Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 KING JAKOB (Part 8)

   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 8

   In 1914 Japan was still a mystery to most of Europe.  They were
artistic, creative, aesthetic with a quaint, highly ritualistic society. 
They were also fiercely Nationalistic, belicose and believed as much in
divine destiny as any European demagogue.  By 1914, she had also acquired a
reputation for attacking her enemies before actually declaring war.  To the
Europeans, this was a serious breach of etiquette.  She had attacked China
that way in 1897 and in 1904, Admiral Tojo Heichiro sent his torpedo boats
against the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, Manchuria.

   Germany's only Naval base of any consequence outside of home was at
Tsingtao, China in the then German Concession.  It was also perilously
close to Japan.  At the beginning of August 1914, the authorities had
gathered together all the Naval shipping they could from Germany's
scattered colonies.  By and large, they were a motley collection of old
colonial gunboats who were serving out their time before retirement.  Four
of them lined the quay, 'Iltis,' 'Jaguar,' 'Luchs,' and 'Tiger'.  From
August the 1st 1914, these were all decommissioned and their guns unshipped
and emplaced ashore.

   At Ponape in the Eastern Carolines was the freshly renamed South Seas
Squadron of Vice Admiral Maximillian Johannes Maria Hubertus von Spee. 
Besides 'Scharnhorst' and 'Gneisenau,' relatively modern 'armoured
cruisers,' his squadron also consisted of the smaller, 'Nuernburg,' 'Emden'
and 'Prinz Eitel Friedrich' together with the tenders 'Titania' and
'Markomannia.' Abandoning his 'tour of inspection' then in progress, von
Spee awaited orders from Berlin to begin operations.

   Britain had had a treaty with Belgium since the 1830's guaranteeing her
sovereignty.  Germany's 'Schleifen plan' called for a right hook through
Belgian territory to attack France.  Unbelievably, the German General Staff
had convinced themselves that Britain would ignore their intrusion.  After
all, it was only a little bit of Belgian territory.  Too little, they
believed, for Britain to get too het up about.  It wasn't the first, or the
last time Germany completely botched her international diplomacy and
strategic planning.  From that point, the Central Powers effectively put
victory out of reach.

   Meanwhile, far away in the outer islands of German Samoa, Jakob
Herzberg's three-masted topsail schooner 'Borodino' was anchored off an
anonymous little volcano called Talofa'a'sofua Island.  They were waiting
there to pick up one Dr.  Bentine, an English Anthropologist.  Arriving the
night before, the Borodino's Samoan crewmen had been reluctant to go
ashore. Claiming, they said, that a landing would be too dangerous, Jakob
suspected that their real fear was of the inhabitants.

   "What's on the other side?" Jakob asked his Samoan 'Master mate'.

   "Rocks, sheer cliffs," he told him, "no landing there.  Village under
those trees, there, see?" he pointed.

   "Got it!  So where the hell is everyone?"

   "Out fishing?" he shrugged, "gone to nearby islands for sea-birds or
eggs, shellfish?  Who knows what they do?"

   "So what say we land."

   "No chance," he shook his head, "can't do that while men away.  Women
will run away, men come back and stick you with spears."

   "Ha, are the women that attractive?" he laughed.

   "Like sows, with udders the size of ship's buoys?" the Samoan grinned.

   "Now that I've got to see!"

   But protocol demanded that they wait for the men to return.  To do
otherwise would be needlessly provocative.  It was easy to understand.  In
days gone by when rival 'fanau' raided each other's villages, 'women
stealing' was high on the agenda.  It was one way of widening the gene
pool.

   Jakob's mistresses were creating not a small amount of interest
themselves.  Asmira and Qing Li acquired the habit of wearing quite
immodest attire when on deck, light cotton tops over otherwise naked
breasts and short trousers or island lavalavas.  Julia was the only one of
Jakob's women companions who dressed 'decently.' Her 'proper' upbringing
would not allow her to dress as the other women.  The previous night she
had shed some of her English reserve when she had lain with Jakob in the
presence of Asmira and Qing Li.  Although she had made love to only Jakob,
she couldn't be sure in the heat of passion just whose hands, and fingers,
were upon her.

   Or indeed tongues, for she had writhed in excitement at the sensation of
a moist wriggling thing insinuated between her legs.  She couldn't place
whose tongue it was and it concerned her.  Had she sunk to new levels of
degradation?  It bothered her because she had truely enjoyed the
experience. It would have been much better to have felt repelled.

   Some time around mid-morning there was movement on the distant beach. 
Through their telescopes, Jakob and his Samoan master mate spotted a white
man, a veritable Robinson Crusoe of a character.

   "There's your Englishman," the Samoan said.

   He was dressed in a ragged shirt and lavalava.  An old straw boater
graced his head and Jakob thought he could see bird feathers wound into his
long hair.

   "Good grief!" Jakob said, "what has the man been doing?"

   "Gone native," grinned the Samoan, "too many big udders!"

   As they watched, several more people appeared and began to point towards
them.  These were young men, bare-chests festooned with sea-shell necklaces
and they carried spears.

   "I don't like the look of them!" remarked Jakob.

   "Fishing spears," commented the Samoan, "probably come back from the
reefs.  Spear fish in rock pools."

   "Ah!  That explains it."

   Presently a canoe appeared from the bush and they set out towards the
'Borodino.'

   "Julia!  Dress up and close your legs.  Here comes your husband."

   --------------------------------------------------------

   Dr.  Bentine was excentric, cultured, mannered and spoke English
smattered with Samoan.  He wore rimless glasses, island dress and long hair
wound into locks and twisted with feathers.  He was shorter than Jakob and
sturdier in build, a European knife dangled on a strap over his shoulder.
Jakob decided to keep quiet about his relationship with Julia until he was
sure of the man's temper.

   Julia was shocked at the change in him.  Could this once reserved,
academic gentleman possibly be her husband?  Jakob tactfully left them
alone to get re-acquainted.  It wasn't long, however, before she returned,
an indefinable look on her face.

   "He wants to stay," she told Jakob.

   "Right!  Waisake throw on a shovelful and turn up the wick.  Pull the
anchor up, let's go!"

   "No wait," cried Julia, "you can't leave him!"

   "Let him stay, Julia, send him back to his udders and spearfishermen."

   "But..."

   "We're not his keepers, Julia."

   Unbeknown to them, at that precise time the Australian squadron was
combing the Bismarck Archipelago and the Balaus for von Spee.  The German
South Seas Squadron, however, had scattered.  Von Spee had gathered
together his light cruisers, 'Leipzig' and 'Dresden' and together with
'Nuernburg' had taken them and his big ships South East into the Pacific.
'Emden' was ordered to take the tender 'Markomannia' and head for the
Indian Ocean.  The 'Australia' signalled the important news that von Spee
was loose in the Pacific, then headed for Port Moresby in British New
Guinea for coal and further orders.  War was heading for the Pacific
whether the citizens of Samoa wanted it or not.

   On Samoa itself, the cable link to Fiji abruptly ceased.  That to German
New Guinea was slow and erratic.  Starved of news, the settlers grew more
anxious.  The big Telefunken wireless radio on Telegraph hill buzzed with
traffic, however.  But all of it was in code, all official and couldn't be
disseminated to the population.  A perimeter was constructed around the
station and it's diesel generator guarded by two Samoan policemen armed
with Mannlicher semi-automatic pistols.  Schapinski had received direct
orders from Berlin to do so.  Communications had to be secured.

   Poor old Stadler's plan of escape had been blocked.  He was there for
the duration whether he liked it or not.

   Hoffmann's men kept themselves busy digging rifle pits on the lower
slopes of the hills above Apia.  'Better to succumb heroically,' he told
his 'troops,''than to damage German prestige by giving in without a fight.'
Three of his troop weren't so sure and slipped away to their homes on the
Northern island of Savai'i.

   Schapinski had the single artillery piece on Samoa, its antique 37mm
signal gun, secretly disabled.  The old cannon took half an hour to reload
at any rate and was considered more of a danger to friend than foe.  The
Administrator wasn't going to have some hothead letting the thing off at
the 'Australia.'

   Generally the 190 odd German settlers remaining on the Samoan Islands in
August 1914 were less interested in heroic deeds than a quiet life.  Not
quite so the Samoan native population.  About a dozen chiefs had pledged
over a thousand warriors to resist any invasion.  They had few firearms
among them, however, just spears and clubs.  Schapinski spent time with the
orators in a hitherto vain attempt at convincing them they were officially
neutrals and so couldn't fight.  A difficult concept, they were expected to
stand by as spectators while one European power siezed their islands from
another.

   The Colonial Administrator was quickly running out of nerves.  He had
done better thus far than anyone expected of the man.  But for Hoffmann's
troops and the Samoan war party, everything had been kept under control in
the most trying circumstances.  What he needed now was von Goeltz, or
failing that Herzberg, with the personal power and charisma to rein in the
idiots.  Alas, von Goeltz was serving in the German General staff in Berlin
and Herzberg had cleared out on his schooner.  At the end of his tether, he
tried to reach Herzberg by radio once more.

   'Situation serious, Samoans and Hoffmann preparing to fight English. 
Must return to avoid disaster.' The message finished with a personal touch
from Schapinski, 'your friends need you.  Schapinski.'

   "Bastard!" said Jakob when he saw the message.  He brushed past Julia
into his cabin and slammed the door.

   -------------------------------------------------------------

   Two hours later he was still holed up in the cabin.  The crew were
standing around uncertain what they should do.  Julia had asked the Master
mate to belay the order to sail until Jakob had re-appeared.

   Her husband had gone back to the island in the meantime, but returned
just before lunch time.  The local chief, he said, had invited everyone for
a feast and canoes would shortly put out to bring everyone to shore.

   His master mate, Waisake the engineer, Qing Li, Asmira and Julia held a
brief meeting on deck to decide what to do.  The Samoans were, oddly, for
accepting the invitation.  In their culture it was seriously disrespectful
not to go and may cause lasting problems.  It would be true to say,
however, that they weren't particularly enthusiastic.  Jakob's mistresses
refused to go without Jakob, but Julia wanted one last attempt at
persuading her husband to leave with them.  In the end Asmira and Qing Li
decided to wait for Jakob to snap out of his depression while the others
piled into the waiting canoes.

   Jakob was sitting in his cabin when Asmira knocked on the door softly
once more.

   "Master Jakob?" Asmira called.  The door unlocked and she entered.  "Are
you alright?" she asked, quietly.  A half empty vodka bottle sat on the
table.  Jakob stared at it while sitting on the bed.



   "Sit!" he told her and patted the bed.  "What do you think, Asmira?" he
said eventually, "I never ask your opinion, do I?  Funny...  never have. 
Always assumed you would do what I decide.  You, who wait so patiently,
raise my children...  never question.  What, my dear, would you do?"

   "Master?" she looked puzzled.

   "Master?" Jakob said, shaking his head.  "Master, never Jakob?  Are you
happy, Asmira?  Happy with a life in service, bearing children... 
foregoing your own life for me...  foregoing love?  Perhaps love does not
mean the same for you, I don't know...." Asmira continued to look at him
questioningly.  "Do you understand?"

   "I love you Master Jakob," she said quietly.

   "But how can you, Asmira?  I have never been faithful, to anyone.  I've
only ever judged someone on the basis of what use they are to me.  I never
think about what they want, feel..." he tapered off and took another swig
of the vodka.  "I should have married you, Asmira.  You were my first, my
truest...  stood by me...  always...  You taught me about the bedroom... 
how to please women....  always opened your legs when I asked.  Why?  I
don't deserve...  have never deserved you, Asmira.  You have been my rock,
my saviour.  How can you have tolerated me all these years?"

   "I love you, Master Jakob," she repeated.

   "You're only saying that because I pay you," Jakob said bitterly, "if I
sold you to that idiot Hoffmann, you would say the same thing to him."

   "I don't love idiot Hoffmann," she said, "only love you, Master Jakob."

   "Oh bullshit!" Jakob spat, throwing his bottle against the wall.

   "You unhappy?  I make you happy, Master Jakob."

   Jakob turned and looked her up and down.  Her big breasts were
unfettered under her shirt, he could see her nipples clearly through the
fabric.  Asmira was now over 40 years old.  Her precise age was unknown to
him, she couldn't remember what year she was born.  Her dark Tamil features
were now a little worn from age and child-rearing fatigue.  Silver threads
now intruded into her long dark mane of hair.  But her eyes still danced
with life and spirit.  The same eyes that had always captivated him when
other women had come to fill his life, and bed.

   Jakob sat back down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders.  He
turned her face to his and rested his forehead on her's.  He brushed her
cheek with his hand, she smiled.

   "You must tell me what I should do," he told her, "should I sail away,
or go back?"

   "You know what to do," she replied, "you always know what to do." Her
eyes were moist.  Jakob asked her what was wrong.  "You are unhappy," she
explained, "and want to sell me to idiot Hoffmann."

   "No!  I would never sell you, Asmira." She brightened.  Jakob sealed it
with a peck on the lips.  "But what are we to do about idiot Hoffmann?  And
the chiefs?  What are we to do about them?  It will be a bloodbath, the
'Australia' against warriors with spears and a few fat planters with
Mausers.  Apia will be demolished, my stores destroyed...  we can't have
that, now, can we?"

   "You will know what to do," she told him, "you give some orders, tell
everyone to go back to house...  and village."

   "Hmm, I have no official authority...  but, what if..."

   "Master Jakob?" Asmira was puzzled.

   "I have an idea," he said.

   "See?  You always know..."

   "Yes, yes.  I'm such a clever Zhid," he interrupted.  "By the way, where
the hell has everyone gone?  There appears to be no-one on deck up there."

   "Gone to village ashore for feast," Asmira told him, "gone to see
spearmen and big udders," she added, giggling.

   "I see.  Well they won't be back for a long while.  I know how long
these feasts can last.  I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see them before
tomorrow."

   "You going ashore, Master Jakob?" she asked.

   "Later perhaps...  no hurry.  I wish to lay with you awhile."

   "Of course, Master Jakob," Asmira grinned and pulled up her shirt.

   --------------------------------------------------------

   At the Samoan village, preparations were underway for the traditional
banquet.  An 'umu' oven was smoking away happily.  It was a large pit full
of stones in which they built a fire.  When the fire died they put the food
in the pit then covered it with earth.  Meanwhile they passed around a
fiery brew distilled from fermented coconut milk.

   The guests from the 'Borodino' were placed at the 'top' of the 'malae'
in the 'honoured' place.  An orator gave the official speech of welcome,
Jakob's Master Mate gave the response.  Women were forbidden to make
speeches, however Julia was allowed a place among the men, a significant
break from tradition.  The afternoon wore on with entertainment from fire
dancers and hypnotic rhythms from log drummers.

   On the 'malae', wives sat behind their husbands, children sat or played
behind them.  Julia noted that Dr Bentine was accompanied by two women. 
They could be nothing else but his 'companions.' She found herself
appraising these women, wondering what was about them that the
anthropologist found attractive.

   For on the surface they didn't appear particularly special.  She thought
they looked like sisters, stocky, with thick manes of hair half-concealing
their faces.  They wore a mixture of European and native dress, cotton
shawls, woven lavalavas and palm leaves.  She saw no sign of the 'big
udders' the crew were talking about.

   The women brought the Doctor bowls of fresh fruit.  Julia was convinced
of an intimacy between them, a secret 'look' here, a smile there.  Although
it made her own situation easier, she felt a little prick of jealousy.

   The food had been laid out on grass matting as the sun began to go down.
Still Jakob hadn't appeared and Julia grew concerned.  The men were served
first, then the women and children.  Julia was served along with the men
because of her 'guest' status.

   After the meal out came the 'ava.  Now this is known by a variety of
names throughout the Pacific Islands but basically it's made from the
pounded root of the 'piper methisticum'.  Many claims have been made about
its curative properties, but it is mildly narcotic, takes a long time to
prepare and is said to be an aphrodisiac.  It is considered bad manners to
refuse, but it is, however, an acquired taste.

   Urged on by her companions, Julia took a sip.  She thought it the most
disgusting tasting concoction she had ever encountered.  Soon however, she
felt faint, the torches surrounding the 'malae' seem to sway and dance
before her eyes and the log drummers incessant beat appeared to penetrate
into her mind.  She made an excuse then departed to lie down in a fale
prepared for her use.

   The round fale was of woven matting lashed together.  The conical roof
was thatched grass, piled layer upon layer to make it watertight.  It
overhung the walls to provide shade.  The floor was raised, planked and
covered with mats.  The beds themselves were nothing more than tapa cloths
stuffed with grass.  It was soft and comfortable.

   Julia wasn't sure how long she dozed, but she was woken by the presence
of others in the fale.  She was aware the drums had stopped outside and the
sound was replaced by laughter, shouting and general carousing.  Her head
was still spinning from the effects of the liquor and the vile 'ava.

   Close by, however, she could hear women giggling and the drone of a
man's voice.  She wished the intrusion away and waited patiently so she
could go back to sleep.  It became obvious, though, that the intruders
intended to stay.

   She carefully moved a corner of her screen aside and peered out.  It was
dark, but she could detect movement.  Suddenly someone placed a blazing
torch just outside and the intruders took shape.  They were a man and two
women though she couldn't recognise them, just a cluster of brown skin
linked together with arms and legs.  Presently they fell in a tangle onto
the bed across from hers.  The screen isolating the other sleeping place
partially collapsed amid much laughter.  Julia wished they'd shut up and go
away.

   One woman looked nothing more than a girl.  She had narrow hips and a
flat chest.  The other woman, though, was curved, rounded, wide-hipped and
her large breasts wobbled like they were made of gelatine.  'So there are
the udders' Julia thought to herself.  The man was big-boned and tall, very
athletic-looking.  He was lying on his back with his head behind that part
of the screen that remained upright.

   The bigger woman lay down on top of the man and from the slurping
sounds, they were kissing.  The younger girl sat on her haunches beside
them stroking the other woman's back.  She was smiling and giggling.

   Julia couldn't tear herself away from the scene.  She felt like a
naughty girl peering through a neighbour's window.  The torch outside,
however, waxed and waned in the breeze causing the little scene to flicker
like an undercranked cinema movie.  Eventually the torch blew out
completely and they were plunged into darkness once more.  She could still
hear, though, the slurps, giggles, gasps and moans.

   She began feeling the hunger of strong sexual desire.  Be it fueled by
the trio rutting two metres away, or her dreamlike state, she wasn't sure.
All she realised was that she longed to be with a man, with Jakob.  She
missed his hands, his embrace, his prick and the comfort of his sweaty body
lying next to her.  From an itch, her pussy began to grow in sensitivity,
in heat and in lubrication.  Julia touched herself with her fingers, held
her hand between her legs and pressed.

   Across the fale, she could hear a rhythmic thumping of bodies against
each other.  The whoosh of air being squeezed out of the loose island
mattress.  A woman squeeled, a man groaned.  Julia peeked and got an
impression of legs in the air and an arse rising and falling.  A girl's
bottom stared at her, faintly luminous in some filtered moonlight.  She was
on her hands and knees, her head and the upper part of her body was
obscured behind the screen.

   Julia's practiced fingers began to work between her legs.  She spread
her legs just a little wider for better access.  She had manipulated her
clitoris, fucked herself with her middle finger countless times as she
lived a lonely life in Apia.  She thought it helped her sleep during those
times when her walls seemed like a prison.  The only person she'd ever told
was Jakob, who'd coaxed it out of her one night on the boat.  He'd
laughingly asked her to demonstrate, she'd tried, covering her face, but it
wasn't the same as his fingers and cock.

   She stroked herself slowly, pushing herself at her fingers in the same
way she pushed at Jakob.  The woman began to make a lot of noise and Julia
concluded she was having an orgasm.  The thump, thumping was now very fast,
the man grunted.  The little sparks came and she stifled a moan between
clenched teeth.  She craved the release, but somehow the feeling flattened
out and she was left disappointed.  She drifted back off to sleep amid the
whispering from next door.

   Julia woke up with a start.  She could hear movement in the fale, a
visitor.  Her senses were instantly on alert.  Hurriedly she tried to push
the covers down over her splayed legs.  Suddenly the screen was thrust
aside and a man crawled in.

   "Who's there?" she asked, her voice tremulous with fear.

   "Shh," the stranger said as he eased the covers back over her legs.

   "What..." she attempted to say but her voice was cut off as two hands
began to stroke her legs.  The hands were smooth and sensuous, the touch
delicate.  It felt like she was being stalked by them as inexporately they
inched up her thighs.  "No!" Julia croaked as the cool fingertips
encroached higher, "stop!"

   The hands were followed by lips.  She felt violated, yet aroused at the
same time.  She commanded her legs to close to him, but they wouldn't
respond.  In fact, of themselves they parted even wider to allow him
access.

   Julia became aware of another presence, a face, and it appeared to be
watching and grinning.  She opened her eyes to see the corner of her screen
had been lifted up.  Could things get any weirder?

   His tongue was on her now, questing, probing, teasing her to open to
receive him.  She felt powerless, completely at the stranger's mercy.  She
tried again to tell him to stop, but no sound cane out.  She turned her
head to the face, but felt it grinning at her.  The stranger continued to
slide up her body, she felt his skin on hers, his prickly chest.  At last
his face appeared nose to nose with hers.  It was a face she knew only too
well.

   "You...  absolute...  blackguard!" she exhaled, "how...  oh...  dare
you!"

   "Surprise!" said Jakob.

   "You came?" she asked.

   "Madam?" he grinned, "but I've just arrived!"

   Julia flushed with embarrassment.

   "Who's this?" she asked, nodding at the strange face.

   "What?  Who?" Jakob said in surprise, "who are you?" Jakob lit a brand
and held it up to the face.  They saw it was the younger girl Julia had
seen earlier.  They noticed something else too, she wasn't alone for behind
her was a man.  "Waisake?  Is that you?" he asked.  A row of white teeth
answered in the affirmative.

   Waisake was naked, as was the girl.  His penis was hard and stood
straight out.  The girl had her hand around it slowly stroking.

   "I believe," Jakob told Julia, "that they've the same idea as we!"

   Before Julia could react, however, Jakob was kissing her.  His hands
were on her breasts, massaging, teasing in the way only he knew how.  His
tongue touched a nipple and coaxed it to hardness.  Julia gasped, her focus
now not on the other couple, but the delightful things Jakob was doing to
her.

   "Dear Jakob, do it!" Julia panted, pulling on his cock, trying to get it
inside of her.

   "Dear Julia," he answered, "have you been having naughty dreams?"

   "I missed you.  Please!  Now!"

   Jakob bowed to the inevitable and allowed Julia to push the head of his
erect penis into her hot, moist entrance.  She heaved her pelvis at him,
grabbed his arse and pulled him down, as far in as he could go.

   As Jakob ground himself against Julia, there was a gasp from the screen.
They both looked at the girl's face and found a wide grin followed by a
grimace of discomfort.

   "Waisake big!" she said in English, "oh...  very, very...  oh...  big!"

   She was driven forward over Julia's bed by a big thrust from behind her.
Opening her mouth in surprise, she placed one hand on Jakob's shoulder the
other on the top of Julia's head.  Startled, Julia watched the girl's face
as it jolted about in front of her, spurred on by Waisake behind her.

   Julia had locked her feet over Jakob's back as he pounded away.  He
suddenly got off her, dislodging her feet, and twisting her onto her front.
Pulling her into a kneeling position, he quickly pushed himself back into
her and resumed fucking.  The girl grabbed her around the neck and held on
for grim death, burying her head into Julia's shoulder.

   Julia could hear the girl's hard, laboured breathing right next to her
cheek.  She felt a sudden bond with her, a strange connection through the
heat of passion.  As Jakob worked on her from behind, Julia turned her head
and began to kiss and nuzzle the girl's neck.  As she gasped and cried with
excitement, the girl pushed her lips and tongue at Julia's mouth.  The
Englishwoman responded, locking mouths and exploring tongues.  She felt a
hand on her tit squeezing.  She was uncertain whose hand it was as it
tweaked a nipple.

   Waisake grunted and Julia felt something warm splash over her back.  The
girl looked surprised, looked behind her, and turned back to Julia
grinning. White beads flecked her long hair.  Jakob too was coming, she
could feel him pulsing deep within her and it triggered her own orgasm. 
The little Samoan girl cuddled her while she moaned out her pleasure,
grateful for the release.

   Later, Jakob had rolled off to the side and was snoring peacefully.  The
girl lay down next to Julia and wrapped her arms around her.

   "Your man?" she whispered, "he good?  Got nice one?"

   Breathing heavily, Julia nodded, smiling.

   "He English?  Our English got nice one too.  He tell us to speak English
talk."

   "You've laid with the Englishman?" Julia asked.

   "All girls have," she replied, "except those with husbands.  Well maybe
Vaea and a few others but you not tell, big trouble from men!"

   "I'll not tell," Julia assured her.

   "Sititi have baby.  He white like Father," she giggled.

   "Dr.  Bentine's?" Julia asked.  The girl nodded.

   "No other English here.  Is your man English?"

   "Russian," Julia told her.

   "He nice...  maybe you share?"

   "No!" she answered emphatically.

   ---------------------------------------------------------

   There were many sore heads in the morning.  Most of the men shambled
around the village in a dream snarling at the children or laying down in
the sun.

   Julia came out of the fale into the blazing mid-morning sun and the
sound of the crashing surf.  A faint whisp of smoke drifted away from the
smouldering fire.

   She saw Jakob's Samoan crew sitting in a huddle not far away, Waisake
had his hands over his face.  Clearly, in the morning they had lots of time
to reflect on last night's 'bad behaviour.' She'd imagined they'd broken a
few sins and were wondering how to explain it to the Pastor upon their
return to Upolu.

   Jakob emerged, stretched, smiled, then complained he was hungry.  He
kissed Julia briefly then went in search of food.  The girl was next to
come out.  Wearing a lavalava and cotton shirt, she smiled at Julia before
wandering off into the bush to pee.  Jakob presently returned munching on a
piece of cold pork rib.

   "We're going back," he announced.

   "What?  Where?  Why?" Julia asked.

   "To Apia.  Drop me off there then get the crew to take the 'Borodino' to
Pagopago under the Russian flag.  You'll be safe there under the
Americans."

   "But..."

   "I have made up my mind," Jakob said, stifling her objection.  "It will
only be until the war's over, just a few months.  Some sort of treaty will
be worked out.  Samoa will be handed back to the Kaiser and life will go
on, you'll see."

   "You're sure Samoa will be taken?"

   "I think so.  A bargaining chip for the talks when war is finished. 
Maybe we'll stay English?  Doesn't matter in any case.  Their money is as
good as anyone's.  Whatever happens, I shall be on the winning side, you
can be sure of that!" he added breezily.

   -----------------------------------------------------------

   The first white men to set foot on the Samoan Islands was in 1787 when
the expedition of Jean-Francois Perouse on 'Boussole' and 'Astrolabe'
landed at Aasu on the Northern coast of Tutuila.  A sailor was smacked on
the head with a mallet and a water party from 'Astrolabe' surrounded and
clubbed to death.  The Samoans depise bad manners.

   Consequently Samoa, or the Navigator's Isles as it was then known in
Europe, was avoided by Europeans until missionaries arrived in the 1820s.
At first the natives believed them to be Gods, sailing on God's ships, but
it didn't take them long to be disabused of the notion.

   It wasn't until the 1830s when the London Missionary Society gained some
traction when the Reverend John Williams convinced one of Samoa's leading
families, or 'Fanau' the 'Sa Malietoa' to adopt Christianity.  Already some
Samoans were beginning to see the value in White patronage.

   White influence developed with that mixture of greed, religious zeal,
science, discovery and national 'aggrandisement' that so typified
Colonialism in the 19th century.  America, Germany and Great Britain were
soon vying for influence, land and an alternative source for cotton. 
Together these powers sponsored a series of civil wars in which they
supplied the firearms in exchange for land.  At the conclusion of these
wars the Samoans had sold some 4 times the entire land area of the Islands.
The chaos ended with a power-sharing tripartheid agreement between the
Colonial powers.  When this fell apart, Germany did deals with the other
two and claimed Western Samoa as their 'protectorate.'

   Missionary Christianity had a profound effect on the people.  The LMS
taught a very strict, almost Calvanistic set of values.  The carefree
sexual attitudes now bore the heavy burden of guilt.

   It was a shamefaced crew that sailed into Apia harbour on Saturday the
15th of August 1914.  The 'Borodino' hardly stopped her engine, a boat was
quickly lowered over the side and two people got in.  Then, as the little
dinghy rowed for the shore, a cloud of smoke issued from the schooner's
funnel and the yacht began to turn towards the open sea.

   "Got everything?" Jakob asked Yu.

   "Of course Master Jakob.  In leather bag under jacket."

   "Don't get it wet, you here?"

   Yu nodded enthusiastically as he pulled on the oars for shore.

   Elsewhere, von Spee was somewhere in the South Pacific and in
Wellington, New Zealand a convoy of two troopships and three small cruisers
set sail for Noumea, French New Caledonia.  From there they were to
rendezvous with the large French cruiser 'Montcalm' then sail on to Fiji.
Somewhere along the way they were to pick up 'HMAS Australia.'
   KATZMAREK (C)