Well what about a ransom he said mocking us. We heard we wd get a ransom for her.
Lambert’s boat pulled alongside of ours. There was no ransom he said. Never in 100 years or 200 will we give you anything for someone who rightfully belongs with us.
All the same I wanted my wife back so I said to Lambert perhaps we could give them something, a little trifle of some kind.
I am under orders Guard Lambert said as if I was simple. To the Governor. There will be no ransom. You knew that from the beginning.
Let me see Betty I said to the chief.
Let me see the ransom Haari he said and laughed. I saw the way he stood proud as if he didn’t give a damn for what was in my head.
Captain I said real quiet this man is a rogue. He is playing us all along. Let us take him captive and see what he has to say then.
For I saw the way it was — neither Lambert nor Oaoiti wd give way.
Right said Lambert in this I am in agreement with you Guard.
In less than a minute the order was given and passed along to Johnstone who ordered 4 of the redcoats into action. Oaoiti had got too sure of himself and waded out towards us. They grabbed him 1 on each of his hands and legs and flung him into my boat. He was at my feet. Another man took a boy perhaps a servant who was in the company of Oaoiti.
Lambert gave the order to push out to sea.
I leant over Oaoiti and said now it is me that has got you my friend and I pointed my musket at his head. I had not decided if I wd kill him before Charley pushed my weapon away. Do not swing for him brother he said. But in a flash Oaoiti was over the side and in the water. I turned and fired and his red blood was in the sea and I laughed, the first time I have had a good laugh in many a day.
By now my men were on to it, they are my comrades in arms. They went after him. He dived under the boat and swam beneath the surface of the sea but he had to come up for air and we beat him on the head with the paddles and someone stuck a bayonet through his chest and then several more times and we got the bastard back in the boat. I thought he wd be dead but that was not to be. He wriggled like a fish and it was only by holding the ring in his ear and twisting it we were able to lash him to a thwart.
All this time Barrett Marshall is wringing his hands in the next boat and wailing at the top of his voice for us to stop. I was thinking if he did not shut it soon I might just put a bayonet in his arse if I could get near enough to Lambert’s boat. Oaoiti saved us any more trouble by falling down in a faint so we could throw him on board the Alligator. Barrett Marshall went with him and we were put under orders to stay there until he had finished looking at our captive as Lambert pulled away.
I was all for leaving Barrett Marshall behind but now at least I knew the Captain was on my side I did not want to cause him offence and so we waited.
Barrett Marshall came back on our boat. He had put on a black cape edged with gold and sat down looking pleased with himself holding his sword upright between his knees. Over the water came music from the cooks. They were playing Onward Christian Soldiers.
At my suggestion said Barrett Marshall.
I see I said. Does that mean our fellow is dead?
No it means he is alive.
Then we headed back to the shore to join the landing party. Barrett Marshall rattled on about how his duty was back on board the ship. I said whose side are you on. I left England to get away from people like you.
Not a bit of it he said. We sent people like you to Botany Bay so that we did not have to live with heathens.
And what if my wife and child need a surgeon’s touch? Will you not give them that?
Of course I will he said, it is my job to save any life, that is what a doctor does.
Even mine I asked as we neared the shore.
Even yours he said pious as ever.
I said nothing then. Besides we were watching out for our enemy as we pulled up on the shore again.
We made our way up to the pa. All was strange and quiet. I thought there must be some hidden trap. But there was nobody except 1 pig all on its own. The Maoris had gone leaving their potatoes cooking in their jackets.
We turned back to the beach and there I saw the trick they had in mind. They were ransacking the boats. The sailors left in charge were firing their weapons to keep them off.
So now what do you suggest Guard said Johnstone of the 50th.
I reckon the birds have flown.
That is very clear he said his voice dry as kindling wood.
But I said they have been taken by surprise and they may not have gone very far. We should search for them. We have fresh meat and warm beds here and we can put up for a day or 2 which with respect sir is what I thought you had in mind.
True he agreed.
That night the fires roared and the smell of cooking pig was in every man’s nostrils.
I took a walk around the pa looking at the grass whares. I came to a house with a door made as Europeans wd build it, with leather thong hinges swinging on the empty room. I saw the remains of a blue dress, an end of soap and some infant’s swaddling clothes.
I saw a bed of grass and fern covered with a mat, the hollow where bodies had lain.
30 September
A day passed. Then today Battersby and Barrett Marshall, myself and some soldiers came across a Maori party scouting in the bush. They came at us with pistols in their hands but saw they were outnumbered. They had come to tell us that a war party was on its way to do us in for having killed Oaoiti.
But he is alive said Barrett Marshall.
No they said. Obstinate like. He is dead. You have murdered him.
I tell you no. For once I am pleased to have Barrett Marshall on hand.
But they doubt what he has said. 1 said I do not believe you. Last night his spirit passed over us in a falling star and we know he is gone.
His companion said all of our tribes are coming together to fight you. We will take back Te Namu and fight you back to the sea.
Battersby said shall I bounce them?
What do you mean? said Barrett Marshall with his usual solemn manner.
I mean said Battersby shall I tell them a lie?
Certainly not. But pray what lie did you propose to tell them?
Why that if they won’t promise to deliver up Guard’s family we shall set fire to Te Namu.
I thought that a good idea but Barrett Marshall was having none of it.
At any rate we did burn it down. Johnstone thought it a capital idea that wd give the Maoris something to think about. We set fire in every house and pulled the stockades down and added it to the flames.
Back at the ship Oaoiti looked in good health. Barrett Marshall was full o’ beans over this.
I wished him dead. I wish it still.
Lambert said never mind Guard, he is something to bargain with.
I took a cup of rum. There was not enough room aboard the Alligator for my bro. and the other crew members who had been taken on board at Moturoa. They had been put aboard the Isabella.
I am pleased about that. I have no wish to make conversation with Charley.
Chapter 32
Parramatta’s five wide streets are built in a grid. The main street runs from Government House — the second Government House, but much grander than the one in Sydney — to the Parramatta River. Another ends in a plaza containing the newly built town hall. Shops and churches fill the other streets.
‘So orderly, so pretty,’ Adie Malcolm says. Her eyes sweep Government House with longing. The Parramatta residence stands in a park, with a lodge at its gates and, though the oak trees within its domain have been planted less than half a century, already they provide shade on the green lawns. Adie’s hand rests on a wrought iron gate.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be going to the Governor’s residence again, here or in Sydney.’
‘I’m sorry, Adie,’ Betty says. ‘I’ve brought a lot of troubles on you.’
Betty has never been to Gove
rnment House in either place, though an invitation did come after her return from the New Zealand expedition. ‘I was afraid of being stared at,’ she tells Adie, ‘although I would like to have gone.’
The two women have slept as if drugged, which perhaps they were, for the cook had placed a carafe of wine on their tray the night before. Both had fallen into instant, deep and dreamless slumber. In the morning they had woken to the realisation of how little time remained until the lieutenant’s return.
Betty has said several times that she will leave, but Adie will not countenance this. Instead, she has suggested a walk. The farm road into town is a distance of some two miles. They have started early in the morning to avoid the heat.
‘Soon it will be over,’ Adie says, ‘one way or another. We might as well make the most of this time.’ In town, she buys Betty a bracelet set with faceted beryl stones that gleam with pale green fire in the morning sunlight.
‘You shouldn’t,’ says Betty. ‘You can’t afford it.’
‘Fiddlesticks,’ says Adie. ‘It’s bad manners to question the price of a gift.’
‘But why?’ asks Betty. ‘I have more jewellery than you.’ She suspects that this is the last money Adie has in the world that is not in her brother’s and Maude’s hands.
‘Then,’ says Adie, ‘this will be a special piece, for it will remind you of me, long after we have parted company. In the same way that you will take out the earring you were given in New Zealand, in moments when you’re alone, and remember what happened to you. Well,’ she smiles, ‘perhaps not in quite the same way.’
‘That is best forgotten.’
‘Still, it happened, and some day you might want to remember it. When I was a child and in pain, with a bad tooth or a cut, my father used to give me a ball of marble to hold which he said was magic and would take away the pain. I don’t know that it did, but I believed it and the pain vanished. I adored my father. I wish Percy had seen him in the same light as I did. Anyway, you’ve given me several gifts.’
‘Nothing like this.’ Betty holds out her hand for Adie to do up the clasp of the new bracelet. ‘I’ll remember you anyway, but it’s beautiful.’
‘You still haven’t told me how you left the pa.’
‘Ah,’ says Betty. ‘That.’
When we were back at her brother’s property at Malcolm Downs I did take up my story again, for it was almost over and I did not want to deny the governess the end to that which she had heard so patiently.
On nights when I found myself alone at the pa, not often I’m bound to say, there was a stillness that was never truly quiet.
How to explain the difference? There was the constant rustle of rats nearby, which made me draw Louisa’s sleeping form close, and the screech of the night owl that sounds like more pork echoing through the palisades. And there were fleas that meant sleep was often fitful; if I had had fifty fingers it would not have been enough to keep the wretched things at bay. But in a way I welcomed this lightness of sleep for it kept me free of dreams.
The night before I had seen the ships on the horizon, I had been on my own for some time. I remember those last hours when Oaoiti was beside me. He was in a more serious mood than usual. He spoke of my beauty. I am not really beautiful, I said, feeling shy. You should see my mother and my Auntie Charlotte.
He said he would not want my mother or my aunt, however pretty they might look. He had seen only a few seen white-skinned people, and never a woman before he met me. When he looked at white men he couldn’t imagine their women. He thought they might have beards, or skinny ribs like goblins with pointed ears and thin hair. But I was not like that and, he said, I had a smile like light on water. He wanted to know if I was happy.
Yes, I said, for I was not unhappy. I didn’t tell him about the dreams when he wasn’t there, or the sense of loss I could not shake. As I had never fallen in love before, the way I had with Oaoiti, I couldn’t compare my feelings. But I guessed that it might be the same for all who fell in love — after all, I had seen enough of the way my mother carried on — that at the beginning everything is perfect. And then you begin to see that the world hasn’t changed, only you. That the same ordinary things still have to be attended to. You start picking holes in your happiness.
Why can’t John live with us? I asked.
He sighed then. That might happen some day, he said. Only, first I had to understand that John was to be a chief, and would grow to be an important man who would change the fortune of the tribe. He would be the white rangatira. I have told you all this before Peti, he said. Once you have accepted that, you will come to be honoured as his mother. As he spoke, his fingers traced my belly, bare and flat in the moonlight, and rested there, forming a little basket with his fingertips. I knew at once what he was suggesting: one is taken away but another will come.
Yes, I said, turning to him in drowsy anticipation. Straight away the idea had taken hold of me. The only surprising thing was that it hadn’t happened already, but perhaps it had been too soon after Louisa. I knew my body was ready now.
But it didn’t happen that night. Possibly he believed it done, though I knew otherwise. It’s odd the way you know. He stood up, overtaken with restlessness, as if he had heard something. Soon after that he left.
I lay straining my ears in the darkness. Was it the change in the weather he heard? My ear had become attuned to shifts in the wind. But in fact the breeze that had played round the cliff all evening had dropped, and the air become still. Far below, the water lapped on the shoreline but very softly as it slid back and forth over the black rocks. And I heard something. Like the creak of a mast. The sound of a fiddle, a yearning note from afar. I thought, this is madness, I am losing my mind.
Eventually, I dropped into an uneasy sleep full of dreams and faces of the past. I told myself everything would be all right, that I had a purpose.
Morning dawned, and, as I think I’ve mentioned, it began to rain, delaying work in the gardens.
And then I saw the ships.
After one frightened glance, I turned and fled from the cliff top.
A woman called Mihingi came to my whare, sent by Ruiha. She was young and strongly built, handsome, with hair as thick as rope. But her face was tight with worry. They have come for you, she said. When I nodded my head, she said, I thought they had left you here for good.
They will have guns, I said. For of course I had seen that these were no whaling ships. Perhaps they’re not for me, I said, for these are warships and my husband has only whaling ships. But I knew this was a false hope, for the men-o’-war were bearing towards us.
The ships, with their giant white rigging, were standing off the shore, their long and tapered spars extending every sail to the wind. Dark clouds tumbled towards the sea, the surf running hard. A whaleboat was lowered over the side of the Alligator.
Oaoiti came to the door. Quickly, he said, be prepared to leave.
I am not going with them, I cried in a piteous voice. They will kill me.
I do not think so.
I do not want to go.
Peti, are you sure of this?
It is you they will kill, I said.
It will not come to that, he said, without fear. But if you are sure you want to stay, you must keep out of sight. Don’t let anyone see you, not even our people. Do exactly what you are told. Mihingi has been chosen to watch over you, for she will not be noticed as Ruiha is known to be your friend.
What will you tell the men on the boat?
I will decide that when the time comes.
What if my husband comes after you?
I will not see Haari unless I must. But I will not be afraid of him either.
The whaleboat came close in shore, and Oaoiti stood on the beach and spoke with the men. My husband was on the boat, and he and Oaoiti exchanged some words.
I told him you were at Waimate, Oaoiti said, later that night. He had come hurriedly to the whare, and spoke to me quietly. I asked for a ransom, he said, just
to keep him guessing.
Then he left again.
The boats didn’t land at Te Namu. From Mihingi I heard that a boat had landed in heavy seas, further along the coast, and two men had come ashore and been left on their own. Then the tall ships disappeared from the horizon and nobody knew where they’d gone.
Nor did anyone know who the two men were. But word travelled, as news does along that coast, that the crew of the Harriet had been set free at Moturoa. Scouts from our pa went into the bush to stop the strangers reaching us. I was relieved to learn that neither of them was Jacky.
A silence had fallen over Te Namu, as the men prepared themselves at the palisades for the arrival of an enemy.
The third night brought more news of the two white men. They told a scout party they spoke Maori but they could hardly make themselves understood. They had been left on shore to negotiate for my and the children’s release. Their names were Battersby and Miller and, from the account I heard, two sorrier creatures were hard to imagine. They spent two nights in the bush, screaming and pleading for deliverance. The watchers in the trees shook with silent laughter at their antics. In the morning they showed themselves to the interpreters again. The men now told them they were to be waiting there when the ships returned. They promised their tormentors a great ransom in return for our safe passage.
The people will want the ransom, I said to Oaoiti. He had called at the whare, even though it was broad daylight and I could see that he was worried.
Yes, he said, there will be some who do.
Does that mean I must go with them? For still I did not want to leave.
I am sure your people will not hurt you. They will be pleased to have you back. But I saw he was becoming doubtful, that indecision had crept into his manner. If you are not here, he said, there is no point in them killing anyone. Dress Louisa warmly, put on the cloaks my sisters gave you, and go.
Where?
To Waimate, of course. I have spoken to Waiariari and he will take you.
I’m frightened of Waiariari, I said.
You have no need to be. He is a brother to me, Oaoiti said. I had never heard him speak of a brother, only sisters, but his words were meant to reassure me.
Captive Wife, The Page 25
