Beneath the Kauri Tree (The Sea of Freedom Trilogy Book 2)

by Sarah Lark

  Eric grinned and fiddled with his fly.

  Violet looked at him with horror in her eyes.

  “Well, what is it?” asked Fred. “Take off your clothes.” Fred was standing by the door, and he seemed excited for a show.

  “I—”

  “Do you want to get back to your baby or not?” Fred asked.

  Eric let his pants fall down to his knees. He did not undress any further, but that was enough to fill Violet with disgust. She had glimpsed men and women having sex, but she had never had a male member in front of her like that, and never had a man looked at her so lecherously.

  Violet closed her eyes and pulled her dress over her head. He yanked down her underpants and pulled up her camisole. Apparently, he had no interest in exchanging kisses—no “Sir Galahad.” Violet thought of the young man’s lovely words and almost giggled hysterically. Instead, she cried as Eric closed his lips and then his teeth around her nipples. Then he pressed himself into her. Violet screamed in pain. She heard Fred laugh.

  “That’s what I call gratitude,” panted Eric, “and that, that, and that.” He rode her like a horse, only she had no chance of throwing him off.

  “Drive that pride out of her,” Fred encouraged him.

  Eventually, it grew dark around Violet. She tried to hold tight to her consciousness. She did have to care for Rosie. But the pain was too much, and when Eric finally collapsed on her, his weight knocked the wind out of her, and his stench choked her. Violet was petite and only reached to Eric’s shoulder. Her last thought was that she would be crushed under his hard, unwashed body. Crushed like her mother was under the collapsing mine.

  She saw her mother’s face before her as her consciousness ebbed, but this time the sight was no consolation. Her mother—and every other respectable woman—would despise her for what she had done here.

  Chapter 5

  The next few months in Parihaka passed in tense anticipation. There hadn’t yet been an investigation, but the first trials against the plowmen were held. A judge sentenced forty plowmen each to two months’ forced labor and a two-hundred-pound fine for destruction of property. None of them could produce that much money, and though the community of Parihaka could have, it did not recognize the judgment. The government left the sentenced men and the others who had been incarcerated in prison. When the protests against this did not quiet down, they sent the plowmen to the South Island and distributed them in prisons between Christchurch and Dunedin.

  Near the end of 1879, an investigative commission was finally formed, although the people in Parihaka could hardly believe its composition. The premier appointed two pakeha to the council. Both had served as Minister of Native Affairs and were directly responsible for the land confiscations among the Maori. A Maori chieftain who was exceedingly friendly to the government was also appointed. He withdrew immediately after Te Whiti commented on the men’s nomination: “A grand investigative commission: it consists of two pakeha and a dog.”

  Te Whiti boycotted the hearings, which began in 1880. The government countered: if the armistice compromise stipulated that all land confiscation must cease, they would begin with the construction of a coastal road.

  “Just a few repairs on existing roads,” insisted the pakeha, but Te Whetu knew better: “They’ve recruited five hundred fifty armed men. No, no, friends, don’t believe that they’re employing the Armed Constabulary here to build roads because they don’t have anything else to do. These people are settlers without money. They lured them here with the promise of giving them land, our land, land they plan to steal from us.”

  At first, the new soldiers did nothing but build camps around Parihaka. The Maori noted camps at Rahotu and Waikino and a blockhouse manned by armed men in Pungarehu.

  “I have no desire to go there and bring them food,” grumbled Matariki as she filled a basket with food in the cooking lodge. “Ignoring them is hard enough, but feeding them?”

  One of the cooks laughed. “You know Te Whiti: friendliness and politeness—he kills the people with kindness, as long as they don’t attack him. We view the soldiers as our guests, invite them in, and offer them food. They haven’t done anything yet. And it’s not their fault they’re here. They’re the government’s toys, just like the settlers.”

  Matariki saw things differently, although she followed the chieftain’s orders. The settlers had been betrayed, and the men who now lay in wait would not hesitate to overrun Parihaka and put down its inhabitants.

  Matariki shuddered as she walked with five other women along the sand path inland to Pungarehu and the armed constables’ camp. Between Parihaka and the camp was the villagers’ farmland. Every Maori man who worked there watched over the women sent to bring the soldiers gifts. Matariki would have wished for a warrior or two as an escort anyway, particularly as the men in camp lacked soldierly discipline. They had not gathered warriors here but scum. Whalers, seal hunters, gold miners—fortune hunters who now wanted to give buying land a try, even if they knew nothing about raising crops or animals. They tended to receive the Maori girls crudely, undressing them with their eyes before digging into the food with few words of thanks. They took Te Whiti’s friendliness for granted, or as the fulfillment of a sort of obligation to pay tribute.

  This time, however, the arrival of the girls in the camp took a different form. Instead of walking through the open gate, they were stopped. A uniformed guard asked the women what they wanted. The group of women pushed Matariki forward. She was their translator; the others normally worked in the kitchen and fields and spoke only broken English.

  “Chieftain Te Whiti sends us. We offer the hospitality of Parihaka. Custom has it that our guests share our food with us. You’ve already diverted our water.” Matariki cast an annoyed look at Waitotoroa Stream. The pakeha had erected their camp at the headwaters. Since then, the water had not arrived in Parihaka as clean and full of fish as before. “We invite you to the gathering at the next full moon to speak and call the gods together.”

  The man looked at Matariki uncomprehendingly. “I’ll call the sergeant,” he said, and left his post.

  That could hardly represent the usual procedure in the British Army, but it was still markedly more soldierlike than the previous behavior of the constables. There were other signs, too, that things were more ordered in the camp. No one loitered around, ogling the girls. A few men repaired the fences; others were exercising. And the tall man who now approached the girls with sure strides wore a full uniform.

  “How may I be of service to you good women?”

  The soldier was not as tall as Kupe, but petite Matariki had to look up at him. She observed his slender physique and straight posture—a soldier from head to foot. The sergeant’s uniform was excellently fitted and was scrupulously clean and proper. His face was somewhat pale, but his features were aristocratic. He reminded Matariki of someone she knew, but she could not put her finger on who that someone was. She smiled unintentionally when she looked into the man’s brown eyes. His hair was blond and short. If he let it grow, it might curl.

  Matariki forbade herself imagining the young man fishing or hunting with a bare chest and laughing face.

  “I am Sergeant Colin Coltrane. I am in charge of this camp. What can I do for you?”

  Matariki repeated her speech. She felt strangely self-conscious as she did, and more so when the sergeant smiled.

  “Ah yes, the Parihaka strategy, I was warned of as much.”

  Matariki furrowed her brow. “You were warned of us? Well, true, the Crown must quake with fear at a welcome committee like ours. What are you afraid of, Sergeant? That we’ll poison your men?”

  The sergeant laughed. “No, not really. I might let you. They try to kill themselves with alcohol every day. No, Miss . . .”

  “Drury, Matariki Drury,” she said stiffly.

  “What a handsome name.” Colin Coltrane smiled winningly. “Miss Matariki Drury. It’s not about guarding against attacks but rather avoiding a certain, hm
m, demoralization. We call it fraternization, what your chieftain’s trying here. A group that he’s fed for months will only reluctantly fight him.”

  “So, you’re thinking of attacking us?” Matariki asked sharply. Coltrane’s words offered new insights into the English strategy, at least.

  The sergeant shrugged. “Against you, Miss Drury, I could never raise arms,” he said gallantly, “nor against the other women either.” He bowed in the direction of the women behind her. “But regardless, we are soldiers, and we receive our orders from the government. I am here to see they are carried out. And for that reason, as sorry as it makes me, I must reject your friendly request and offer. We have our own cook, and I conduct the speeches and prayer services.”

  “You don’t look much like a pastor,” said Matariki coolly.

  Colin Coltrane laughed. “You wouldn’t believe how many facets there are to my personality. For my men, it suffices. British soldiers aren’t as spiritual as your Maori warriors.”

  With that, he turned away, but Matariki still caught a glimpse of undisguised disdain in his facial expression. She watched him go. She was speechless and angry, but also fascinated, for which she chided herself. The sergeant despised the spirit of Parihaka—perhaps he even despised her whole people. Yet, still . . . Matariki shoved all fantasies aside and translated his words for the other women. Coltrane’s message had been clear: they need not come anymore. She was happy about that. And she was happy to never see Sergeant Colin Coltrane again.

  The roadwork began immediately after the investigative commission announced its decision: the occupation of land by a few of the whites was not entirely justified since the Maori owners had never taken arms against the pakeha. However, this was not the case, at least not entirely, on the coastline. The coastal Maori remained recalcitrant. One need only think of the obstreperous men of Parihaka. The road between Hawera and Oakura could be built without the permission of the natives. And besides, Te Whiti and other leaders had said themselves that they had nothing fundamentally against white settlers. The commission interpreted this to mean that they were willing to part with their land in exchange for suitable compensation.

  “But that’s our land.” Matariki grew agitated as word got around Parihaka. Te Whiti had just called an unplanned gathering for the next day. They were expecting tribes from the whole region. “That’s Parihaka farmland. What are they thinking?”

  Kupe, who had just been leading a team of oxen, shrugged his shoulders. “They think that already-cultivated land can be sold more easily.” He laughed bitterly. “Nothing will come of it. We have enough of these military training camps on our lands now. Te Whiti gave us the assignment of plowing the Armed Constabulary’s camps.”

  Matariki, who suddenly had Colin Coltrane’s first friendly and then flinty face before her eyes, began to worry about her Maori friends. The sergeant would not retreat from the plows without a fight. She would have liked to go as a translator, but now Kupe truly needed no help, and this time the ariki was explicitly not sending any girls. He would have to know that the situation was coming to a head.

  For Kupe, who aside from some brief instruction had never worked in agriculture, the oxen proved at first more dangerous than the soldiers. His very first attempt to plow a straight line in the road leading to the camp in Rahotu went awry. Kupe pulled on the reins here and there, signaling his ineptitude to the animals. The lead ox tugged suddenly to the right; the others went along, and the plow went spinning. Kupe lost his balance and fell from his seat, ending up with a foot under a wheel of the plow. The doctors in the village determined there was no break, just a strain and heavy contusion. But for now, Kupe couldn’t take part in further “cultivation” of the pakeha camp.

  Though dispirited he couldn’t proceed, he thereby avoided arrest. The government soldiers did not quite know how to react to the plowing. They resorted to the arrest of some plowmen but not combat, and no one was shot.

  “Which no doubt we owe to the presence of the press,” Kupe noted in a bad mood.

  With a thickly bandaged foot and leaning heavily on Pai, he had dragged himself to the gathering the next day. Despite the short notice, thousands were already awaiting Te Whiti and the other chieftains in the clearing outside the village. Though the attendees were predominantly Maori, there was a large contingent of pakeha, almost all bearing notebooks and pens.

  The opinion of the reporters was divided, though many supported the government’s measures. It was, after all, a fact that the Taranaki District was filling with white settlers speculating on land that had so far been fallow. The journalists, many of whom were city dwellers used to streets and train lines, often did not understand why the Maori population declined modernization. Hardly one of them, however, could completely ignore the achievement of Parihaka. They all noted the village’s cleanliness and order, its first-class organization, and the cheerful spirituality of its residents.

  Te Whiti was dressed formally in Matariki’s chieftain cloak when he appeared before the crowds.

  “My heart,” the chieftain said, “is full of darkness. You know I do not want a fight. But it seems the pakeha do. They deny it and instead speak of another hearing, another commission. The muzzle flashes of their guns have already singed our eyelashes, but still they say they do not want a war. How does a war begin, my friends? When one party sends its army to overrun the land of the other. The pakeha say it is not clear to them where the borders are, which land belongs to them, which to us, and which perhaps does not even have an owner. Now we’ll make that clear, my friends. From now on, we’ll fence in our land. We’ll begin tomorrow. And we will not give an inch. If the pakeha tear down our fences, we’ll build them again. We’ll work our land—we’ll plow it and build upon it.”

  The listeners were dumbfounded at first, but then they applauded. The incarcerated plowmen still sat in jail. The people of Parihaka knew what they were getting into when they offered renewed resistance.

  “Remember, we are doing nothing illegal,” Te Whetu later encouraged them. “The others will face punishment if they tear down our fences. Do not be afraid. Let the spirits of Parihaka overcome violence.”

  The next day the fencing began—and with it a dogged wrestling for power in Taranaki. Again, only men were sent to work on the fencing at first, and just three days later, Kupe explained the term “Sisyphean task.” The Armed Constabulary had begun the construction of the road. Its land surveyors established its course without consideration of the Maori fields. They tore down the fences. The villagers built them back up. They did this wordlessly and repeatedly. Once, twice, twenty times. After a few days, the workers were exhausted. Others took their place.

  At first, the government troops played along, but then at the next gathering, Te Whetu threatened to tear down telegraph poles. The government had him arrested when he was inspecting the fences with eight subordinate chiefs. Following that, many fence builders were arrested without real cause. The Maori did not resist but were constantly hindered by force from their work on the fences.

  Again, the prisons filled. The government quickly pushed laws through both houses of Parliament that harshly punished disturbing the peace by digging, plowing, or changing the shape of the landscape. Whoever built fences risked two years of forced labor, but the flow of fence builders still did not abate. Maori men and women came from every corner of the North Island to stand with the people of Taranaki, and Matariki and her friends would have celebrated the spirit of Parihaka if they had not been so exhausted.

  After the first weeks of fence building, there was no more dancing and drinking in Parihaka. The population, having shrunken starkly through arrest, simply slung down its dinner and then fell on the sleeping mats, exhausted. Fence building was no longer limited to the men. Everyone who could summon the strength took part. Matariki and the other women who taught English led their students into the fields. The four- and five-year-olds did not manage much, but they impressed the soldiers and the journalists
whenever they picked up wood. Matariki’s fences had more symbolic significance than defensive ability. The desperate struggle of the unarmed Maori against the Armed Constabulary, however, drew ever more attention. And there were bloody attacks. The former whalers and seal hunters had had enough of tearing down fences. They were not gentle when they pulled the Maori from their work.

  Matariki and her friends noted with satisfaction that first English and then other European newspapers reported on their struggle. The premier was placed under increasing pressure, especially after attacks on children and elderly men and women helping with the fence construction became known.

  “And the costs,” crowed Kupe who had been reading the newspapers aloud. “It says here the land reclamation costs were originally assessed at seven hundred fifty thousand pounds, and now they’ve already spent a million, but without a mile of road to show for it.”

  At the end of 1880, the premier, George Grey, gave up and forbade his overzealous Minister of Native Affairs, John Bryce, from making any more arrests. In the first six months of the new year, they let all the prisoners on the North Island go free.

  “Have we won?” Matariki asked.

  She no longer dragged her students to build fences, nor did she teach regular lessons. Everyone—from schoolchildren to teachers, from doctors to bank tellers—worked from sunup to sundown in the fields. Then once more, a sort of truce prevailed in Taranaki. Though there were no more arrests and road construction had halted, the government did not restore the annexed Maori lands. Minister Bryce now focused his efforts on the land of Parihaka. He announced that they planned to divide the region into three sections: the coast and the inland should be settled by pakeha; the narrow strip in the middle would remain Maori.

  “English settlements will be built on Te Whiti’s doorstep,” he announced, but found no real backing from the government.