Tommo and Hawk

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘Looks as though this time the Sheriff o’ bloody Nottingham did get Robin Hood. What a turn-up for the books,’ Tommo sighs.

  I try to lighten the subject. ‘Know what gives me the, er, shits?’

  ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘I never had a chance to know Maid Marian.’

  ‘You still a virgin then? Well I never!’ Tommo laughs.

  I nod my head and grin, imitating Ikey. ‘Absolutely and with certainty and not to be doubted, my dears, the wiles o’ the fairer sex be most mystifying and bedding one what’s not a whore is a most tricky set o’ peregrinations and not always a journey o’ the heart worth the sweat of one’s brow!’

  Tommo laughs again. ‘It were the only nice part o’ the wilderness, women wanting a taste o’ liquor for a favour granted.’

  I think to myself that I wouldn’t wish it that way. Once perhaps, just to know what it feels like, but then I’d want something different. Not that I know anything about loving a woman. But I’ve seen how Mary looks at Mr Emmett and he at her. I don’t think anything is going on between them— their different stations in life don’t allow it— but the softness you can feel between those two, that’s what I’d like to have.

  Tommo interrupts my thoughts. ‘You ain’t missed a lot, swiving’s a bit disappointing really. Well the sort of stuff I has done, anyway,’ he laughs. ‘Knee-tremblers, sort of. Breeches still on!’

  I try to imagine what he’s talking about. I think of these knee-tremblers and my size and I can see in my mind it isn’t possible. Besides, I’m a nigger— I don’t suppose any woman would have me unless I paid for it.

  ‘Tommo, have you, er, been in love? You know, like in the library books?’ I ask. I don’t like to admit to him that I’ve read everything in Mrs Dean’s Hobart Town Lending Library, including the romances!

  ‘Nah,’ he says, ‘I reckon love only happens in them stories.’

  ‘I hope not,’ I says.

  I must have sounded wistful because Tommo shakes his head. ‘Christ Jesus, Hawk! What’s wrong with ya? First you want men to have a bloody conscience, now you want a woman what loves you! And you want to love her back! You got about as much chance o’ finding a woman to love as you got o’ giving mongrels like Nottingham a conscience! Better keep on pullin’ your pud, that way you’ll meet a better class of woman than what would think to mix with the likes of us!’

  I laugh. Tommo as always is the practical man. I can well imagine the dainty little lass that I’d like for my own, but I can’t imagine anyone like her agreeing to marry me. Anyway, it’s all pointless, isn’t it? Nothing but divine intervention will save our lives now.

  I think of our beloved mama and her life’s motto, ‘I shall never surrender.’ I cheer up a bit at this thought. Perhaps I can delay the trial. I have read a little of the law, Mary always being anxious to know her rights, and the other brewers in Hobart Town ever threatening to force her out of business by means of the law. In their opinion, a woman has no right to be in brewing and moreover to be successful at it. Subpoenas, it seems, are a way of life with the pure merino brewers. Beer and barristers go together like a horse and cart.

  ‘What’s that noise?’ Tommo asks abruptly. His ears are all the sharper for his time in the wilderness. ‘It’s people,’ he answers himself, ‘coming our way.’ We fall silent, both listening. ‘A mob…marching,’ Tommo says, ‘coming closer, here maybe.’

  Then I hear it, faintly, I cannot tell from what direction. We wait and by and by the shouting and marching grows louder. ‘What do you think it is?’ I ask.

  Tommo shrugs. ‘Buggered if I knows.’

  The noise escalates until we are sure it’s a very large mob, heading towards the gaol. Strains of singing float toward us, mingled with shouting. Tommo listens intently, trying to make out the words. ‘Shit! They’re after us!’ he cries.

  Now I hear it for myself. ‘Utu! Utu!’ Revenge! Revenge!

  ‘Maori,’ Tommo says quietly. ‘Oh no, they’s after you for killing the Hairy Horror!’

  We listen as someone shouts for silence, and there’s a hush as someone addresses the crowd. It’s Nottingham. But his voice is quickly drowned out by a great roar of protest as a thunder of stones rain down on the corrugated iron roof. ‘Utu! Utu! Utu!’ The chanting takes up again, though some of it is lost under the rain of rocks. We hear cheering and the sound of running and more rocks being thrown. Then we smell smoke. Fire!

  ‘They’s burning us down!’ Tommo cries again. ‘The bastards is burning us out!’

  Suddenly there is a rattle of keys and the cell door is flung open. Four Maori push through the door with others crowding behind them. Beyond them, I can see nothing but smoke. There is no one to save us. They drag me out of the cell, cursing and shouting. I struggle as much as I can, but the manacles and shackles restrain me. Two of them, both big men, have me by the legs and two about the shoulders and then others rush to join them until a dozen hands are attached to me. I hear Tommo yelling behind me but there is no way I can turn around. ‘Tommo, get out, don’t fight!’ I scream and then begin to cough from the smoke.

  I am carried out to the front of the gaol and there is a terrible baying from the crowd which surges forward, shouting, ‘Utu! Utu!’

  The crowd is now all around me. My abductors lift me high above their heads while others push and strike at the howling mob, beating them back as frantic hands try to claw at me. If my captors let me go I will be kicked and torn apart by the angry mob. The posse abducting me force their way through the roaring crowd, shouting threats and using their fists, until we reach a horse-drawn cart. I am thrown into it while several of the Maori leap aboard, sitting upon my body and at the same time shouting and kicking at the crowd who now surround the cart, holding on to it.

  Soon we are clear of the main mob though others continue to run after us and some to hurl stones. A shower of rocks hits the cart and also one of the Maori who sits upon my chest. He gives a gasp and is knocked senseless, slumping forward.

  I am sure my end is near, but my most immediate concern is for Tommo. If the crowd gets hold of him they will tear him to pieces. I begin to sob for my twin, whom I shall never see again.

  By now we are pulling away from the town of Kororareka. As we travel up a small hill I can see a great billow of black smoke coming from the gaol-house. The road is deep-rutted and the cart bounces badly so that my blouse, stiffened with the dried blood of the previous night, grates against my back which is soon again soaked. Tommo’s turbanned bandage is also leaking blood which I can feel running down my neck. I have not drunk water since the previous night and know without it I will soon faint from exhaustion in the day’s heat.

  ‘Kahore o wai? Homai he wai moku,’ I croak. Have you any water? Please give me some water! I beg in Maori, though I must repeat myself several times to be heard above the rattle of the cart. A bottle of water is held to my mouth and I drink greedily as it rattles against my teeth, but it is too soon removed. I feel much recovered, though sick at heart when I think of Tommo at the hands of the mob.

  For over a week I am transported on the back of that cart, with no word of explanation from my captors. They give me food and water, but they do not engage in conversation with me. Fatigue and injury have dulled my mind and I am a passive enough prisoner. We have long since left the road and taken paths that lead through forest glades or cut through the tu-tu grass that often towers high above the cart.

  For seven days we pass no human settlement but, as the shadows begin to fall on our eighth day, we come to a village beside a small mountain stream. The others climb down from the cart and I am left to lie alone. Soon children with big brown eyes and serious expressions come to look at me. They are for the most part naked. Each time I move in my chains they scatter like startled chickens. But they soon enough return to stare silently at me again. I daresay they have not seen a nigger before and I am to them as curious a sight as an unknown species of wild beast.

  It is not lo
ng since the Maori have forsaken cannibalism and there is often talk that it is still practised in remote regions where the pakeha are afraid to go. Perhaps this will be my unhappy end, to be eaten at a great feast. I am almost resigned. The law will not find me here, and even if it should, the courts would treat me no better than the Maori. After the authorities have broken my neck they would feed me to the worms, which I think is no better than the cannibal’s cooking pot.

  In days past, the Maori believed that to eat your enemy made you strong. The chief must inherit the strength of the chief and all the others he has killed in battle and to do so he must drink their blood and swallow their eyes so that the spirits of his victims add to his power, his mana. All this Hammerhead Jack told me in the long days we spent together at sea. When my friend’s eye was destroyed by Nestbyte, he explained that it was no great tragedy for it was the right eye and not the left. The godhead of a chief, and the spirit of the Maori, lives in the left eye. Had his left eye been destroyed, he would not have wished to survive, for he would have lost his mana.

  From what I have observed of the white settlers and their soldiers and policemen, the Maori people will need all their strength if they are not to be reduced to the status of beggars and drunkards in their own country. I have seen what has been done to the Aborigines in Van Diemen’s Land and hope that the same will not happen to the Maori.

  Perhaps it is better after all that I be eaten in an ancient ceremony than die in ignominy. I would much prefer a warrior’s sharp teeth to slow consumption by maggots. Despite my misery I smile to myself. After all, what Tommo calls Mary’s white tablecloth religion is based on a good Sunday roast!

  I can hear God sitting at the table of the Maori chief.

  ‘Did you say a nice leg o’ pork, my dear?’ God asks the chief of the cannibals.

  ‘No, Sir,’ says the chief. ‘This be a nice leg o’ Hawk!’

  But then my humour changes. I am too sore and uncomfortable not to feel pity for myself. I think about my neck, how it seems to have an affinity for the rope. I lift my manacled hands to touch the band of silver tissue, the bright scar caused by the wild man when I was seven years old. It is now a well-defined track where the hangman will neatly fit the final loop of hemp to break my neck, that is if Nottingham and his Auckland jury should catch up with me. What a sorry end I shall have either way.

  When I took Tommo from Brodie’s sly grog shop I was bitterly saddened by Mary’s anger and banishment. And yet I had thought we might have a great adventure together and return to our mama with Tommo sober and both of us much experienced in the world. Now, in the late afternoon, with the shadows falling in a strange village, I think of how little luck poor Tommo has had. How his mongrels have followed us and how, through no wrongdoing of our own, our young lives will soon end: him burned to death in the prison or torn to pieces by a mob of angry savages, and me eaten by same.

  The children are clambering more boldly upon the cart and some reach out and touch me, then pull their hands away quickly as though I have burnt their fingers. I ask for water and try to smile but they are completely taken aback at the sound of my voice. They leap wildly from the cart and scatter, the smaller ones fleeing helter-skelter, their tiny feet shooting back puffs of dust as they run, yelling in terror as if followed by a wild, black beast.

  And then a large voice rings out. ‘Ork! Ork good!’ And this is followed by a great laugh which resounds in the gathering dusk. It is none other than Hammerhead Jack!

  My old friend soon has me ensconced in a large hut where a couple of plump older wahines minister to me. They cut away my blouse and gently remove the coarse linen from the broken wounds on my back, laughing every time I wince, as though it is a huge joke. They clap their hands whenever I find a word to use in their language.

  The women make a poultice of leaves and sticky ointment which they apply tenderly to my skin, packing it in with black mud which is left to dry. Whatever the medicine is, my back is soon quite comfortable. Next they remove Tommo’s turbanned bandage and shave the hair from the back of my head using the edge of a sharpened shell, which proves most effective. They laugh at my springy black curls, which one of the women gathers in her hand and cups to her thighs. After much cackling at this, they tend my head wound most caringly.

  I drink what must be a gallon of water, and eat a large dish of yams and sweet potatoes with a little meat mixed in. Finally the kind women remove the poultices and bathe me, laughing all the more when I will not submit to the removal of my breeches. They carefully wrap a blanket around my shoulders.

  It is well into the evening, with a three-quarter moon risen in a clear, clean starry heaven, when I am taken to the marae, the meeting place to attend a hui, a gathering of the men.

  I am asked most politely to sit on a bright woven mat before the elders, the runanga, while the rest of the men are seated behind me. This, I surmise, is the kawa of the marae—good etiquette, which shows respect for me. Hammerhead Jack then addresses the gathering, speaking too quickly for me to understand everything he is saying. I soon realise, however, that he is telling of our voyage and the killing of the sperm whale. He points often to me, whereupon the elders facing me smile and those behind me murmur their approval.

  My giant friend’s arm socket is much improved and the skin, though tender in appearance, has no suppuration and is clean and healthy looking. The wound from his missing eye has healed up completely, the skin about the socket puckered like a Christmas prune. In the meantime, the left eye seems to have grown curiously larger and brighter in his huge head, and it is not so difficult to believe that his godhead lives there. This eye is most commanding. It opens wide and darts about as he talks, almost as though he is a cyclops.

  Hammerhead Jack has the same air of authority about him as he did on board ship, while he still shows respect and pays obeisance to his chief. The chief is a man not much older than him, a tall solidly built rangatira, though somewhat smaller in stature than the whaleman. Finally, with a grand sweep of his good arm and a big smile, Hammerhead Jack points to me and says, ‘Ork, good!’ Then he bids me stand. After much poking out of his tongue and slapping of his thighs, he finally rubs noses with me.

  Amidst cheering and clapping, the chief, whose name is Wiremu Tamihana, bids me sit again. He calls out and beckons to someone seated behind me. Presently a young Maori about my age comes to the front and, speaking in tolerably good English, translates the chief’s speech of welcome to me. I later learn that Wiremu Tamihana speaks excellent English and has been well educated by missionaries but chooses not to use the invaders’ tongue.

  Chief Wiremu Tamihana first thanks me for saving Hammerhead Jack’s life and says that his people are much honoured to have a brave man among them. He asks me to remove my blanket and show the lashes I have taken on behalf of his tribesman.

  ‘Here is a man who has given his blood for the Maori people! Is he not our brother and welcome in the Ngati Haua tribe?’ the young translator declares.

  The chief tells me I am welcome to stay and that they will hide me from the pakeha policemen who might come looking. There is no mention of the death of Hori Hura and it is clear they do not see me as guilty of any crime against one of their own people.

  The Maori chief ends by saying that his people cannot trust Queen Victoria, who has taken their mana, their land, their prestige, and their substance, from them and left them only the shadow. They have twenty muskets and ammunition and the men are well trained in the use of the taiaha, the fighting stick which, during earlier skirmishes against the pakeha, proved much superior to the British soldier’s bayonet.

  At this the men show their delight, stamping their feet and slapping their thighs to make a thunderous whacking noise which reverberates through the dark night. The chief then holds up his hand to silence them. ‘We cannot fight the pakeha. We are one tribe only and too few. We must come together. All the Maori people must speak with one voice.’

  Some of the men voice their const
ernation when he says this and I can see the elders are not of one accord on the matter. But Chief Tamihana does not wish to discuss it and, instead, invites me to talk.

  I am still not well and have only a little voice left, so I ask the young Maori who speaks English to stand close. I speak slowly, using as many Maori words as I am able, and thank them for saving my life. I offer my service to the tribe, though I have no training in firearms and admit that, despite my size, I am no warrior. I have never killed a man.

  ‘We will teach you, Ork!’ Hammerhead Jack shouts jovially. ‘It is much easier than killing a whale!’

  This is followed by much laughter from the others and I begin to wonder whether my offer was wise. When the merriment lessens, I agree with their chief that the Maori people must speak as one voice. ‘Many voices speaking at the same time can only be heard as a babble,’ I say. ‘The pakeha have the governor who can listen to their many voices and speak for them as one voice. Their unity is their strength.’ I do not take this further, for the chief has already made his point.

  ‘I can read and write and have some knowledge of how the white man thinks,’ I say, thinking this a poor substitute for these warriors’ experience, but it is all I have. ‘I have studied the methods by which the soldiers of Queen Victoria fight and this may also be useful. To know the mind of the enemy is always of some advantage.’

  ‘And how was the mind of the enemy, Captain O’Hara, when we chopped off his hand?’ Hammerhead Jack asks gleefully. It is clear they all know the story, because there is another wave of laughter among the men.

  ‘I am not sure that it was a wise thing to do,’ I say, trying to force a smile.

  Now the men are completely silent and I can see from the expression on Hammerhead Jack’s face that he is confused.

  Then the chief addresses me in English, to my surprise. ‘Ork, do you know much of the missionary talk?’

  ‘Some,’ I say. ‘But I am not of their faith.’