, however, disclosed nothing more formidable than the "Monowai," returning from Fiji with stores and the remainder of the Battery, her mysterious movements being accounted for by the fact that all the harbour lights had been removed by the Germans before the Occupation. She was unable to make port in the darkness and had stood out to sea again.

Apia has always been notorious for its rumours. Robert Louis Stevenson, it will be remembered, in his day had been struck with its capacity in this direction, and had suggested that should Apia ever choose a coat of arms he had a motto ready: "Enter Rumour Painted Full of Tongues."

But now what zest was added to the already facile tongue! Centred mostly around the German cruisers, alarms and rumours were ever recurring, while every day reports came to hand of hostile landings at various points of the wide seaboard or of German ships seen in the vicinity, some told with such vivid imagination and detail that on frequent occasions troops were rushed to arms while patrols were hurriedly despatched to the alleged point of attack.

Night alarms were also frequent. On dark nights, when the fishing was good, the natives with their flares of coconut fronds swarmed over the reefs, their torches showing for miles along the coast like the lights of a small town, and were more than once the cause of reports of circumstances suspiciously resembling a landing under cover of darkness.

With the presence of so many German inhabitants perhaps it was natural that frequent reports were circulated of secret page 79and mysterious lamp flashings at nights from isolated heights on the surrounding mountains or from some remote point of the coast; of the organising of the natives by Germans in distant localities in Upolu or Savaii, and even of secret gatherings of armed parties of Germans in the dead of night at the headquarters of one or other of the big plantations in the vicinity of Apia.

Some weeks after the occupation some stir was caused on the waterfront by the appearance of a strange ship's lifeboat containing German sailors in an exhausted condition endeavouring to make port. Visions of a sea fight and its sole survivors arose, but upon landing it was ascertained that they were all sailors from the German steamer "Elsass," which was in Pago Pago on the declaration of war, and was there interned. They had deserted from the ship and made Apia under the belief that the page 80Territory had been recaptured by the Germans, and were promptly arrested and deported by first available steamer to New Zealand for internment.

The following afternoon, a group of men on the waterfront discerned in the Straits between Upolu and Savaii what appeared to be two warships, steaming North-East with smoking funnels. Though several men declared they distinctly saw the ships the general belief was that they had been the victims of an optical delusion, very heavy cloudbanks at the time on the horizon probably adding to the deception.

Shortly after came a report from Mulifanua that German warships had landed men at Savaii; that the natives there had risen and joined the German forces, and were bringing arms across the straits in native boats. As communication with the outer island was infrequent and irregular the reports were of sufficient importance to warrant a special investigation, which as usual, proved them unfounded.

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A partol sent across the Island to Falealili at this time failed to return and caused some anxiety. Another patrol was despatched to look for it, but both parties returned to quarters on the following day, heavy rains on the mountains having retarded progress.

Thus were the hopes of the troops buoyed up from day to day, and counteracted somewhat the effects of the long night vigils on outpost in the plantations in the tropical downpouring rains that now became frequent and presaged the coming rainy season; the pestering of the maddeningly persistent mosquitos which hovered in myriads during the day, and at night renewed their energies tenfold; of the water and wood fatigues, the stone-gathering for concreting works and wall-making, the sweating and trench-digging in the scorching tropical sun; the heavy parades and route marches; the absence of mosquito nets, which made rest impossible when sleeping time came; the centipeds, and monotonous and inadequate food, when a meal of potatoes and pumpkin was chronicled in a private's diary as "a real treat."