Kiwi Wars (22 page)

‘I suppose you’re right, sir. We’ll have to take him in.’

Jack said, ‘I’ll bear in mind what you said though, should it be me who comes across him first, if I can put my scruples away. But between you and me, I would find that hard to do.’

Jack and Ta Moko set off south shortly after this conversation, following the brook, taking one of the two remaining mules. The other animal went with Gwilliams and King. It was rugged country with boulders and trees hindering a swift journey. Jack was cursing his private to high heaven, yet he had known all these years that it would at sometime come to this manhunt. Harry Wynter had been a shade away from the noose or the firing squad many a time. He was one of those unfortunate characters who seemed determined to have himself executed so that he could then blame the State or the army for his early demise. If there was life after death, the angels and archangels, or devils and demons, depending on how lenient was the great Judge, would regret the day that Harry Wynter entered their portals.

Ta Moko had looked for a trail beside the stream, of course, but Harry Wynter was not an idiot. He had been a member of a guerrilla group for many years and even someone with his low intellect had learned the skill of surviving in enemy territory by that time. The private had no doubt stuck to the gravelly stream bed for many miles and would therefore leave no prints, mule or man. By midday they had made only seven miles and there was still no sign of where Wynter had left the stream. Jack reminded himself that he was chasing a man who had walked from the Crimea to India and had survived a journey that had killed all his officers and most of his comrades. Wynter was a hardened trekker, with feet of marble, and he could keep a steady pace for hours.

‘We’d better stop here for a rest, Ta Moko,’ Jack said, when they came across a glade. ‘I need to change my socks.’

The rocks they had traversed had been serrated like steak knives and were sharp enough to penetrate the soles of Jack’s boots. When he took off his footwear, he found his feet were torn and bleeding. He did his best to clean them up and put pads on the worst cuts, but he knew they would eventually slow him down a lot. His feet were definitely not made of any stone whatsoever. Any long journeys in his earlier life had been made by horse, while Wynter had always had to walk. Back home, many labourers walked ten or more miles to find work each day. Some walked twenty. Men like Jack, born into the aristocracy, had feet almost as tender as those of a baby. Of course he had done some walking since then, one or two long marches without a mount, but the damage had been done in his childhood and was not rectifiable now.

Ta Moko’s feet, on the other hand, were bare. But they showed no sign of damage. He had some sort of trick of treading on the edges of sharp stones and rocks, and coming off unscathed. Forced treks like this one were meat and gravy to a Maori. He looked with sympathy at the bloody remains of the officer’s toes and heel pad, and shook his head.

‘We must slow down, Captain, to give you chance to heal.’

‘Can’t do that,’ muttered Jack, whose further discomfort was a sodden blue jumper, which had been soaked in the spray of a waterfall they had passed. ‘We must catch this man if we can.’

Socks changed, pads on wounds, they ate a fish which Ta Moko caught from the stream. Jack had never eaten anything so muddy-tasting in his life, but he knew that a beggar could not be a chooser. Ta Moko however seemed to consider the fish a great delicacy and kept smacking his lips long after the meal had been eaten.

‘You must ride the mule,’ said Ta Moko firmly, ‘before your feet are cut to pieces.’

But the mule was already giving trouble. He had stopped once or twice with an obstinate air about him and Jack was afraid they would have to battle with the creature all the way. If he climbed on the mule’s back and added to the weight of the equipment already there, he was sure the beast would rebel with the stubbornness for which they were renowned. Nevertheless Jack envied the hooves which clattered amongst the rocks, wondering why God in his wisdom had not thought fit to endow man with such wonderful permanent shoes.

In the afternoon they entered a narrow rocky-sided valley which was deeper than others they had come through. Kingfishers flew down this channel at great speed, diving for small shards of silver that wriggled in their beaks. A low mist hung about the ferns and tree-parasitic plants, which needed this kind of environment to flourish. The dampness of the valley floor made it soft to walk on and Jack even took off his boots so that he could feel the moss under his feet. This green carpet lasted for three miles and it saved Jack’s tears for a while, though he knew it could not last. Nor could they stay there for the night, because the moisture-filled air would have soaked them. To sleep in such an atmosphere would invite respiratory problems. As well as tender feet, Jack had a weak chest and he knew they had to get out of the valley before he started coughing and gasping. He hated these weaknesses in himself but could only try to thwart them.

Night fell before they reached the end of the valley and they proceeded over the last few hundred yards by dark-lantern. Jack’s idea of taking off his boots and socks had not been a good one. He had not realized that the moss had been full of mites, sometimes called sand-fleas by the pakeha, which had bitten his ankles and feet quite savagely. So as well as the flesh wounds he had swellings to contend with. It meant he could not replace his boots and had to walk barefoot over the new stony ground which met the end of the valley.

‘How I hate that man,’ Jack told himself, as he inspected his extremities. ‘I could cheerfully watch him hang at this moment in time.’

In the light of the fire Ta Moko lit, however, he watched the bats, darting this way and that, taking insects out of the air. It was not an unpleasant land, these islands of New Zealand. Not like India with its terrible biting insects, snakes and wild beasts. And even in the summer the heat was not appalling, as it had been in the Far East. There were diseases here, of course, but nothing compared to the Crimea or the Indian subcontinent. The only creature that gave Jack any trouble at all, and it was simply because of its size and revolting looks, was the giant weta insect, which was so fearsome and ugly it disgusted him. Jack would find these creatures in his clothes and shudder like a small girl.

The pair rigged a bivouac for the night, and Jack wrote up his official report diary, similar to a sea captain’s log, which would condemn Private Harry Wynter. Had they caught the man within a couple of miles of the last camp, he might have had a chance, but Jack knew that this was the last escapade of his troublesome private. This report in his diary would put the noose around Harry Wynter’s neck. It was not without some misgivings that Jack closed the cover of the black book, wrapped it in a waterproof skin, and put it in his saddlebag. Then he relaxed and smoked his chibouk for a few peaceful minutes.

‘Ta Moko,’ he said to the Maori, before they laid down their heads for the night, ‘he must have left the stream now. Do you think he went the other way, and Gwilliams and King have him by now?’

‘No, Captain – I have seen his prints, just before we made camp. They are still following the stream, but on the far bank.’

‘Good, good. I wonder if he will break for open country.’

‘He will die if he does. The tribes there will kill him.’

‘What if he offers them gold?’

‘They will kill him and
take
his gold.’

‘Of course.’

Jack lay down in the darkness of the wilderness, wondering if he was going to sleep despite his physical fatigue. His mind was still buzzing and that was what kept people awake. His thoughts were swirling round in there; circular thoughts which seemed to have no end or beginning. Nathan was probably on his way to Australia by now and would not be around to help with the court martial. Nathan’s influence might have saved Wynter if he had pleaded some sort of temporary insanity. But who would believe that a man who stole a fortune in gold was insane? Wasn’t that the sanest thing on earth to do? To make oneself rich overnight and never have to worry about money again. No panel of officers was going to be convinced of madness in that respect. Nathan and Jack together might have argued that long years in the field had turned the man’s head, but Jack could not do it alone.

They set off after Harry Wynter just after dawn. The sun came up over this green and pleasant land, glancing off the hills and honing the rivers like silver knives, so sharp the brightness hurt their eyes. Birds littered the trees and ran through the undergrowth. Insects formed smoky clouds over favourite shrubs and bushes.

Wynter’s course was erratic and meandering and frustrated his pursuers with its unpredictability. Jack decided his private was either lost or had some thought of disguising his trail with loops and turns. It was, the captain decided, most likely the former. Despite being with a ‘mapping group’ for several years, Wynter had made no effort to learn the skills of navigation. Being the lowest member of the force he left the responsibility of pathfinding to his superiors, of whom there was always at least one with him. He had never been required to find his own way out in the field. Thus it was almost certain he did not know where he was going or what he was doing. At least, Jack believed that until late in the morning, when he discovered his spare compass was missing.

‘Did I give you a compass?’ he asked his Maori guide.

‘Compass? What would I want a compass for? I know my way around these hills without pakeha toys.’

Ta Moko was irritated with the chase. Jack knew he had expected to catch the runaway very quickly. It hurt the Maori’s pride to be outrun by a pakeha and a stupid one at that. But Jack knew they had made the usual mistake; the one all men made with Harry Wynter. They had underestimated him. Jack was fairly certain now that Wynter had stolen maps from the sergeant’s folder too. The private knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going. Furthermore, his walking skills were second to none. He and his mule would keep up a pace that would be difficult to keep up with, let alone gain on.

Yet still, as Jack trudged through bogs brimming with mire, and along stream beds, and through tangled bush country, he could not imagine what was in Harry Wynter’s mind. All those years when Wynter had not bothered to learn navigation, but knew the value of compasses and maps, Jack should have learned how the man thought. He should have been able to predict Wynter’s moves. A good leader knows his men inside out, yet Wynter always had the ability to surprise Jack. Sometimes the surprises proved just how stupid the man was, but other times some hidden skill would come out.

It had to be remembered, while out in the wilds of New Zealand, that in civilian life Harry Wynter had been a bodger for a while. Bodgers mainly lived in the beech woods of Buckinghamshire and made rough chair legs out of greenwood, using a pole lathe made out of a springy sapling. It was a hard life, living in the open most of the time, using a bivouac for a shelter. Purchased food was not easy to come by in the forest, so bodgers lived for a greater part of the time on what they could find in the way of fungi, berries, roots and edible plants, supplementing their diet with the odd rabbit or wild bird. Harry Wynter certainly had outdoor skills or he would never have survived the bodger’s life. There was no reason why he could not transfer those skills to New Zealand. Of course there would be plants unknown to him here, but he was astute enough to be able to recognize poisonous fungi and berries.

So, thought Jack, was his runaway preparing for a long haul out in the bush? Was he hoping to wear down his trackers, until they gave up and went home? It certainly seemed that way. Yet Jack had with him an expert on the landscape, on living in the wild, and on tracking down men who did not want to be tracked down. Did Harry Wynter honestly believe he could outrun and outwit a determined local Maori? Surely even Harry was not that much of an idiot? And there could have been no preconceived plan, for the gold did not appear until two days ago.

So the soldier’s mind was still a closed book. Not a very fascinating book, but a mystery none the less. One thing was sure: Wynter was giving his officer the runaround, and that would please him. Because they felt they were getting close, Jack abandoned the mule, hoping they could move faster without it and so overtake the malefactor in front of them. They took the remainder of their provisions on their own backs and determined to sleep under the stars.

Mid-afternoon, on the third day of the chase, Jack and Ta Moko almost ran into a hostile Maori war party. The Maoris, their bodies gleaming with water since they had just waded through a torrential river, were standing on the bank talking. Jack was close enough to see the tattoos on their naked bodies as the Maoris had taken off their shirts and trousers and had fastened them round their heads to keep them dry. Harry Wynter’s tracks went right alongside the river, but the Maoris did not seem aware they were standing on pakeha spoor. They seemed in no hurry to dry off, but remained chattering by the rushing white water, one or two of them cleaning their rifles which presumably they had held above their heads on the crossing.

Jack and Ta Moko were lying in a copse where the insects and spiders were using them as bridges. If they moved they would be seen. The copse was an isolated island in a sea of grass. Jack hoped the Maoris did not want to light a fire because the only source of wood for miles around was his hiding place. Then it began to rain, which was miserable for Jack and Ta Moko, though the Maoris by the river simply looked heavenward and laughed, carrying on with their conversations. They did, however, dress themselves which gave Jack hope. But even when the rain stopped, some twenty minutes later, the Maoris remained.