Kiwi Wars (9 page)

‘Eh?’

‘You told your brother you had two pals with you . . . when you discovered the gold . . .’

Abe Wynter stuck two fingers up at the waiter and, having made his order, bent down close again.

‘Ha, there’s a sad tale, to be sure. You see, after we sold the nugget we didn’t know about this fine business. The navy was after us and they came to the goldfield, looking for deserters. We didn’t know what to do. We was scared if we turned ourselves in we’d be lashed or hung and the money took from us. So we did the only thing we could do – we run. We run off into the outback of Australia.’ He paused. ‘We went what the natives there call
walkabout.
’Cept we run instead of walked. Truth to say, we was lost almost afore we started. That there outback country is the very devil. It all looks the same. I swear I saw the same white broken tree a thousand times, yet it was different ones. There’s nothin’ but dry creeks, dust holes and bloody snakes and lizards out there, I can vouch for that. Water? We didn’t see a drop for days. We roasted under a blisterin’ cruel sun, our skins as red as soldiers’ coatees. Our mouths cracked and slimed over. Danny, he went stone blind with the sheer hard whiteness of the light comin’ off the sand.’

Abe Wynter licked his lips and looked longingly towards the doorway through which his cool beer would appear.

‘Then one day some Abos found us. They took us to a creek and dug us out some muddy water. It was a bloody blessin’, I’ll tell you that, Cap’n. We drunk our fill, but the Abos vanished the same way they come, and though we stayed a week by the waterhole, we was startin’ to starve. I tried catchin’ them lizards, but they was quicker’n roaches when they wanted to be. Anyways, we knew we couldn’t stay there for ever, so we started walking again, this time usin’ our canvas hats to carry some water with us. 01’ Danny, he didn’t make it though. Died of the sun on his neck, he did. Went down like a felled tree and cracked his head open on a rock. We left him there, Striker an’ me not knowing if we was next for the Lord’s back pocket. He was on our side, though, Cap’n, ’cause we found a dirt track that led to a farm, and so providence delivered us two poor unfortunates back to the livin’.’

Jack recalled that Abe’s brother Harry had walked from the Crimea to India, to help quell the Indian Mutiny. A hellish, desperate march that had cost the lives of most of those who had started out. But Harry Wynter had survived, and once again he marvelled at the Wynters’ fortitude and resilience. This was obviously a family of survivors. Not without complaint though, because Harry at least never ceased complaining. The stamina in these two brothers was nothing short of remarkable. Others fell away, but they dug in, carried on, refused to go down. Both were scarred and ravaged men, with haunted eyes, but they were very much alive.

‘That’s an extraordinary story, Mr Wynter. And where is Mr Striker now?’

‘Striker’s his nickname. His proper name was Strickland. Oh, he’s back in England somewhere. He don’t like this part of the world and who can blame him. It’s not a place for home-lovin’ men.’

The beer came and Abe Wynter immediately ordered two more, despite Jack’s protests.

Jack said he would send Abe Wynter a map of the region he preferred for his farm. Wynter said he could not promise anything, for many Maoris were ‘dead reluctant’ to sell. Jack repeated his warning that he wanted nothing that was illegal or even illicit. He might have added ‘immoral’ to his list, except that he guessed Abe Wynter would not really understand the meaning of the word. The two men parted with a shake of the hand and, his head thumping again – probably due to the ale he had consumed – he returned to his quarters.

Later, an incensed Harry Wynter requested to speak to him. Jack came out of his quarters. ‘What is it, Wynter? Can’t the sergeant deal with it? I’m very busy.’

‘You bin to see my brother,’ accused the private.

‘I wasn’t aware that you still speak to him, after his treatment of you, but, yes, I ran into him on a bridge and we spoke.’

‘You had a jug or two with ’im, so I’m told.’

‘Your spies are very efficient, Wynter.’

‘It’s our trade, an’t it, sir? Well, what’s it all about, eh? What’re you two cookin’ up ’tween you?’

‘My conversation with your brother is confidential. And if you don’t want to end up in the guardhouse, Wynter, I suggest you moderate your tone. Rest assured, it has nothing to do with you. This is purely a private matter between myself and Abraham Wynter. Now, was there anything else?’

Harry Wynter’s eyes narrowed. ‘Just this, sir. If you think you can trust Abe, you’d better think again. He’s got no more soul than a snake – no more’n what I have, and you know that an’t much, Captain, you an’ me ’ave bin together quite a bit. I wouldn’t ’ave nothin’ to do with him meself, if I weren’t his baby brother. He’s a back-stabbing bastard, is Abe, and you couldn’t trust him with nothin’.’

‘Thank you for the warning, Wynter, but I’m well able to judge a man’s character for myself.’

‘Well, don’t say I din’t tell you.’

With that the private ambled off, towards the huts used by the rank and file, a bent, mean-looking man bearing many grudges.

The call to arms came on an early winter morning in June. Jack’s head was at its worst, but he knew he had to do his duty. It had been raining a great deal and the ground around the camp, and presumably further afield, was layered with thick sticky mud. These conditions had not seemed to deter Colonel Gold, who ordered Major Nelson, the senior army officer at the army camp, to attack a
pa
known as Puketakauere. During the planning of this attack Jack had suggested that scouts were sent out to examine the ground before any assault took place, but his suggestions were ignored. His senior officers were not men to take notice of army captains who were in New Zealand merely to draw maps of the countryside. Why, this Captain Crossman did not even have a company to command! All he led were three rather dubious-looking soldiers, one of whom was a damned North American, if you please!

Jack’s head was thumping as he made his way to the mustering point. A Maori woman had given him some powders. He had taken one in a glass of water, which had at least dulled the pain to a throbbing ache. He had no idea what the powder contained, but he was grateful for anything to relieve the agony.

The rebel chieftain, Wiremu Kingi, had built two more
pas,
not fifty miles away, but each within
one
insolent mile of the British camp at Waitara. There were, as usual, trenches and rifle pits guarding the approach to the
pas,
but what protected the flanks was swampy ground. Even as Jack and his men joined the assault troops, Jack recalled at least two battles in which swamps had played a significant role to the detriment of the most powerful army: the first was the Battle of Marathon, where the overwhelming numbers from the Persian King Darius’s army were driven into flanking mire by a headlong charge of around ten thousand Athenians; the second was the Battle of Agincourt, where bogs devoured many of the French knights who charged Henry’s archers and were forced to split to right and left of their target. Jack was sure there were many others, but battles between nations are as numerous as the stars, and no man knows them all.

Major Nelson set out that morning at the head of around 350 officers and men. These included Commodore Beauchamp-Seymour and 60 men of the naval brigade. The sky was an ominous dark grey colour, with streaks of cirrus like paintbrush strokes running through it. Shrubs and trees were dripping with recent rainwater as boots splodged through the tacky mud. Miserable-looking birds watched the troops pass. It was difficult to decide who looked the more disconsolate: the wildlife or the men marching by. Jack could only hope the Maori enemy, towards whom they were heading, felt just as morose as he did. Certainly there was no confidence in the air: no spring in the step, no martial songs coming from the mouths of the troops, no fife and drum music to cheer the lads on to victory. It was one of those mornings when everyone felt they should have stayed in bed.

Jack looked at his pocket watch as he trudged along. It had just passed seven o’clock. A heron passed overhead. A mile is only a mile, but when the ground is as adhesive as it was that day, it seemed to take ages. Eventually though, the Puketakauere
pa
loomed through the gloomy silver mist of the day, a lumpy man-made hill that looked deserted from a distance. The idea that the Maoris had vacated their fortress cheered the troops. Perhaps they would be able to go back to their beds after all, without an early-morning battle.

‘What d’ya think, sir?’ said Corporal Gwilliams. ‘Have they flown the nest?’

Jack replied, ‘It does look like it.’

‘Back to the bacon and eggs,’ muttered Wynter. ‘I like it.’

Just at that moment a shot rang out and one of the soldiers at the head of the column crumpled like an empty sack.

‘No such luck,’ Sergeant King said. ‘Here we go again.’

But Jack’s men were held back. The naval brigade was at the head of the attack, both sailors and marines. They charged in, hampered by the swampy ground, only to find that the enemy had not withdrawn to the
pa
as expected but were in the outlying trenches. The Maoris were armed with double-barrelled shot-guns. These they discharged with devastating accuracy and effect, chopping down the attackers in swathes. Jack noted the quickness of the Maoris reloading. They were adept at this exercise, which took place at great speed. The air was full of deadly shot and those who ran in to face it were met by swarms of metal bees. Men were blasted skin from bone, while they were lodged up to their ankles in sucking mire. Shotgun fusillades were followed by
patu
charges. Maoris ran forward to hack down encumbered attackers with their honed stone axes. It was a dreadful sight for the troops at the rear and at times Jack turned away, sickened by the slaughter.

‘Take those trenches,’ cried the officers, who led their men from the front, one of them the gallant Beauchamp-Seymour himself. ‘Into them, men! Into them!’

Eventually, some of the naval men managed to capture the first trench, but there were two more behind it. Although the artillery detachment was raining howitzer fire on these two trenches, it had little effect on the Maoris, who were well dug in and who commanded the field.

Jack saw Major Nelson looking anxiously around him and asked him what he thought.

‘Eh? Well, we should have the reinforcements here shortly. Colonel Gold has promised to outflank the Maoris. But I don’t see them, do you? I don’t see them. The signal has gone up, of course?’

It was an anxious question, and a lieutenant standing near the major looked startled.

‘What signal, sir?’

‘The rocket, man, the rocket telling Colonel Gold the attack has begun. It surely went up. I instructed the sergeant myself.’

The noise of the shotguns and rifles made conversation difficult, even from that distance.

The nervous lieutenant shouted in Nelson’s ear. ‘I saw no rocket, sir.’

Harassed, Nelson turned to Jack.

‘Nor I,’ said Jack. ‘That’s not to say it wasn’t sent. But I didn’t see it.’

Ahead of them the men in the captured trench were undergoing heavy fire. Each time they put their heads above the parapet, a hail of shot and rifle fire threatened to decapitate them. Whoops and triumphant screams were coming from the Maori trenches, and from the
pa.
They knew they had the British troops at a huge disadvantage and this time they were going to teach them a lesson in warfare.

‘Where the hell are those reinforcements?’ cried Nelson. He seemed about to tug his hair out. ‘They should be here!’

Finally, the major realized that his attack was not going to succeed, and that reinforcements were not coming. The withdrawal began, under the umbrella of the howitzers. King, Gwilliams and Wynter were heartily glad they had not been forced to take active part in this fiasco. They were pleased to be called ‘mere map-makers, of no material worth in a battle of this kind’. Jack too was not sorry he had been held back. He watched as Commodore Beauchamp-Seymour (known as ‘the Swell of the Ocean’ by his men) was carried wounded from the field. The commodore had a leg wound which looked rather grisly.

If the march out had been disconsolate, it was nothing compared to the forlorn return home. They plodded through the mud carrying the dead and injured. A few had been left on the field, unable to be reached by their comrades. In all 64 men out of the 350 who had set out had been either killed or wounded. Major Nelson was still gnashing his teeth and asking where the reinforcements had got to. They met no other force on their journey back to the camp. If there had been reinforcements they were safely in their barracks now. Jack reflected on the age-old tendency of modern armies to underestimate a so-called ‘native’ enemy. The British soldier was a superb fighting man, but he often met his match on the field when faced by an enemy to whom battle was a national sport.

Later King and the others talked over the day’s disaster.

‘I heard that Colonel Gold started out when he heard the shootin’,’ said Gwilliams, ‘but when it went quiet again, he turned his men back, thinkin’ it was all over.’

‘He’ll get hell from someone,’ prophesied King. ‘The army doesn’t like defeats.’

‘Who the hell does?’ muttered Wynter. ‘Anyways, they’re all a bunch of no-hopers, them officers. Don’t know their arse from their elbows. Some bleedin’ general will come here from Australia, you see, to kick somebody’s backside for this. Me brother says they got this electrolocal telegraphic wire in Aussie now, runnin’ from Sydney to Melbourne. It’s as quick as that –’ he snapped his fingers – ‘to get a message.’