Amber

by Deborah Challinor

  The crisis came on 3 March when a large party of Kawiti’s men attacked a settler’s property at Uruti Bay, only two miles south of Kororareka. The house was destroyed and two horses were stolen from a nearby paddock. Troops from the Hazard set off in pursuit, and shots were exchanged, but the Maoris melted into the bush.

  Then came another week of nothing other than reports of sightings of numbers of Kawiti’s and Heke’s men beyond the township. But when Bishop Selwyn arrived on 9 March aboard the sloop Flying Fish, he was told immediately by a lieutenant from the Hazard that an attack by the rebel Maoris was imminent.

  At Paihia the next day the mood was one of intense foreboding. Those Maoris who were at the mission, adults and children alike, could not seem to settle: they talked well into the night and did not sleep. Nor could the missionaries settle. Rumours had been circulating for the past thirty-six hours that Heke would be attacking Kororareka some time in the early hours of the following morning.

  That evening, Haunui, whom Rian had advised to stay behind at the mission, stood on the Paihia shore and gazed across the darkened bay towards Kororareka, wondering uneasily how his friends were faring.

  When Rian had informed Kitty that afternoon that he and the crew were going to row across to Kororareka and offer their services as defenders, Kitty gaped at him in outright shock. But then he’d explained that if they approached the town by any other route, they risked being shot at by trigger-happy troops and nervous settlers. Once they were safely in the town, they would slip away into the hills to find a suitable vantage point. At that point Kitty’s shock had turned into anger, and she had insisted on accompanying him.

  ‘No,’ Rian said flatly. ‘It’s out of the question.’

  They were standing in Sarah’s garden, Kitty clutching a bowl of freshly picked peas, which, so far, she had only just managed to refrain from throwing at him.

  ‘Why is it out of the question?’

  He looked at her in genuine bewilderment. ‘Because it won’t be safe. There will be guns and things,’ he added unnecessarily.

  ‘Don’t take that sarky tone with me, Rian Farrell!’ Kitty snapped. ‘If it’s safe enough for you, why wouldn’t it be safe for me?’

  ‘Sweetheart, a battleground is no place for a woman.’

  ‘But you won’t be near any battlegrounds, you said so yourself!’

  ‘I know I did, and I meant it. But the fighting could be very intense. You could be hit by a stray bullet.’

  ‘So could you!’

  ‘Not if I’m on a hill above the town.’

  ‘So if it will be that safe for you, why can’t I come?’

  Rian’s eyes narrowed. ‘Because I’ve said no, and that’s that.’

  Kitty hurled the bowl of peas onto the hard-baked ground. The bowl shattered and bright green pods flew everywhere. ‘No, that is not that, Rian! I’m coming with you and you can’t stop me.’

  Stepping over the broken bowl she marched off towards the house, so angry her eyes were stinging with tears. When would he ever understand that every time he did something deliberately dangerous it almost frightened the life out of her? Her head would fill with ghastly visions of him being badly hurt or even killed, and she didn’t think she could bear it if either of those things happened. And he was such a stubborn man she was powerless to stop him—although she had certainly tried every method she could think of. So all there was left to do was go with him, whether he liked it or not. Then, if anything did go wrong, at least she would be at his side.

  ‘You will stay here, Kitty Farrell!’ Rian shouted, then started after her. ‘I’ll make you stay if it’s the last thing I do!’

  We’ll see about that, Kitty thought grimly as she slammed the back door in his face.

  Kororareka Bay was smooth and tranquil in the approaching dusk, as the Katipo’s rowboat glided through the shallows and grounded with a slight bump on the shingle beach. The atmosphere on board, however, was tense—partly because no one knew quite what to expect, but more as a result of the iciness between Rian and Kitty, who hadn’t exchanged a single word on the trip across the harbour.

  They had pushed off from Te Ti Bay on the other side of the promontory from Paihia, as Rian hadn’t wanted to have to explain his actions to Win Purcell or anyone else. So the crew had been the only witnesses to the tremendous shouting match that ensued when Kitty had calmly proceeded to climb into the boat. In the end, Rian had climbed in himself and ignored her, wanting very much to wring her lovely neck. He was terrified that something would happen to her, and had told her so over and over, but it hadn’t seemed to make a jot of difference.

  She ignored him even when they were all out of the boat again and had dragged it up Kororareka beach to a spot above the high-water mark, but by then he didn’t want to argue with her any more; he only wanted to take her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her.

  Every man on Kororareka’s dusty main street seemed to be armed, and imperial troops were very much in evidence; so much so that, before Rian had even stepped off the sand, he and his men were stopped by soldiers at bayonet point. They wore blue forage caps, grey trousers and red jackets criss-crossed with bright white shoulder belts, which Rian thought was typically idiotic and English: the points where the belts converged on the chest and back made perfect targets.

  ‘Identify yourselves,’ one of the soldiers ordered tersely.

  Rian did so, explaining that they had rowed across from Paihia to help defend Kororareka.

  ‘You live across the harbour? All of you?’ the soldier asked.

  ‘No, we’re visitors to this part of the world. That’s my schooner,’ Rian said, pointing out towards the Katipo, resting small and black on the harbour, silhouetted before the sinking sun. ‘I’m a trader.’

  After several more questions they were escorted through the town and up to the blockhouse on the lower slopes of Maiki Hill. The building was constructed from thick split logs, on the outside still retaining their bark. Instead of windows there was a series of small loopholes in the walls through which muskets could be aimed at approaching enemy. The furnishings were minimal—rough benches along the sides and a single table on which sat several oil lamps, enough to dispel the gloom in the dark interior.

  There, they were interrogated again by a pale, nervous-looking man who introduced himself as Lieutenant Barclay. Rian suspected the nervousness was caused by Ropata, who was carrying not only a musket but a knife and a small but lethal patu. Eventually Barclay seemed satisfied that Ropata was a ‘friendly’ Maori and relaxed slightly.

  ‘And who is this?’ he asked, indicating Kitty.

  ‘My wife,’ Rian said. ‘I didn’t want to leave her alone.’

  The lieutenant nodded. ‘There’s a place for women and children. Polack’s Stockade? You’ll have passed it on the way through town.’ He went to the door of the blockhouse and shouted, ‘Corporal Shand!’

  A burly-looking soldier appeared. ‘Sir!’

  ‘Take this woman to the stockade,’ Barclay ordered.

  Kitty’s heart sank.

  Rian, although delighted that Kitty would be somewhere relatively safe, was offended by the way the lieutenant had referred to her. ‘Mrs Farrell,’ he corrected sharply.

  The lieutenant seemed pre-occupied. ‘What? Oh, yes, I do beg your pardon, ma’am. Corporal Shand will escort you to the stockade. You’ll find that most of the town’s womenfolk are there already. And the children.’

  ‘How long will I have to stay there?’ she asked.

  Barclay looked at her blankly, as though he wasn’t quite sure what she meant. ‘In the stockade? Well, until it’s safe to come out. After the attack and we’ve driven the rebels off, I expect.’

  Kitty had an unwelcome vision of being stuck in there for days while Rian raced about getting into God only knew what trouble. ‘But I don’t want to go in the stockade.’

  Lieutenant Barclay shot Rian a glance that suggested that he, too, had had experience with a wilful
and headstrong wife. To Kitty’s chagrin, Rian made a sympathetic face.

  ‘I think you’ll find the arrangements comfortable enough,’ Barclay said placatingly. ‘And there are plenty of provisions.’

  Kitty saw that she could hardly insist that she remain with her husband, not while he was busy despatching rebel Maoris, so she reluctantly went with Corporal Shand.

  Joel Polack’s house was indeed crowded with women and children, many of them in a high state of anxiety. Some of the children, however, seemed thoroughly excited, and were dashing about or peering expectantly through the windows: perhaps a little too excited, Kitty thought, as she noticed that one little boy had wet his trousers.

  The corporal left her in the care of an older woman who introduced herself as Martha Geddes, whose home was at Matauwhi Bay. Her husband had insisted they come into town the morning before.

  ‘It’s very frightening, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘We brought as many of our possessions with us as we could, but I’m afraid we still had to leave a lot behind. It’s heart-breaking, really. If our house is burnt down we’ll lose so much. Not to mention the house cow. We couldn’t bring her, of course. Mr Geddes said just let her wander and she’ll come home when she realises we’ve returned. If we have a home to return to, that is.’

  As she prattled on, Kitty looked around the large parlour. Every available surface had possessions piled onto it and there were bags and small trunks all over the floor. The women in the room all looked at her expectantly, as though she might have some vital news to impart, and there were babies crying, one on the lap of a white-faced girl who didn’t look much older than eighteen.

  Mrs Geddes pulled a child off a windowsill and drew the curtain. ‘They told us we should close the curtains at nightfall. To confuse the rebels,’ she explained to Kitty.

  ‘Who told you?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘Commander Robertson, from the Hazard. He said if there are no lights then the Maoris won’t know where to attack.’ Mrs Geddes made a disparaging face. ‘I’m not so sure about that myself. I’ve lived here for five years and I’d lay money on those Maoris knowing the town like the backs of their hands, whether it’s dark or not. They’ve probably been shopping at Clayton’s trading store for the past year.’

  Kitty made a noncommittal sound, even though she agreed: Heke and his people were probably up in the hills even now waiting for the right time to strike, and they would know exactly where to go if they wanted to come into the town. Haunui—who seemed to have rather a lot of information for someone who professed to have no connections whatsoever with Heke—had been of the opinion that Heke was probably only going to attempt to cut down the flagstaff again, but Kitty and almost everyone else at Paihia thought it a reasonable assumption that, if the British troops fought back, then a battle would ensue. They clearly thought so here at Kororareka, too.

  Martha Geddes said, ‘I’ll introduce you to the other ladies, and then I think supper should be ready. It will be a bit of a pot-luck, I’m afraid. Now, I’m sorry but where did you say you were from?’

  ‘We’re only visiting the Bay of Islands, actually.’

  ‘Oh, what terrible bad luck!’ Mrs Geddes exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. My husband is a trader, he owns the schooner out in the harbour. The one with the black hull and the red stripe?’

  ‘Oh yes, we were admiring that only the other day.’

  ‘And then this trouble blew up and my husband thought we should offer our help. Well, that he and his crew should.’ Kitty didn’t want to tell too much of a lie; she quite liked Martha Geddes.

  Mrs Geddes bent down and, with her handkerchief, wiped butter and a smattering of breadcrumbs off a small child’s face. ‘Good to see you, Letitia,’ she said to a woman who was presumably the child’s mother. ‘Did you have a terrible rush to get in? Yes, so did we, in the end.’ She turned back to Kitty. ‘I’m sorry, dear. Well, that was very generous of your husband. Do you sail with him often?’

  ‘Oh, yes, constantly.’

  Mrs Geddes looked mildly shocked. ‘Constantly? Just you and him and, er, the crew?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How absolutely fascinating. Letitia, did you hear that?’

  Kitty stifled a sigh—clearly all the women confined to Polack’s Stockade would soon know about her unusual living arrangements. She wondered how long she should leave it before she attempted to slip away.

  During the night a thick fog rolled off the sea and over Kororareka, and by four o’clock the next morning the town was blanketed in a thick haze: Hone Heke could not have been more pleased.

  While he and his party made their way stealthily up through the scrub towards the flagstaff on Maiki Hill, Kawiti and one of his commanders, Pumuka, were leading two hundred men along the Matauwhi road towards the southern end of town. Approaching them through the fog from the opposite direction were forty or so sailors and marines from the Hazard, led by Commander Robertson. When Kawiti’s advance party reached the gun at Matuawhi Pass and attempted to disable it, the weapon was fired and the escaping gunners ran back to warn Robertson that the rebels had attacked. When Robertson’s men encountered Kawiti’s main party, they saw that they were heavily outnumbered. The fighting was fierce: shouts, the clash of sword against patu, and the flat rattle of muskets rolled through the surrounding hills. Robertson was seriously wounded and Pumuka was killed.

  At the same time, warriors from the Nga Puhi sub-tribe Te Kapotai had settled into the hills and were firing down at the town. When the sun began to rise shortly after, it became horribly clear to the armed settlers and troops that the flagstaff had been felled for a fourth time and that the upper blockhouse had been taken by the rebels.

  All of this was very clearly audible from the interior of Polack’s Stockade, where only the youngest of the children had managed to sleep. As the battles progressed and the minutes passed, Kitty grew more and more frantic about Rian. Finally, unable to sit still any longer, she ran out of Polack’s house and across to the stockade gate.

  ‘Stop!’ A soldier grabbed her arm and swung her around. ‘Stay inside!’ he yelled in her face. ‘Get back inside!’

  Kitty ducked away from him, stumbled, then righted herself as he made another lunge for her, shouting at her not to panic but to go back inside.

  But she slipped through the gate; then, pausing for only a second to find her bearings, raced along the side of the stockade in the direction she knew would take her into the hills. Rian would be up there somewhere watching, she knew he would.

  Holding up her skirts so she could run faster, she dodged through someone’s vegetable garden and across a paddock in which a cow stood calmly chewing its cud despite the continual crack of muskets. Suddenly the roar of the Hazard’s guns joined the din, and Kitty involuntarily ducked. When she encountered a fence, she stopped, bundled up her skirts around her thighs, set her foot on the middle rail and climbed it. There was a sharp ripping sound as she jumped down the other side, but she didn’t even stop to see what had torn.

  She sped on, her hand clamped against her side now where a sharp stitch was forming. The grass was wet from early morning dew and she slipped and fell several times, but she refused to slow down. By the time she had reached the top of the first scrubby hill above Kororareka she was gasping for breath. She rested with her hands on her knees for several minutes, then straightened up and squinted down at the town.

  There wasn’t much to see: most of the troops and settlers seemed to be under cover, although she glimpsed the odd flash of red as soldiers ran from one shelter to another, and she knew that the Maoris would be even more skilfully concealed. Puffs of smoke came from the guns on the Hazard, followed a few seconds later by the actual sound of the guns firing. She saw that, once again, there was no flagstaff on Maiki Hill.

  When Kitty had regained her breath, she turned and half-ran, half-slid down the other side of the hill and into a patch of bush, dim and still damp from the night. Once in among the trees and
low scrub, she had to slow down to avoid getting caught up in vines and fallen branches. She wondered if she should look for a track, then changed her mind; her progress would be faster, but then again she might just meet someone she didn’t want to meet. And the hill she was aiming for hadn’t seemed too far away. It seemed the most likely spot Rian would have chosen—directly above the town but not too close, and crowned with a stand of totora for concealment.

  She stopped: that was, of course, providing Rian and the crew had actually left the town. What if they hadn’t been able to? What if he had been shot and was lying down there somewhere, bleeding and in pain, wondering where she was? So far as he was aware she was still inside Polack’s Stockade, and surely if he had been wounded he would have sent Hawk or Ropata or someone to fetch her?

  She turned back, then hesitated again and, in frustration, swore aloud. It seemed very unlikely in all the confusion of the fighting, or even under the cover of the mist during the night, that Rian and the crew would not have been able to slip away. No, he would be up the hills somewhere, she was sure of it.

  Halfway along the ridge of the next hill, she stepped suddenly out of the bush onto a rough track and recoiled in fright when she saw that she wasn’t the only person on it. About twenty yards ahead stood a horse, and on its bare back sat a young Maori boy. He looked about eleven or twelve years old, was dressed only in a pair of ragged trousers, and was staring straight at her. There was a musket balanced across the horse’s withers.

  For what seemed an age, neither of them moved. Then the horse’s ears twitched and the boy turned the horse away. He glanced briefly back at Kitty over his shoulder, then trotted around the corner of the track, his skinny frame bouncing loosely to the horse’s gait.

  Her heart still thudding wildly, Kitty moved off the track and back under cover of the bush. If she were to meet a group of soldiers she could say she had panicked at the sound of musket fire, run away and become lost, but if she walked into a party of Heke’s or Kawiti’s men she could well be taken prisoner. She doubted that she would be harmed, however, as a Pakeha woman would be seen as extremely useful should the need arise to negotiate.