White Feathers (7 page)

I suppose we’re lucky they didn’t just hare off to England to offer themselves for service over there, which so many of our nurses have been doing lately. They’re due to sail out some time early next month, and we think they’ll be going to England. At the moment they’re in Wellington sorting out their uniforms, which sound positively dire — grey wool with scarlet trim and brass army buttons, ugly boots and a rather silly hat — and doing extra training and what have you. They telephone once a week with the latest news, but we’ll be going down to see them off, of course. But Keely says she’s written to you about it, and so has Erin, so you might already know all of this.

The other bit of news concerns Thomas, who was here last month and said he saw you in Wellington just before you left. He had a long talk with Andrew and me about the war. He says he doesn’t believe in war, that it’s barbaric and futile and a shocking waste of human life. I must say I agree with him, and so does Andrew, but I’m afraid, given the Government’s view and the enthusiasm most people seem to have for the war, he’s chosen a very hard row to hoe, especially if conscription is introduced, as some doom-mongers are predicting. He plans to finish his law degree at Otago, which will be towards the end of this year, but isn’t sure what he’ll do after that. He has a vague idea about setting up a law practice for returned servicemen, because he thinks some will need a hand when they come home, but I doubt that will be enough to keep him out of the services if the war does drag on. It’s not that he’s frightened of going into battle, I don’t think, but you know how he’s always been with his ideals and his beliefs. Once he gets an idea into his head it’s very hard to dissuade him from following it up, and there is apparently quite a strong movement within the universities against the war. Well, we’ll just have to wait and see how it goes for him, I suppose. If, as they are saying, it will all be over by Christmas, it probably won’t matter any way.

That announcement didn’t really surprise us much, but Thomas’s other news did. He has a young lady now, a girl called Catherine Ferris, the sister of one of his university friends. You could have knocked us over with a feather when he told us, he’s always been so shy and reserved! But he’s a lovely, kind person and he deserves someone nice. He said he hadn’t mentioned it to the family because he wanted to be sure of Catherine’s feelings towards him (and, I suspect, because he didn’t want Keely rushing down there poking her nose in), but it’s my guess that there could well be another Murdoch family wedding this year. Fingers crossed!

Ian is fine, although Andrew is worried he might get carried away with the idea of volunteering for the army. To ‘head him off at the pass’, so to speak, he’s been involving Ian in all sorts of things to do with the station. When he isn’t sweating over the books (and I have to be honest here, darling, he doesn’t seem to have inherited my head for figures, or his father’s) or chasing lambs up hill and down dale, he’s gallivanting about the countryside with some girl or other to the various farewell dances and functions everybody seems to be having for the men who are off over seas. But I’m not taking any of it too seriously — he’s far too young to settle down and he knows it. I just hope he doesn’t do anything unwise which means he might have to settle down, like James has. But Lucy is a lovely girl, and she loves and misses James desperately. And he obviously loves her, if the number of letters she’s received from him are anything to go by.

Your father is well — I saw him a couple of weeks ago in town. Have you heard from him yet? He said he’s sent you two letters. In case you haven’t received them, your brother Haimona has joined the Merchant Navy, but Kepa doesn’t know where his ship is at the moment. Huriana is still teaching and, to your father’s absolute delight, finally expecting a child, so I expect she won’t be working for much longer. I’m glad that something has cheered him up — he has seemed rather depressed since you left. Parehuia is fine, although if I were her, and you’ll have to forgive me for being catty but it’s true, I’d cut down on the amount of cakes and potatoes I was consuming — the last time I saw her she was looking really quite porky! But still magnificent, of course.

The heat here has finally broken, and we’re all looking forward to a cooler autumn, although I expect we could be very busy if a lot of the young men are still away at shearing time later in the year. We’re all fundraising again. Almost all of the women I know are knitting like mad, and when we’re not doing that we’re packing parcels to send over seas.

Which reminds me, I had a letter from Riria Adams the other day telling me how involved she’s become with the Maori Soldiers’ Fund in Auckland, which quite surprised me, I must admit, after the dreadful struggle she had getting over poor John’s death in South Africa. But she says she’s getting a lot of satisfaction from her work. Both her boys, Simon and David — you remember them, don’t you? — have enlisted. David went first, as a lieutenant with the Main Body, but Simon is training at Narrow Neck with the Second Maori Contingent.

I must finish up now — we’re off to see a patriotic carnival in town, the fourth in as many months! I asked Andrew to come with me, but as I spied him sneaking off up the hill on his horse an hour ago I suspect it will be just Lucy and me. And Lachie, who will be driving us in the motor. Andrew has been teaching me to drive lately, but has decreed that I am not to take the motor out onto the road until I can get through the front gates without banging into one or other of them, which is a little cheeky coming from a man who killed a poor defenceless sheep the other day!

I’ll write regularly and hope that my letters find you. Take care, my dear. I know you think I’m a silly, fussy old mother sometimes, but my children are worth more to me than anything else in the world.

All my love, Mam

Joseph smiled as he folded the letter and slipped it back into his kit. The bit about his stepmother Parehuia made him laugh but the news about Thomas disturbed him. He admired his brother for taking a stand on something in which he truly believed, but he suspected Thomas might be aligning himself with a dangerously small minority.

And he had received a letter from Keely, full of news about her impending embarkation, and a parcel from Erin containing a letter and a pair of rather misshapen and holey socks. She might be an excellent nurse with gorgeous eyes, but she couldn’t knit to save herself. He’d been a little surprised at how disappointed he was by the rather impersonal nature of her letter: it was full of chatterings about getting ready to go over seas but little else. He’d been sure he had detected something more than just friendship in her face when they’d met at Newtown Park.

Stretching out in his cramped bunk, he put aside thoughts of home and concentrated instead on what awaited the contingent on the Gallipoli Peninsula tomorrow. The troops had all heard numerous stories of the disaster that had befallen the New Zealand and Australian Division after they had landed at Anzac Cove, on April the 25th. It was now common, though unofficial, knowledge that the troops had been dropped at the wrong landing site, that they should have been landed at a beach several miles further south. And the defending Turks, assumed to be present in the area in very small numbers and displaying only a dubious fighting
ability, had proved a formidable enemy. The resulting casualties had been horrendous.

Joseph, with his Boer War experience, was subdued and very wary of what they might find when they landed.

Ihaka, on the other hand, had no such worries and remained convinced that the Maori Contingent would succeed in wrestling the ridges of the Sari Bair Range from the Turks when everyone else had failed. Joseph had long since given up hoping to temper his friend’s enthusiasm but had continued to drum into his men the need for a cool head, common sense and restraint, especially in the heat of battle.

Standing on deck, fully kitted and armed and sweating despite the coolness of the early dawn air, Joseph quietly watched his men as they prepared to disembark. There was Ihaka, at the head of the line and waiting eagerly for the first of the small landing craft to bump up against the side of the transport, followed by Wi, who turned to Joseph and winked. Joe Witana and Hone Reti, standing motionless and listening keenly to the crack of rifles up on the heights, both acknowledged him with a calm nod. Behind them stood Nugget Dawson, Billy Parawai and Belter Paki, three mates from Wairoa, and Pare and Matiu Black, brothers from the Tuhoe tribe, nudging each other nervously.

Wi, Ihaka and Joseph were the oldest in the section; the others were aged between twenty-one and twenty-six, and Joseph considered them a capable bunch, notwithstanding the fact that Belter, the one who had been cheated by the Egyptian hawker, was a little slow off the mark at times. They were all very fit men, hardworking and willing to do their share without complaint, and certainly up to the job. Joseph liked and cared about them all, and hoped like hell he could keep them alive.

There was a grunt and a curse as Ihaka launched himself into the landing craft and hit the deck sooner than he expected, misjudging the distance in the dim light. This set the rest of the section off giggling as they clambered in after him, followed by Joseph who hissed at them to keep quiet. They were rowed in to shore and let off at a makeshift jetty at the northern end of the short crescent of beach where, crouching on the damp sand, they eyed the dark shapes of mountains of boxes, supplies and ammunition and the maze of shelters and dugouts: the beach was obviously a frequent target for shellfire. The smell of the sea was strong in Joseph’s nostrils, but underneath it lurked the oily hint of a far more offensive odour, that of death and putrefaction.

When the last of the contingent had come ashore, the platoon lieutenants scurried about mustering their men and calling out their NCOs. Lieutenant Ropata McPherson, his shoulders hunched as if he expected to be shot in the back at any moment, approached Joseph and said nervously, ‘Tell your men to put their smokes out, Joe. We’re not on a picnic. And get them organised, will you? We’re going up there in a minute, to a spot called Number One Outpost,’ he added, turning away from the beach and pointing towards a roughly dug sap that led straight up into the sharply angled foothills, increasingly visible now in the growing dawn light.

Joseph rounded up his section, fell in with the rest of B Company and began the long slog up the steep trench. The men muttered and cursed as they stumbled and slid on the loose clay surface and Joseph marvelled afresh at how people whose first tongue was Maori could swear so fluently in English. As the gradient of the track increased, the stench of rot became stronger and Joseph could see why when the sun’s rays spilled over the ridges towering above. All around them, lying in shallow depressions in the soil, jammed into tight crevices and snagged on the branches of low,
thorny bushes, were corpses, black, rotting and buzzing with flies energised by the sun. The bodies, Joseph was appalled to see, wore the remains of New Zealand and Australian uniforms. Why hadn’t the corpses been retrieved and buried? By the time their path had transected more gullys and ridges, he had his answer: there were so many bodies that it would have been an impossible task. As they neared their destination, artillery fire started up and, looking back down to the beach, he could see the small black figures of men scuttling for cover like ants whose nest had been rudely disturbed.

Number One Outpost was a position chipped into the side of a hill at the base of a spur. The contingent was directed to Number Four Section, part of the post’s defence line, to join the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, unmounted because of the terrain and bitterly missing their horses. The men immediately set to digging themselves in, fashioning terraces from the hillside and making themselves as comfortable as they could, given the rapidly rising temperature, the flies and the constant whine of sniper fire overhead.

Joseph, sitting with his back against a wall of cool, freshly excavated clay and his canteen tilted to his lips, started when he heard a voice say, ‘Don’t drink it all, mate. There’s fuck all of it around.’

In front of him stood a scruffy-looking soldier with sunken, bloodshot eyes and a deeply sunburned face. ‘Tom Jones, Sergeant, Mounted Rifles,’ he said by way of introduction. ‘You blokes just get here?’

Joseph nodded, wiped his lips and got to his feet. ‘Joseph Deane, Sergeant, First Maori Contingent.’

‘Keep your head down, mate, or you’ll get it shot off, and don’t guts all your water — there’s a shortage, in case you didn’t know. It all tastes like bloody kerosene any way,’ the sergeant added gloomily. ‘Are you going to be doing the digging?’

‘Not sure yet,’ replied Joseph.

‘Well, if you are, you’ll be fighting as well, I guarantee it. We’re in the shit here.’

‘I gathered that,’ Joseph replied, looking around. ‘Been a tough few months, has it?’

‘Fucking oath it has, mate. We’ve lost fucking thousands! It’s like a bloody rabbit shoot here some days.’ The sergeant shook his head in disgust. ‘I’m supposed to be giving you the guided tour. This here where you’re sitting is your new home, down there’s the beach where you’ll collect your water, supplies and rations for the delicious meals we enjoy here, and along there is the shit pit. You’ll be spending a fair bit of time there, I’d say.

‘The most important thing you have to remember is keep your heads down. Johnny Turk’s sitting just up there on that ridge and there’s a bloody nasty little sniper’s nest just to the left of it. See?’

‘Where?’ asked Pare Black excitedly.

He stepped up onto a mound of dirt for a better look, and before anyone could utter a single word there was the sharp crack of a rifle and he collapsed instantly. No one moved for a second, then Matiu, his brother, rushed forward to crouch over the still body, followed closely by Joseph. He looked down at the neat hole in Pare’s forehead, just above his wide-open eyes, and knew immediately the boy had been killed outright.