The Silent Frontier

by Peter Watt

  ‘When Captain Lightfoot hears how you threatened me,’ Forster replied, ‘he will have your hide for garters, Private MacDonald.’

  ‘I know about Captain Lightfoot’s role in the murder of my father and brother,’ Lachlan said.

  Forster turned and stumbled away, leaving Lachlan to watch his parting back. When the surgeon approached the improvised tent, Lachlan called to him. ‘Sir, may I see you?’

  ‘What is it, soldier?’ he asked, bending down to adjust the bandages binding Lachlan’s wound.

  ‘I request permission to rejoin my company, sir,’ Lachlan said, suppressing the pain he felt.

  ‘The wound looks clean, but I will have to put you on a light duties chit for a couple of days. That won’t be so bad, will it?’

  Lachlan liked the surgeon. He was a kind man with a real regard for the welfare of the soldiers in the company he was attached to. ‘That will be fine, sir,’ Lachlan replied.

  ‘Good,’ the doctor grunted and proceeded to scribble a note on a page from his notebook.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Lachlan said, taking the chit exempting him from heavy duties for a couple of days.

  ‘Well, Private MacDonald,’ the army surgeon said, ‘you Scots are a hardy bunch of souls. So far you have survived a flogging and a knife wound. I doubt that anything worse should befall you now.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Lachlan replied. ‘I think my luck should hold for the rest of the campaign.’

  Lachlan struggled to his feet and reached down for his bloody jacket. With some difficulty, he slipped it on over the bandages and sought inside for his letters. He could not find them. The doctor had moved on to visit his other patients by now and Lachlan stepped out to find his company.

  He found his comrades where they had set up camp.

  ‘Good to have you back, young Mac,’ they said, slapping him on the back.

  ‘I kept these safe for you,’ the corporal said. ‘They are in a bit of a mess, but I don’t think that really matters.’

  Lachlan nodded his thanks. ‘Go and draw your firearms from the quartermaster,’ the corporal said. ‘We are on the move again.’

  Lachlan suddenly felt a rush of warmth for the men he was with. Although he did not know them well, they had shown their concern for him by saving the letters and making sure that he got them. The looks of genuine pleasure at his return had cemented his membership of this very special brotherhood of men. Never before had he felt so proud to be a Ranger.

  On his way over to the quartermaster’s tent to retrieve his field kit, Lachlan took the chit he had been given by the surgeon and tore it up. He did not need to be left behind if they were on the move again. Despite the discomfort he suffered, he reminded himself how the wounds of the flogging had been worse and yet he had soldiered on. He now had another burning desire in his life besides staying alive and eventually seeing Amanda again. When he had dealt with the hated sergeant, he would find a way to settle with the captain.

  Excusing himself from his comrades, Lachlan sought a quiet place to finally get the opportunity to read the letters Amanda had sent him prior to his wounding. He sat down under a tree and carefully parted each envelope from the next. When he opened each letter he was bitterly disappointed that his blood had blotted some of Amanda’s words from the pages. For the moment he forgot that she was the sister of the man he had sworn to kill.

  Sergeant Samuel Forster stood with Captain Charles Lightfoot away from the camp site of the militia volunteers.

  ‘What do you want to see me about, Sergeant?’ Lightfoot asked irritably. The odious sergeant’s urgent plea for the meeting smacked of something he really did not want to know about.

  ‘It’s about Private MacDonald, sir,’ Forster said, wiping his brow with the edge of his cap. ‘I think there is something you should know.’

  ‘Get on with it, man,’ Lightfoot said, glancing back at his men going about their routines.

  ‘MacDonald is the son of that rebel you had me slay at Ballarat, and he knows about our role in his father’s killing.’

  Lightfoot visibly paled. ‘How do you know this?’ he asked in a strangled voice. The rebel Scot had a bad way of coming to his troubled dreams at night asking for his stolen money back.

  ‘Coz the bastard told me himself, just after they brought him over from the Rangers to have our surgeon look at his wound,’ Forster replied.

  ‘Do you know if anyone else is aware of this?’ Lightfoot asked. ‘Do you think he would have told any of his comrades?’ For a moment the difference in rank between the two men was forgotten.

  ‘I doubt it,’ Forster replied slowly.

  ‘How can you be sure?’ Lightfoot asked.

  ‘Coz he has threatened to do away with me the first chance he gets.’ The sergeant spat on the ground. ‘I doubt that he would go telling the world anything if he intends to kill me.’

  Lightfoot nodded. What the sergeant said made sense. At least fore-warned was fore-armed, he reflected.

  ‘What are we goin’ to do about MacDonald?’ Forster asked.

  ‘That is something better handled by you, Sergeant,’ Lightfoot replied. ‘I am sure that you will come up with something. After all, serving in a war makes it easy to be killed, with few questions asked.’

  Forster stood silently pondering the captain’s direction. After Lightfoot had taken the money from the dead Scot, he had given Forster a thousand pounds of his loot to ensure his silence. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined being in the same place at the same time with one of the sons of the murdered man.

  ‘Leave it to me, sir,’ Forster finally replied. ‘It won’t be easy and will cost you a thousand quid if I am goin’ to stretch my neck out for the hangman.’

  ‘Five hundred guineas – and not a penny more,’ Lightfoot countered.

  ‘That’s a deal,’ Forster replied, knowing full well that he could not argue for further money. He snapped off a salute to his commanding officer. ‘MacDonald will be dead an’ buried before the end of this campaign.’

  The weeks passed and the Rangers grew impatient. Meanwhile General Cameron formulated his plan to bypass the hilltop pas and march on the rich farmlands at Te Awamutu twelve miles away. To seize these Maori lands would effectively cut off food supplies to the pas and starve out their defenders.

  Lachlan did not see Forster or Lightfoot during this time, as the Von remained active in sending out scouting patrols to clear the dense forest of any possible war parties forming for an attack on the British positions. But he did not stop thinking about Amanda, his brother in Australia, and how he would first kill Forster and then Lightfoot. The trouble was the latter obsession could get him arrested, in which case the other preoccupations would become irrelevant.

  Finally, General Cameron made his move. On a night of drizzling rain, Lachlan and the rest of his comrades were given the order to move out. Cameron was going to bypass the fortified pas and march for the farmlands. And Lightfoot’s company was moving to join up with the Rangers.

  SIXTEEN

  The order to advance came down just before midnight. Marching in single file, the troops of Cameron’s assault force wound their way through fern wet from the steady drizzle of rain. Soaking fronds swished against the soldiers’ legs as they crossed the flat areas to ford cold streams in the dark. Finally they emerged on a dray road approximately two and a half miles from Te Awamutu.

  But not all was well. A company of British regulars had become separated in the dark and the assault force had to wait for them to rejoin the advance. This cost Cameron two hours but finally Te Awamutu was reached and occupied without any resistance.

  Cameron immediately ordered his force to continue the advance onto Rangiaowhia, an area where crops of wheat, maize and potatoes had been grown for the Auckland market. The rich cultivation land was prized by both European and Maori.

  General Cameron made his assessment and realised that an attack on the well-defended Paterangi pa was out of the question. He chose t
o bypass it instead, using the moonless night to assist his force. A mixed-race man by the name of James Edward, who had lived in the district, guided Cameron’s troops as quietly as possible past the Paterangi defence line.

  Lachlan and his comrades had been given the task of defending the column from any attack from the rear. They had passed so close to the Paterangi sentries that they could hear the Maori warriors talking to each other.

  The march continued throughout the night and by dawn Cameron’s weary force found itself just outside the village of Rangiaowhia. Cameron ordered his cavalry ahead and in a short time Lachlan heard the sound of gunfire coming from the settlement.

  ‘Looks like we’re in for a hot time,’ the corporal in command of Lachlan’s section said reflectively, as the Rangers crouched on the early morning earth, still damp with the evening’s coolness.

  Lachlan gripped his rifle, experiencing the old fears that had become second nature to him. What were they up against? How many would die this day? As most soldiers do, he had come to learn that the waiting before an action was worse than being involved.

  ‘On yer feet, Rangers,’ their corporal said in a tired voice. ‘The word has come down that we are to join the fight.’

  Lachlan heaved himself to his feet. He had been hungry but his appetite was gone. Now he moved forward with his company to engage in the fighting ahead.

  Most of the Maori men and women had fled the village of thatch-roofed buildings but a small, determined contingent had remained to fight it out. The Von ordered his men to assault the Catholic church. In ranks they poured fire into the building until a white flag was seen fluttering from a window. Reluctantly, the Von took the surrender and ordered his men on to the next objective.

  In small groups of three or four men, Lachlan and his comrades moved through the village. Firing seemed to be coming from all directions. Lachlan found himself separated and when he turned a corner he came across Sergeant Forster, who was confronting a huge unarmed Maori warrior. It was clear the sergeant was about to execute his prisoner. He raised his rifle, shouting, ‘Die, you heathen bastard.’

  Here was the perfect opportunity for Lachlan to exact his revenge. He raised his own rifle but an unexpected, almost forgotten memory of another time and place suddenly froze him. It was a recollection of a ten-year-old boy seeing helpless miners being slaughtered by the red-coats and goldfields police. For a brief moment he was a long way away in his mind but the sight of the huge Maori warrior brought him back to the present.

  ‘If you shoot, Sergeant Forster, I will shoot you down like the dog you are.’

  Both Maori prisoner and Forster turned to stare. The young man had his Terry Callisher carbine to his shoulder and pointed directly at Forster.

  Forster’s mouth fell open in his surprise and an expression of rage came to his face.

  ‘Go now,’ Lachlan yelled to the big Maori, who blinked his surprise at his unexpected reprieve. ‘Get away.’

  ‘Thank you, Pakeha,’ the Maori replied in English. ‘You are a good man.’

  Without hesitating, the warrior broke into a sprint between the houses and Lachlan unexpectedly found himself hoping that the man might live to rejoin his people. But the warrior stumbled into the path of a British regular corporal, who immediately took him prisoner.

  Forster swung his rifle on Lachlan and the two men now faced each other in a deadly stand-off. Now, Forster thought, was the perfect time to kill MacDonald. He would say that he met his death at the hands of a Maori warrior. It was unlikely that anyone would question his version of the events.

  Lachlan harboured a similar scheme, but he was prepared to fire the Maori shotgun, thereby concealing the rifle wound and making the sergeant’s death from enemy action appear more credible.

  Neither man had the chance to carry out his plan. A body of troops swarmed around the corner of the building, sweeping the two men up. The settling of accounts would have to be at another time.

  Lachlan bent down, scooped up his cap and went in search of his company, while Forster bent down and picked up the shotgun that had been left on the floor beside him.

  The fighting had come down to flushing out ten courageous warriors holding out in a warehouse where they had succeeded in killing a British corporal who had tried to enter the building. Under a baking sun the troops poured rounds into the building, which soon showed signs of being alight. Although smoke poured from the door and windows, the Maori defenders refused to surrender.

  A British colonel standing nearby was felled by a shot from the burning building as the gallant defenders continued to fight on. Eventually one of the defenders stumbled from the burning building, only to fall down dead a few paces from the doorway. The fight for the building was over but not the skirmishing which followed Cameron’s retreat from the village.

  Along with the rest of the column, Lachlan fell back sweating. The track to the little village of Te Awamutu had been stirred into a cloud of dust raised by the boots of the troops and the iron-shod hooves of the horses. All the time the men’s jangled nerves, already cut raw by exhaustion, were constantly drawn taut by the sporadic Maori fire.

  When they reached the village the order to fall out was given and Lachlan joined his comrades, collapsing gratefully onto soft patches of grass to rest their bone-weary bodies and reach for water canteens.

  Lachlan lay on his back, his rifle across his chest, staring with gritty eyes at the puffy clouds filling the blue of the southern sky above. He longed to fall into a deep sleep.

  ‘Private MacDonald,’ the corporal said, toeing Lachlan’s boot with his own, ‘the Von wants to see you.’

  Lachlan groaned, slipped on his cap and struggled to his feet. He could not think why his commanding officer wished to see him.

  Lachlan found the commander standing with the colour sergeant, a big, broad-chested Scot who was known to be firm but fair in his meting out of discipline to the sometimes unruly colonial volunteers. Both men were eyeing Lachlan with some expression of amusement as he approached. Lachlan came to a halt and snapped off a salute by touching the stock of his carbine.

  ‘You are not reporting in regimental order,’ the colour sergeant growled gently. ‘You are out of uniform.’

  Confused and dazed from his exhaustion, Lachlan could only stare uncomprehendingly at the big Scot who was twitching with feigned annoyance. Beside him, the Von smiled enigmatically.

  ‘What the colour sergeant means is that you are not wearing your rank, Corporal MacDonald,’ the Von said.

  For a second or two his commanding officer’s words did not sink in.

  ‘It is my pleasure to inform you, Corporal MacDonald, that I had nominated you for promotion a while back, and orders have come down from General Cameron’s HQ that the appointment has been approved, as from midnight last night. You have earned your promotion based on what the senior NCOs tell me about your leadership with others in the company. For one so young, you have gained the respect of many.’

  ‘So, laddie, get over to the quartermaster and draw your stripes,’ the colour sergeant said warmly. ‘It will be your shout tonight.’

  Lachlan blinked, attempting to clear his head.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he half mumbled. ‘I am grateful for your trust in me.’

  ‘Just don’t let us down,’ the Von said. ‘I heard about your conviction when you were with Captain Lightfoot’s company but was assured by Sergeant O’Flynn . . . I mean Duffy . . . that you were innocent. I did not hold that against you when I put your name forward for promotion. Congratulations.’

  As the significance of his promotion sank in, Lachlan thanked the Von once again. The colour sergeant excused himself to attend to regimental duties, leaving Lachlan alone with his commanding officer for a moment.

  ‘I did not believe that Mr Duffy was guilty of the charges levelled against him in Sydney,’ the Von said quietly. ‘He had proved himself a splendid soldier and a fine man. I have recently heard a rumour that a man fitting his
description was seen aboard a Yankee whaling ship leaving Auckland,’ the commander continued with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Sadly, if he is sailing for America, he is sailing into another war and, knowing the man the way I do, I doubt that he will be able to stay out of it. I have read that the Irish make first-class soldiers on either side of the civil war over there.’

  As tired as he was, Lachlan understood what the Von was telling him; Michael Duffy had been able to flee the British system of justice for a new land.

  ‘You may fall in with your comrades, Corporal MacDonald,’ the Von said, granting leave for Lachlan to get a quick nap.

  Lachlan saluted smartly, turned about and marched directly to the store to pick up his chevrons.

  Lachlan’s promotion was well accepted by his comrades. He had earned a reputation as being cool under fire, with the quiet ability to inspire men despite his youth.

  Many slapped him on the back to congratulate him and offered the young man a tot of rum. But Lachlan politely declined all offers of good Jamaican, remembering his promise to the old German, Max Braun.

  His promotion carried with it extra pay – and extra responsibilities. He found that he had less time to sit down and write letters to Amanda, let alone resume his correspondence with his brother now living in Sydney. In one of his letters John had written that he and his business partner were using the city as a base to establish future enterprises in the colony of Queensland. Planting sugar cane would be one such enterprise and the establishment of their own rum distillery another. Not surprisingly, the letters between the two brothers were somewhat stilted. They were almost strangers. All they really had in common was their blood, and a mutual desire to avenge the murder of their father and brother at Ballarat.

  Lachlan never stopped scheming as to how he might find a way to kill Samuel Forster, but now that March had come to the campaign it was a time of relative inactivity for the Rangers camped at Te Awamutu.