Sleep in the Woods

by Dorothy Eden

  Briar repressed a shiver, remembering the forlorn, interminable cry of the moreporks in the night, and almost believing that the dead could speak through those little feathered bodies and enormous soulless eyes. But as Aunt Charity had said, why should they talk to Katie?

  Katie hiccupped and mumbled, “Those poor people might not have died if only I’d told.”

  But she could not be persuaded to explain further, and rested on her unexpected and mysterious laurels of being a little psychic, and the recipient of special warnings.

  The stockade had been built on the highest piece of ground overlooking the village. It was constructed, as in the manner of a Maori pa, with a double palisading of totara timber hauled from the forest, around which a three-foot wide trench had been dug. Within the palisade were low huts thatched with tree fern, and earthed up at the sides to provide the maximum protection from flying bullets.

  Tom Galloway had been ahead of them, and already most of the villagers were inside the stockade, huddled in little groups, cold and shivering in the growing light. The glow on the horizon was brighter, and it seemed to the listeners’ strained ears that the horrifying outlandish yelling of the Hauhaus was audible in the clear air.

  Jemima Potter was there, with Jimmy and Lucy clinging to her skirts. Her thin face was incredibly sharpened with a fear that was all too easy to read. Was she to lose these two remaining children?

  In her anguish for her friend, Briar forgot her own fear and went down on her knees to wrap her arms around the children.

  “Don’t be frightened, little loves. Soon we’re going to light a fire and have breakfast outdoors. And you won’t have to go to school today. Isn’t that fun?”

  Jimmy smiled reluctantly. He was a sturdy little boy who approached things in a phlegmatic manner that was pathetically adult. But Lucy was too quiet. Her eyes were too large. She stood in her long woollen dress, her bonnet tipped askew, her little boots muddied and worn, and silently searched Briar’s face for reassurance. She had seen too much for a five-year-old. And now the ultimate horror was to come.

  Briar blinked back her tears. She was aware, gratefully, of Martha Peabody’s approach.

  “Well, here we all are, and Lucy, too. Dancing all night and up at dawn! What a splendid pioneer woman she’s going to make. Come, Briar. Help me to make some tea. That’s what we all need. My husband said we shouldn’t light a fire, but what’s one more trickle of smoke? Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day …”

  “Martha, have you been through this before?”

  “Not in such a grand stockade, dear. The last time we crawled on our bellies in the forest, hiding among the ferns. Not a comfortable exercise!”

  The large calm woman had an astonishing effect on the huddled listeners. They began to stop trembling and complaining. They got wood for the fire, and set out cups (brought by the far-seeing Martha, along with milk and sugar and tea, and such bread and biscuits as she had on hand), and comforted their children.

  Mabel Kingi took over the stoking of the fire, squatting on her ample haunches, her clay pipe hanging from her lips. She had never approved of the bad ways of the Hauhaus, and regarded them as evils to be exterminated. She would fight with ferocity if need be. As the morning mists cleared, and the cone of Mount Egmont, brilliantly white and pure, shone clear above the forest, she fixed her dark liquid eyes on it, and her thick lips moved in a silent prayer. After that, whether the courage of her ancestors entered her or not, her calm equalled that of Martha’s, and it was obvious that the women at least, in this little lost fort in the forest, would not be allowed to panic.

  Saul was organizing the men. The plan was to stay in the stockade and resist any attack until the militia arrived. That, if they had seen the fires, or if a company of forest rangers should be luckily encountered in this vicinity, should be before evening. But if they were many miles away it might be necessary to hold out until the following morning.

  The strength of the enemy was unknown, but one did know one’s own pathetically slender strength. There were, at the most, ten able men to man the loopholes. That included the Reverend Peabody, whose floating white hair would present a target visible from a long distance. Since he was a reckless fighter, Saul would have liked to keep him out of the firing line, but this, he knew, was impossible. So one would have to rely on the possible wild shooting of the Hauhaus and the efficacy of Martha’s prayers. The women, such of them as could be relied on, and he could count those on less than the fingers of his two hands, would have to crouch behind the men and reload the guns. If a man fell the woman would have to take his place.

  Martha Peabody would do this admirably. He had seen her fight on a previous occasion. So would Rima, the full-blooded Awara Maori from the public house, and Mabel Kingi. So would his mother, if one could allow a woman of seventy to stand in the firing line—or if one could prevent her. His own wife? Yes, he told himself without hesitation. She might seem small and fragile, but she had a steely core. She would not fail him, whether it was for him, or her own life, or her house that she fought.

  As for the rest, there was Tom Galloway’s wife Mary, who was an unknown quantity and who had a baby to care for; Jemima Potter who would have been resolute enough if she had been able to master even slightly the handling of a gun, but this she had not been able to do. She had better stay in the huts with the children, and Sophie and Aunt Charity and Prudence, all of whom Saul decided would be of little value in the actual fighting.

  There was also Amy Perkins, a silly feckless creature, made more so by her weak drunkard husband, but still enough of a pioneer woman not to panic too badly. Besides her, there were one or two other wives who were untested in battle, and lastly Katie, who apart from proving herself a completely erratic shot, had been hiccupping and sobbing all morning, and seemed to have gone completely to pieces. She would be as little value as Sophie, handicapped by her pregnancy.

  This was the total of his slender resources, this handful of human beings, and an inadequate supply of ammunition. But he himself, the Reverend, Elisha Trott, Fred Potter, Peter Fanshawe (there was another unknown quantity, though the fellow seemed keen enough, his face burning with excitement), Doctor MacTavish and the others would fight to the death. One prayed the women would not be required to do similarly.

  The sun rose tardily, and warmth crept into the stockade. Steaming mugs of tea, and a ration of biscuit all around, cheered the little group of besieged. Saul had posted lookouts, and instructed everyone thoroughly in his or her duties. He had also cheered them by telling them that, with luck, all of this would be over in a few hours. The militia would be here, and the enemy pursued and defeated. There may indeed be no attack at all. But they must be watchful every moment. The men must stay at their posts, and the women care for the children, and keep their spirits up.

  The Reverend, the wind in his hair, his face cheerful and benign, stood in their midst and said a short prayer.

  “Oh God, have mercy on us in this lonely spot. If we are to suffer, let us suffer with fortitude, let us think for the other and not for ourselves. Grant us to live, and not to sleep in these woods, unless that be Thy will. If we must die, let us do so bravely, and trusting in Thee. Amen.”

  The birds were singing riotously. A tui perched on the palisade and gave its breathtakingly pure call before swooping away. Magpies warbled and pigeons cooed. Two fantails flirted and screeched among the fronds of a tall tree fern, spreading their tails with delicate grace. In the corner of the stockade the horses stamped and fidgeted restlessly. The children, cheered by the sun and the atmosphere of calm, began timidly to play. The women threw off their cloaks and relaxed a little. Aunt Charity sat on a fallen log, her magnificent burgundy-colored velvet skirts spread about her. As the calm continued she had recovered a good deal of her aplomb, and was obviously convincing herself that all this had been a tremendous scare about nothing. And now, for no good reason, she had ruined her gown. The s
kirts were bedraggled with mud and damp.

  With some contempt she watched Oriane Whitmore roaming like a restless crow about the stockade, a gun tucked under her arm with a great show of belligerence and bravery. She, Aunt Charity, did not intend to try to fire a gun. She sat resplendent on her log, a strange uneasy queen reigning over a strange domain, ready to do what she could if danger arose, but determined not to make a fool of herself by holding a gun the wrong way and shooting herself in the stomach.

  And Sophie had better not make a fool of herself by having her baby today. There was nothing immediately wrong with her, in spite of her incessant moaning and sighing.

  But if anyone were to ask Aunt Charity, there was something wrong with Katie O’Toole. And that was the usual thing, if her acute observations told her accurately. Briar would have to get rid of that little slut, that was certain. She would speak to her when they went home—if they ever did go home, of course …

  What a day! And all that gaiety last night only a few hours past.

  Briar was thinking the same thing. She was living in a dream. It could not be that all the people who had laughed and danced last night were now crouching here, miserable, cold and afraid. It would not be that the Masefields lay dead on the road home, perhaps decapitated, with their blood-drained heads stuck on some dreadful pole …

  Neither was it true that at any moment, perhaps even now, she no longer had a fine house full of possessions which everyone admired, but only a curt-voiced husband with no spark of tenderness or feeling—except that last night some wild feeling from him had caught her like a flame, and her body had no longer allowed her to think …

  Ironically, the Hauhaus had saved her from having to converse with Saul this morning. For what would she have said? Or what would he have said to her?

  By noon the sun was high, and the ground steamed. That creeping mist was the only sign of smoke, and the day, apart from the birds, was silent and completely peaceful.

  Boredom, following tension and overwrought nerves, made everyone jumpy and irritable. Aunt Charity snapped at Prudence to put her bonnet on, didn’t she know she had to preserve what looks she had if ever she were to find a husband. Prudence answered meekly enough that she hadn’t brought a bonnet. Indeed, in the early dawn, no one had thought of sunshine and boredom. But Prudence’s gentle face had a new resoluteness, and Briar suddenly knew that she was not going to crack. The faithless Edmund had provided her with her first lesson in adversity. Now she was stronger than one would have supposed.

  Sophie, lying in one of the dark cool huts, said she had a shocking headache and her back was aching, and if Peter wanted to live in these parts he would have to do so without her. She was taking her baby, if ever it were safely born, back to Wellington. Anyway, she hated the country. She would die of boredom if she stayed here, for she did not intend to spend her time making preserves and rag mats and teaching children to read. There were far more important things in life than that. She wished they had never come here. Now, apart from probably losing her baby, she had lost all her wardrobe. …

  It was that last remark that made Amy Perkins suddenly sit up exclaiming. “My bonnet! My best bonnet that Mrs. Whitmore gave me! I’ve left it at home.”

  “It will be all right,” said Briar, with some impatience. “It will still be there tomorrow.”

  “But it won’t. The Hauhaus will come and burn everything.”

  “Then I’ll give you another.”

  “You won’t have one to give her,” Sophie put in sourly. “Yours will be gone, too.”

  “And it was so beautiful,” Amy sighed. “It was the first one I’d had in four years. I used to hang it on the end of the bed at night to look at it.” She sprang up. “I don’t think I can bear to lose it.”

  “Amy, what are you planning to do?” asked Martha Peabody.

  “Just go home and get my bonnet. It won’t take more than a few minutes.”

  “You’ll stay right here, Amy Perkins. The Lord might call on you to die today, but not for a bit of frippery.”

  Amy looked abashed. “Well—perhaps you’re right. But everything seems so quiet. I don’t think there’s a Hauhau within miles. And I did set a store by that bonnet.”

  She wandered off slowly, apparently to see what her three children were doing.

  It was half an hour later that a shout came from the palisade. It was from Elisha Trott, the wizened little man who looked far more at home in his dark shop behind his counter piled high with a fantastic miscellany of goods, than he did shouldering a gun.

  “Look! Who’s that?”

  It was Amy Perkins. Somehow, when one of the look-outs had been inattentive, lulled by the false security into having a quiet smoke, she had managed to climb the palisade, scramble across the trench, and run down the track towards the village.

  “She’s gone to get that wretched bonnet!” cried Briar.

  “My God!” Saul exclaimed. “Where does she think she’s going? To church?”

  Briar clambered up behind him. “Oh, Saul! Will she be all right? She said there wasn’t a sign of a Hauhau. She values that bonnet so much.”

  “You women and your finery!” said Saul disgustedly. He sprang down. “I’m going after her.”

  But the Reverend had come up to put a detaining hand on his arm.

  “No, Saul. Leave her. If there’s no enemy about she’ll come back. If there is, you’ll both die, unnecessarily. And the fact is, we can’t spare you, Saul. If anyone’s to go after her it must be her husband.”

  But Joshua Perkins, a little gray in the face, more than a little hang-dog, had no intention of risking his life for his wife’s vanity.

  “Reverend’s right, Mr. Whitmore. Either one’ll die, or two. Look, she’s almost there. And it’s as quiet as a Sunday.”

  “It is a Sunday,” said the Reverend ironically.

  The slim figure of Amy Perkins, petticoats held up out of the mud, feet nimble, had disappeared around the bend leading into the village. There was not a sound within the stockade as everyone watched and waited.

  Would she appear again, blithely wearing her bonnet? Or would there be a sudden shocking scream, a yelling and whooping as of mad dogs?

  The next five minutes were interminable. Then there was a gasp and a stifled cheer as the little figure appeared again. She waved cheekily to the watchers at the top of the hill. The bonnet was in her hand.

  “Run!” shouted her husband hoarsely. “Run, you blasted little fool!”

  Amy picked up her petticoats and began to run. At the same moment the shot rang out.

  One moment she had been running blithely, the next she had spun around, as if her petticoats had been sharply twirled, and then she was lying in an awkward bundle on the ground. The bonnet had rolled away from her, down the hillside. Her eager fingers had not been able to hold it, after all …

  “To your posts!” roared Saul. “Hold your fire! Wait till you see them!”

  There was no more than a moment to wait before the brown bodies, gleaming with oil, faces contorted in a frenzy, yelling their strange blood-chilling staccato cry, were flinging themselves at the palisade.

  Then the quiet sunny afternoon was transformed into bedlam. Each sound was coordinated into a savage orchestration, the squawking of birds startled from trees and flung into the air in wild flight, the crash of guns, the continuous yelling of the Hauhaus, and the screams of the women and children.

  Briar, crouched behind Saul, rapidly reloading his gun as he handed it back to her, found herself in a state of complete cold calm. Her hands no longer trembled. She worked quickly and efficiently, not looking up, not thinking of anything in the world but the immediate task.

  “Poor Amy!” she was repeating over and over in a tuneless chant. She saw rather than was aware of Rima, the handsome Arawa, falling behind Fred Potter, and while she was thinking mindlessly that now Fred had no one to reload his gun, Aunt Charity suddenly appeared, and, crouching like an overblown peony on the gro
und, took over from the wounded Maori woman. When Fred was hit in the shoulder, and swayed, then toppled from his perch, she caught him dexterously, and laid him beside Rima. She did not stop to attend to him, however, but took his gun and holding it clumsily mounted the step.

  Her first shot knocked her backwards on to the ground. In a flurry of petticoats and bad temper she scrambled up, reloaded the gun and climbed back on to the step. She did not fall again. She stood there, magnificent and seemingly indestructible, and above the crazy noise Briar heard a cheer go up from the watching women.

  No one could have been less aware that she was being cheered. Aunt Charity took erratic aim and fired once more.

  Then all at once the wild yelling died away, and the shots came only from the defenders of the stockade.

  Aunt Charity leaned forward shaking her fist. “You cowards! Come and fight! You murdering cowards!”

  “Get her down!” shouted Saul. “Do you want a bullet through your head?”

  Aunt Charity turned dazedly. Her face was as deep a red as her dress, her eyes blazing.

  “They wouldn’t fight! They’ve run away!”

  “They’ll fight all right. They’ve merely withdrawn to make another attack. Briar, can you take my place for a minute while I look at Fred, and Rima. Who else is wounded?”

  The bullet which had struck Fred’s shoulder, knocking him out, fortunately proved to have inflicted only a minor wound. But Rima, the big Maori woman; was dead. And Elisha Trott had had a bullet skim through his hair and lift the skin from his scalp. So far the little garrison had escaped remarkably lightly. Briar did not care to look over the palisade into the trench where several of those magnificent wildly leaping bodies, clad in nothing but a brief flax mat, now lay still. Nor could she bear to look down the track to the huddled bundle that was Amy Perkins.

  She stared rigidly towards the green of the bush, seeing, she imagined, a brown face, a white-tipped huia feather behind every fern frond, every flax bush.

  Fred, his shoulder roughly bandaged, was back at his post. His face was yellowish-white, and his stocky figure had the rigidity of extreme fear. But he would stay there until he fell again.