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

by Sarah Lark

  Geordie shook his head in disbelief. “Who leaves his very pregnant wife here alone without fire and water?” he muttered. “The man ought to be beaten to death. I ran into little Jeff Potters,” he reported eagerly. “He had just come from the pub but was halfway sober. He’s gone to town to fetch Mrs. Travers. Don’t cuss, Miss Baton. Jeff’s much faster than I am. And he knows what’s at stake. His mom died in childbirth.”

  Clarisse nodded. Deep down, she thanked heaven. Alone she would never have managed with this calamity.

  “Fetch water, Geordie,” she directed her assistant. “Put Rosie in her bed. Nothing worse than what she’s already seen today can come. I’ll make a fire. Fortunately, there’s wood here.”

  “I’ll do it quick, Miss Baton.”

  Geordie reached for the pitcher after he had set Rosie in her bed. And he proved his worth. Long before Mrs. Travers arrived—wheezing, she seemed to have run the whole way—Violet lay on a freshly made bed. A fire burned in the fireplace. Clarisse had heated water and washed her. Violet was still losing blood, but now there were only slow drips. Clarisse and Geordie, clearly taken with the little creature, bathed the baby.

  “A boy,” the man said reverently.

  “Lucky for him,” Clarisse blurted out, and then turned to the midwife. “Dear Lord, Mrs. Travers, am I happy to see you.”

  Before Mrs. Travers could even reply, Violet reared up with a cry.

  “Looks like the afterbirth is coming,” noted the midwife calmly. “Do we have hot water, missus, umm, miss?”

  At that, Violet’s tormented body was torn by yet another contraction. Later she could not recall it, but she was not completely unconscious. She was conscious enough to feel the pain, although it did not come close to what she had experienced before. Violet feared it would never end. Even when the afterbirth came, she could not calm herself.

  “Poor child,” sighed Mrs. Travers. “But she’ll survive. We told that fine husband of hers on the way. He’s buying a round for everyone.”

  “But how did he know it was healthy? And a boy?” asked Clarisse.

  “He assumed,” Mrs. Travers grumbled. She was a tall, strong woman whose giant red hands didn’t suggest she would deal so gently and lovingly with newborns and women in childbirth. “Nothing less’d do for a splendid bloke like that. He’s certainly not lacking in self-confidence. Poor woman. Hopefully he won’t get her pregnant again right away.” She carefully tucked Violet in and glanced at the bucket with the afterbirth. “The father can bury that later.”

  Geordie reached obligingly for the bucket, but Mrs. Travers shook her head. “Oh no. Thank you, but he should at a minimum get to see a little blood.”

  Violet stirred. She drank greedily when Mrs. Travers gave her some herbal tea.

  “Rosie?” Violet asked weakly.

  Mrs. Travers assured her that everything was all right with her little sister. Violet did not ask about the newborn. Clarisse, who had swaddled the baby, moved to lay it in her arms, but Mrs. Travers stopped her.

  “In cases like this, that hasn’t proved wise,” she said quietly. “When they’re halfway children themselves, and the birth is so hard, they aren’t happy about it so soon. I gave her something to help her sleep. That’ll help her forget the worst. When she sees the little thing tomorrow, hopefully she’ll love it.”

  Eric Fence did not get to see any blood that night. When he came home completely drunk, he had Jim and Fred in tow, apparently just dying to see their grandson and nephew. They had expected to be welcomed at the door by a beaming Violet. Instead, they met with the stern Mrs. Travers, who was watching over Violet that night, just to be on the safe side. The midwife insisted they be quiet and only reluctantly let them inside. All three looked at the baby and decided wordlessly that under no circumstances could Eric be left to Mrs. Travers’s harangue. Father, grandfather, and uncle left for Lamberttown after Fred and Jim generously offered Eric asylum in their hut.

  Violet saw her baby the next day. She took it in her arms and bravely withstood the pain that the first suckling caused her swollen breasts.

  But she would never learn to love the child.

  Chapter 11

  “I’m sorry, Miss Drury, but I’m no longer in charge here.”

  Colin Coltrane sounded regretful, but in truth he was thankful that John Bryce had assumed command of the troops in Parihaka. If things went wrong, it could no longer be pinned on him as one of the highest-ranking armed constables or on the commanders of the volunteers. Bryce was doing everything he could to make the invasion one of the most embarrassing performances in the history of the British Army. The press embargo was the only thing really functioning.

  The Minister of Native Affairs ordered the Maori tribes not located in or around Parihaka to return home. The Maori had assembled anew at sunrise. Things were just as they had been: the villagers and their visitors did not react to Bryce’s orders.

  So, the minister turned to his soldiers. “Men, remove and send away all subjects who do not belong in Central Taranaki.”

  “How are we supposed to do that, sir?” asked one of Colin’s subordinates.

  Colin shrugged. Matariki, who stood beside him after he had explained the situation, smiled.

  “You recognize the tribes by the weave of their clothing and their tattoos,” she said with a honey-sweet voice.

  She was annoyed at Colin because Kupe was still under arrest. The soldiers also had hauled away his friend Arama and a few other young warriors after they had tried to stop the plundering. Colin’s attempt to explain to Matariki that he could not do anything did not impress her, though his second attempt soothed her somewhat: “Miss Drury, it is for your friends’ own good that they’re now in protective custody. Who knows what might still happen here. They won’t be kept. As soon as Parihaka is cleared, they’ll be let go.” Naturally, she was concerned about the impending clearing. However, Colin really did not have anything to do with that. For all the mistakes that were made, John Bryce alone was responsible.

  “You wouldn’t perhaps help us identify those people?” he asked.

  Matariki glared at him. “Like hell I will,” she declared.

  Colin shrugged his shoulders again. He hadn’t expected anything different.

  Over the next few hours, the soldiers tore people from the crowd. They did not resist, but they also did not reveal anything about their tribal affiliation.

  Colin Coltrane sent two of his best riders to the nearest Maori tribe friendly to the government. They could send people who knew their weaving techniques and tattoos. Coltrane smiled to himself. Matariki did not need to betray her people. Her words had sufficed to set the wheels in motion. And he hoped he would reap the reward himself.

  Bryce took harsher measures. “All marae belonging to the foreign tribes will be destroyed,” he said the next day. “Tribes that don’t reside here cannot be allowed to settle in this region.”

  Indeed, a sort of village within the village had come into being in Parihaka. The various tribes had founded their own spiritual centers where delegations of their people lived and honored the gods. The buildings were easier to identify than their residents. There had originally been two wharenui in Parihaka. The newer constructions erected around them belonged to foreign tribes.

  A lament arose from the people as the soldiers’ axes felled the statues of the gods at the entrance of the first building. It was easy to destroy the wooden buildings.

  “They’re modeled on whales,” Matariki whispered to Colin as she stood next to him again. Something about him attracted her. It was possible, too, that he sympathized with her; he had said the day before that he did not approve of what was happening. “Our lodges are meant to breathe and feel like living beings. That’s why we build them of wood, not of stone.”

  Colin nodded. It was important to show himself sympathetic now. “A beautiful idea. But I’m sure they can easily be rebuilt. The statues of the gods, however . . .”

  He thought t
here surely must be collectors—if not here, then in Europe—who would have paid good money for such primitive art.

  “We call them tiki,” said Matariki, “and the little ones are hei-tiki.” She slipped one of the three amulets from her neck: the present from Haikina and her own two best efforts. “Here, take this,” she said shyly, and placed one of the amulets in Colin’s hand. “It’ll bring you luck.”

  Colin furrowed his brow. He ran his finger over the jade figurine and felt strangely touched. “I, I can’t accept this. I, these things must be valuable.”

  Matariki shook her head. “The jade is worth a little something, but not much. And besides, I carved it myself.”

  Colin looked at her warmly. She was charming and sweet, so innocent. And so beautiful. “Then it will always remind me of you,” he said softly. “Of you and the spirit of Parihaka.”

  He knew that he had said the right thing when Matariki smiled radiantly.

  Bryce had the men and women in the assembly place observed. Anyone who showed outbursts of feelings over the demolition of the buildings was arrested. In some of the wharenui, there were still women and children he had gathered together. The next day, a man arrived who was knowledgeable about moko. He could effortlessly assign tribal members with tattoos to their iwi. However, not all of them were tattooed, and most of them now wore Western clothing, so it wasn’t possible to differentiate them by the weaving pattern of their clothing. Still, hundreds were transported away.

  As for the rest of the protesting Maori, Bryce resorted to starvation and further demoralization. His soldiers destroyed Parihaka’s fields—forty-five acres of sweet potatoes, taro plants, and tobacco. The land surveyors resumed their work.

  Matariki and her friends cried quietly.

  “Where will you go when this is over?” asked Colin. Overseeing the transportation of the people numbered among his duties. The invasion was now two weeks old, and every day a few dozen to a few hundred people were exiled from Parihaka. Colin listened to Matariki’s complaints with understanding and performed his work discreetly. She did not need to know that he made the decisions about who had to go and who might stay. Passes were being issued to the “legal” village residents. “Or do you hope you’ll be able to stay?”

  Matariki shook her head. “No, I’ll go back to the South Island. That’s where my parents and I live.”

  “Your father the chieftain is an ariki of the Ngai Tahu?” Colin asked, amazed. He would not have thought that. The Ngai Tahu were considered peaceful.

  “My parents have a farm in Otago,” Matariki said. “The chieftain was just my sire. I first met him only a few years ago.”

  “And?” marveled Colin. “The encounter so impressed you that you at once made the Maori cause your own?”

  Matariki grew angry. “It is my cause, as it should be the cause of every thinking and feeling person in this country. What does parentage have to do with it? I also sympathize with the Irish in their struggle against their oppressors, and—”

  “My parents were Irish,” Coltrane interrupted her.

  Matariki smiled. “My father is too. My real father, not the chieftain. Your parents died?”

  She noticed how his gaze became veiled. Matariki did not quite understand, but all the feelings Colin displayed seemed to burn in her heart at once. She had always been an empathetic person, but this intensity of pain, and rarely even triumph and joy, was new to her.

  Colin Coltrane shook his head. “My father’s dead. My mother is alive and living on the South Island. She’s remarried. I didn’t fit into that family. So I was sent to England.”

  Matariki looked at him, horrified. “They kicked you out?” she asked. “You had to go to England, you had to do this here because your mother didn’t want you anymore?”

  Colin lowered his gaze. “Not entirely,” he said. “We’re not on bad terms. On the contrary, I’m thinking of transferring to the South Island. So many years have passed. Sometimes I long for my family.”

  Matariki nodded. “Me too,” she admitted. “But for now, I’ll remain here. I’ll stay until the last day. Have you heard anything new about Kupe?”

  Matariki asked the question every day, and every day Colin replied, “No,” but he promised to ask at every opportunity. Matariki believed him, but she was the only one. Koria and the other girls met her excuses for Colin Coltrane with laughter and warnings about the two-faced nature of the pakeha. None of them liked to see Matariki with the sergeant.

  In truth, Colin knew where the prisoners from Parihaka—and especially Kupe—were housed. He was keeping an eye on Kupe Atuhati, and he knew how to keep him from being freed too quickly. It was not in Colin’s interest for Matariki to meet the young man again as soon as she left Parihaka. Even if she appeared not to have loved him yet, she could still. And if that happened, Kupe would have stood in Colin Coltrane’s way—something the self-assured sergeant could not tolerate.

  Colin Coltrane had his own plans for Matariki Drury. But he would only reveal those when Parihaka really came to an end.

  The crowd of protesters in the village had shrunken considerably, and the people whom the daily removals affected seemed almost relieved. No one continued to hope they would achieve anything by enduring more. By the third week, only stubbornness and dutifulness kept the people in place. The younger among them fed off the growing frustration of their guards. The soldiers now stood under better control, a portion of the volunteers had moved out, and members of the Armed Constabulary possessed a modicum of training and discipline. That prevented them from serious assaults—but not from provocations. Again and again, the men pointed their guns at the waiting Maori and threatened to shoot them if they did not reveal their tribal affiliation. Bryce spoke of firing the cannon still aimed at Parihaka.

  “He doesn’t really believe he’s scaring anyone with that,” snorted Matariki as the soldiers on the hill prepared the cannon for use. “They’re out of things to wear us down, and they can’t shoot at a crowd of people who aren’t doing anything.”

  Koria shrugged. “You know that, and I know that. But the children in the square always flinch when that bastard Bryce talks about the canon, and the old people duck every time the soldiers wave their guns around. No one here can rest easy, and that’s exactly what they want. Hopefully the newspaper people are at least getting that.”

  Journalists had begun to return to Parihaka, and they now represented the independent press. In that regard, the critical voices increased. On November 21, Bryce called his troop commanders to a final council.

  “Tomorrow we’ll be ending this,” he declared curtly. “Arrest the last hundred fifty nonresidents, and let them out somewhere other than Central Taranaki. They’ll find their way back to their tribes, and if not, then I can’t help them. The rest will be issued their passes and can clean up here. Or disappear. I don’t care, as long as they follow the rules. The strip of land on the coast is—what do they say? Taboo?—and inland too. They can build their village up again in between and plant something. It should suffice for six hundred people. If not, they’ll have to go elsewhere. We’re moving out tomorrow night.”

  Colin went straight to Matariki with the news. He met her in the girls’ sleeping lodge. Since the looting, the female villagers tended to gather together at night. This arrangement resulted from Colin’s suggestion, although he had been careful to ensure Matariki thought it was her own idea. He did not want to risk her being violated. Although it was rare for Maori girls of her age, he hoped that she was still untouched. Once Matariki and the others had gathered in one of the remaining lodges, he ordered the doorway guarded.

  Matariki was grateful to him for that, even if she did not say so. The other girls still proved dismissive, and she did not dare show her fondness for him openly. Nevertheless, the women brought the guards food again, which they took from their own meager rations. Maori showed their gratitude through gestures—Colin remembered having heard that once. He requited this by a special allotme
nt of provisions and smiled when he heard Matariki and the other girls fighting. He did not understand Maori, but it was clear what it was about: Koria and the other girls wanted to reject the food, but Matariki argued for its acceptance. This was another little wedge between her and her friends; everything was going according to Colin’s plan.

  Ultimately, Matariki prevailed—or the smell of fresh-baked bread emanating from the baskets of provisions did. The girls took the food and distributed it demonstratively among the hungry in the village square. Colin did not care, and luckily, Bryce did not notice.

  Now that the final night had come, Colin, who knew what was acceptable and who did not want to negotiate with Matariki in front of the females of the village, called the girl outside.

  “Miss Drury, I’m sorry to have to inform you,” he began in a soft tone, “but we’re approaching the end. Minister Bryce will have the last villagers without a pass arrested and removed tomorrow. And, and I fear that will not go easily for them. They will be incarcerated elsewhere. Who knows when they’ll be set free again. I don’t want to think about it. I say this reluctantly. After all, I do serve this country, but they make people disappear, often for a long time. Think about the plowmen on the South Island.”

  “And Kupe,” Matariki said, as always more concerned for her friends than for herself. “Do you know where he is now?”

  Colin shook his head. “Unfortunately not, Miss Drury, as I said. Please don’t hold it against me, but I worry about you.”

  “About me?” Matariki looked taken aback, but her heart leaped for joy. She must mean something to him. If only he weren’t the enemy. But was he an enemy? “You don’t need to worry about me. My parents have influence. If it’s a question of bail, that’s not a problem.”

  Colin noted her carefree attitude about money. Her parents’ farm on the South Island must not be a small homestead like the one his father had once worked. Did the chieftain’s daughter hold other surprises? Perhaps her stepfather numbered among the sheep barons of the Canterbury Plains.