Forgiven_BooksGoSocial Historical Fiction
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FORGIVEN
A novel
Geoff Lawson
Published by Geoffrey M. Lawson
Kindle edition ebook
Copyright © 2016
All moral rights reserved
This book and its electronic equivalent is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
hired, or otherwise circulated in any other form, format or cover
design other than that which it is published. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or means, (electrical, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the express
permission of the author/publisher.
This novel is a work of fiction and any resemblance between the
characters of this story and anyone currently living or dead is
entirely accidental and unintentional.
This book is written in New Zealand English
ISBN 978-0-473-29323-9
Historical fiction, New Zealand 1800s, Boer War, South Africa
Prologue
Cape Colony, South Africa. October 1899
I ran and I had no idea where I was going – I may have run in a
circle for all I knew. I ran with head down, my brow creased in
concentration while looking for the larger rocks before I
tripped on one and fell. Suddenly, I was confronted by water. I
had found my way to the river, where hidden by the mist on
the opposite shore was a ridgeline of boulders, a good place to
hide. The more I was elevated when the fog finally lifted, the
further I could see without being seen myself.
With mounting urgency I pressed on, wading into the
slowly swirling current with my carbine and hat held above my
head; testing the bottom with my feet for obstructions as I
forged my way towards the opposite shore. It was still early
morning and the sluggish, muddy water had reached my
armpits before I emerged, chilled and dripping, leaving a fresh
trail of footprints across the damp sand.
Boulders soon materialised from out of the gloom and I
sensed I was beginning to climb. They were twice my height
and reared out of the thickening shroud like silent, ominous
shadows, forbidding and mysterious; megaliths that had stood
and endured since the beginning of time. Progressively, the
slope became steeper and I began to sprint on the balls of my
feet, weaving my way upwards through the jumbled mass.
Suddenly, I thought I heard voices. Was it the murmur of
humans or sounds made by the river? It was surprising how a
lack of visibility could markedly increase my paranoia.
The previous night we had left our camp to attack the
enemy. There was sure to be trouble when daylight returned
and we would need to be adequately prepared, so rations were
organised, horses were fed and carbines cleaned before we
scoffed some more food and filled the empty loops in our
cartridge bandoliers. The plan was to spend the night closing
around an enemy camp and attack when the sun came up. A
good trick, which we had successfully used before.
We travelled through broken, gorge-like country that was
crossed by saw-shaped ridges. There were ancient, weathered
buttes among cone-shaped hills and grassy valleys that
meandered for miles. It was vital to make the right turns when
these valleys intersected – if you got it wrong there was no
way of knowing where they would end. During the day, lizards
could be seen while snakes lay hidden among gaps in the
rocks. High above us, birds of prey would be wheeling silently
round and round, watching for movement on the ground far
below.
This was a devil’s playground. A landscape that enthralled one
minute and caused unease the next. At night there was the fear
of the numerous deep holes while in daylight there was a
constant danger of an ambush by Boers.
Daylight came as we emerged from the canyons and spread
out upon a broad, undulating, scrub-covered plain. We had
been too long traversing the canyons and could have turned
back, for a blanket of thin fog had descended on the landscape,
turning the middle ground into a haze. We continued on by
compass alone and we had rudimentary maps, but without
being able to see the horizon we had no way to gauge how far
we had come, or how far there was left to go. We persevered
and soon found ourselves on the bank of a river, which
confirmed beyond doubt that we had lost our way.
By now the fog was perceptibly thicker so we dismounted,
for at times we could barely see the ground; then, we worked
our way forwards across a field, bridles in one hand and our
carbines in the other. We walked methodically, picking our
way, the only sound an occasional crunch of gravel or the clink
of a horseshoe on stone. We watched and kept pace with those
on either side while in front lay a wall of swirling fog. Time
dragged and progress was slow until we noticed that the fog
had begun to lift. It was then that we saw shadows, hovering
indistinctly through the gloom. One spoke in Afrikaans. They
were Boers!
We hit the deck as an avalanche of bullets whizzed over
our heads; there was bedlam, confusion. Wounded horses
screamed and stampeded, the roar of musketry deafened.
While bullets whizzed by the fog descended until there was
nothing to be seen through the deepening haze.
Suddenly, the shooting stopped. There was silence – no
screaming horses, nothing moved. Nothing could be seen
except gently swirling fog. Too afraid to blink, our attentions
were absorbed by the all-pervading gloom. Minutes ticked by.
Panic reared its ugly head. What were the bloody Boers
playing at?
We couldn’t stay here – there was nowhere to hide, so we
fled like mackerel pursued by sharks. There was no orderly
withdrawal, no prearranged rendezvous and no rearguard – we
just bolted while we were still able to.
We were quickly separated by the fog and due to panic and
the noise I made, it was some time before I sensed that I was
on my own. My horse had gone to god knows where and all I
could do was find some cover and wait for the fog to lift.
When it did, I could see that the plain was dotted with our
dead horses. It was also apparent that I was completely alone. I
was disappointed, but hardly surprised. I came down from my
perch and re-crossed the river to search for my mount, finding
that he too was dead. My ration sack was gone and so was my
water bottle, but I found a water bottle on another dead horse
and equipped with this essential my attention returned to
getting home; hoping that I wouldn’t run into any more Boers.
Judging from
the number of dead horses, the column couldn’t
be more than an hour or two ahead, for like myself the bulk of
them would be walking. Therefore, there was every chance I
could catch them up.
With the sun still rising I began to walk – a minute figure
on a vast, undulating plain that was dotted with scrub and the
odd spindly tree, the only green in an otherwise arid landscape.
The trail followed a wagon road and as I strode along I could
occasionally see a cloud of dust on the horizon ahead,
indicating the whereabouts of the column. I would need to
measure my pace, for too much effort would soon burn me up.
As it was, I was becoming hotter. Saliva would steadily
evaporate and my tongue would soon stick to the roof of my
mouth. Dehydration will cause your vision to decline. The
ability to shoot and notice critical things can become impaired.
After a couple of hours I looked towards the horizon and
saw I was not alone. Another small, black dot was advancing
towards me, coming from the direction of the column. As it
came closer, I could see it was a black coupe drawn by a single
black horse and by the time it drew level, I saw that the
occupant was a priest. He was tallish with straight black hair,
his thin face sporting a long nose and a close-cut beard. As he
swept past I gave him a wave, but his dark, hollow eyes just
stared and he didn’t wave back. That was strange – he didn’t
seem to evoke the usual ambiance of a priest.
I stopped waving and watched as he continued by. There
was something odd about this and I kept looking back, even
though there was nothing to see except the back of the coupe
and the dust from its wheels. I carried on as the dust slowly
settled, while my focus again switched to catching up. I must
have walked for another hour when I lifted my head; I could
hear the unmistakable sound of gunfire coming from the
direction of the column.
Chapter One
PATEA, New Zealand. 1883
Father once joked that Patea was like the American Wild West,
except there were no six-guns or cactus plants. He was right
about the cactus plants, but the part about the six-guns was less
than correct. Although the wars with local tribes had ended a
decade earlier, Southern Taranaki was still not perceived to be
the safest place to live.
The reason was that the infamous renegade Kimble Bent
and Titokowaru, the Maori Napoleon, were still at large.
Ranked among New Zealand’s most wanted, they were never
apprehended because the hinterland was covered in deep, dark
bush; a primeval netherworld that stretched across the largely
unknown interior that lay to the north – an unbroken canopy
that traversed the rugged Matemateonga range and continued
on to the equally remote upper waters of the Whanganui River,
where wild tribes were still rumoured to exist.
Patea was a typical rural town that straddled the road
which followed the North Island’s West Coast. To the North-
West the skyline was dominated by Mount Egmont, while the
road also continued the opposite way, where it crossed the
Patea River to forge on towards Waverley, then to Waitotara
and eventually to Whanganui, some forty miles to the South
and East.
The town consisted of a couple of blocks of single-and
double-storeyed buildings, which had acquired the title of
‘Bourgh’ in 1881. It also had a port, a refrigerated meat
canning works, two weekly newspapers and a hospital; a
resident magistrate, the region’s only high school and a variety
of government agencies.
The main street was twice the width of a normal road so
that freight wagons from the port could be turned. It was a
dustbowl in summer and a mud bath in winter. Branching from
it were sandy lanes that were without footpaths or graded
surfaces and of street lamps there were none. When darkness
descended, it was absolute beyond the range of a candle
lantern.
Patea was also a region that had grown faster than civil
order could manage. It had its share of colourful characters and
anything that could happen, invariably did. There was ol’ Bob,
an engineer who liked to live rough, and another that lived in a
cave cut in a bank. Yet another was ol’ Heke; the last of the old
cannibals, whose teeth had been filed and his face tattooed. He
was a harmless old man and kept to himself, but children ran
away to hide when they saw him coming.
By the time I was twelve I had passed my proficiency and
schooling was now behind me. I went to work on our family
farm, which was a block of rolling hill country out Kakaramea
way. My wages were small but most of the time there was
nothing to spend it on, except my clothes and the odd book, so
my money sat in my account and slowly began to build. Our
house on the farm was a rustic board-and-batten affair with an
attic roof and verandahs across the front and rear. There was no
bathroom as such and except for the kitchen there was no
running water. The washhouse was our bathroom, where a
wood-fired copper provided hot water for bathing as well as
for washing our clothes.
When I was sixteen, mother received an invitation to go
and visit an old friend. A few years earlier, Eleanor’s husband
had been appointed the manager of the Model Dairy Company
in Whanganui, so our two families were only separated by
forty miles; barely four hours of travel in our new modern age.
An exchange of letters flowed back and forth until eventually,
all had been duly arranged. Momentously for me, mother
decided that I should go with her, not just to keep her company
but for me to acquire some experience of travel, for since I was
a boy I had never been anywhere other than to Kakaramea and
Patea.
One fine Friday we boarded the train from New Plymouth.
I was eager to experience the novelty of being whisked along,
only to find that it was actually disappointing as there was little
sensation of speed.
1
We stopped at Waverley, one of the smaller communities
along the way, and then at Waitotara, a place that was fortified
during the wars. Next, we stopped at Maxwell Town, named
after the son of Colonel Maxwell, before we rattled on to Kai
iwi, where in the old times it was said, a woman had been
eaten by a war party of relatives. Finally, after gathering speed
down a long, winding hill, the train braked and came to a halt
at Aramoho Station on the fringe of Whanganui.
We disembarked and a porter with our luggage escorted us
to the other side of the platform, where a suburban train would
soon connect us to the heart of the town. As the engine crept
along we could see there were a good many cottages that had
been crammed into narrow streets. Smoke curled slowly by our
windows and after rounding a curve, we travelled through a
swamp that took us past an imposing English school. It wa
s
really novel to travel through the suburbs in the comfort of a
carriage and it was apparent that this was a sizable place, given
the number of houses we had already seen. Soon after, we
rumbled through a cutting and crept along the river’s edge until
we arrived at Central Station.
The station platform and its attendant double-storeyed
buildings were more than a hundred yards long, while directly
adjacent was a wharf which extended along the riverbank for
at least half a mile. Eleanor Vance was waiting, so while
mother and Eleanor hugged and exchanged pleasantries I
retrieved our luggage, after which we walked onto a street
where a dozen cabbies and their rigs stood waiting along the
curb.
The following day Eleanor pressed her oldest son to take
me for a tour of the town. Edward was slimmer and a year or
two younger than me. His head was covered with thick blond
hair and a profusely freckled nose highlighted an air of
boyishness. We sauntered off towards the river and on reaching
the wharf we ambled along, hands in pockets, discussing
anything that came to mind while heading upstream towards
the centre of town. Jammed nose-to-tail were sailing scows,
steam and sail vessels and steamers of all sizes. Smoke
billowed up into the mid-morning air as vessels raised steam
2
and prepared to leave, while seagulls squabbled over a carcass
that drifted on the incoming tide.
There was plenty of other activity too, as horse and wagon
teams were coming and going while goods from railway
wagons were loaded onto ships. We continued past the railway
station and ambled unhurriedly under an iron bridge, where we
picked up stones to toss into the water.
“See that cluster of piles,” remarked Edward, pointing.
“They allow the span on the town side of the bridge to swing
about so ships can pass through.”
I tried to visualize how that was possible, for I had never
heard of a bridge that could do that. Then we continued on our
way, having nowhere urgent to be and with no acute tasks to
perform, just wandering without any planned destination and
enjoying the day.
I had noticed that the streets that branched off were
properly graded with footpaths, curbing and continuous
verandahs that covered nearly all of the sidewalks. Compared
to rural Patea, this was a town of considerable substance.