Come to Grief

by Wendy M Wilson

  He hadn’t stopped to get the full story from Mette and Captain Scott, pausing just long enough to find out that Caroline had been kidnapped by her own father for financial reasons — something to do with Charles Dickens, seemingly, although he wasn’t totally clear on that. But he knew he had to get her back. Mette had assured him that Caroline’s father was a nasty piece of work who intended to squeeze all Caroline’s money from her and then toss her aside. She’d said something about the gold reward, as well, but he’d put that out of his mind. The gold was with Hinton, he knew it was. And that reward was not important right now. All he had on his mind was that he had to rescue Caroline.

  Captain Scott had directed him to ride through town and up onto Bluff Hill to the lookout station. From there he’d be able to see Lookout Point on the coast, where Pomeroy’s boat was anchored. To get to the coast from the lookout he’d have to ride downhill through rocky scrubland, Captain Scott said, but he could follow tracks made by Maori, who had a camp in the area. Whether he’d be able to catch up to Pomeroy and rescue Caroline, he didn’t know. But he was going to damn well try. He still had the gun Inspector Buckley have given him, and would shoot Pomeroy if he wouldn’t return Caroline, even if it meant going to prison.

  Nightingale took the track up to the lookout station at a gallop, navigating the rough ground with ease. At the top of the hill, the coast of Southland spread before him, from the sandy shoals off Tiwai Point across the channel, to Dog Island hunched down in the ocean to the south, and Lookout Point beneath him on the rocky shore of Foveaux Strait. From Lookout Point, a broad, stony strip ran along to a cove, where a ship’s boat was docked beside a rickety wooden landing, unmanned. A small ketch, probably weighing no more than sixty tons, bobbed at anchor in the cove, its sails drooping, windless.

  Wishing he had a telescope with him, he squinted down at the cove, and saw a dinghy carrying two men push off towards the ketch, one man rowing, the other sitting in the prow. He couldn’t tell if Caroline was with him, but it had to be Pomeroy.

  He found his way down to the shore with difficulty, Nightingale picking her way between the rocks and scrubby vegetation, while he kept his eye on the ocean to see what was going on with the ship. The dinghy reached its destination and the passenger passed a bundle to someone on board. Caroline, he was sure. The right size, anyway.

  He reined Nightingale in, dismounted, and checked the ship’s boat. It had come from a wreck, he suspected. The name England’s Glory was evident on the prow, the paint fading. The boat was too large for him to handle by himself. He’d be lucky if he could even launch it. But under a cluster of stunted cabbage trees near the shore, he could see a man lying on his back, asleep. He left Nightingale and hurried over to him; a young man, a Maori, his hands crossed over his chest, snoring loudly.

  “Kia Ora,” he said, nudging the sleeper with his boot. Once, he’d been able to speak Maori reasonably well, but he’d forgotten most of it, and it always deserted him when he needed it most.

  The man woke with a start and sat up, rubbing his eyes. “Yeah?”

  “Is that your boat at the dock?”

  “I was asleep.”

  “I’m sorry. But I need to get to that ketch. The passenger they picked up just now has kidnapped a young girl — taken her from her mother. I’d row out there by myself in the ship’s boat by the dock, but I don’t think I can.”

  The Maori stood up and stretched. “Yeah, we saw him come down the hill with the baby. He paid my brother to take the horse back to the Bluff. I can get another couple of blokes if you like.” He stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. Two more young men, looking like copies of the first, rose like wraiths from the scrub.

  “My brothers,” said the first man. “That one is Kai and the other one is Nikau, like the palm tree. I’m Taika. Taika Korowhiti.”

  “Frank Hardy,” said Frank. “You speak English very well.” He glanced at the ketch. It hadn’t moved. Becalmed by the look of it. He had some time.

  “My mum’s from Liverpool, isn’t she?” said Taika. “They speak English there, don’t they?”

  “More or less,” Frank agreed. “Listen, can you help me?”

  “Can you pay?”

  Frank took a pound note from his pocket. He had three more, and then he was done. “Would a quid be enough?”

  Kai and Nikau approached and stood beside the boat, hands on hips, listening. They were big men, bigger than their brother, and strong looking. The forward line on a rugby team. Good in a fight, he was sure.

  “Come on, Taika,” said Kai. “Five minutes rowing for a quid? That’s not bad.”

  “You’d have to wait around and row me back in,” said Frank. He might be able to swim the distance with Caroline, but it would be risky.

  “Will the bloke just give her to you?”

  “It could involve a fight.”

  “Now you’re talking,” said Kai. “We haven’t had a good punch up for a dog’s age. What do you say, my brothers?”

  “Alright, then,” said Taika. “Let’s do it. Give me the pound first, in case he shoots you or something.”

  They climbed into the ship’s boat; Taika tossed him an oar. “You gonna have to paddle, man. Make it even so we don’t go round in circles. Usually my other brother, Billy, is with us, but he took the horse back.”

  “What are you three — four — doing over here?” he asked, between pulls. “Do you live in this area?”

  “Titi,” said Taika. “That’s mutton birds to you. We’re from Invercargill, but we have an auntie in the Bluff.”

  “What about mutton birds?”

  “It’s harvest time, over on the island, late harvest. The young ones come out of their burrows at night and stretch their wings. Helps them grow, but makes it easy to catch them.”

  Frank had eaten mutton bird, a dark-brown bird about the size of a duck. He’d been told they acquired that name because they tasted like mutton, but he couldn’t see it. Tasted like a bird to him, a duck, but more fatty than duck if that were possible.

  “You’ve been over on Stewart Island harvesting mutton birds? Do you row across the Strait in that ship’s boat?”

  Taika took his time answering. They were almost at the ketch before he did. “We’re not supposed to do it. Only Maori born on the island can harvest the titi, but the titi don’t know that. And there’s so many. It’d be a waste if we left them.”

  “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t mention that I’m taking the baby back to her mother. And I won’t mention that you have this boat, either.”

  They grunted their agreement.

  Three crewmen were leaning over the rail of the ketch watching their approach, one wielding a long boat hook. The pole was wavering, as if the man holding it was nervous. None of the three looked ready for a fight.

  Kai stood on the seat of the ship’s boat, got his balance with his feet apart and his arms out, and then leapt forward and grabbed on to the hook, swinging and grinning back at his brothers. “I’m going to pull him in,” he said. “Watch.” He looked up at the crewman and said, “Hope you can swim.”

  The man slid slowly across the rails, the other two crewmen gradually releasing their hold on his trousers. As he hit the water, his arms wide, he screamed and then stopped as the wind was knocked out of him. He turned on his front and struck out towards the shore, his head up, his arms splashing wildly.

  “That’s my one,” said Kai. “Now you arseholes get yourselves one.”

  Taika and Nikau scrambled aboard the ketch and took on the two remaining crewmen, while Kai stayed in the boat, keeping it in place for the return. The combatants faced off, ignoring Frank, who grabbed hold of the ship’s rope and swung himself on board. He pushed past the four men and went into the cabin.

  “Fah!’

  Caroline was sitting on Sir Charles Pomeroy’s knee as he fed her grapes. He had a glass of something amber-coloured in one hand, and his eyes were half closed.

  “I do
n’t think you should be feeding her those,” said Frank. “She’ll choke.”

  Pomeroy set Caroline on the floor and rose languidly, swaying, his drink in his hand. “Is she always smelly like this?” he asked. “I assumed my daughter would be better perfumed.”

  His foolishness caught Frank off guard. “She needs to be…” he started to say.

  Pomeroy sprang past Caroline, tossed his glass on the floor, and lunged at Frank, grabbing him by the throat. Frank fell back and twisted around, pushing away with his heels. For a drunk, the man had a lot of strength in his hands. He managed to loosen his grip, and approached Pomeroy in a defensive crouch, his elbows out, hands ready, moving from one foot to the other.

  “I’m not going to be as easy as that dolt Smith,” said Pomeroy. He put up his fists like a bare-knuckle fighter. “I was a boxer at Eton. I still remember all the moves.”

  Frank was tired of old boys from English public schools telling him they had learned everything they knew at an elite school in Britain. He’d learned everything he knew about fighting in the army, and that training was much more brutal than anything Pomeroy might have learned at Eton.

  He feinted towards Pomeroy, a left jab and a right, bare-knuckle style, and then side-stepped and stamped the side of Pomeroy’s knee inwards, right at the joint. He heard a click and Pomeroy yelped and fell back onto the couch, clutching his knee to his chest. Out on the deck the Korowhiti boys were performing a thundering haka, a Maori war dance. They were trying to scare the crewmen, he knew. Secretly, most Europeans were terrified of Maori fighters. He heard a splash, followed by another as the crewmen jumped overboard.

  Caroline had crawled over to the door, looking back at Frank to see if he was going to follow. Keeping one eye on her, he grabbed Pomeroy by his ears and jerked him to his feet, then threw him back again, bouncing his head against the wall. Pomeroy grabbed him between his legs and squeezed hard. Frank flinched and tried to pull himself away. Pomeroy was learning, but a bit late in the day. He got hold of Pomeroy’s collar and pulled him upright. Pomeroy coughed once, let go of Frank’s crotch, and head butted him. It wasn’t a very successful head butt, but it did the job.

  “Damn you,” said Frank. He could feel blood oozing from his nose. Time to get this finished. He wound up and delivered a haymaker right into the centre of Pomeroy’s face. Pomeroy fell back onto the seat, blood gushing from his nose, dazed.

  Frank flexed his fingers, hoping he hadn’t broken any bones in his hand. “Next time you want to terrorize a woman alone with two babies, think twice.” He looked around the cabin. “Caroline?”

  She was gone. He rushed outside in time to see her doing what she had almost done in the shearing shed a few short days ago. She was on her feet, tottering towards the the open gate; he lunged for her just as she walked through it and into the water. He heard a splash.

  “Dammit, Caroline.”

  Frank leapt over the railing after her. She floated for a minute, her clothing billowing out around her head like a halo, and then sank slowly beneath the water, a surprised look on her face. He took a deep breath and plunged in the direction he’d last seen her.

  For a long, agonizing minute, he could not find her. The water was murky, full of the sand and dirt it had picked up along the shore. He was bursting for air, ready to go up for a breath, when he felt the side of her head. Holding one of her ears, he kicked himself lower, got one arm around her chest, and swam to the surface, gasping for air, pushing her up first above his head so she would surface first.

  “Are you alright Caroline?”

  She coughed and said a weak, “Fah?”

  “Thank god,” he said.

  “Hand her to me,” said Kai, from somewhere above him.

  He thrust her up into the boat, and dragged himself up after her. Taika and Nikau had followed him into the water, and they rolled across the gunnel, laughing happily.

  “That was bloody good,” said Nikau. “Any time you want to take us along on a fight, let us know.”

  Sir Charles Pomeroy was not done with them. He limped out onto the deck carrying a fowling piece that had probably been in his family for fifty years. Holding his gun straight out and pointed at Frank, he fired. The shot splashed in the water around the boat. Frank reached for his gun, knowing it might not fire after being in the water, but Taika beat him to it, bending down and opening a box underneath his seat. “Here, brothers,” he said. He took one rock, and another, and another, piling them by his feet. His brothers picked up the stones and lobbed them at Pomeroy, who withdrew to the safety of his cabin amidst a flurry of sea gulls that rose from the water, screeching, and surrounded the ketch.

  He peered out through the doorway, and said, “I’ll get you Hardy. I’ll send the full force of the law after you. I went to school with the Commissioner of Police. I’ll write him a strong letter as soon as I get back to England.”

  Frank hugged Caroline, laughing. “I’ve got a few months of freedom, then,” he said to the Korowhiti boys. “Lucky for me he hasn’t heard of the telegraph.” He took off Carolyn’s napkin, shook it out into the water and folded it back around her with the pilch holding it in place, mentally thanking Mrs. Brunton.

  “Best I can do, sorry,” he said to her. “Now, let’s get you home to your mother.”

  She smiled up at him. “Fah.”

  20

  Rewarded

  Frank decided that as long as Colonel Roberts was covering expenses, they would stay in a decent hotel and eat well. He inquired at the station and was directed to the Royal George Hotel on George Street, conveniently located a short distance from the North Ground, where Caroline had been kidnapped by the McNabs during a game of cricket, and therefore close to the home where she lived with her mother and her mother’s uncle, Mr. Smith’s employer.

  Mette was ecstatic when they arrived at the luxurious hotel, which she decided was even better than Captain Scott’s hotel in Bluff. She especially liked the fact that it was wedged between the Glasgow Pie House and Ready Money Richards, the latter a shop that sold high quality goods for low prices. She was determined to buy a nice frock for Sarah Jane at the Ready shop, because she was growing so fast. She still had ten shilling left, and she thought that would buy Sarah Jane a frock and some booties, with change enough for a coffee and a piece of pie at the pie house. That would keep the two of them occupied while Frank returned the gold ingot to the Bank of New Zealand, and Caroline to her mother, both of which Mette decreed he should do by himself.

  He started with the Bank of New Zealand, a few blocks south of the hotel on George Street. Six months earlier, men from the bank had delivered eleven boxes of gold ingots to the SS Tararua. Shortly after — no one was quite sure when — one of the boxes containing five ingots had been stolen by Hinton and his gang. Somehow or other, someone had brought the gold back to Dunedin with the intention of transferring it to Australia one ingot at a time. How much had already gone to Australia, or elsewhere, was unclear. Inspector Buckley suspected it could have gone to America, but he had no proof.

  The reward offered by the bank was a thousand pounds. How much of that could he expect for recovering one ingot and fingering Hinton as the guilty party. Knowing bankers, the smallest amount they could get away with, but he should have some cash coming to him. If they didn’t give him at least a hundred quid he would create a fuss.

  He was ushered in to the office of the assistant manager, a balding, middle-aged man wearing the same dark grey suit and embroidered waistcoat bankers wore throughout the colony and sporting a pair of gold-framed spectacles on the bridge of his nose.

  The assistant manager got right to the point. “Colonel Roberts contacted us saying you’ve retrieved part of our bullion.”

  Frank set Caroline on a wing chair beside the desk and opened his haversack. He placed the ingot on the assistant manager’s desk, where it sat, gleaming richly.

  The assistant manager picked it up and turned it over, checking to see if the hallmark was
correct, using his spectacles as a magnifying glass. “Yes. This is our gold. Thank you for returning it, Sergeant Hardy. What a pity there’s only the one ingot.”

  “My wife saw Hinton, the thief, going into a house on Moray Place,” said Frank. “I told Colonel Roberts about that in my telegram.” His second telegram, of course, the one he’d sent after Mette had finally showed him the Gladstone bag with the false bottom that opened with the key he’d found on Sampson, and he’d understood that when he’d seen Robert Hinton sailing off on the Te Anau with a bag by his feet, the bag had contained a large, boring manuscript.

  “The police have already raided that house,” said the assistant manager. “They found nothing, unfortunately. The woman who owns the house and rents out rooms said Hinton has been staying there regularly, always in the same room. She thinks he may have hidden the gold under the floorboards or in the walls. The bank inspectors pulled the room apart, but found nothing, as I said.”

  “Did you arrest Hinton when he disembarked in Melbourne?”

  The assistant manager laid the gold ingot back on his desk, replaced his spectacles and looked at Frank. “For what? All he had on him was a very large manuscript. He was as surprised to see it as the police were. And of course, they couldn’t arrest him for having a manuscript with him, even though it clearly did not belong to him. It wasn’t as if he was trying to claim he’d written it. If he had, we could have arrested him under the copyright laws.”

  “What happened to the manuscript?”

  The assistant manager shrugged. “I have no idea. The Melbourne Constabulary tossed it in the rubbish, I should imagine.”

  Frank sighed and picked up Caroline. “I believe there’s a reward?”

  “We’ll contact Colonel Roberts about that. I’m sure there’ll be something, but not the full amount, of course. Nothing close to it. Perhaps a small emolument to show our appreciation?”