And it was plain they should be landed in
the light of day, with a discouraging openness, and even with parade. To
sneak ashore by night was to increase the danger of resistance and to
minimise the authority of the attack. The thing was a bluff, and it is
impossible to bluff with stealth. Yet this was what was tried. A
landing-party was to leave the _Olga_ in Apia bay at two in the morning;
the landing was to be at four on two parts of the foreshore of Vailele.
At eight they were to be joined by a second landing-party from the
_Eber_. By nine the Olgas were to be on the crest of Letongo Mountain,
and the Ebers to be moving round the promontory by the seaward paths,
"with measures of precaution," disarming all whom they encountered. There
was to be no firing unless fired upon. At the appointed hour (or perhaps
later) on the morning of the 19th, this unpromising business was put in
hand, and there moved off from the _Olga_ two boats with some fifty blue-
jackets between them, and a _praam_ or punt containing ninety,--the boats
and the whole expedition under the command of Captain-Lieutenant Jaeckel,
the praam under Lieutenant Spengler. The men had each forty rounds, one
day's provisions, and their flasks filled.
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