Part 19

Amatua went almost crazy at the sight of what lay strewn on the beach that morning. He ran hither and thither, picking up one thing and then throwing it away for another he liked better: here an officer’s full-dress coat gleaming with gold lace, there a photograph-album in a woful state, some twisted rifles, and a broom; everywhere an extraordinary hotchpotch of things diverse and innumerable. Amatua found an elegant sword not a bit the worse for its trip ashore, an officer’s gold-laced cap, and a ditty-box, full of pins and needles and sewing-gear and old letters. He would also have carried off a tempting little cannon had it weighed anything under a quarter of a ton; as it was, he covered it with sand, and stood up the broom to mark the place, which, strange to say, he has never been able to find since. He got a cracked bell next, a tin of pork and beans, a bottle of varnish, a one-pound Hotchkiss shell, a big platter, and a German flag! This he thought enough for one load, and made his triumphant way home, where he tried pork and beans for the first time in his life--and did not like them.

It would have fared badly with him, for there was nothing in the house for him to eat save a few green bananas, had it not been for the Samoan pastor next door. The pastor had hauled a hundred-pound barrel of prime mess pork out of the surf, and in the fulness of his heart he was dividing slabs of it among his parishioners. Another neighbour had salvaged eleven cans of biscuit-pulp, which, though a trifle salt, was yet good enough to eat.

In fact, Amatua ate a rather hearty breakfast, and lingered longer over it than perhaps was well for the best interests of his family. By the time he returned to the beach the cream had been skimmed from the milk. True, there was no lack of machinery and old iron, and mountains of tangled rope and other ship’s gear; but there was no longer the gorgeous profusion of smaller articles, for ten thousand busy hands had been at work since dawn. Amatua searched for an hour, and got nothing but a squashy stamp-album and a musical box in the last stages of dissolution.

He realised regretfully that he could hope for nothing more, and after trading his album to a half-caste boy for a piece of lead, and exchanging the musical box for six marbles, he again bent his energies to the finding of Bill.

For fear of a conflict, the naval commanders had divided their forces. The Germans were encamped at one end of the town, the Americans at the other, and armed sentries paced between. Amatua had never seen so many white men in his life, and he knew scarcely which way to turn first. He was bewildered by the jostling host that encompassed him on every side, by the busy files that were marshalled away to work, the march and countermarch of disciplined feet, the shrill pipe of the boatswains’ calls, and the almost ceaseless bugling. He looked long and vainly for Bill in every nook and cranny of the town. He watched beside the _Nipsic_ for an hour; he forced the guard-house, and even made his way into the improvised hospital, dodging the doctors and the tired orderlies. But all in vain. He trudged into Savalalo and Songi, where the Germans were gathered, fearing lest Bill might have been thrown into chains by those haughty foemen; but he found nothing but rows of dead, and weary men digging graves. He stopped officers on the street, and kind-faced seamen and marines, and asked them earnestly if they had seen Bill. Some paid no attention to him; others laughed and passed on; one man slapped him in the face.

When he came back from the German quarter he found a band playing in front of Mr. Moors’s store, and noticed sentries about the place, and important-looking officers, with swords and pistols. He was told that the admiral was up-stairs, and that Mr. Moors’s house was now the headquarters of the American forces. A great resolution welled up in Amatua’s heart. If there was one man on earth that ought to know about Bill, it was the admiral. Amatua dodged a sentry, and running up the steps, he crept along the verandah, and peeped into the room which Kimberly had exchanged for his sea-swept cabin. The admiral sat at a big table strewn inches high with papers, reports, and charts. He was writing in his shirt-sleeves, and on the chair beside him lay his uniform coat and gold-laced cap. At another table two men were also writing; at another a single man was nibbling a pen as he stared at the paper before him. It reminded Amatua of the pastor’s school. Half a dozen officers stood grouped in one corner, whispering to one another, their hands resting on their swords. It was all as quiet as church, and nothing could be heard but the scratch of pens as they raced across the paper. Suddenly a frowning officer noticed Amatua at the door. “Orderly,” he cried, “drive away that boy”; and Amatua was ignominiously seized, led down-stairs, and thrown roughly into the street.

Amatua cried as though his little heart would break. He sat on the front porch of the house, careless of the swarming folk about him, and took a melancholy pleasure in being jostled and trampled on. Oh, it was a miserable world! Bill was gone, and any one could cuff a little boy. More than one sailor patted his curly head and lifted him in the air and kissed him; but Amatua was too sore to care for such attentions. It was cruel to think that the one man alone in Samoa who knew where to find Bill, the great chief-captain up-stairs, was absolutely beyond his power to reach. This thought was unbearable; he nerved himself to try again; he recalled the admiral’s face, which was not unkindly, though sad and stern. After all, nothing worse could befall him than a beating. Again he dodged the lower sentry, and sprang up the stairs like a cat. Again he gazed into that quiet room and listened to the everlasting pens. This time he was discovered in an instant; the orderly pounced at him, but Amatua, with his heart in his mouth, rushed towards the admiral, and threw himself on his knees beside him. The old man put a protecting arm round his neck, and the orderly, foiled in the chase, could do nothing else than salute.

“Anderson,” said the admiral to an officer, “it is the second time the boy has been here. I tell you he is after something, and we are not in a position to disregard anything in this extraordinary country. He may have a message from King Mataafa. Send for Moors.”

In a few moments that gentleman appeared, and was bidden to ask Amatua what he wanted. The officers gathered close behind their chief, and even the assiduous writers looked up.

“What does he want?” demanded the admiral, who had no time to spare.

“He wants to find a sailor named Bill,” said Moors. “He’s afraid Bill is drowned, and thought he would ask you.”

Every one smiled save the admiral. “Are you sure that is all?” he said.

“He says he loved Bill very much,” said Moors, “and has searched the beach and the hospital and even the lock-up without finding him. Says he even waited alongside the _Nipsic_ for an hour.”

“Half my men are named Bill,” said Kimberly; “but I fear his Bill is numbered with the rest of our brave fellows who went down last night. Moors,” he went on, “take the lad below, and give him any little thing he fancies in the store.”

Amatua did not know what might happen next, but he bravely tramped beside Mr. Moors, prepared to face the worst. He felt dizzy and faint when they got below, and Mr. Moors popped him up on the counter, and asked him whether he would prefer candy or some marbles. “The great chief-captain said thou wert a brave boy, and should have a present,” said Mr. Moors.

Amatua shook his head. Somehow he had lost interest in such trifles. “Thank his Majesty the admiral,” he said, “but an aching heart takes no pleasure in such things. With thy permission I will go out and look again for Bill. Perhaps, if I change my mind, I will come back and choose marbles,” he added cautiously; and with that he scrambled off the counter and made for the door.

“Oh, Bostock,” cried Moors to a naval officer lounging on the front verandah, “if you have nothing better to do, just take this kid along with you. He’s crazy to find a sailor named Bill, and he isn’t sure but that he was drowned last night. He must be pretty well cut up if he won’t take any marbles.”

Bostock stopped Amatua, and took his hand in his own. “We’ll go find Bill,” he said.

Again was the search begun for Bill, along the main street; in the alleys, and through the scattered native settlements behind the town as far as the Uvea huts, at Vaimoso, and the slums of the Nieué Islanders. Bostock let no seaman pass unnoticed; a heavy fatigue-party coming back from work on the wrecks--sixty men and four officers--were lined up at his request, and Amatua was led through the disciplined ranks in search of Bill. Even the _Nipsic_ was boarded by the indefatigable Bostock and the weary little boy; and although repairs were being rushed at a tremendous pace, and every one looked overdriven and out of temper, the huge ship was overhauled from top to bottom. From the grimy stoke-hole, where everything dripped oil and the heat was insupportable, to the great maintop where men were busy at the rigging; from the crowded quarters of the seamen to the sodden and salt-smelling mess-room, in which the red came off the cushions like blood, the pair made their way in search of Bill.

Bostock led the boy back to land, and said good-bye to him at the corner of the Apia Hotel. He tried to raise his spirits, and atone for their failure to find Bill, by the present of a shilling. Amatua accepted it with quiet gratitude, although the gift had not the cheering effect that Bostock desired. The little fellow was sick at heart, and all the shillings in the world could not have consoled him for the loss of Bill. The naval officer followed him with his eyes as he trudged sorrowfully home. He, too, had lost a lifelong friend in that awful night.

Amatua gave up all hope of ever seeing Bill again, as time slipped away and one day melted into another. He made friends with Bostock, and spent many a pleasant hour in the company of that jovial officer, following him about everywhere like a dog; but for all that he did not love him as he had loved Bill. Those were exciting times in Apia, and there was much to amuse and distract a little boy. In the day Bill often passed from his thoughts, for the incessant panorama life had now become almost precluded any other thought; but at night, when he awoke in the early hours and heard the cocks calling, then it was that his heart turned to Bill and overflowed with grief for his lost friend.

Two days after the storm--two as men count, but centuries in Amatua’s calendar--the British ship _Calliope_ returned to port, strained and battered by that terrible hour when she had pitted her engines against the gale and taken her desperate dash for freedom.

But Amatua’s little head was far too full of something else for him to bother about another man-of-war. Bostock had promised to take him to the raft where men were diving for the _Trenton’s_ treasure-chest. He knew all about men-of-war by this time, for he had the freedom of the _Nipsic’s_ ward-room, and he took breakfast regularly with his friends, the officers. They had given him a gold-laced cap and a tin sword, and the tailor had made him a blue jacket with shoulder-straps and brass buttons and the stripes of a second lieutenant. He had his own appointed station when the ship beat to quarters; for the _Nipsic_ had been got safely off the reef and once more divided the waters of the bay.

It was a beautiful morning when they pulled out in a shore boat to the raft where the work was in progress. As the Americans possessed no diving apparatus, Kane, the British captain, had lent them the one he carried, with six good men who had some experience in such matters. Amatua was disappointed to find so little to interest him. He examined the pump with which two men were keeping life in the diver below; but he could not understand the sense of it, and the continuous noise soon grew monotonous. Except a tin pail containing the men’s lunch, the brass-bound breaker of drinking water, and some old clothes, there was nothing in the world to attract a small boy. Amatua stood beside Bostock and yawned; the little second lieutenant longed to be on shore playing marbles with his friends in civil life. He was half asleep when Bostock plucked his arm and pointed into the depths beneath. A glittering shell-fish of ponderous weight and monstrous size was slowly rising to the surface. Every one rushed to the side of the raft, save only the two men at the pumps, who went on unmoved. Amatua clung to Bostock. Higher and higher came the hideous shell-fish, until its great, goggling-eyed head appeared horribly above the water. Amatua turned faint. The crew behaved with incredible daring, and seized the huge, bulging thing with the utmost fearlessness. It was frightful to see it step on the raft and toil painfully to the centre, as though it had been wounded in some mortal part. One of the men lifted a hammer as though to kill it, and began to tap, tap, tap on some weak spot in the neck. Then he threw down the hammer, detached the long suckers which reached from the beast’s snout, and started to unscrew its very head from its body. Amatua looked on confounded; he was shaking with horror, yet the fascination of that brassy monster drew him close.

Suddenly the creature sank on its knees, and the man gripped the head in both his hands and lifted it up. And underneath, wonder of wonders! there was the face of a man--a white man.

And the white man was Bill!

With a cry Amatua threw himself into his friend’s arms, dripping though he was. What did he care for the fine uniform, now that Bill was found again!

“And where have you been all this time?” asked Bostock.

“Oh, I’m the boatswain’s mate of the _Calliope_,” said Bill; “and what with the knocking about we got, I’ve been kept hard at it on the rigging.”

“You have been badly missed,” said Bostock.

“Bless his old heart!” said the sailor, “I think a lot of my little Am.”

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or alternate spelling has been retained from the original.