Refulgent Hello

40000 words

Refulgent Hello.

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.

Refulgent Hello 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   Refulgent Hello 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 Samoa, and a small number of chapters are set in France.  

The story 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.