This story is the first of a trilogy.

Synopsis. 47,000 words.

Main characters

Billy – He is young, energetic and confident.

Saskia – She arrives on Samoa with a secret brought from Germany. She has a family commitment to marry a German officer, but doesn't want to marry him. Billy and Saskia fall in love.

Dieter von Schmidt - the bad person in the story. Saskia is obliged to marry von Schmidt.

Loto – the Samoan boy with an overwhelming curiosity for European people.

Otto and Jennifer – Billy's relatives already living on Samoa before Billy arrives.

The year is 1914. The month is August. The place is German Samoa. The distance is thousands of miles away from the turmoil of Europe. The British man is Billy, who is leaving the German colony and his friends to fight for king and country.

Samoa Detachment is a story about rubber plantation owners living thousands of miles away from Europe in early 1914, until the patriotism, fervour and violence of Europe in the summer of 1914 inevitably reaches the German Pacific colony.

Billy, Saskia (Billy's German girlfriend), Jennifer (Billy's Australian cousin) and Otto (Jennifer's German half-brother and Billy's friend) dream of an expanding rubber plantation on the island of Upolu near Apia, German Samoa, but events in Europe in the summer of 1914 devastate their plans.

They fight a personal war against the violent German officer, Dieter von Schmidt, before the world war begins, and Samoa Detachment explores the distinction between a private war against von Schmidt, and Billy's experience of world war against unknown people to him in Europe. Most of this story is set in German Samoa, and a small number of chapters are set in France.

Samoa Detachment examines globalisation at the beginning of the 20th century, and this historical fiction intertwines with real events in Europe when war in Europe means war for the world.