Gordon Young

“ That is, Hawkins and I rested. I felt futile, akin to disgrace, because 1 did not have a scratch on my body. It was as if the people who had fought with us did not think me worthy of even a blow, of the waste of time it took to put a bead on to a rifle.
Williams rested not at all; and the Samoans lay out in the darkness, watching. He went alone through the blackness to the cannibals; and before he came back a full moon raised itself in the cloudless sky as if pale with horror at the things men do. ”

“ If Captain Lumholtz and his officers had not, as naval officers were always eager to do, stayed on shore and taken up quarters in Grahame's house, Williams would, I believe, have boarded the gunboat. And who shall say that he would have failed? Not I. He never failed where the risk of his own life and his inordinate daring could win.
Certainly the Germans, skirmishing upward from the beach, driving us back, almost outflanking our few numbers, had reason to believe themselves as safe behind the walls of Grahame's garden as on their own ship. ”

“ And we, with Hawkins leaning heavily on the three of us, and a sapling crutch as well—his leg stiff but his heart high—went down among the baffled, glowering sailors of the Friedrich.
Orders were orders even in those days to Germans in uniform; and Captain Lumholtz dearly loved his stout pudgy body and the life that dwelt in that dumpy habitation. His fellow officers shared a similar affection for themselves. They were much pained because Hurricane Williams would not take their words to let him sail unmolested from Dakaru. ”