Frank left Napier early on Wednesday morning and headed for Woodville to collect Mette, stopping in small towns and settlements to drop off and pick up the mail. He passed quickly through Waipawa, Waipukurau, and Dannevirke, and then stopped in Norsewood, where the Manawatu River started its journey towards the ranges and Palmerston, to water his horses. He walked around the town to stretch his legs, and saw for the first time how many Scandinavians lived there. Stood to reason, of course. Norsewood. They were rugged people, well suited to the task of clearing the bush and building the roads. But they did the work to get land, and they deserved to be given land. Shame on the government in Wellington, and especially on Sir Julius Vogel for bringing them to New Zealand with vague promises of land.
Of course, the Māori deserved to keep their own land as well, but he had been at Mawhitiwhiti in ‘68 when the Pai Marire, Mette’s Hauhau,had slaughtered four sawyers over cutting rights, and then killed a loyal native who came to negotiate, cutting him to pieces with their tomahawks. Sometimes it was hard to find it in his heart to forgive the extremists even though they only wanted their land returned to them. He’d been recruited into the Constabulary a few months after the incident, and helped confiscate the land of rebels. And then had come the pursuit of Titokowaru and the terrible things that had led to. This country was a difficult place to live. He thought about his talk with Karira and was momentarily overwhelmed with the emotions of the memories that returned to him. Some day he would have to tell Mette about what he’d seen that day. But for now, he couldn’t bear the thought of her looking at him in horror. He wanted to say, it wasn’t my fault. But it was, he knew. He was part of it.
With his horses fed and watered, and ready to go again, he took off towards the next stop at Matamau. There, two roads formed a T-junction, with small farms being carved out of the bush along the road running up to Ormondville. He could see that in this place, as in so many others, England and Scotland and Wales would be rebuilt here in the colony, and the natives would be displaced, moved out to who knows where. A lone building stood at the spot where the roads met, with a post office, a police station, and a general store. The mail flag was not up, but he stopped to see if they had any cigarettes. Sometimes he got lucky, and he needed a cigarette right now.
A group of Māori men squatted in front of the door to the post office, smoking clay pipes. They were clad in European clothing, but were barefoot. He nodded in greeting, “Kia ora.”
They nodded back to him, muttering greetings. As he was about to enter the post office a familiar voice said, “Sergeant Hardy?”
He turned. “Yes?”
One of the “Māori” rose to his feet. He was looking at Frank with a lopsided grin, half friendly, half nervous, his pipe clenched in his hand a few inches from his chin, which was covered by a full beard, reddish brown and streaked with grey. His forehead was tanned dark by the sun, but pale blue eyes looked out at Frank. It was clear that he was not a Māori. A deserter by the look of him.
“Private Bent,” the man said, confirming Frank’s suspicions. “Or was. Kimbell Bent late of the Die Hards. Ringiringi they call me now.” He held out his hand to Frank.
“Good Lord, so it is,” said Frank, shaking Bent’s hand. “How have you found yourself in these parts? I thought you would have been killed years ago. Didn’t Her Majesty’s Imperial Forces come looking for you? Or the Pai Marire?”
Bent shrugged.
“I’m one of them now. I have a Māori wife and an iwi– a tribe – I belong to. I work a little, but I rest as well, on many days. No waiting for Sunday, the day when my body can recover from the aches and pains of work. I have a pleasant, carefree life, although I miss talking to Englishmen.”
“I’d talk to you if I had the time,” said Frank. “But I’m on my way to Woodville with the mail, then on to Foxton and Palmerston. Can I take a message from you to someone? Your family must wonder if you’re still alive, surely.”
“My family is gone, those that care. But I’d appreciate a ride down to Tahoari,” said Bent. “I don’t need to go there for any reason, but I’d surely like the opportunity to talk with an Englishman again.”
Frank nodded. “You’re welcome to ride for those few miles. I’d appreciate the company as well.”
Ringiringi climbed up onto the front seat of the coach, smiling happily. “Hei kona ra,” he said to the group he had been sitting with. “Tomorrow.”
Frank settled the horses to a steady trot before he said anything. After a while, he asked, “They treat you well, the Pai Marire?”
Ringiringi shrugged. “Well enough. I was a bit of a plaything for them at first. Owning a pakeha was quite the thing for them, and they paraded me around to tribes to show me off. But once they were accustomed to me they started to trust me. They gave me a wife, but she didn’t stay around long. An ugly woman, but nice enough. Daughter of a chief. I have another wife now. Titokowaru’s daughter. Friends, we were, Titoko and me.”
“You were with Titokowaru,” asked Frank. “Until the end?”
Ringiringi shook his head. “Just until Otauku. He sent me off, said it were getting dangerous. Then they chased him into the Great Swamp and I were glad he’d sent me off. The Kupapa and the colonists, they were nasty. Lot of people died on that chase. Old people, women, children, even babies. They didn’t give no quarter to the woman or the children.”
Frank felt sick.
“I was with Whitmore for the chase,” he said. “But believe me Bent, I did nothing to the women and children. I was not a part of it.”
Ringiringi looked at him, his expression unreadable.
“I expect not,” he said. “You were always a decent chap.”
“What about other deserters,” asked Frank. “Were they with Titoko as well?”
“Some,” he said. “One or two tried to desert back, but that didn’t go too well for them. Don’t like traitors, the Hauhau.”
Frank hesitated for a minute, then asked, “Did you encounter a private named Hardy, Will Hardy? He deserted before you.”
“I heard about him yes. But he were already dead by the time I went over,” said Ringiringi. “I heard about the beheading. That was a bad thing. Even the Hauhau– my Hauhau– thought so. Not something they’d have done, they told me.”
Frank said nothing, and after a few minutes Ringiringi continued, “He wasn’t one of ours, you know, the feller that did it. Came down from the north, up near Waitara, where the wars started. Your brother would have been fine with my lot, so long as he swore he would stay with them, like I did, but that big feller, he came to our camp the same day your brother came over the river. He wanted the pakehato die, and the chief couldn’t say no, especially after the ceremony. The chief, he left your brother in a hut, so he told me, and the big feller went in there and cut off his head. He were screaming something terrible, so they said.”
Frank felt his gorge rise. His worst fears confirmed. Will had been beheaded alive. The image of that warrior riding up on his horse, Will’s head hanging from his hand by a hank of hair, sprang into his mind and choked him. He was unable to speak. Poor, poor misguided Will. Frank would never be able to tell their father about this, and he knew the secret would weigh heavily upon him.
“Sorry to be the one to tell you,” apologized Ringiringi. “Best to know the truth, don’t you think?”
“Did you ever see the man who killed my brother, the big fellow, after he killed Will?” asked Frank. Was it possible that Anahera was the same man? The description was similar although there had been no sign of moko on Will’s murder’s face.
“From time to time. He came by every few months to make sure my lot was being warlike enough. We weren’t you know. We didn’t really like to fight. We ran like headless chooks from Otapawa. Lot of us died first as well. Were you there?”
Frank nodded. “Was it you who called out to us? Someone yelled from the palisade at us that day, in English.”
Ringiringi looked sheepish. “That were me,” he said. “I were thinking you had no chance against us, and would run off. But we ran off. The five pounders scared us. But I didn’t kill Colonel Hassard. I know they said I did, but I didn’t.”
“Must have been 300 died in the Pa that day. It was a slaughter.”
“Not 300 hundred,” said Ringiringi. “Not near 300, but it were a slaughter, that it were.” He added, “Someone killed his brother.”
“Whose brother?” asked Frank, confused.
“The big feller,” said Ringiringi. “I remembered he were living with us. His brother I mean to say. That’s partly why the big feller came to visit so often. He wanted his brother out of the way of the fighting, but of course it worked out just the opposite, and his brother were killed.”
“What made him think his brother needed to be protected? Wasn’t he a fighter?” Frank asked.
“Too young,” said Ringiringi. “A boy, about thirteen or fourteen. He was supposed to be with the woman and children, back in the bush at the hiding place, but he came back to the pato bring us a musket – a very old one, not much use to it – and on the way he ran into one of you blokes and was killed.”
Frank said nothing. He knew who had killed the man’s brother. He’d done it himself, and it had haunted him for years. A young boy he’d encountered in a clearing had pointed a musket rifle at him. He gave the boy a chance to drop the gun, but he’d raised it and pointed it at Frank. Frank had shot him. He beheaded my brother, he thought, and I killed his brother. There was no point to it all, the fighting. People got killed who were not supposed to be killed, and the real warriors lived, scarred and bitter by their experiences, like him.
After a while, Ringiringi continued.
“He would want utu, you know. Balance. Revenge. Whoever it was that killed his brother, if he could, he’d find him and kill him. It’s his duty to do that. They need to retain their mana. Doesn’t matter if you do a good deed or a bad one, it must be repaid in kind.”
Frank nodded.
“I understand. But would he want utu or vengeance?”
Ringiringi shrugged. “No difference.”
If it was utu he was after, thought Frank, he had it.
He said, “Where’s this big feller now? Could he be out looking for someone who had killed his brother, do you think?” Was it possible that Anahera was after Frank? But no one knew what had happened at the attack on the Pa.
Ringiringi shook his head. “No. He were killed during the early part of Titoko’s war. Up near Patea at the Turuturumokai redoubt. Took a few of your boys with him I heard.”
“Do you know anything about him?” asked Frank, noting that when Ringiringi had said “your boys” he was siding with the Hauhau. “Where he was from. Which iwi? Did he have another brother?”
“The big feller was a war chief, even though he weren’t from our iwi. Came from up near Waitara, as I said before. Don’t know what iwi though, or if he had a brother. He had a ceremony he would perform sometimes before a fight – a sacred weapon he would place on the ground until it pointed to someone. I seen it myself once. He would go into a trance and chant until the bloody thing moved by itself. When it stopped, and pointed at some poor bastard he would haul the bugger up and ask him if his heart were strong within him.”
“And surely a man would answer yes, if he valued his life,” said Frank. He was waiting to hear how this story would enlighten him on his brother’s beheading.
Ringiringi took a pull at his pipe.
“Most did, most did. Because they knew if they didn’t they would be taken out and tomahawked to pieces. When they left to fight, he would be there, chanting: Patua, kainga! Patua, kainga! E kai mau! Kaua e tukua kia haere! Kia mau ki tou ringa.”
“Kill them, eat them, kill them, eat them, let them not escape,” translated Frank. “That was the chant of Titokowaru, wasn’t it? I take it my brother refused to say his heart was strong within him?”
“Well, he wuz confused, like. Asked what the big feller meant, and said he didn’t come over to kill and eat his own kind. Then he went off to the hut he wuz given, and in the night, as I said, the big feller went in and killed him.”
“But you agreed?” said Frank, trying not to think about Will’s fate. “You would have eaten British flesh if they had asked you to?”
Ringiringi’s face showed a quick flash of humour.
“British, I would. But I’m a Yankee, aren’t I? Born in Eastport, Maine.”
When Frank said nothing, Ringiringi added, “Just fooling with ya. I wouldn’t eat human flesh, and they didn’t make me. If they beat them – the pakeha that is – in battle, they would bring back a piece of flesh, usually the heart, ripped from the body of the first man they killed in the fight. They would offer it to their Tohunga. All he did was light a flame and singe it a bit, then throw it away. One time, after the fight at Papatihakehake I saw a bloke cut open the body of a dead pakeha and tear the heart from it, but he wuz already dead, and no one ate his heart. Just ceremonial I suppose.”
They travelled in silence after that. Frank let his passenger off at Tahoarite, where he squatted by the side of the road and start sucking on his clay pipe again. He was several miles from his former companions, and Frank wondered how he intended to return to them. Walk back, probably. The Māori, which Bent had become, were used to travelling long distances overland on foot. Bent, or Ringiringi, had settled for a simple life, but Frank wondered how it was possible to survive as part of another world so different from his own.