Frank listened to the story Pieter told him with growing disbelief.
“This is not the fault of your sister-in-law,” he said finally. He had ridden out to the clearing to talk to Nissen, but finding him not home had stopped to talk to Pieter Sorensen, half hoping he would see the young woman again.
“She encouraged him,” Pieter said dismissively. “A woman should not dance with a single man unless she is willing to consider marrying him.”
“You know who it is then?”
“She wouldn’t say, but she danced with an unmarried man at the Monrad’s shed, one of the men on the road-building crew. I expect she gave him the impression she would like to marry him and he came to her room to visit her.”
“In the middle of the night? And he attacked her? That’s not a visit, that’s an invasion.”
Pieter nodded reluctantly. “Perhaps he went too far. But still, he’s a man. What should she expect if she flirts with someone.”
Frank was growing angry, but he could see there was no point in arguing with Pieter, any more than there had been with Sergeant Jackson.
“Would she talk with me?” he asked. He didn’t think it was the best idea, but at least something would be done about it.
“I do not see why she shouldn’t,” said Pieter, to Frank’s surprise.
He went to talk to Mette, who was washing linen in a large tub. She was looking tired and stressed and his heart ached for her. He brought up the subject cautiously.
“Your brother-in-law tells me you had a problem the other night.”
She nodded without looking at him and continued scrubbing at the washing.
“I told him that the person who attacked you was despicable,” said Frank. “Personally, I’d like to see him go to gaol for a good long time. And horsewhipped first.”
She glanced at him sideways, but said nothing, continuing to scrub the same spot on her wet clothing.
“Pieter thinks you did something to encourage him. I don’t agree.”
“No, I did not,” she spoke up, still scrubbing at the same spot on her garment. Frank glanced at it and saw that it was a nightdress. He saw a bloodstain and felt a jolt of cold horror, soon replaced by intense anger. Momentarily he was too angry to speak, but said finally, “I don’t think for a minute that you did anything to encourage him,” he said. “But Pieter doesn’t think like us.”
She looked up at him finally, letting the nightdress fall back into the water.
“He is not educated,” she said.
He smiled.
“So I noticed.”
He stood there for a while in silence, wondering what he could do. Finally, he said, “If you wish, I could have a talk to the man.”
“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t know who it was.”
“Pieter thinks it was someone from the Foxton road crew, a person you danced with at the dance.”
Her face reddened.
“How would he know that if I don’t know?”
“What do you know then? Was there anything about him that seemed familiar, or that you could describe?”
“He had bad teeth and bad breath,” she said.
Frank nodded, remembering his discussion with Jackson and his crew. Now he was sure he knew who the bastard was, and was not surprised.
“Lots of men around here with bad teeth,” he said, not letting her know that he had guessed whom it might be. “Difficult to narrow it down to one.”
“I don’t want you to try,” she said. “Pieter has made my door secure and I’ll be more careful about where I walk. I won’t have a problem again.”
“Best to avoid the bush paths now anyway,” he said. “Our friend from the other day, the piglet thief, is apparently hanging around up behind the mill. One of the…someone I spoke to the other day saw him there.”
She sighed. “I must stay in the clearing always, I suppose. That will make for a dull life.” Her hand pushed absently at the washing, trying to make it go away, causing the water to turn pink. If he could, he would kill the bastard who’d violated her.
“Tell me about the boys,” he said after a while. “Paul and Jens. I’m trying to discover what happened to them, for Hans Christian and Pieter.”
She stopped pushing at the washing.
“They were happy boys, full of life. Jens – he’s my cousin, or at least the cousin of my cousin. He’s like a brother to me. Paul was his friend. They did everything together, but Paul was the leader. They came from Schleswig last year, Paul first so he’s learned more English. They built themselves a raupo whare up near the logging camp and they lived…to tell the truth, they lived like two pigs. But happy pigs.” She smiled slightly at her own joke.
“What do you think has happened to them?” Frank asked, not mentioning he’d been to the boys’ whare.
“Sometimes I think they must have drowned, but then I know they could swim a little, or at least Paul could, and it seems strange that they would both drown. I wonder sometimes if someone killed them and hid them away. Like perhaps the Hauhau who tried to take my piglet.”
“If he was a Hauhau, which he may not be,” said Frank. “More likely a deserter who’s been living in the bush for years. He’d face a disciplinary hearing if he came out. Hanging, possibly.”
She put her hand to her throat.
“What a terrible punishment for someone who doesn’t want to fight. Is it right, do you think, to hang someone who runs away from the fighting?”
He was torn for a moment and then found himself telling her the story he’d told Hop Li.
“My own brother deserted,” he said. “He was in the 57th, the Die-Hards, with me, but the discipline was too much for him and he went across the river to the enemy camp.”
She put her hand over her mouth, staring at him.
“And they – your soldiers – brought him back and hanged him?”
He shook his head.
“It was worse than that. He deserted to the enemy - the Hauhau you are so afraid of - and they killed him.”
“Then I’m right to be afraid,” she said. “Did they shoot him?”
Frank looked away, wondering how much he could tell her.
“They cut off his head and displayed it to us, from across the river. On a pole.”
She reached her hand out towards him as if to comfort him.
“I’m very sorry. If they’ve done that to Paul and Jens, then I’ll kill them with my own hands.”
He shook his head, unable to speak for a minute.
“The beheadings and the cannibalism mostly happened during the wars, and it was already part of the culture. They’re more political now. You shouldn’t worry about Hauhau.” He thought about the man the Armed Constabulary were chasing. Could he be a Hauhau? Why would he be killing soldiers now, so many years after the Tito pursuit? Mette was sure she’d seen a Māori, but he still believed the man was a deserter.
Mette interrupted his thoughts.
“But you think they’re dead, don’t you, the boys?”
He nodded. “I’m sorry, but I do.”
“And will you find them? Find the bodies? We would all be happier if you could. It’s not knowing that’s so difficult.”
“I’m trying,” he said. “But there’s not much to go on. I found a bottle…maybe you recognize it…”
He handed her the bottle he’d found caught in the branches of the willow tree. She turned it over in her hands.
“It’s one of Knud’s, I think,” she said finally. “See these letters? HO – for the House of Oldenburg, the royal family of our country…our real country,” she added.
“Why would Knud need bottles like these?” he asked.
Mette blushed. “If I tell you, you can’t say anything to Pieter or Hans Christian.”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“At our church, we aren’t allowed to drink alcohol. But Knud, he makes beer from the matai tree in his tent across the river. That’s why he stays there sometimes…why he was there when they went across.”
An illicit still. He should have thought of that. And the foolish boys had gone across to buy cheap booze from him and been drunk when they returned.
“You know about this, but Sorensen and Nissen don’t?” he asked.
“Knud is my cousin,” she explained. “Not on the same side as Jens, who was also his cousin. Jens and I are…were not first cousins. As I said before, Jens is the cousin of my cousin, and that cousin is Knud.”
He smiled. “I think I’m following this.”
She smiled back self-consciously. “Well, one of the older women told me Knud was making alcohol from matai and asked me to say something to him, and I did once, at church. He didn’t deny he was making it but told me not to tell Pieter or Hans Christian. I said I wouldn’t if he didn’t sell it to any of the younger men as they aren’t used to alcohol at all. A neighbour of mine back at homemade himself sick by drinking…what do you call it?”
“Cheap grog?” said Frank. “Booze?”
She nodded. “Yes, booze. I didn’t want the younger men to start drinking booze. Perhaps he didn’t think Jens and Paul were - are - younger men.”
“Do you think Knud would talk to me honestly about it?”
“Probably not. But I could talk to him. We could go to him together.”
“Now?”
She looked up at him, her face more animated than it had been since he arrived.
“I’d like that,” she said.
Her sister Maren had come from the cottage, Hamlet on her hip, walking awkwardly with a belly swollen from a second child on the way.
“What would you like?” she said sharply. She had a round golden-pink face surrounded by a halo of white-blond curls and, unlike her sister, bright blue eyes. A pretty woman, undoubtedly, thought Frank, but not as interesting and intelligent-looking as her sister. Rather bland in fact, now he saw her up close.
“Sergeant Hardy has asked me to go down to the river to see what I think about how Paul and Jens went across,” improvised Mette.
Maren glared at Frank and then at Mette. “Pieter would not like you going off with this man,” she said.
He saw a long look pass between the sisters, a look he found impossible to read. Finally, Maren said reluctantly, “If he asks, I’ll say you went into town to fetch some seeds from Snelson’s. He won’t like that either. But better than saying you went off with Sergeant Hardy.” She gave Frank a hard look. “You will take care of my sister please.”
He nodded. “Of course, I will. I will protect her from the Hau…”
He saw Mette shake her head slightly and stopped. “From bushwhackers and murderers and wild pigs, and any dangerous creatures lurking in the bush. I swear.” He put his hand on his heart and grinned at Maren to show her he was making a joke. Maren’s frown faded slowly. She shook her head and turned to go back inside the house, shooting one last calculating look at Frank.
Mette wrung out her washing and hung it over the scrub.
“You’d think she was my big sister instead of my little sister,” she said. His horse had wandered over to where they were standing, and pushed its head against Frank, ready to leave.
“Would you like to ride?” he asked Mette.
“I haven’t been on a horse before,” she said nervously. “Except for…she won’t jump up and down, will she?”
“I’ll walk beside you and make sure she doesn’t try to throw you off,” he said and was surprised to see a quick look of disappointment flit across her face. Did she want to ride with him?
“I’ll make a step for you with my hands, and you can hold the saddle and pull yourself up.”
She managed to get herself into the saddle, after initially falling backwards and grabbing him around the neck, laughing heartily at her own clumsiness, which he rather enjoyed.
The river was over a mile away and he strode along in silence, thinking about what Mette had suffered, and wondering what he could do about it that didn’t end with him in the lockup. When they reached the spot where the track joined the path from the logging camp they could see Knud Jensen’s tent on the far side of the river. Jensen was busy working on something out the back.
“This is where they must have crossed,” he said. “Can you get down, or would you like a hand?”
She slid her leg awkwardly across the saddle, looked at the ground, and then at him. “I don’t know how to get off.”
“Hang on.” He stood facing her. “Put your hands on my shoulders and fall forward. I’ll catch you.”
She grabbed his shoulders and jumped. He staggered back, barely able to keep himself upright, and found himself holding her in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so clumsy.” She let him go and straightened her skirt, not looking at him.
He covered his embarrassment by taking the reins of the horse and walking further along the riverbank. “There’s no place here where a fallen log could span the river. The water’s down today, but it was high the day they went missing. They must have floated across on a log.”
Mette joined him and looked up and down the river, her face pink but composed.
“If I was going to use a log to float across,” she said, “I would push it in right here and try to land on that gravel down there.”
“Good suggestion. The curve in the river would throw you over to that side and you’d be swept right to the gravel. What about coming back though?”
“We can’t see from here,” said Mette. “Perhaps there’s another gravel patch they could aim for further down if they started at that one.”
“No, I checked down that way. Once the river goes around this bend it carries on straight down to the Pa.”
She frowned. “The Pa is near here? Are there Hauhau in this Pa?”
Frank sighed. No, there were no Hauhau in the Pa. They were traders, bringing fresh fish and vegetables up the river from Foxton in their waka, their dugout canoes. The town would starve without them. “I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s just a Pa, with people going about their business like you and me. I’m going to talk with them soon. You can come along if you like.”
“Perhaps,” she said nervously. “If Pieter…”
“I’ll clear it with Pieter,” he said. “But we’re here to see Knud. We’d better cross on Copenhagen. Sorry I made you climb down in the mud.”
“Copenhagen? Your horse’s name is Copenhagen, from my country? What a peculiar name for a horse” said Mette. “Why have you given her that name?”
“After the Old Duke’s horse,” said Frank. “Nothing to do with Denmark. I should have realized you’d… the Duke rode a warhorse named Copenhagen at the Battle of Waterloo. I thought the name would be a positive influence on this horse, even though she’s not a warhorse.”
Mette patted the horse’s nose tentatively. “She seems like a nice horse…are you sure she can carry us both across? Won’t we fall off and get swept away?”
“Don’t worry, the water’s barely up to the horse’s stirrups. It would take more water than this to move her.”
She grabbed hold of the saddle and pulled herself up as if she’d ridden all her life. “Come on up then,” she said. “I hope we don’t fall in and get swept away. I can’t swim.”
He eased the horse into the water, and she leaned sideways to watch the water as it rose slowly up towards the stirrups. After a few minutes, it began to recede.
“The water didn’t even reach my feet,” she said. He was holding her firmly around the waist, but she didn’t seem to notice. On the other side, the horse stopped and shook its mane, showering them both with droplets of water.
“See?” said Frank to Mette, who was laughing softly, her hand over her mouth. “She wouldn’t make a good war horse - she isn’t smart enough. I’ll tie her up here to reconsider her actions while we visit your cousin Knud.”
“Yes, that’s my bottle,” said Knud. “Where did you find it?” He was sitting by a large kettle of boiling water with leaves and branches floating on the surface. He was older than Mette, in his thirties Frank thought, his hair darker than his cousin, a gingery red colour, with heavy eyebrows that joined in the centre and hung over light blue eyes. Deep vertical lines gouged his cheeks, giving him a hangdog look.
“It was caught in the branches of the willow tree hanging over into the river, down that way,” said Frank. “I was wondering if the boys could have dropped it. Did they have a bottle from you when they left here?”
Knud’s eyes shifted away from Frank’s gaze, then returned.
“No,” he said without conviction. “They were boys. I wouldn’t sell them my, my tea.”
“Warten Sie ein minute, Knud,” said Mette. “Wir beide, I mean to say both of us know you do not sell tea. Did you sell alcohol to the boys, when I specifically said not to do it? How could you do that?”
Knud scratched himself under his armpit and said nothing, refusing to meet her eyes.
She glanced at Frank. “Well, perhaps it makes no difference now, but knowing they were drinking might help us find them, or at least give us a reason for them to have drowned. Their families want to know, Knud. You must understand that.”
Knud looked downcast. “I’m sorry Mette. I gave them a bottle, yes, I did give them a bottle – maybe that one there, which is certainly mine. What was I to do? They were cold when they arrived at my tent. They came across the river holding on to a log and the water was freezing. I could hear Paul’s teeth chattering.”
“You mean you gave them a drink before they crossed back?” Asked Mette. “Surely that was not a good idea because …”
Frank interrupted her. “You say they were in the river when they crossed it? They didn’t walk across on a log?”
Knud shrugged. “As I said, they were wet.”
“But you didn’t tell Hans Christian this,” asked Frank. “That they were in the water and not walking across a log?”
“He didn’t ask. I assumed he knew what I meant.”
Mette was frowning at her cousin.
“You gave the boys a drink and then you let them cross the river holding on to a log, knowing only Paul could swim?”
Knud looked uncomfortable.
“How was I to know they couldn’t swim,” he said, his voice rising. “Anyway, I cross the river all the time. The river is calm and shallow here.”
“Not that day,” said Frank. “So, you gave them a drink, and a bottle to take with them?”
Knud nodded, looking more miserable by the minute.
“And the stopper was missing, so if this is the bottle you gave them, they had opened it and drunk more - possibly all of it.”
Knud was practically shrinking into his own body, staring at the brew in the kettle, no longer stirring it.
“I…I suppose that’s true,” he said.
Frank looked at Mette.
“So,” he said. “We have two young boys who were not used to drinking alcohol, with a couple of drinks in their bellies, jumping into the river to float across on a log. They came across and landed on the gravel spit down there, as you guessed, and when they tried to go back, half tanked at that point, they had nowhere to land and were swept downstream.”
Mette sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes.
“That Māori chap was watching them when they came across,” said Knud suddenly, evidently thinking that he could redeem himself with the information. “Thought I couldn’t see him skulking on the other bank, but I could. Not the only time he was here, neither. He came back the next day as well. I saw him twice…”
Frank and Mette both stared at him.
“He had a tomahawk too,” added Knud. “On his hip. Not that I was worried about him, but he could’ve helped them if they got into trouble. Don’t know why he wouldn’t.”
“You’re sure he was a Māori?” Frank asked. “What did he look like?”
“I thought he was. Kind of looks like you, come to think of it. Big like you, but with blue moko on his face so I could tell he was a Māori.”
“The Hauhau,” said Mette. “I knew it. Perhaps he saw them in the river and went in and killed them.”
Frank frowned. He wasn’t ready to give up on the idea that the man was a deserter, and the presence of moko did not necessarily make him a Māori.
“It seems rather too much to think they were drinking and possibly in trouble, and then someone tried to kill them,” he said.
“I suppose so,” said Mette. “But Sergeant Hardy, how do you explain that the search party couldn’t find their bodies. Something must have happened - something more than drowning. Someone found the bodies and hid them; at least that much must have happened.”
“Mette, you may call me Frank,” he said as if Knud was not there. “Sergeant Hardy sounds very formal and makes me feel as if I’m still in the army.”
Knud watched them, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. That will set the cat amongst the pigeons, thought Frank. Now they’ll have us married off before you know it. Once the idea was in his head, though, it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.
“Of course,” he said, trying to undo the situation, “You could always call me Mr. Hardy.”
Mette laughed loudly and it made him feel better than he had for a long time.
“I’ll call you Sergeant Frank,” she said. “A, what do you call it, a compromise.”
He avoided looking at her, feeling an emotion he hadn’t felt for years, and afraid it would show on his face, and said to Knud, “If the boys were swept downstream, where might they be?”
Knud spat into the dirt and stood up. “Likely down by the Papaioea Pa,” he said, gesturing downstream. “Down that way. Course, if they found them down there they would’ve told Constable Price. Or at least, one of the Native constables woulda told him. Nothing in it for them to hide a couple of bodies. Not like they were carrying money or anything.”
“Perhaps they blamed them for the government action on the Manchester Block, the one where many of the Scandi are building farms,” said Frank.
“Don’t see why,” said Knud. “They’ve been causing a bit o’ trouble over there, in Feilding, like. But I can’t see them coming up here and looking for two boys and killing them, just because they looked like Scandi and happened to be in the river.”
“Sergeant Frank, you said we should go down to the Pa and talk to them,” said Mette. “Why don’t we do that? Perhaps you’ll be able to tell if they seem blood-thirsty and likely to kill two of my people. Could we go there right this minute?”
“It’s getting late now,” said Frank. “What about tomorrow? Would you be able to come? Would Pieter stop you? I could come and fetch you around midday.”
They started back down to the river while Mette thought about it.
“I think I am able to come,” she said after a few minutes. “But not tomorrow. Tomorrow is Sunday and I must go to church. I could come with you to the Pa on Monday.”
He shook his head.
“I’m off to Napier on Monday,” he said. “I’ll be back late Tuesday. We’ll go to the Pa on Wednesday. I’ll come and collect you early, as soon as the sun is up.”
“I’d like that.” She smiled at him. He felt his heart lurch and smiled back.
“If you promise they won’t hurt me, and if you are there Sergeant Frank, I think I might enjoy seeing the Pa.”
“I promise,” he said, seriously this time. “Mette, I heard you speak German to Knud back there. Why did you not speak Danish?”
“My land, Schleswig, now belongs to Germany. That is why Hans Christian, and Pieter, and many people from Schleswig, came to New Zealand. We don’t want to be Germans or to fight with the Prussians against France, and the young men, they don’t wish to be forced to join the Prussian army. In Schleswig, we—the Danish people—speak Danish at home and German everywhere else. Except for at church of course, but even there…there are German people living in Schleswig as well and they go to church with us.”
“How terrible that Paul and Jens left home to avoid conscription into the army, and then died doing a simple thing like crossing a river,” he said.
“That’s true,” she said. “But their mothers would rather have them die here than die in the Prussian army. We do not love General Bismarck and his troops in Schleswig.”
“Has Hans Christian written home about his brother and his cousin?” Frank asked. “The families must be worried.”
“That’s why we must find them,” she said. “He can’t write when he doesn’t know for certain what’s happened to them, and every day he feels more and more guilty because he hasn’t told his mother.”
Frank took her hand. “I intend to try hard to find them, Mette,” he said. “Dead or alive.”
She gave him a questioning, somewhat calculating look, and said, to his bewilderment, “Do you smoke a pipe, Sergeant Frank?”
He shook his head. “Just cigarettes when I can get them. But not now. I ran out.”
They came to the river where Copenhagen stood waiting patiently. Mette pulled the back hem of her skirt forward and up and climbed astride the horse. Frank mounted behind her and put one hand around her waist to hold her steady, holding the reins with the other. He felt her lean back against him. It felt right, and he was sorry the ride across the river was so brief.
Halfway across, Copenhagen stopped and tossed her head, whinnying softly.
“What is it girl,” said Frank. “Something there?” He looked down into the water. It was muddy, but he could make out something on the bottom. He backed the horse up and took a different route. On the other side, he helped Mette down, sat on a log and took off his boots.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going out to see what was stopping her,” he said. “Something is down there. Might be nothing.”
“Oh,” said Mette, understanding. “I hope…”
“If I get swept away, make sure my boots go to a deserving person,” he said, making her laugh. He stepped out cautiously, feeling around with his feet.
“Is it cold?” she asked.
“Bloo…very cold,” he said. “Ah, here’s something. He pulled up his shirtsleeves and bent down, pulling something up. He dragged it to the track and tossed it down.
“An old boot,” he said. “I thought it might be something important, but…”
She stood without moving, staring at the boot. “Paul’s boot…”
He put his arm around her shoulder and looked down at the boot.
“How do you know?”
She knelt and picked it up.
“See here? The laces are not threaded through all the way to the top. Paul always wore his boots like that. And this mark? He burned his boot in a fire a few weeks ago. A spark came out of the cooking fire and set light to the brush, and he stamped it out. I remember him joking about the shape of the burn. He said it looked like the Kaiser with his moustache and…”
She clutched it to herself and started to cry.
“He must be in the river,” he said. “I’m sorry…”
“Someone could have thrown his boot into the river to make us think that,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Possibly,” he said. “But at least we know he was in or near the river at some point, and however he left he wasn’t wearing at least one of his boots.”
He helped her mount Copenhagen and walked her back to the clearing. He’d enjoyed holding her as they forded the river, and thought perhaps he shouldn’t have. She was a young, innocent woman, destined to marry someone much like the missing Paul and to have many blond children. She was not for the likes of him, with his warrior past and his nightmares. She should do better.
He left her at her front door, still holding the boot to her chest. She planned to show it to Pieter and let him break the news to Hans Christian.