Wendy M. Wilson
Come to Grief
A Sergeant Frank Hardy Mystery
Copyright © 2018 by Wendy M. Wilson
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Contents
Foreword
1. A True British Seaman Dies at His Post
2. On Majoribanks Street
3. Boarding the Tararua
4. Mette in Dunedin
5. On the Reef
6. The Tararua Comes to Grief
7. Night Fires
8. Death on the Beach
9. Brunton’s Station
10. The Rescue
11. The Shepherd’s Hut
12. Tararua Acre
13. Frank and the Inspector
14. The Coach to Bluff
15. The Chase
16. The Bottom of the Bag
17. The Red-Haired American
18. Caroline’s Father
19. At Lookout Point
20. Rewarded
21. Home Again
22. Real or Fictional?
Foreword
Many of the events in this novel are real; the SS Tararua did sink in April 1881, one of New Zealand’s worst maritime disasters, and there was a gold robbery several months earlier from the same ship. The names and actions of real people in this book are as true as I could make them, in particular, this heroic group:
Captain Garrard, who was later blamed for the disaster by an inquiry. He had been in a previous shipwreck where he acquitted himself heroically, and it was a shame he had to die in the way he did. He was only twenty-nine at the time of his death. His fiancée, Martha, married someone else a few years later.
Antonio Miscalef, the head chef from Malta, who swam ashore and pulled others to safety. I could not discover anything about his later life.
The Brunton family, Charles Brunton and his mother Jane Brunton who aided survivors at their own expense with both time and money. William Brunton, Jane’s husband and Charles’ father, died in June of that year. Jane Brunton was intended to be a minor character, but she swept into the plot full of energy, feeding survivors on the beach, organizing her kitchen, offering space to people to sleep, and riding to the rescue on a horse which I named Nightingale after Florence, not the bird. The Brunton family really did donate the burial land and provide coffins for the dead at Tararua Acre. I hope I have painted them in the manner which they deserve.
George Lawrence, the hero of the Tararua sinking, who swam ashore and went for help to a nearby outbuilding belonging to the Brunton family . He was a young man of twenty-two, and without him there would have been even fewer survivors. You can read about his later life here.
Inspector Buckley and Detective Tuohy. Both these men went to the wreck to assist with the aftermath.
If you would like to follow the adventures of Frank and Mette on a map, click here.
NOTE: You may notice that I refer to the town of Bluff as Bluff Harbour, Bluff, and the Bluff. The Bluff is what New Zealanders call the town now, and also what they called it in 1881. If someone is a more formal speaker, or a second language speaker, like Mette, I have them say Bluff. Otherwise, I use the informal name, the Bluff. Bluff Harbour is the very large body of water that was one of New Zealand’s earliest settlements.
1
A True British Seaman Dies at His Post
OFF THE COAST OF THE SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW ZEALAND: APRIL 28, 1881
It was not Captain Garrard’s first shipwreck. But this time he knew the outcome would be different. No hard slog to safety to find help for his men, followed by accolades for his heroism. This time, he was a goner. Not only would he die, but the inquiry would most likely lay the blame at his feet. That he would not be alive to hear the conclusion did not make it easier to imagine.
Confronted with the reality of his impending doom, Captain Garrard stiffened his shoulders and prepared for what was to come.
He would protect the women and children for as long as possible, on the slim chance a ship would arrive to rescue them before they all drowned. At the very least, he offered hope. He was the youngest captain in the intercolonial service, and he was going to act accordingly.
The water, grey-green and implacable, had risen steadily for the past hour, engulfing the deck, and soaking his boots and trousers. The wind whipped at his clothing, pushing him towards the handrail on the fore deck, urging him to plunge into the icy depths below and finish it, like the purser and his wife.
As was the usual practice, he’d deployed lifeboats, but the sea was rough and one after another they had smashed against the hull or overturned, sinking as they hit the water. One had managed to reach the line of breakers and hold there; the men aboard had leapt into the surf and swum for it. Later, a shape crawled up the beach. Two people, perhaps. Hard to tell with the frozen pellets of salt water whipping against his eyeballs. Any man who made it ashore had been instructed to head for the nearest telegraph office and send for help. The captain prayed it would arrive in time, but knew in his heart it would not.
At first, he had not realized what a terrible dilemma faced him. He’d brought the passengers up on deck and asked the cook to serve them breakfast. They would be inconvenienced, merely, and there would be no negative talk about the incident afterwards.
But when the sky began to lighten to a dull grey and the group of seventeen people the doctor had gathered by the railing for safety were swept away after the railing collapsed, he understood he was not going to be able to get out of this fix. They were going to be picked off a few at a time by the monstrous beast that was the ocean, and he could do nothing to stop it.
As night came and the situation became increasingly perilous, he’d taken the women and children to the smoking room for safety. When his own cabin next to the smoking room washed away, he’d brought the women and children up to the fore deck, telling them they’d be secure here until a ship arrived. They followed him blindly, clinging to the false hope he had given to them. What else was he to do?
With the arrival of darkness, it would not matter if a rescue ship came over the horizon this minute. They’d send the Hawea from Port Chalmers, probably. A good ship with an excellent captain and crew. If anyone could save the few who remained, it would be Captain Kennedy. But it would take hours to get here, and the swell was too great for rescue boats to reach them anyway.
The remains of one lifeboat still dangled from a davit; another was on the reef, broken in half; a third sat out at sea, the second officer at the helm, hoping to attract a passing ship. One boat had managed to make his way to the edge of the breakers before men had dived in and swum for it; that boat held the second mate, six sturdy crewmen who claimed they were good swimmers, Mr. Lawrence from steerage, and Sergeant Hardy, the chap who was after the gold robbers. And the brass polisher, of course. How foolish he had been to put the poor child in the lifeboat at the last minute, just because he claimed he could swim.
At least two of the men in the lifeboat had made it to shore, but others had not. On the beach, a cluster of settlers gathered around fires, waiting to help. Had they seen the two men who made it to shore? Would someone help them, point them in the direction of the nearest telegraph station?
A fair-haired woman clutching an infant in her arms slid across the deck in front of him, screeching. He caught her before she went over the edge
and pulled her to her feet. She clung to his arm, staring at him, her eyes wide. “Are we going to die?”
“No, no. Help is on the way,” he lied. “Hold the stanchion by the guardrail and keep your eyes closed. I’ll let you know when the rescue ship arrives. Won’t be much longer.”
She obeyed, shivering and clutching the child to her breast. What a shame the two of them would die. An attractive young women and her baby — a little girl, he thought. He wondered where her husband was. Was he one of the dozens of men who had climbed into the rigging? Or was he pacing along the shore, hoping against hope his wife and child would be saved?
Even as he thought of the men above, a loud crack echoed through the night, and the foremast split away from its housing, taking the rigging and the men in it into the ocean, trapping some of them underneath. One of the women on the fore deck with him screamed her husband’s name. “Jimmy. Jimmy.” He was the man who had taken his child up with him and lashed them both there.
Heads bobbed in the water for a few minutes and then vanished. One or two might make it to the beach if they were strong swimmers. Or they might be swept out to sea, their bodies never to be found. The man lashed to the rigging with his child was certainly doomed.
He sighed, straightened his shoulders, and awaited his fate. Once he was in the water he would swim for the shore. Or drown. But he could not attempt to leave as long as a woman or child remained in his care. He could not embrace death, either, like the purser and his wife who had leapt off the aft deck together, sobbing, to a certain death.
The deck tilted sharply, and more women slid into the water, screaming as their heavy dresses and petticoats dragged them under. The surface of the water gleamed and frothed as the moon rose behind the clouds, and he watched with despair as a child, a young boy, thrashed around for several minutes before slipping below the surface.
The woman with the baby was still holding fast to the stanchion. As the boat cracked into two pieces and tipped slowly on its side, he locked eyes with her, knowing she thought the same as he did: we’re both going to die.
He hit the water head first and went under, feeling himself pulled down by the sinking vessel. Down, endlessly down, until he could no longer hold his breath. At the last minute he rose to the surface again, popping up like a cork not far from the woman, the baby still in her arms, its eyes wide open, alive for now in the icy water.
The woman caught hold of a wooden gate and dragged herself and the baby onto it. He tried to swim towards her, but something was wrapped around his ankles. Kelp. He was caught in a patch of kelp. His strength waning, he pulled at the seaweed clinging to his legs, swallowing salt water all the while, unable to budge it. In the distance, the fire on the beach, beckoned him to safety. But he wasn’t going to make it.
His last thought was of Martha, his fiancee in Melbourne, and the wedding they had planned. His friends had come to see him off from the wharf in Wellington, carrying champagne concealed in a flask, to congratulate him on his good fortune. Martha Buckhurst was the daughter of a wealthy man, and he had intended to leave the sea and join her father in his business. Sadness for the life he would never have overcame him. What would she think, his fiancee? Would she suffer? Would she find someone else?
He did not think again of the young, fair-haired woman with the baby in her arms, floating away on a wooden gate, taken by the hungry sea.
2
On Majoribanks Street
WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND. FOUR DAYS EARLIER.
Mette Hardy struggled downhill on Majoribanks Street trying to keep her skirt down and her umbrella up against impending rain, while steering her daughter Sarah Jane in her new woven cane perambulator. Frank had purchased the pram from Mr. Tiller on Cuba Street, and although it was beautiful, it was almost impossible to manage on the steep Wellington hills.
The pram was a waste of money as far as she was concerned — money they didn’t have. But Frank wanted his daughter to travel in style. As long as he had change in his pocket or credit at the bank his daughter would not lack for anything. Mette would have been perfectly happy to carry Sarah Jane on her back, as she’d seen Maori women doing. The babies always looked contented.
She crossed Roxburgh Street, the wheels of the pram bumping over the rutted cart tracks, and hit a pocket of salty wind whistling along the street from Oriental Bay. Her umbrella snapped upwards and turned inside out.
“Bugger.” She checked to see if anyone had heard her swear. She’d learned to use words like that from Frank and knew she should try to control herself. Men were allowed to swear, especially when they’d been soldiers like Frank. She’d do better to use words from her native Danish so no one would understand what she’d said. Or in German, which was an excellent language for swearing. She shoved the broken umbrella into the pram, said some comforting words in Danish to Sarah Jane and carried on down the hill, hoping the rain would stop.
The damp wind slapped against her cheek and plastered strands of hair across her face; as she reached up to push her hair back in place, she stepped into a pothole and fell forward to her knees, wrenching her ankle painfully. The handle of the pram slipped from her grasp and the pram sped away. Heart pounding, she lifted her skirts and hobbled after it, knowing it was headed towards Kent Terrace where carts and drays and riders would be speeding along from both directions.
The pram bumped down the hill, gathering speed. Sarah Jane, whom Mette had propped up with pillows so she could see her mother, tossed from side to side in her nest looking surprised. Mette was gaining on her, but still not fast enough, when an elderly man stepped out of a gate and into their path. The next minute he was lying on the ground with Sarah Jane on top of him. The pram spun head over heels, landed back on its wheels, and continued on its way briefly before rolling out into the middle of the street and tipping on its side.
Stammering in shock about what had almost happened, she dragged the pram off the road before it could be smashed by a passing carriage.
“I’m so sorry. Are you hurt? The…the…kinderwagen…escaped from my hands, and…”
“Alles gut, danke,” he answered as she helped him to his feet. She gave Sarah Jane a quick kiss and hug, and lifted her back into her pram. Sarah Jane smiled up at her, her wide brown eyes curious, wondering why she had been tossed from her carriage and into the arms of a strange man.
The strange man in question scooped up his hat from the ground and brushed off his suit with a handkerchief. He was short, with the self-confident posture of a professional man. His suit looked old, and was mended discreetly in several places, but had once been of good quality. His grey hair was combed back from his forehead, and he had a neat little Van Dyke beard.
“Good morning, madam,” he said. “Did I hear you speaking German?”
“Did I? Sometimes I slip away from English when I’m upset, but I’m not German. I’m Danish. Well, Danish from Schleswig, so…”
“Ah, German then.”
Mette did not reply. She had left Denmark when Germany had conscripted all the young men from her disputed home duchy into the Prussian army, and she preferred not to think of herself as German, although she spoke the language as well as she spoke Danish.
“Is your husband German as well? I know very few Germans in Wellington.”
Mette nodded. “It’s true there aren’t many. But my husband is English. He came here as a soldier to fight in the land wars and decided to stay when they were over.”
“A wise choice,” said the stranger. “A person can make something of himself in this country.”
“Have you made…” started Mette. “I mean, are you a professional man?”
“Yes, indeed. I’m a professor at the new Wellington University. I teach modern languages.” The professor took off his hat and bowed to Mette, clicking his heels together. “Professor Fritz Mann at your service.”
“Pleased to meet you, Professor.” Mette nodded at him, smiling. “I do some translation work from English into German, and
from Danish into English.” This claim was somewhat of an exaggeration as she had translated one book and a few letters, but she was eager to do more, especially now. The quarterly rent on the cottage was due in a few days and once she had paid that she’d be down to her last few pounds. A professor at the university might be a source of work, and of money.
Frank was arriving home today; at the moment he made a living procuring horses for the Armed Constabulary to use up at the Front; they brought in three pounds each. With luck, he’d bring a dozen this time. Last time he’d returned with five - barely enough to pay the interest on the bank loan, the wages of the manager of their horse farm, and the regular payment to Niall, their ward.
The professor stared at her, stroking his beard. “Do you have references for your translations?”
Mette hesitated. References? It hadn’t occurred to her to ask anyone for those.
“Perhaps I could see your work,” he said. “I need someone to do a translation for me. It’s important that I publish something soon. The university senate requires that all professors publish, and I do have a large manuscript I brought with me from Germany. The senate would like something submitted before the end of the term. I believe they would be satisfied with a chapter or two if they knew more was coming.”
She rummaged in her purse. “I have a page of my work here. It’s a rough copy. I was using it for my shopping list.”
Taking it from her, he scanned the three paragraphs on the page.
“This is excellent. Are you interested in working for me? I’ll pay you two pounds per chapter…”
Mette was disappointed. That was half the amount Mrs. Halcombe had paid her. A chapter could take her a whole week.
“…and there are forty-five chapters, plus the abstract, of course.”
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