Collision

by Joanna Orwin

  Te Kape took his place beside André without a word or a smile, but he squeezed his friend’s hand hard where it gripped the rope before moving his own into position.

  Ashore, Monsieur Marion consulted with the tall, austere chief beside him, then called the signal to start hauling the net in. ‘Pull hard, mes amis!’ he shouted cheerfully. ‘On such a fine day we’re bound to have us an excellent catch!’

  Then Te Kuri also called. A harsh call, resonant and forceful.

  Instinctively, André half-turned, every nerve tingling a warning. But even as he turned, a rough hand clamped itself over his mouth. Another chopped down hard on his own hands, forcing him to let go his grip on the rope. He caught a glimpse of clubs rising and falling. He saw figures struggling—dark silhouettes against the light of the late afternoon sun. He heard a choked-off scream. But before he could even try to fight off his own attackers, his skull felt as though it was exploding into myriad pieces. A wave of red-shot blackness obscured his vision. The pain swirled everything around him down into a vortex that ended in a pinprick of bright light. Then even that was mercifully extinguished.

  Chapter 12

  12–13 June 1772

  Port Marion 35° 15 ′ S

  Somewhere nearby, low tense voices rumbled. His nose thrust into a layer of prickling, musty leaves and a suffocating weight pressing down on his back, a half-conscious André tried to turn his head sideways, looking for more air. The movement sent sharp stabs of pain through his skull, and he groaned involuntarily. The voices stopped. The weight suddenly lifted from his back, and rough hands turned him over and sat him upright. A torch flared briefly. His head throbbing in protest, André squeezed his eyes shut as the light shone full in his face, the flame close enough to sear his skin. Someone lifted his pendant on its cord, then abruptly dropped it. He felt it settle back against his chest, its cool smoothness feeling alien now, contaminated by the betrayal of trust. The torch was snuffed out and darkness descended once more. But this time he was fully conscious. He could smell the rank fish-oil and sweaty stench of savages, and hear breathing right beside him. Cautiously, he opened his eyes as the pain in his head eased to a dull throb.

  Night had fallen and it was completely dark. He could barely make out the white gleam of eyes as someone leaned closer to him and spoke quietly. ‘Tareka?’

  He recognized Te Kape’s voice. Before he could answer, a hand was placed over his mouth, gently this time. He sensed rather than saw the youth place a warning finger across his own lips. He forced himself to relax his straining muscles and Te Kape took his hand away. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, André saw the savage squatting in front of him. Two other men crouched close by, blacker bulks amongst shadows. Upright shaggy shadows that at first he thought were many other savages. His heart gave a great lurch even as he realized the shadows were clumps of dry brushwood, closely packed around them. He was wedged with these three savages into a small space deep within a dense copse of myrtle.

  Somewhere, not far away, his ears picked up a multitude of other voices. Shouting, loud brays of triumphant laughter. As he peered in that direction, he saw a faint glow through the trees, too close for comfort. The young savage pointed towards the fire glow, then shook his head, placing his hand on André’s shoulder to keep him still.

  Images of clubs and bodies falling flashed behind André’s eyes. Horror flooded back. As his muscles involuntarily tensed in the instinct to flee, Te Kape again held him down until he was still, then patted his shoulder. André could not help himself. He shrank away from his touch, the touch of a savage who had knowingly allowed the ensign’s companions to be lured to their deaths. Te Kape pulled back his hand, then turned away. The ensign drew up his knees and wrapped his arms tight around his shins. He lowered his throbbing head onto his knees and closed his eyes.

  Time passed in a blur of misery. What seemed like hours later, Te Kape nudged him, then pressed the cold, sweating curve of a calabash into his hand. Although he wanted nothing more to do with the savage, he could not resist the allure of quenching his thirst. He drank a long draught of water, but before he could hand the calabash back, his stomach heaved. Leaning sideways he vomited its contents, retching painfully. He sensed rather than heard the other men shuffle further away from him. So they were still there. For a moment he felt nothing but despair. Then, as his emptied stomach stopped convulsing, the fuzziness in his head cleared. A single thought steadied him: he was alive. If these savages meant him harm, they would have killed him by now.

  Both the fire-glow and the jubilant voices had died away. The moon had risen, its austere light casting dense black shadows under the copse where they were hidden. Slowly and without making any sound, the other two men crawled out of the hiding place, then Te Kape pushed him to follow. Although André tried to move as soundlessly as the savages, every twig he crushed crackled under him, and the dried myrtle leaves rustled loudly in his ears. He could feel Te Kape behind him, applying steady pressure against the soles of his shoes, encouraging him to keep going.

  At last he emerged from the confinement of the copse and stumbled stiffly upright. He stood for a while, swaying with dizziness, before his sense of balance returned. If he kept his head still, the pain no longer stabbed so fiercely. One of the men grabbed him and drew him into the shadow extending beyond the trees, a large hand once more clapped over his mouth, warning him not to speak. The ensign nodded his head, wincing as he did so, and the hand was taken away. In silence, he followed behind the two men. Te Kape was close on his heels, sometimes steering him away from unseen hazards as they picked their way from black shadow to black shadow. Slowly, they moved further and further away from the danger that still lay behind them. Not allowing himself to think beyond the need to keep going and to be as quiet as he could, André obeyed each slight pressure from Te Kape’s guiding touch.

  They walked for some hours, making their way in the shadows below ridges and across valleys through concealing patches of forest and scrub. They headed steadily westwards, away from Te Kuri’s village. When his silent companions at last drew him down under the screen of some bracken fern and passed him the calabash of water, the moon had long set and the eastern sky was beginning to show ominous streaks of light. He rinsed the sour taste from his parched mouth before drinking cautiously. This time the water stayed down.

  After letting him rest a few brief moments, Te Kape got him back on his feet. André realized he knew where they were. He recognized the familiar silhouette of the forested hills that stretched inland behind the masting camp, hills forming a blacker mass against the lightening sky. Now, one of the men pointed through the bracken at a broad valley lying below them. At its head, faintly visible in the dim light, André could see a saddle that must be the one leading to the swampy plain traversed by the masting party each day. He looked questioningly at them, but the two men would not meet his gaze. With a brief glance at the bulge of the pendant under his shirt, they kept their faces resolutely turned away.

  Only Te Kape was prepared to look directly at him. His face grave and marked with signs of weariness that made him look older than he was, the young savage pointed at all the ridges surrounding them, then tapped the club fastened at his belt in an unmistakable gesture. André swallowed. Up there, bands of armed savages must be waiting for the dawn. Now Te Kape was indicating that they did not intend going any further with him, but would leave him here. André nodded his understanding. Then, without a word or a backward glance, the three savages set off back the way they had come.

  André watched until they merged into the scrub and fern like wraiths. For a long time he could not move. His legs were trembling with what he thought must be delayed shock. It only now dawned on him that the young savage had indeed acted as his loyal friend. As the realization filled his head with unwelcome thoughts, tears began running down his face. Te Kape must have taken a huge risk in spiriting him away from whatever hideous fate had befallen his captain and his companions in the c
ove below Te Kuri’s village. Somehow Te Kape had persuaded his two reluctant allies to go along with his plans. Not only had the ensign not even acknowledged that the young savage had saved his life, he had spurned him, unable to hide his revulsion.

  It was too late for amends. All he could do was make the most of the chance he had been given. Pulling himself together, André scrubbed at his wet face. Then he turned to find a way down into the valley below. He must keep going long enough to reach the masting party. He must reach them without being detected so he could warn them before they were attacked. He resolutely ignored the voice in his head saying he might already be too late.

  Extract from the Te Kape manuscript, 1841

  It came to pass that Mariou and many of his subordinate chiefs were enticed by Te Kuri to row ashore and set their net again in that very place where they had violated tapu because of those who had drowned there. Then he and his warriors joined with those strangers, one on one, and waited until the net was being drawn into the shore. Then, each fell upon the unsuspecting stranger in front of him and clubbed him to death. The killing was quick and merciful, being ritual fulfilment of the desire expressed by that chiefly woman, Miki. All but two were so killed. One was the youth under the chiefly protection of Te Kuri himself, returned safely to the strangers at Manawa-ora. The other was the black man flogged by Mariou’s men, spared his life out of sympathy for such treatment. He was allowed to swim away and went overland to Waikare, where his descendants still live today.

  The bodies of those slain were taken by the war party, then, cooked and eaten by them as necessary retribution for the violations committed by those strangers. The small bones of those slain were made into forks for picking up food, and their thigh-bones were made into flutes. In all these ritual ways was the mana of those slain rendered harmless. Only Te Kuri and the tohunga Tohitapu of Te Roroa had sufficient mana to eat the body of Mariou, the principal chief of those strangers. That act was carried out at Te Haumi, at the place set aside for such ritual, and the blackened stones of that cooking fire can be seen there to this day. Accordingly, that matter was brought to its necessary and inevitable conclusion.

  It is often said that all the troubles visited on men stem from fights over women or land:

  He wahine, he whenua, ka ngaro te tangata.

  The death of men is caused by women and land.

  And so it was for Mariou. A song is still sung here in Te Rawhiti about that woman, Miki, and how her craving for fish triggered his death:

  Nau ra e Miki It was you, Miki,

  I tangi ki te ika who cried for fish.

  I mate ai Mariou And as a result Marion died,

  Kurikuri pau consumed by Kurikuri [Te Kuri].

  You say you have heard of the primary wife of Ruatara at Rangihoua, who also carried that name and was known to the missionaries there. Indeed, that illustrious name was further memorialized by being given to the chiefly daughter of Waraki, a woman with Ngati Rangi connections who was of high status amongst our people in that more recent time.

  Stumbling with weariness, his shoulder blades tense from constantly sensing he was being watched, André slowed to a halt. From the protection of a clump of sword-grass, he scanned the slope rising ahead of him. It was fully light now, and the sun’s rays were touching the rim of the saddle above. He knew he would be exposed there, as it would be hard to avoid being silhouetted against the skyline, however briefly. So far, despite that insistent prickle of premonition, he had seen no sign of savages. But he had no way of knowing who or what might lie in wait for him on the other side of the saddle—or at the masting camp beyond. Taking a deep breath, he plotted a route up a shallow gully that would provide him with the most protection. He could not linger any longer. The more he delayed, the stronger the light would become and the more likely it was he would be detected.

  Then, just as he left the shelter of the sword-grass, he saw the skyline above him blur. He blinked to clear his vision, but the blurring became worse. As he watched, the slope ahead disappeared as tendrils of mist were sucked out of the damp ground by the increasing warmth of the sun. Within minutes, a wall of thicker fog rolled over the saddle and down towards him. Uttering silent prayers of thanks, he crossed himself, then plunged into the fog. He climbed as fast as he could, not knowing how long he could rely on the vapour to hide him. By some trick of terrain and air movement, the floor of the shallow gully itself was clear, the fog flowing just above his head. He was able to follow the route he had picked out.

  His legs protesting with the strain, he pushed up steadily until he gained the saddle. He skirted a boggy section, then was at last moving more easily—downhill. He must be on the far side of the saddle. The fog pressed against the flank of the hill so he could not now see where he was going. At least the slope was not steep. He could hear his breathing, amplified by the fog, and pushed aside the thought that any lurking savages would surely hear him. But he sensed no other movement. He seemed to be the only thing alive in this fog-shrouded landscape.

  At last the changed angle of his footing told him he had reached the floor of the valley and level ground. Pushing his way through tussock and fern, he followed around the base of the hill, heading towards the coast and the invisible sea. It would be too easy to lose his bearings in the fog if he struck out directly across the swampy plain towards the masting camp.

  Almost as suddenly as the fog had descended, it began to lift. For some time he had been hearing the steady surge of waves on the beach. Now, not far ahead of him he could glimpse the sea, lit silver under the lifting layer of fog. On the far side of the plain, he could pick out the huts of the masting camp, solid shapes tucked against the slope, with moving red and blue spots of colour that must be French officers. He drew in a shuddering breath of relief.

  Then, as the surrounding hills emerged through the mist, he saw what he had been anticipating ever since Te Kape left him. Armed savages massed in throngs on all the hilltops above him. By some miracle, he had made his way past them under the cover of the fog without being accosted. Instinctively, he crossed himself and muttered a prayer of thanks. As he did so, his hand brushed against the pendant still lying under his shirt. For a moment, André was tempted to wrench the alien object off and hurl it into the fern. But even as he grasped its cord intending to do just that, something gave him pause. Reluctantly, he let go. He could not ignore that the pendant had protected him somehow; and without it, those savages would not have helped Te Kape secure his escape.

  With a final burst of effort, the ensign crossed the last stretch of swamp and reached the outskirts of the camp. To his dismay, he saw several savages coming from the opposite direction, intent on approaching two of the guards with baskets of fish, calling out in friendly voices. The unsuspecting guards, their muskets propped against the wall of the guard-post behind them, beckoned them closer. The sunlit scene appeared so normal that André was momentarily disorientated, the events of the past eighteen or so hours taking on the guise of hallucination. Then reality returned. But before he could find breath to shout a warning, he heard Lieutenant Le Dez’s voice.

  ‘Monsieur Tallec—you look as though you’ve seen a ghost!’

  He turned towards the lieutenant. The senior officer was lounging against the wall of the officers’ hut, a steaming mug in his hand, the picture of nonchalance. André stared, again thrown off-balance. The lieutenant looked more closely at him. Pushing himself off the wall, his voice sharpened with concern, he asked, ‘Ma fois, what has befallen you? Where’ve you come from to be in such a state?’

  André tried to tell his story, but his teeth were clattering uncontrollably. The words no sooner formed in his head than they escaped his tongue. He could only stammer, disjointed fragments of speech that sounded deluded in his own ears. He closed his mouth and stared mutely at the lieutenant. His legs were shaking again.

  Lieutenant Le Dez sat him down and called for brandy. ‘Take your time, sir.’

  The brandy gulped and send
ing welcome warmth into his belly, André slowly managed to get across to the officers now clustered around him the gist of what had happened. As he spoke, the nightmare images kept flashing, a jagged visual accompaniment to his stuttered words.

  Looking appalled, the lieutenant finally asked about Monsieur Marion’s fate.

  André shook his head. ‘I did not see him, sir—I saw very little before…’ His voice died away.

  Lieutenant Le Dez touched his shoulder. His face suddenly cleared and he said comfortingly, ‘Do not distress yourself. We can but hope he, too, was spared. Surely they intended no harm to him at least? Another brandy, I think.’ As the glass was refilled, he gestured at the surrounding hills. ‘You can see we’ve been having a spot of bother ourselves, but we’ve kept the savages at bay.’

  He kept talking, at first, André thought, to give him time to recover himself. But as the senior officer talked on, he began to wonder whether Lieutenant Le Dez grasped the enormity of what he had just told him. His usual wry manner unaltered in any way, the senior officer was recounting how they had been surrounded by increasing numbers of savages since daylight. He considered their behaviour not so much threatening as merely odd. ‘For some reason, they’d parcelled out the fish supplies amongst each and every one of them. They all came towards us, each holding out a single fish. We could see they were armed, so we made it clear they were to come no closer than one of their pikes we set in the ground. We did our trading from there.’

  ‘You traded as usual, sir?’ André found his voice to ask.

  ‘Oui, oui—we saw no reason to forgo our breakfast fish.’ Lieutenant Le Dez added, ‘Never fear, we kept our weapons in full sight, so they knew we were on the alert. Don’t forget we had the second lieutenant here, sent to reinforce us with another contingent of soldiers.’