'There is sickness in this boat!'
Invincible Strangers 27 Chapter 13.1
Before missionaries arrived, Sāmoans had prayers:
‘This light is for you, O king and gods superior and inferior! If any of you are forgotten do not be angry, this light is for you all. Be propitious to this family; give life to all; and may your presence be prosperity. Let our children be blessed and multiplied. Remove far from us fines and sicknesses. Regard our poverty; and send us food to eat, and cloth to keep us warm. Drive away from us sailing gods, lest they come and cause disease and death. Protect this family by your presence, and may health and long life be given to us all.’
The geographical origins of ‘Spanish influenza’ remain murky. The only certainty is that it did not come from Spain. That it was a virus , now known as A/H1N1, that had come into humans through birds and pigs. It arrived in a ‘first wave’ or the ‘spring wave’ in March 1918 in the United States. Slightly later, but virtually simultaneously, influenza appeared in North America, European and Asia. This makes a definitive assignment of a geographical point of origin impossible.’ A study says the first wave of the epidemic in the spring of 1918 was a seasonal and benign influenza epidemic, similar to those which occur almost every year. If there had only been this one epidemic wave, it would not have been of much historical interest and would not have motivated so much investigation: ‘The main conclusion of the present research into the origins and beginning of the Spanish Influenza pandemic is that it appears to be inextricably linked to the soldiers who fought during the First World War. The millions of young men in army barracks, military camps and trenches constituted the vulnerable substrate on which the influenza virus developed, became extremely virulent and spread worldwide in October and November (1918).... the Spanish influenza could be considered to be a “historic accident”, another cruel consequence of the terrible First World War.’
Around the middle of 1918, US Navy Atlantic crews were stricken with severe influenza. A British freighter from France arrived in Philadelphia with a badly ill crew. There were deaths in London and Switzerland. In the midst of world war, many feared the Black Plague was back. A/H1N1 inflicted five million deaths in India. Australia and New Zealand experienced the first wave in August and September 1918, killing relatively few and mainly the elderly and very young. Medicine offered no relief: quinine and newly created aspirin did little. Fever left the body aching and violent, causing painful coughing that damaged the thorax. Uncontrollable vomiting and blood from noses, ears, eyes, mouths and rectum was common. Many of them suffered cyanosis or oxygen starvation which left them with a blue tinge around their lips. A/H1N1 had an incubation period of 48 to 72 hours. Individuals could be asymptomatic for 24 hours, aiding its spread.
New Zealand Prime Minister Bill Massey and Finance Minister Sir Joseph Ward were in London at a war conference. As they were leaving In September 1918, the second influenza wave was hitting Europe. They headed across Canada and boarded Niagara. Three days out from Vancouver bound for Auckland, a bellboy came down with fever. Dengue was suspected, but as it spread through the ship, reality set in. On 9 October 1918, Niagara docked in Suva. With eight people sick, Niagara was quarantined before sailing to Auckland. Enroute the ship alerted the Naval Intelligence Office in Wellington that they had ‘Spanish influenza’ cases aboard. Over 100 crew were ill and 25 cases required hospital assistance. Most of the sick were stewards who shared overcrowded and poorly ventilated quarters. At 10.30am on 12 October, Niagara docked at Auckland’s Queen’s Wharf. Influenza was not a notifiable disease and nor was there any authority able to quarantine the ship. City district health officer Thomas Hughes sent a telegram to Health Minister George Russell reporting the ship’s arrival. Russell asked whether it was ‘merely influenza’ and when told it was, Niagara was cleared to land its passengers. Nothing suggests the ship was cleared to allow Massey and Ward ashore in time to catch an express train to Wellington. They were both well but 125 crew and seven passengers were not. The bellboy had died along with a bosun's mate. Niagara may have bought the virus into New Zealand but there were other ships. Influenza historian Geoffrey Rice argued that with the virus spreading in waves, some places had immunity, others not. New Zealand authorities were aware of the global spread, but had only a vague knowledge of its variations and potency. Into this petri dish came Talune, from Suva and other Pacific ports. In October 1914, soon after New Zealand’s occupation of Sāmoa, it had a near miss with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau near Raiatea. Talune had been built in Scotland in 1890 for the Tasmanian Steam Navigation Company of Hobart to run a Sydney-Hobart service. Originally it had been called Palawa, the indigenous name for a mountain in Tasmania where Aboriginal people had faced genocide. Union Steamship took over the Tasmanian rival in 1891, inheriting Talune, 2,087 tons. It could accommodate 175 with 56 crew and 2000 tons of cargo. A slow and old ship, it was not without its comforts and while there were other, better ships to get to places in the Pacific, Talune was reliable.
Among passengers disembarking in Auckland on Sunday afternoon, 13 October, was Sāmoa’s Chinese labour commissioner, Robert Carter. He was surprised to see they had docked at Queen’s Wharf on its western side. On the eastern side was Niagara. He had seen it quarantined in Fiji and expected it to have been so in Auckland. Talune discharged its cargo before sailing to the South Island port of Lyttelton. On arrival back in Auckland, two of the crew were sent ashore with what a doctor said was ‘simple influenza’. The ship was cleared to sail north. One of the passengers boarding suspected he had influenza: ‘As far as I know, without medical testimony, I had it about four days before leaving New Zealand,’ LMS pastor Paul Cane said. ‘I was unwell and discharged and had no appetite but could get about.’ Feeling ‘seedy’, he believed that the sea air and the voyage would make him better: ‘I come from the old country, where flu is a yearly complaint.’ Another passenger was John Ah Sue, brother of Sāmoanische Zeitung editor, who had travelled to join the army. When he realised there was an influenza epidemic in Auckland, he headed home. Ellen Churchwood, her two children and a maid, Ta’u, had arrived to put the children into boarding school. Ellen, seeing the epidemic, headed back to Āpia. Shipping news records Talune departed at 1.50pm on Wednesday 30 October 1918. The Churchwood were listed as ‘in saloon’ thus: ‘Churchward, 2 children and nurse.’ There were 13 New Zealand soldiers aboard, bound for the Sāmoa Relief Force.
The first port-of-call was Suva on 4 November 1918. Fiji, home to around 165,000 people, 55 percent of them indigenous and 37 percent Indian girmit workers in the sugar cane plantations, was unprepared for the epidemic although it had known about them before. In 1875 measles killed 35,000 people, between a quarter to a third of Fijians. It wiped out many villages and significant chiefs. The Fiji Times and Herald had reported on the influenza epidemic elsewhere but any memory of the 1875 measles epidemic had long faded. The Western Pacific High Commissioner Ernest Sweet-Escott had left in October and his replacement Cecil Rodwell was not in place. Nothing was done to prepare for influenza with medical staff refusing to believe it was as serious as it was being reported. The incompetent response was a consequence of Europe’s trenches and battlefields devouring most of the South Pacific’s medical staff. Talune’s Captain John Mawson told Fiji authorities on arrival that he had five people with influenza aboard, Ta’u, Cane and three soldiers. He signed a bill of health, stating the ship had no infectious diseases. The port health officer consulted with the chief medical officer and between them they agreed the passengers were ailing with a mild form of influenza that had been in Fiji for a couple of weeks. A bill of health was signed and passengers and cargo were discharged.
‘I signed the usual report that the ship was clear of infectious diseases, as I did not know that influenza was an infectious disease,’ Mawson said later. ‘The local passengers landed at Suva, and the ship worked in quarantine.’
Mawson was to be frail with the truth. Authorities too, including the army, withheld details for years. Vital information only came out in 1927 from Āpia Garrison commander Major Andrew Richardson. He said a decade later that he received an invoice from Suva doctor E J Miller asking for £4/16/- (equivalent to approximately $500 in 2018) for treating three soldiers. Privates Patrick Ryan, Arthur Fraser and Arthur Manson were diagnosed with influenza and bronchitis. Fraser later swore an affidavit saying he was ill on reaching Suva. He was to be admitted to hospital but port authorities said that if that happened, Talune would have to be placed in quarantine. Mawson decided to keep the soldiers on board. Said Fraser later, ‘they expected to bury me at sea.’ Sydney born Ryan had signed up in 1916 and had been sent to England, but was ill for months and saw no fighting before being sent back to New Zealand. In December 1918, once in Sāmoa, he tried to rob liquor and money at a bar and was sent back to New Zealand as ‘an undesirable’ and was given a medical discharge.
Within a day of Talune’s arrival in Suva the passengers who had landed developed influenza of a ‘severe and epidemic variety’. The Fiji Times reported that the cases were not Spanish Influenza, but a weaker New Zealand variety. Patients were told to take aspirin and go to bed. Talune took on board 90 Fijian dock workers to sail with the ship on the 12-day round voyage to Sāmoa and Tonga. Several passengers joined, among them Titipa who was charged £3 (NZ$310 in 2017) instead of the normal £1 5s. The higher cost, he was told, was for maintenance of passengers should they be quarantined in Āpia. Next day they sailed to Levuka and the same process and outcome followed. On the evening of 5 November, Talune left Levuka for Āpia, a thousand kilometres away. The Fijian workers who had come aboard were able to mingle with the crew in the two nights and a day it took to reach Āpia. At least six of the passengers were ill, three seriously. Ta’u was in a bad way. These facts were not noted in the ship’s log.
Sāmoa had endured epidemics before. Measles arrived in 1893. Its impact remains disputed. Reports at the time said it cost 25 lives but a Methodist missionary on Savai’i reported 1600 deaths. Most major diseases, including pertussis (whooping cough), dysentery, mumps and diphtheria, arrived at Āpia. Quarantine ensured smallpox never made it in. Influenza had been a regular visitor, right from the time the LMS vessel Messenger of Hope arrived with it in 1830. Under German rule, regulations had set up a quarantine process with a 23-point questionnaire that had to be signed by a ship’s captain, first officer and ship’s doctor. It had been put to the test in May 1913 when Michael Jepsen arrived in Sāmoa with 1039 Chinese labourers. Smallpox was diagnosed and the ship quarantined. Plans were made to create a quarantine station on Nu’usafe’e Island on ‘Upolu’s southern coast. Instead everybody was kept aboard the ship for a month. By 1918, Sāmoa had four medical officers and four nurses. Logan had created a quarantine rule for visiting ships. They had to be met by a principal medical officer (PMO) who checked before advising the harbour master to grant pratique.
Talune dropped anchor in Āpia harbour at 9.35am on Thursday 7 November. Two days earlier, influenza became a notifiable disease in New Zealand but Sāmoa was not told. Logan was on the southern side of ‘Upolu, away from Āpia. PMO Captain Frank Atkinson, who had no training for his job, went out to the ship and made a brief examination of the passengers and crew paraded. The ship’s second officer struggled out of bed and he went back to it after the examination. When Atkinson inspected the log noting nothing unusual. Mawson told Atkinson that as far as health was concerned, everything in New Zealand had been perfect.
‘We all went to Lyttelton,’ Atkinson later quoted Mawson as saying, ‘and everybody was off colour. We had sniffles, but nothing serious and we are all over it now.’
Six passengers were ill and one, a soldier, had to be carried off on a stretcher. Mawson said they had been seasick. Atkinson said that as well as being told of the seasickness, the others said there had been colds on board. No one mentioned influenza. He took the temperatures of those with a cold but found it normal. A passenger, Faasiusiu: ‘Dr Atkinson examined us and allowed us to land. He did not examine me by touching my body to see what was wrong. He only looked at me and said, ‘you can pass.’ Titipa, who paid double the fee to join the ship: ‘...when we arrived in Āpia we were allowed to land without quarantine. There was an announcement in the ship that all the passengers had to dress when the ship was close to harbour and pretend they were not ill.’ Mawson did not mention the limited quarantine in Suva. Chief steward Sydney Almo told Atkinson that passengers had not been allowed ashore at Suva but said that ‘it was all right at Levuka’. It was Mawson’s last trip and for the voyage he was showing his replacement skipper, Arthur Davey, the ropes. Davey approved of Mawson’s deceptions: ‘We do not like to advertise these matters too much, but as a rule if the doctor inquires, and I think if there were enough reasons to quarantine the ship at the last port, mention would be made on the bill of health.’ Atkinson saw Ta’u and advised her to go home immediately as she was ‘dangerously ill’. Friends and family of those aboard were sitting on boats alongside Talune. Tuatagaloa from Faleālili was meeting his daughter: ‘When the doctor was on board the ship and we were lying alongside Talune I heard Falielo, a Sāmoan native call out from the ship, “there is sickness in this boat!” Falielo died in the epidemic. . .When the yellow flag was down I went on board the ship and the first thing l saw was a Sāmoan girl lying in a very weak condition. The name of the girl was Ta‘u. . . . l walked to where the girl was lying on the ship and she could not talk, she was breathing quickly. I saw there were many sick people on board.’ That night Atkinson was called to the Churchward home where Ta’u’s condition had worsened, complaining of heart pain. She died that night.
Six ali’i were among those who boarded the ship. Four died within a month. Paul Cane went ashore ‘in a perfect state of prostration’, unchecked by Atkinson. Cane went to the Bank of New Zealand and onward to trader Olaf – ‘Fred’ – Nelson.
‘He looked very sick; in fact, he was foaming at the mouth, and his face betrayed the fact he had been suffering from some terrible disease for some time,’ Nelson said.
Cane told him he had Spanish influenza. Logan believed that Cane was the vector that spread influenza through Sāmoa. Cane witnessed the epidemic in Savai’i, saying he could only watch as ‘the poor people were stricken dumb with grief and fear, no cry in them no complaint, just resignation to blind fate.’
Atkinson said later as well as Ta’u, others died within days of the ship’s arrival.
‘I became a little afraid and wondered if anything had come by the ship. Of course, we knew on opening our mails that it was prevalent in New Zealand and got frightened then.’
©Michael J Field
