Kiwi Wars (21 page)

‘I shall break your thin arm bones in two,’ cried the child, addressing Wynter, as he performed a creditable haka. ‘My war club will crack your whitey head like a duck’s egg.’

He stuck his tongue out fully, down to the tip of his chin.

The old man said, ‘Don’t listen to the boy. He has imagination.’

Jack nodded. ‘Nothing can be done tonight,’ he said, ‘but tomorrow morning I would like you to take us to the place where you found the bodies. For now, you may eat with us, and sit by our fire. We are honoured to have your company.’

‘No,’ said the boy, looking at his grandfather. ‘We will not sit with you. You are pakeha, our sworn enemy. My father has killed many pakeha and will kill many more. It is true I did not kill these soldiers, but it must have been my father. My father will kill you too, when he comes this way, so you had better go home, you bloody pakeha.’

‘If that half-pint don’t shut his mouth, I’m goin’ to shut it for him,’ grumbled Wynter. ‘He’s makin’ my nerve-ends ragged with that squeaky voice of his. Brats like him should know their place. We was taught to be seen and not heard. A good beltin’ is what he wants.’

No one took any notice of this speech, which sent Harry Wynter into the sulks.

Ta Moko took care of the old man and the boy, giving them some food and water. The old man asked, ‘Do you have whisky . . .?’

King, later talking with Jack, said, ‘Do you think there was a massacre here? Maybe these soldiers were sent to find us and were ambushed?’

‘I don’t know, Sergeant, it’s possible. Certainly I’ve never heard of any other pakeha straying this far from safety. I had thought that we are the only ones out here. Unless something has happened back in New Plymouth that requires our presence, though I can’t think what.’

Ta Moko came over to where Jack was sitting.

‘I have talked to the old man,’ he reported, ‘but he swears neither he nor the boy touched the bodies. He believes it to be bad luck to take anything from the dead. I believe he is telling the truth.’

‘Fine. Thank you, Ta Moko.’

King said, ‘Sir, they could be a scouting party. Perhaps the generals are thinking of marching this way?’

‘We won’t know until the morning, and I’m not going to spend the whole night guessing, Sergeant. Get some sleep.’

The following morning the old man and the boy led the party to a place on the edge of a forest. The smell of death has long arms and it reached out to them before they were anywhere near the cadavers. When they reached the place where the bodies lay, they found a bivouac made of staves and ferns. Inside this shelter lay a row of three bodies, as if sleeping, while the other two were sitting upright, blankets wrapped around them, staring at each other across a cold dead fire. One of the sitting dead had gripped his own hair at the point of leaving this earth, and his fingers had locked in that position, remained there, clutching, until there was very little flesh on the claws, only white bone.

The bodies were fetid; life having left them a good while ago. This was no recent slaughter, but something that had happened months previously. Eyes had been eaten by ants, which even now formed a trail into the recesses of the corpses. However, though the bodies lying in the bivouac had been knifed or bayoneted, no wounds could be found on the upright bodies. Some of the weapons were stacked in a wigwam-shaped sheaf not far from the ashes of the fire. They were found to be loaded, though the metal barrels were red with rust. As firearms they were now useless lumps of iron, their working parts seized by rust.

Both of the sitting bodies, glaring at each other with sightless sockets, were carrying knives and pistols on their person. These were revealed when Gwilliams and Ta Moko tried to lift one of the dead men and his clothes fell apart like worn tissue paper to expose a small arsenal. One of the corpses had no fewer than four pistols and three knives, plus his bayonet. The other had a similar number of bladed weapons, but only two pistols. There was dried blood on the blades of the bayonets carried by both men as if the steel was used at the very last moment.

King said to Jack, ‘Cut down while they slept.’

‘And the two at the fire?’

‘There you have me, sir.’

‘Gwilliams, what do you think?’ asked Jack. ‘Do you believe it was a Maori attack?’

Gwilliams screwed up his face and shook his head. ‘What I reckon is the two at the fire killed the others – stabbed ’em in their sleep. Poor bastards didn’t even have time to struggle. Two or three quick stabs of the blade. I’ll wager they didn’t even wake up.’

‘I’ll go along with that,’ King said. ‘The sitting men were still holding the bloody bayonets they used on the sleeping ones.’

‘And the other two?’

Gwilliams shook his head. ‘How they come to be sitting up, looking at each other, has got me beat. Ain’t they got marks on ’em?’

‘Not that I can see,’ said Jack.

Ta Moko inspected the corpse on the far side of the camp-fire ashes, which was still in its original upright position.

‘Yes,’ Ta Moko said, ‘this one has a hole in the back of his skull.’ He bent his head and inspected the face of the dead man. ‘And some front teeth missing – he was shot through his mouth.’ He looked across the ashes again. ‘His friend over there did not like the staring contest and in the end drew a pistol and ended it.’

‘But why?’ asked King, throwing up his hands. ‘What was it all about? Did they just get lost in the bush and go crazy?’

They found out when they lifted one of the cadavers in the bivouac. It was heavy. Very heavy. The pockets of the man’s breeches were full of gold dust. When they checked the other corpses, they too had gold on them: some in dust and some in small nuggets the size of grave gravel. Only the last man to die had no gold hidden on his clothes. Instead, they found it in his stomach – or where his stomach used to be. It appeared he had swallowed gold dust and so killed himself. There was no explanation for this bizarre twist that sounded logical to Jack and his men. Each of them made up his own story, but in all the made-up tales there was something missing – reason. But where there is gold, reason often goes flying off somewhere, and madness takes over.

‘Manius Aquillius, the Roman general, he swallered gold,’ said the classical scholar, Corporal Gwilliams. ‘He was made to. Ancient king by the name of Mithridates got a hold of him and poured melted gold down his throat. Choked on molten gold. Ain’t that a dandy way to go? Better’n a length of hemp round your neck.’

‘How do you know all this crap?’ asked Wynter. ‘Who put it in your head?’

‘Read it in the preacher’s books,’ explained Gwilliams, ‘man who took me in and raised me like his own. Anyway, Captain, what are we gonna do with all this yellow metal? Share it out?’

Wynter looked eagerly at his commanding officer.

‘Yes, the corp’s right, sir. Only thing to do. Share it out. Finders keepers.’

Jack sighed. ‘I’m sorry, men, I can’t do that. I know it’s a disappointment to you, but it can’t be done. Sergeant King has just reminded me there was a robbery last year, down in Central Otago. I’m certain this gold had already been purchased by the government agency from the miners and was on its way to Auckland. These soldiers were escorts on that convoy. They shot the officer and their sergeant and were never seen again. Well, we’ve found them.’

Wynter looked frantic. ‘Yes, but, Captain, no one will know. You take the biggest share, ’cause you’re the officer. You don’t need to do this one by the book, sir. None of us will let on, will we? Just divide it up as you see right, and we’ll all keep mum.’

Sergeant King said, ‘Private Wynter, get those thoughts out of your head. Do you want to end up like these dead men? That’s what gold does to you. It robs you of your honour and sensibility. Think of what your friends and relations would say; your fellow churchgoers in your village back home in England. Where’s your honesty?’

Wynter was almost crying now, knowing that even if the officer wavered, which did not look like happening, the sergeant was so bloody stiff with righteousness, there was no bending him, let alone getting him to break. Sergeant King was incorruptible.

‘I an’t got no honour to be robbed of – an’ my sensibility says take the blamed gold and God-damn any noble thoughts.’

‘Blasphemin’ won’t help you,’ Gwilliams muttered. ‘My sentiments is with you, Harry, but I ain’t goin’ to get tried and shot for a handful of dust. Come on, let’s bury these poor bastards. They tried the bad way, and they failed at that too.’

The three Maori watched all these exchanges between the white men with mild interest. The boy had not seen such animation in pakeha before and wondered what it was all about. Even a child so young, with little knowledge of the world, had heard the word ‘gold’, but he had thought little of its value. He owned no sheep or land either, but if asked he might have chosen those over this cold yellow stuff. His grandfather was aware of the importance of gold, but his life was almost over and any improvements to his last years in the world would come more from his fellow men than from a precious metal. Ta Moko was willing to accept what the captain thought right, for the captain knew the rules and knew the penalties for breaking them. If he was to become rich, all well and good, but if he was to remain poor that too was fate.

They dug a single shallow grave and put all the corpses in together, which was probably a last touch of irony for the souls who had once filled these husks. They died hating each other and now were going to spend eternity in a group embrace, bone locked with bone. Gwilliams chalked an epitaph on a rock face nearby. It read: ‘They died for love – not for a woman, not for a man, but for a lump of metal.’

Sergeant King put all the gold in a set of double saddlebags, which one of the pack-mules would carry. The moon-coloured dust and grit filled two leather wallets the size of dinner plates and the mule King chose was the contented beast who took everything in its stride. He himself intended to lead the beast in the morning. He staked the beast on a patch of fresh grass and left her to graze contentedly.

Once the first sentry had been set, the rest of the men went to sleep around the fire. Their dreams were of many things but riches were paramount in most. One or two of them were heard to groan softly with the knowledge that they were so close to wealth but unable to grasp it. Even Ta Moko was tempted by the gold that lay just a few feet away. But the Maori, like Jack and King, was fully aware that such a theft would only end in misery. There were countless such stories: from the goldfields of Australia to the gold mines of Otago. Men who took part in such robberies eventually turned on one another. Death and betrayal were the usual rewards of such an enterprise.

Shortly before dawn, Jack was shaken roughly and sat up to see his sergeant looming over him.

‘Sir – the pack-mule’s gone – the one with the gold.’

‘Wandered off?’ muttered Jack, not happy at being disturbed. ‘We’ll look for it when it gets light.’

‘No, sir, not wandered off. Wynter’s gone too.’

Jack sighed. ‘Of course he has.’

Thirteen

T
hey struck camp and Jack organized his men into two pairs thinking it was both dangerous and foolhardy to split them further. Sergeant King and Gwilliams were one pair; the captain and Ta Moko were the other. Unless he was absolutely crazy, Harry Wynter would have followed the stream from which they drew their water. This course ran north to south. King and Gwilliams took the northern route, while Jack and the Maori took the southern. The old Maori and his grandson left them to their search, shaking their heads and wondering about these pakeha, whose ways were strange and hard to fathom.

‘Why did you put that man on the last sentry duty on his own? You might have guessed this would happen. This time Wynter’s gone too far,’ said Jack to King before they parted. ‘His prior record makes this a hanging offence. They won’t hesitate to give him the full penalty after all his other mis-demeanours.’

King looked pained. ‘He deserves punishment, sir – but death?’

The captain was scratching his stump, a certain sign that he was greatly disturbed. King handed his commanding officer his chibouk pipe so that he could smoke his way through his anger. Once King had lit the pipe for him, it being a difficult action for a one-handed man, Jack puffed away and answered the NCO’s question.

‘The man is incorrigible, Sergeant. I can’t do anything with him – never have been able to. You only know part of his history. The document listing his wrongdoings is longer and denser than a baron’s genealogy chart. This is really the last straw. The men who took that gold murdered their officers. In stealing the gold from them, even after death, Wynter is collaborating. He’ll swing, I’m sure of it. Ugly though it may be, I can see no way out of it for him. This time he’s had it.’

‘It might be better to shoot him and have done with it, sir.’

‘Who’s going to do that? You? Your skill with firearms is such you’ll probably hit your own foot.’

‘Well, I was thinking of Gwilliams – he’s a sharpshooter.’

Jack shook his head and said sardonically, ‘You’re going to ask Gwilliams to execute his own comrade?’

King shrugged and said, ‘They don’t get on well together.’

‘They drink together every night they’re off duty. They may hate each other’s guts, but they’re all they’ve got. Even a cold-hearted man like Gwilliams would be loath to shoot his drinking companion.’