Halfway to the shore they were confronted by a pair of warriors who posed no threat: both were unable to stand, much less fight. Bottles from the pillaged taverns lay in a pile nearby, flashing like cabachons in the light from burning buildings. Further on they encountered a Maori not half so inebriated who challenged them and demanded money for safe passage. Instead he caught the blunt edge of Connaught’s cutlass across his forehead.
“Hurry now, before any more of the heathens espy us!” He took Mary’s hand and pulled her along.
He was limping noticeably now, his free hand clutching more often at his side.
“Broken rib, I think,” he replied to Mary’s anxious query. “Maybe two. Don’t fret, lass. I’ll make it.”
“Bless you, Shaun! I should’ve married you years ago.”
He rewarded her with an embarrassed smile. “Nay, Irish Mary. Neither of us are the marryin’ kind, though I’m damned if I didn’t come near asking you a time or two. I count meself a better man for havin’ known you and the children, and a worse one for what I once thought of you.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself for your thoughts, Shaun Connaught,” she told him between gasps. Stored powder erupted somewhere off to their left and they ducked instinctively, but the explosion was too far away to propel any burning debris toward them. “I’m no innocent flower and never have been.”
So great was the heat from burning storehouses that they were forced to turn down the fiery tunnel that had been Market Street. A Maori came staggering out of one of the burning shops, his arms loaded down with looted goods, while his companion’s quarreled over a bottle of expensive sherry.
Given the size and ferocity of the attacking war party, Mary was surprised how few actual bodies they encountered during their desperate flight. The majority of the Maoris they found lying in the streets were drunk and not dead. A man she knew as Caleb, a fine sailmaker, was not drunk, however. The back of his skull had been smashed by a war club. He lay in a pool of liquid much thicker than liquor.
The Maoris were too busy with their looting to attend to their own dead and wounded. Connaught gave the latter as wide a berth as their healthy relations.
“They’re like snakes: still dangerous until they’re dead.” His voice was grim. “By Heaven, one of these days we’ll come back here with a proper army and clean out this bleedin’ island from one end to the other!”
“Isn’t that what they’re trying to do to us, Shaun?”
He glanced sharply down at her but said nothing. He needed his remaining strength to stay erect and keep moving. His ribs were on fire.
They could see the harborfront now, through billowing smoke. The docks had either been left untouched or had been well defended because numerous structures still stood unscathed by the Maori attackers. Whaleboats crammed with refugees could be glimpsed rowing for anchored ships.
Two piers were still defended. Four men stood near the end of one, five on the other. All held muskets at the ready. It was not a defense to make Wellington proud, but the whalers made up in determination what they lacked in military acumen. Clusters of Maoris had gathered at a safe distance, well out of musket range. From time to time a warrior would suddenly rush nearly within musket range, then pause to turn, bend, and make appropriately grotesque faces at his enemies from between his legs, a gesture which meant precisely the same among the natives as it did among the Europeans. Then the warrior would stumble back to rejoin his compatriots, usually amidst much laughter. In this way the Maoris demonstrated their superiority over their opponents, who gritted their teeth and held their ground.
“They’re all over on the far side of the landing,” Mary said excitedly. “We’ll make it, Shaun!”
“Yes,” he said weakly. He nearly fell and she had to support him for a moment. “Blast this rib! We’ll get her set. Then we’ll see about organizing a troop of seamen to come back here with proper weapons.”
Mary shook her head decisively. “That you’ll never manage, Shaun. You and I, we settled here. Those men on the piers are doing their civilized duty, but their interests extend no farther than the wood on which they’re standing. Their homes are on their ships and across the ocean, not here. They’ll not risk their lives for this property, you’ll see.”
“That we will.”
Those were the last words he ever spoke.
Something cracked louder than a collapsing timber. It was too brief, too unimpressive to bring down a man the size of Shaun Connaught, a single distinct pop amidst pistols firing and wood exploding from heat pressure. Connaught dropped to his knees and skidded forward several inches before stopping. Then he fell over on his face and chest not twenty yards from the head of one of the defended piers.
Mary knelt next to him and pulled angrily at his shoulders, trying to rouse a spirit already on its way to a better world. She tried to cry, found she was unable to. The ability to cry had left her years before. Sally had no such problem. She stood sobbing nearby while Flynn clutched handfuls of his mother’s dress and pulled madly. Tattooed faces were clearly visible through the smoke. Not all of them were concentrating on the sailors protecting the two piers.
“Mother, Mother, please come! We can’t stay here. We have to get to the boats, Mother.”
Afterwards she didn’t know if she rose of her own accord or if Flynn had dragged her away bodily. All she remembered was Connaught lying face down in the sand and gravel. He never looked up, never opened his eyes to bid her farewell.
Later she imagined she’d seen a tall, gangling Maori standing thirty yards away by a burning shed, calmly reloading a brand new musket. How much reality and how much dream she would never know, though she was certain not all was attributable to imagination.
She never learned the name of the brave sailor who broke away from the group of men defending the nearest pier to put his arm protectively around her waist and escort her and her children to safety. So overwhelmed by grief and sorrow was she that it never occurred to her to thank him. But to the last of her days she knew she would remember his face. It was the face of a man with a wife and children elsewhere, safe in some sound, civilized city like Boston or Liverpool.
Secure behind the line of musket-wielding seamen she found herself being lowered into a waiting boat. She had the company of several other refugees. One man wore a makeshift bandage around his head. A young woman sat off by herself, ignoring the revealing rips in her skirt and blouse as she stared vacantly into the distance. She appeared unhurt, but Mary knew there were many types of injury that were not immediately visible.
The lettering on the whaleboat read JOHN B. ADAMS and she found herself wondering who John Adams might be. Anything to blot out the image of Shaun Connaught lying dead on the sand. Silent men pushed away from the pier. As the boat moved out onto the cool, dark water of the bay the noise of drunken carousing and burning buildings receded gradually behind her. She held Sally tightly, rocking her in her arms even as she wished she could blot the horrors of this night from the girl’s impressionable young mind. She would have done the same for Hynn but he was nowhere close at hand. Instead he sat in the back of the boat hard by the steersman, staring intently back toward the burning shore.
Good, she thought angrily. Let him see. Let him remember.
The sailors who pulled silently at the oars were exhausted and streaked with soot and grime. Behind them the entire harborfront now burned brightly. The hoots and cries of the triumphant Maoris faded, swallowed by the night.
They had to haul her on board the whaler. The men who took her arms and waist handled her far more courteously and respectfully than they would have on land, but she ignored them, as she ignored the devastation still clearly visible on shore. That didn’t matter now. The loss of their few pitiful, personal possessions didn’t matter. All that mattered was Flynn and little Sally.
Only when the children had been taken below, to be given hot soup and blankets, did she try to talk to any more of her fellow refugees. No one inquir
ed whither the whaler was bound now that she’d weighed anchor. It didn’t matter. Wherever she was headed had to be an improvement over what they’d left behind. Mary noticed she was heavy with oil. Her Captain wouldn’t sail far with a full load and his deck awash in refugees. He’d done his duty. The sooner he put his orphans ashore the happier he’d be.
Perhaps if they’d organized their forces sooner they might have counterattacked and driven the Maoris away, but she couldn’t find it in her heart to condemn men she didn’t know. Brave sailors they might be, but they had not signed on for soldiering. They came to Kororareka for drink, amusement and a good time. Their roots and responsibilities lay elsewhere.
She leaned over the railing, over the sea and out into the night, staring back at the angry ember that had been the wildest town in the Pacific. The Beach was a pulsing furnace. The Maoris’ surprise had been complete. All the panic and destruction had been on the so-called superior side.
Perhaps if the Maoris had been treated differently, with more respect, this night could have been avoided. Or perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered how they’d been treated. Many of them lived for battle. She could see the small church that had dominated the far end of town beginning to burn. She fancied she could hear the bell ringing in the flaming steeple, though it was more likely the iron reducing cauldrons banging against one another on the deck below. The whaler stank of grease and varnish, whale oil and men. Amidst that effluvia the new odor of blood was lost.
Already some of the refugees were beginning to talk of lives still to be lived. They were making plans. As for herself, she had none beyond what she’d told poor, brave Shaun Connaught: whatever else happened, she would never return to this place. Let the innkeepers and shop owners shake their fists and hurl insults at the burning shore. They were the gestures of defeated men attempting to salve an overwhelming feeling of futility.
Kororareka was dead, Shaun Connaught was dead, and a part of her had perished with both of them.
5
They rode like the Devil’s honorguard, but the road between Auckland and Kororareka was little more than a country trail. Like the rest of the country the terrain was difficult, besides which they had to be constantly alert for possible Maori attack. It would have been far easier if not faster to travel by ship, but there’d been no vessel berthed in Auckland harbor ready to transport men and horses. In any event it would have taken too long to load.
While still several miles from Kororareka the armed pakehas slowed. Their leaders gathered at the head of the trail to decide strategy. Angus McQuade stared into the dawning light, listening intently.
“I hear no shouting, no gunshots.”
“’Tis strangely silent for The Beach.” Halworthy’s face was a study in concern.
“Could the attack have been beaten off already, by the townsfolk?”
“Not impossible,” said Ainsworth. “Where one man can panic others can stand their ground. Remember, these are only natives we’re dealing with, after all.”
“Not quite,” Coffin reminded them. “They’re Maori.”
“A false alarm.” Angry muttering came from the men gathered behind the leading citizens. “A bloody false alarm!”
“We don’t know that yet!” McQuade said sharply. The muttering subsided without disappearing entirely.
“I wish to God it were.” Halworthy was straining to see even though they were still too far from the town for a good view of anything but ocean and trees. “I know the man who brought the warning. He’s not the type to ride himself and good horse into the ground to perpetuate a cruel hoax.”
“We know that, John,” Ainsworth told him, “but if this be war it’s the quietest I’ve heard tell of.”
“See to your arms,” Coffin advised. “Whatever’s happened down there we don’t want to go in with powder damp and swords sheathed. We’ll find out soon enough what’s taken place this night.”
“Nay, gentlemen, if you’ll pardon me.”
All eyes turned as another man joined the group. He was taller than any of them save Coffin, with thick arms and voice, and eyebrows that loomed like ledges over small dark pupils.
“I know you,” said McQuade. “You’re Brixton, the northside smithy.”
“Aye, Mr. McQuade, but before I settled in Auckland I was a number of years in the King’s Grenadiers. You, sir,” and he stared unflinchingly at Coffin, “you know how to fight on water. You know nothing of fighting on land.” He nodded toward the hills that blocked their view of Kororareka. “This be no place to go charging blindly. If you’ll allow me, I’ll take command and see we give a proper account of ourselves.”
Coffin saw that his colleagues were waiting for him to make the decision. He nodded deferentially to the newcomer. “We’ll be glad of your advice, Mr. Brixton, and follow your suggestions readily. I’ll be the first to confess my ignorance of matters military. I’m glad you’re with us.”
There were a few protests from men who didn’t wish to take orders from a commoner like Brixton, but they were overruled by practical considerations. Better to follow a live peasant than a dead gentleman.
Brixton took no undue pleasure in this show of support. “Very well then. Gather ’round. We’ll split our forces now. Half of us will ride on the town from the main road. The rest will work their way through the woods to approach from behind. If you would be so good, Mr. Coffin, as to assume command of that body?”
Coffin nodded briskly, instantly divining the blacksmith’s intentions.
“This way if we’re attacked coming up the main road, Mr. Coffin and the others can fall upon our assailants from behind. If our arrival is not challenged we’ll be able to take the enemy from two directions.”
“A good and simple plan, och. My congratulations, Mr. Brixton,” said McQuade.
“Thank you, sir. I’ve friends in Kororareka myself and am anxious to see what fate has befallen them. Let’s move now, while darkness still provides us with some cover.”
With some confusion the relief party divided into two ragged, undisciplined columns. Coffin studied his own troop uneasily, wondering if the motley and tired collection of craftsmen, traders and common citizens could be depended on to stand and fight. There wasn’t a uniform among them. A few were armed with nothing more deadly than farm implements. The several members of Auckland’s rudimentary police force were no more impressive than the citizens whose activities they were appointed to regulate.
He checked his watch. He and Brixton had coordinated a time for both groups to begin advancing on the town. It was a sensible idea doomed to failure, for as soon as the first men caught sight of the smoking ruins ahead there was no holding them back. Coffin and Halworthy and the others tried to restrain their people and maintain some semblance of military order, to no avail. They quickly gave up and joined their fellow citizens in riding at full speed into the community. Coffin could not bring himself to yell at his neighbors. It was unreasonable to ask discipline of exhausted farmers and shopkeepers.
No one really knew what to expect. People running in the streets cleaning up after the attack, perhaps. A few deaths and injuries, maybe a looted store or two. So the utter devastation revealed by the light of the moon came as a considerable shock to the most pessimistic of the relief party.
It was worse for McQuade and Coffin and the men who’d lived in Kororareka in younger days than for the newcomers to Auckland, most of whom had never set eyes on the whaling town before this morning. The older men arrived with memories of the Kororareka that had been, most of them good. Now the Hell of the Pacific lay strangely silent beneath a waning moon.
No laughter and drunken cries rose from the line of burned-out hulks that had constituted The Beach. No shouts and ecstatic screams from the cribs that had risen flimsily behind the stouter taverns. Instead there was something else, something new and yet familiar: a sound Coffin had rarely heard in all the years he’d spent in Kororareka. It was the soft sound of the sea washing the sand, the whispery gre
etings of the early morning tide.
McQuade reined his mare to a stop next to Coffin. “Good God, mon! There’s nothin’ left.”
“The survivors’ll be out in the harbor, on the ships.” Coffin dismounted, secured his animal to a still-standing rail. “Let’s make sure no one’s been left behind.”
“Robert, are you sure ’tis safe?”
“Any Maoris still around won’t be in any condition to trouble us. Come on, Angus. There may be wounded who were overlooked in the confusion.”
A few of the ruined structures were recognizable from their scorched stone foundations. They served as guideposts to the streets. Most of the buildings in Kororareka had been fashioned from pine unsuitable for masts and spars. Kauri burned readily. Now nothing remained but blackened, smoking stumps.
As the men rode or walked through the silent streets they began to split up to better search the ruins. They said little, the stink of death and charcoal thick in their nostrils. The horses shied and whinnied.
There were fewer corpses than expected. Some Maori, some European, but no indication of the awful massacre that might have been expected to accompany such total destruction.
“See, Angus.” Coffin indicated the gutted interior of a tavern with brick walls. “They came to loot and plunder, not slaughter the population.” The rising sun somehow softened the charred remains.
Walking was too slow. He remounted his horse, headed up a familiar road. Off to his left came the sharp sounds of a man screaming. It was John Halworthy. Elegant, proper John Halworthy. Coffin could see him standing in the center of what had been Kororareka’s largest tavern. His hat was gone and his fine silk shirt torn and blackened as he raved at the indifferent sky. He’d kept his money in the whaling town, expanding while men like Ainsworth and McQuade gradually pulled out. Now his entire fortune was lost.
He urged his horse up the slight rise leading away from The Beach, leaving Halworthy to his misery. Coffin had concerns of his own to attend to.
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