White Feathers (5 page)

Initially the Maori Contingent had been intended as a garrison force in both Samoa and Egypt, freeing up other New Zealand troops to fight elsewhere, but after only a few days at Avondale it became clear that the Maori volunteers, backed by their tribal leaders, had no intention at all of being separated and sent to serve in two different places. There was more trouble when the volunteers were divided into two companies that arbitrarily threw members of different tribes together.

Ihaka complained bitterly to Joseph, ‘What a stupid thing to do. How can we uphold the name of the Maori race and take with us into battle the brave reputation of our ancestors if we are all mixed up? I will not fight alongside tribes who have been our enemies for generations. Will you?’

Privately, Joseph expected that intertribal rivalries would be forgotten the moment he and his cohorts came face to face with the enemy, but he knew how important Ihaka’s warrior heritage was to him. He finished winding his puttees firmly about his calves and stood up, stretching until his spine cracked; he had grown a little soft sleeping on mattresses and pillows since his return from Australia. ‘In the end, Ihaka, we will fight next to the men we’re told to fight next to. This is a Pakeha army, remember, and we may not end up in battle at all. And don’t speak
te reo
, eh? It upsets the Pakeha officers.’

Ihaka hissed through his teeth, but switched to English. ‘
Ea
, I am going to Egypt to
fight
, not to dig latrines for some fat Pakeha officer’s arse to sit on! I’ll run away to join the fighting soldiers if I have to, and I won’t be the only one, eh!’

Probably not, reflected Joseph. Ihaka, like many of the
volunteers, had been angry to discover that while officers up to the rank of captain would include Maori, commanding officers above that would be Pakeha only. But Joseph believed the men would accept the arrangements once they discovered that much of the practical direction in battle comes from non-commissioned officers. In South Africa he had never bothered too much with orders given by the more senior officers but had relied almost solely on the advice and instruction of Sergeant Thornton, who had led the section.

‘We’ll see. Things will sort themselves out soon enough,’ he said philosophically.

As it turned out, two things happened that greatly improved the morale of the camp in general. First, after much protest, the two companies were reconfigured so that men from the West Coast, South Island and North Auckland tribes made up A Company, while B Company comprised the East Coast tribes. This minimised, although it did not entirely eradicate, intertribal rivalry. Then, early in November, the men were told that the whole Maori Contingent would be sent to Egypt.

After that, they settled down to train with an enthusiasm that impressed many observers. The job of instructing the new recruits, however, was not made any easier by the seemingly continual arrival of family members at the camp. By the time parents had located and removed errant sons, and wives had done the same with husbands who had been seduced by the prospect of war and adventure over seas, holes were beginning to appear in the ranks. Also vanishing were the men judged unfit by the medical officer, Major Te Rangi Hiroa, an old schoolmate of Joseph’s, as well as those who had changed their minds about joining the army and had quietly deserted. However, a constant stream of reinforcements, in the form of new arrivals, meant that the contingent was never under-manned.

Because of his age and his previous combat experience, Joseph was promoted almost immediately to the rank of sergeant, a development he found moderately embarrassing but also pleasing. He was grateful to find that the composition of his section, which included Wi and Ihaka, did not change, and within the first week of serious training he was proud to report that his men were progressing well and working admirably within the platoon. This was not strictly true, for Ihaka was displaying a rather reckless independence, but Joseph was quietly convinced that, when the time came, his friend could be relied upon to perform in the best interests of his fellow soldiers.

Finally, on the 10th of January 1915, the two companies of the Maori Contingent paraded proudly down Auckland’s Queen Street to the wharf where the SS
Warrimoo
was waiting to transport them to Wellington.

Joseph, marching along with his head up and his rifle against his left shoulder, felt oddly ambivalent. Here they were, five hundred of the Maori race’s best warriors on the eve of departing to fight an imperial war in a foreign land, and there was barely a murmur from the predominantly Pakeha crowd lining the street. As the slap of a thousand booted feet echoed off the tall buildings, he wondered what the bystanders were thinking. Were they asking themselves why these five hundred had volunteered to fight in a war that was essentially nothing to do with Maori? If they were, Joseph didn’t blame them; from time to time he had caught himself wondering exactly the same thing.

Then he glanced at Ihaka, marching energetically beside him with his chin thrust out and a ferocious look on his dark face, and smiled to himself. Yes, he was doing the right thing.

The reception in Wellington was much more enthusiastic. The
citizens cheered as the Maori Contingent, together with reinforcements for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, marched through the city streets to Newtown Park. And Joseph was surprised and delighted to spy Keely waving furiously at him from the forefront of the crowd at the park.

Shouldering his kit he hurried over. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Don’t look so amazed, Joseph, we’ve come to farewell you! Mam rang us and said you’d be here today.’

‘We?’

‘Yes, Thomas and Erin are here too, somewhere. On the other side of the park, I think, trying to find you. I must say, your contingent is looking good. Come on, let’s go and find the others,’ she said, taking his hand and yanking him along behind her.

Thomas and Erin were standing under a tree, gazing about in bewilderment, and turned in unison as Keely shouted, ‘I’ve found him!’

Thomas hadn’t changed much at all since the last time Joseph had seen him. A little taller, perhaps, but still lean and rangy and looking very much like his father with his light brown hair and mild blue eyes. At twenty-four he was the most retiring and reserved of Tamar’s sons, but blessed with a very quick mind and a sense of commitment he applied diligently to everything he did. His sense of humour remained hidden from most but he was a kind and earnest young man with plenty of friends and the respect and admiration of his tutors at Otago law school.

Joseph grasped his hand and shook it warmly. ‘Good to see you, Thomas! I thought you were still down south?’

Thomas grinned in pleasure. ‘Well, I was, but I’m back up for a little while to sort out a few bits and pieces. I’m on my way home to see Mam and Da but I thought I’d stop in and visit Keely.’

‘Well, I’m glad you did. God only knows when I’ll be back.’

‘Yes,’ replied Thomas, a worried expression replacing his smile.
‘Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, going off again?’

Joseph nodded. ‘I think so, yes. And any way it’s a bit late now to change my mind.’

Thomas pulled a face and shrugged, then turned to the young woman beside him and said, ‘You haven’t said hello to Erin yet.’

Joseph, who’d had one surreptitious but pleasantly surprised eye on Erin the whole time, was intrigued to see her blush. Unlike Thomas, she had changed significantly. She had always been moderately tall, but now, at twenty-four, she had blossomed into a very shapely young woman with wide shoulders, a full bust above a neat waist and generously rounded hips. Her hair, heavy and dark like her mother’s, was parted demurely in the middle and pulled back into a smooth bun at the nape of her neck, framing a face that made Joseph think of illustrations he had seen of women from ancient Rome. Erin’s nose was certainly patrician and her mouth full but her eyes, slightly slanted and a deep, velvet brown fringed with long black lashes, almost completely dominated her currently rather pink face.

He took her hand and gave her a peck on the cheek, suddenly feeling unaccountably uncomfortable himself. ‘Erin, it’s lovely to see you. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes, years,’ she agreed, extricating her hand from Joseph’s grasp. ‘It seems that whenever you were home, I wasn’t. We kept missing each other.’

‘Yes,’ said Joseph unnecessarily. She really did have the most extraordinary eyes. ‘How’s the nursing going?’ he asked lamely, feeling uncharacteristically tongue-tied.

‘Fine,’ she replied.

‘Good,’ he said.

At the periphery of his vision Joseph noticed Keely winking exaggeratedly at Thomas, and demanded, ‘What?’

‘Something in my eye, I think,’ replied Keely, giggling and
dabbing theatrically with her handkerchief.

Joseph was mystified, and Erin seemed even more embarrassed.

At that moment a piercing whistle sounded and Joseph said, ‘Damn, I’ll have to go now. Thanks for coming, and I’ll see you all when I get home!’ And with another quick kiss for each of the girls and a pat on the back for Thomas, he hurried off to rejoin his unit.

‘What was that all about?’ asked Thomas, perplexed.

Keely smirked. ‘Erin has fancied Joseph for years and years, and I thought it would be nice for her to see him before he left. She hasn’t seen him for ages, you know.’

Thomas shook his head reproachfully. ‘You’ll get into a terrible muddle one of these days, Keely, interfering in other people’s lives.’ He had never quite forgotten one disastrous assignation Keely had engineered a year ago involving himself and a nurse friend of hers. Although he had the normal instincts of a young man, his rather undeveloped social skills had let him down badly and his face still burned at the memory of it. ‘How do you know Joseph is interested?’ he added, then turned to his cousin. ‘I’m sorry, Erin, but he might not be, and that’s embarrassing for everyone.’

Erin, still looking rather mortified, said, ‘I know, Thomas. It was Keely’s idea and now I wish I hadn’t let her talk me into it.’

‘But he does fancy you, Erin!’ protested Keely. ‘Didn’t you see the look on his face? You’re exactly the type of girl who would appeal to him.’

‘How do you know that?’ demanded Thomas. ‘And any way, they’re cousins.’

Keely tapped her nose conspiratorially. ‘A woman can sense these things, Thomas. And they’re only kissing cousins, no blood ties, remember?’

‘Oh Keely, leave it alone, will you?’ said Erin crossly. Now that
Joseph had gone, her excitement at seeing him had degenerated into a vague feeling of depression.

‘Any way, we might bump into him over there,’ added Keely airily.

Thomas frowned. ‘Over where?’

‘France, perhaps, or maybe Egypt. Erin and I have both volunteered for service over seas with the New Zealand Army Nursing Service.’

Inside his tiny tent, Joseph shivered in his military issue shorts and light tunic as the temperature and the sun both went down. Sitting cross-legged on his thin blanket spread over sandy but deceptively hard ground, he glanced up as the tent flap was flipped briskly back to see the grinning face of a fellow sergeant, Jack Herewini, peering in at him.

‘
Kia ora
, mate. We’re sharing, eh. Shove over.’

Joseph grinned himself and moved his kit out of the way, reflecting that although the tent was barely big enough for a single person he should have known he would be required to occupy it with at least one other. He didn’t mind at all, however; Jack Herewini was an amiable and interesting character, strict with his men but always ready to see the humour in everything around him, and they had shared some memorable experiences during their training at Avondale. He was also a distant cousin of Joseph’s, hailing from a village some thirty miles further up the East Coast from Maungakakari, and they had quite a few relatives and acquaintances in common.

The trip to Egypt on the
Warrimoo
had been long, tedious and unremarkable. Even Joseph, accustomed to the sea, was bored and impatient by the time they reached Suez at the end of March. Although the days were partially occupied with drill and training, the cramped conditions on board and the dull food made life
monotonous. The exotic minarets, mosques and bazaars of Cairo made a welcome change but the contingent had little time to explore before being marched off to the New Zealand military camp at Zeitoun, a sprawling tent city squatting under the ancient obelisk of Matarieh.

‘You got any food?’ Jack asked, crawling into the tent and dumping his kit in a corner.

‘No, but I could do with some,’ Joseph replied.

As if in agreement Jack’s stomach rumbled loudly. ‘Me too. Go for a walk, eh, see what we can scrounge.’

Joseph quickly nodded; he wanted to check on his men any way.

Outside, twilight stained the countryside a deep purple and made hazards of the guy ropes radiating out from the long lines of tents. Jack had fallen over three and sworn long and loud by the time they located a large tent filled with trestle tables, from behind which a handful of the Expeditionary Force catering corps were handing out cups of cocoa and bread spread with jam.

‘Yous are lucky,’ said one of them, a Pakeha soldier with a lance corporal’s stripe on his sleeve. ‘We were just going to close up but someone said yous were coming in late. Good on ya, too. My old man always said you lot were good fighters.’

‘Thanks, mate,’ said Jack through a mouthful of bread. ‘Glad to be here. Took long enough.’ He swallowed and emptied his mug in one long draught. ‘Seen any fighting yet?’

‘Me? Nah, I come over with the Main Body and I been stirring bloody pots ever since. No doubt we’ll be right in the middle of it, though, soon as we get face to face with Johnny Turk.’

‘On the Gallipoli Peninsula, you mean?’ asked Joseph.

‘Yep. Can’t wait. Are you lot coming with us?’

‘Don’t know yet,’ Jack replied, helping himself to another slab of bread. ‘Might be going on to Malta.’

‘What for? There’s bugger all happening there.’