Kiwi Wars (23 page)

Finally, that which Jack dreaded most occurred.

A tall lean Maori left his group and walked up the slope to the copse. If he had wanted to urinate he would have done it down by the river, so Jack knew he had come to defecate. Naturally he chose to do it by the bush behind which Jack and Ta Moko were lying. When the smell hit them Jack made a face at his Maori guide, but Ta Moko was in no mood to reciprocate. Then one of the Maoris down by the river decided, as a joke, to fire his musket over the trees to hurry his friend. This resulted in every bird and insect being stunned to silence.

‘
Pöauau!
’ yelled the Maori with his pants down.

The group down by the river laughed and jeered.

But a great danger had now asserted itself. Within the eerie silence the gunshot had caused, Jack could hear his pocket watch ticking. It sounded, to his ears, louder than a long-case clock. Surely the Maori on the other side of the bush could hear it? From that side came the tearing of grass and a grunt as the man finished his business. Jack willed the birds in the trees and the insects in the grasses to begin their chorus again. But they failed to respond to his prayers. The Maori stood up and seemed about to leave but then stopped. Jack knew he had heard the ticking and was listening. At that moment the group by the river called up to him, and they started ambling away to the west.

Still he listened, cocking his head to one side, clearly unable to discern where the sound was coming from. Jack hoped the man would think it was a beetle or insect of some kind. But the sound was too regular, too much like the ticking of clockwork and the Maori began to circumnavigate the bush.

Jack leapt up, but before he could do anything, the hostile Maori fell at his feet with a groan on his lips. He lay there, full stretch, now unconscious. Ta Moko was standing over him, with his stone
patu
in his right fist.

‘Quickly, we must move,’ said Ta Moko.

Jack and Ta Moko scrambled down the slope and ran eastwards. Luckily this was the direction taken by Wynter. Both knew the hostiles would soon miss their companion and go back and look for him. Then they would search for tracks, which would not be hard to find. The chase was now a three-fold affair, with two pursuing one, and seven taking up the rear chasing all three. Jack and Ta Moko decided at that point to give up their chase and headed up into the hills, to seek somewhere to hide. They found a stony plateau, which they crossed without leaving prints, and thence to a cave. There they remained for two days, knowing the Maoris would be scouring the region for them.

On the sixth day they slipped out before dawn and retraced their tracks to the river. Once again they started out on the trail of the gold thief. When they reached a ford, they found that Wynter had crossed the river at that point, and to Jack’s astonishment was heading back in the direction of New Plymouth.

‘The man must want to be hanged,’ he said to Ta Moko. ‘Once in India he tried to commit suicide – and failed. Surely this is no way to take one’s own life? Hanging is a dreadful enough thing to watch – it must be a thousand times worse to have to participate. I wonder if he thinks he’ll get the firing squad. He won’t. Not for this.’

Jack and Ta Moko were hounded all the way back to the garrison at New Plymouth, but the hostiles never caught up with them. They found Sergeant King and Gwilliams had arrived a day before them. King met them coming through the main gate. King was clearly agitated, but Jack put this down to the fact that a man was soon to hang.

‘Where’s Wynter, in the stockade?’ asked Jack, wearily trudging towards his quarters.

‘No, sir – in his billet,’ came the reply.

Jack almost stopped in mid-stride.

‘In his billet? Surely not under open arrest?’

‘Not that either.’

‘Well, don’t just stand there, Sergeant – tell me!’

‘Private Wynter came back with the gold and reported to the orderly officer. He said he had been out with his mapping party when they had come across the victims of a robbery, probably the Otago robbery.’ King’s face was blotched red and Jack could see his sergeant was seething. ‘However, he told the officer he – Private Wynter – had not trusted his commanding officer and NCOs to bring in the gold. He said he had heard talk of deserting with the money and sailing to Australia in a Maori skiff.’

‘
What?
’ cried Jack. ‘That infamous . . .’

King continued, almost choking on his words. ‘Wynter informed the authorities that he had gathered up the gold, put it on a mule, and brought it in for safe keeping. It was a very clever ruse, Captain, because he told them, “I couldn’t be certain sure that they
was
goin’ to take the gold – after all, it were an officer I’ve ’ad the honour of servin’ under for many a year now – but I
thought
I heard it said. I didn’t want to be part of no robbery, sir, for that’s a hangin’ offence, sure, so I brung it in anyway, then if I
were
wrong there’s no harm done, is there, eh?”’

‘He said that?’ Jack expostulated. ‘Why, I haven’t given that man credit enough for his fiendish imagination. That is the cleverest lie I’ve heard in a long time. I’ll strangle him. I swear I will. He has led us the sorriest dance . . . I’ll kill him with my bare hands. Where is he?’

Jack stormed into the billet that housed Harry Wynter and two dozen other soldiers. Wynter was lying on his cot, staring at the ceiling. Someone yelled, ‘Officer present!’ and all but him jumped up and stood to attention. Harry Wynter rose slowly and saluted; an insolent smile on his face.

‘Sorry to beat you back, sir. Guess I’ve got better feet than the rest on you.’

‘I’ll beat your bloody back,’ shouted Jack. ‘What was this all about? I don’t understand it, Wynter. Was it just to run us ragged? If so, you were playing a very dangerous game.’

The other soldiers in the room were round-eyed and glanced at one another, still remaining at attention.

Wynter turned an innocent face to his room comrades, then back to Jack again. ‘Captain – I swear. I just wanted to see the gold get back safe. That’s what I told the officers. It’s the truth.’

‘You lied, you insufferable toad. You insisted that you heard talk of desertion. There was no such talk. There was no such conspiracy.’

The look of innocence grew wider. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I thought there was. I wasn’t
sure
I heard such. I know me ears an’t what they were, afore cannons did for ’em, but I did hear
somethin’
around those lines while I was fallin’ off to sleep. I told the officers I
could
’ave bin mistaken, but couldn’t take the chance, see? You can understand that, sir, not takin’ the chance? No harm done, after all.’

‘No harm . . . you nearly got us all killed, soldier.’

Wynter grinned. ‘No, sir, not you. Take more’n a thing like that to get you killed, wun’t it?’

Jack stared at his man for a full minute, but he knew that if he did not get out of the billet, there and then, he would strike him. King was concerned about this too, and steered his captain towards the door.

‘I’ll do it later,’ he told Jack, ‘behind the washrooms.’

‘No, no, don’t do that, Sergeant,’ said Jack wearily. ‘I think he’s beaten us this time. I’ll see what I can do.’

Jack went back to his quarters, bathed, and changed into full dress uniform. Then he reported to General Cameron, who had already been informed of the affair. Jack stood before the general’s desk, ready to give an account of himself. The general, a grave expression on his features, tapped with his pencil on the woodwork.

‘What do you say to this accusation, Captain Crossman?’

‘Sir, the man is an incorrigible liar. He has been under my command for several years now and has been nothing but trouble.’

‘But, forgive me, Captain, for playing devil’s advocate, but of course if it were true, you would say that.’

‘It is true, sir. I hope you are not insinuating that
I
am a liar?’

The general rocked back in his chair and stared at Jack through narrowed eyes.

Jack continued. ‘I can bring you a dozen reports and as many live testimonies to substantiate my claim, sir. It is there in writing. It can be heard from the mouths of my NCOs. The man has an animal cunning. I have no doubt he intended to steal that gold – I can only think that by our dogged pursuit we forced him to return it to the garrison.’

The general’s chair came upright again with a snap.

‘About that gold, Captain. There is a small amount missing. I say,
small
, but of course that is relative to the whole. In monetary terms I would put the value at over a thousand sovereigns.’

Jack was astonished by the general’s vague look.

‘Well, there you are, sir.’

‘Well, there I am not, because this Private . . .?’

‘Wynter.’

‘Yes, this Private Wynter claims that the original thieves must have used the missing gold in some way.’

Jack laughed. ‘They went on a shopping expedition in the bush?’

General Cameron frowned. ‘No, Captain, they used it to bribe Maoris to let them through their territory.’

‘Oh.’ Jack was crestfallen. ‘I suppose . . .’

‘Or someone else could have taken it.’

Jack realized the general was again making veiled accusations regarding him and his NCOs. He was allowed no time to dispute this imputation because the general continued with, ‘There’s no proof, either way. Certainly I can’t court-martial a man without the tiniest shred of evidence. He would claim he thought he was doing the right thing in bringing in the gold himself. It’s a strange and funny do, Captain. I really don’t know what to make of it.’ General Cameron gave a huge sigh, then said, ‘But on the plus side, most of the gold, the greater part of it, is now in our hands again. I will be mentioning your name in that regard, in my official dispatches, and no doubt there will be a commendation. With regards to this soldier, if it is as you say, I suggest you settle with him quietly. Get your sergeant to do it. Or await the next opportunity to punish him for some misdemeanour. You tell me he crosses the line often? Then throw the book at him next time. Give him the maximum. That’ll be all, Captain.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

Jack left with the general saying after him, ‘Good work on that gold – and the murderers got their reward, eh? God sees all and metes out justice. He doesn’t always need us . . .’

Fourteen

J
une was a miserable month; day after day of rain, cold swirling winds blown from Antarctic regions, and the long dark nights did nothing to improve the men’s spirits. Whales could be heard moaning out in the winter seas, calling to each other like night owls on the British landscape. A sort of heavy gloom settled over the hills and valleys around New Plymouth. Soldiers and settlers alike kept to their quarters and only ventured forth when it was absolutely necessary to do so. Even the Maori huddled together, wrapped in woollen blankets, like sheep on a mountainside.

In Taranaki, rebel Maoris gathered at the mouth of a river known as Katikara. They were intent on building a
pa
from which to taunt the British soldiery. However, Jack’s spy network, though still a fledgling organization, was beginning to show profit. Jack received warning of the rebels’ intentions and informed General Cameron – the same man who had refused to court-martial Harry Wynter – and the general’s response was much as Jack expected. It was the sort of reaction Jack had been getting from generals since first becoming an intelligence agent in the Crimea. The general treated the information with disbelief.

‘Balderdash! They wouldn’t show their hand before they had built their
pa
,’ bawled the general. ‘That isn’t like the Maori.’

‘They haven’t shown their hand, General,’ said Jack, exasperated. ‘This is inside information. My spies have penetrated the rebel meetings. This time we know what they’re going to do
before
they do it.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, Captain.’

‘Sir, this is my job. I have been doing it now for several years. If you do not act on my information, what use is there having a branch of intelligence at all? If you wait and do nothing, you will lose more men when you do have to act. They
will
build a
pa
, have no doubt on that score, but if we move now we can intercept them before that happens. They will be caught by surprise and for once we’ll have the upper hand, instead of the other way around.’

After a long period of silence the general’s eyes narrowed. He shook a finger at Jack.

‘If this turns out to be a wild goose chase – why, man, these expeditions cost money, and there’s precious little of that in the army coffers at the present time. The government at home thinks we can operate on dry leaves out here. The duke is threatening to take all British troops out of the islands for good and leave it to the militia. What a precious mess the settlers will make of it too. Half of them don’t know one end of a rifle from the other. But . . .’ He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing before Jack’s eyes. ‘I’m going to take your word for it, Captain, and if your word turns sour on me, I’ll stamp you into the ground.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Jack, now fearful himself that the Maori spies he had working for him had got it wrong. It was possible, of course, that one or two of them were actually working for the other side. Now his name, rank and reputation were on the line. ‘I’m certain you won’t regret it.’