Collision

by Joanna Orwin

  Extract from the Te Kape manuscript, 1841

  We were greatly surprised when those strangers sent another party of picked men to attack the stronghold on Moturua where five hundred of our people were gathered. Alerted by the sentries of their approach, the chiefs hastened to send away the women and children and those not yet of fighting age, and, they went away safely on the canoes to the mainland.

  In the passion of the moment, those left to defend the stronghold forgot the deadly effect of the strangers’ guns. Instead, the fighting chiefs went out boldly in pairs to challenge those strangers, as was our custom, their throwing darts and spears in their hands, their war mats slung about their bodies. Their courage served no purpose, and, a wind called up by those strangers averted their darts. Even though those chiefs withstood the attack, they fell one by one to the guns, their bodies riddled with wounds. Our people fought as long as they could, and, all the chiefs fell, and, those defending from the fighting platform were plucked from the heights like pigeons from a tree. Accordingly, those remaining took flight.

  None was spared and great was the slaughter, both within the stronghold and on the beach where the people fled in a vain effort to escape by canoe. Those victorious strangers from the sea then set fire to the stronghold.

  Chapter 14

  15 June–13 July 1772

  Port Marion 35° 15 ′ S

  Shouldn’t we immediately take advantage of our rout on Marion Island, gentlemen?’ Jean appealed to Messieurs Crozet and du Clesmeur on board the Mascarin the next morning. ‘We’ll get no better opportunity to seize Tacoury’s village. The savages will be demoralized and unlikely to put up much resistance without so many of their chiefs—especially if we indeed succeeded earlier in killing Tacoury himself.’

  ‘Prenez garde, Monsieur Roux—you’re letting a small success go to your head.’ Monsieur Crozet took snuff then offered the box to the two ensigns who were reporting the events of the previous day in the great cabin. ‘Those savages who escaped from the island have undoubtedly reported how lethal our weapons are. It’d be foolhardy to assume we’d take them unawares again.’

  Monsieur du Clesmeur nodded his agreement. ‘The island savages would hardly expect to be attacked by such a small detachment, also giving you some advantage of surprise.’ He looked down his long nose, drawing his head back in that supercilious manner guaranteed to offend. ‘In my opinion, sir, your actions will no doubt have roused the savages further against us. We already know that several thousand of them have gathered on the mainland. Besides, tackling such a large mainland village as Tacoury’s would risk losing more lives we can ill afford.’

  André bridled at the senior officers’ downplaying of Jean’s successful attack on the village. But his cousin, showing what the ensign felt was admirable restraint, ignored both the barely disguised disparagement and the proffered snuff box. He changed tack. ‘Apart from anything else, we’ve yet to determine exactly what happened to Monsieur Marion and his unfortunate companions. There may yet be survivors. Monsieur Tallec was hardly in a position to ascertain their fate, being immediately knocked unconscious.’

  ‘D’accord,’ André hastened to support him. ‘Isn’t it possible others from the wooding party may also have survived and still be hiding, awaiting rescue? Barely two days have passed.’

  Now Paul Chevillard looked up from his pen and paper. ‘My thinking also, gentlemen. The best men from the Castries were amongst those attacked—some of them surely fought hard enough to escape.’ It was not like him to question his senior officers. He was clearly recalling his inability to go to the rescue the morning of the attack, but, just as André’s sympathy was aroused, the clerk in Chevillard could not help adding, ‘If nothing else, we should try to retrieve our boats—we cannot afford to abandon such expensive items.’

  Monsieur Crozet brushed all their arguments aside. ‘You speak with the optimism of youth. The risks are too great. We should stick as close to the ships as we can from now on.’ He then looked searchingly at Jean. ‘I noticed you’re limping heavily, Monsieur Roux. Is your wound troubling you?’

  Jean shrugged impatiently. ‘I’ve seen the surgeon, sir. He thinks it unlikely the savages tip their weapons with poison—in his experience we would’ve been dead by now if they did so.’

  André realized his cousin had no intention of telling the senior officer that he had been awake before dawn, his thigh grossly swollen and throbbing, and whenever he moved he experienced sharp stabs of pain. The other two wounded men had also woken in pain, and the young ensign had insisted they all visit the surgeon as soon as they returned to the ship. Monsieur Thirion had bled them, cleansed the wounds and bound them tightly, but felt he could do no more. Only time would tell whether they faced anything more sinister. He opened his mouth to tell Monsieur Crozet the real situation, but closed it hastily when Jean glared a warning at him.

  ‘Fort bien.’ The senior officer was easily satisfied. He ordered them to return to the island to dismantle the forge, then remove all the men and equipment to the safety of the ships.

  When the frustrated ensigns took their leave, Monsieur du Clesmeur fired a parting shot. ‘You’d do far better to spend your time ensuring the repairs to the ships are completed as soon as possible and our provisions secured rather than seeking glory by attacking the savages.’

  As soon as they were out of hearing, Jean muttered, ‘The incompetent sot would see that as a priority, seeing his ship still has no masts.’

  ‘And those we worked so hard for are likely lost,’ André added. ‘The savages probably set fire to the logs, knowing how important they are to us.’ He considered their superior officers had objected over-much to their proposal, maybe realizing the successful attack on the village had shown up their own lack of initiative. It was not much comfort. His thoughts returned to the possibility of survivors, and he burst out, ‘Mort-diable, Jean—I can’t believe they refuse to do everything in their power to mount a rescue operation. How could Monsieur du Clesmeur think it’s mere glory-seeking?’

  ‘He’s an aristocrat—his own skin and reputation mean more to him than the safety of his men.’ Jean shrugged. ‘I’m surprised at Monsieur Crozet, though. I’m beginning to think my former good opinion of him was misplaced.’

  They had no choice but to return to the island, where they spent the day supervising the dismantling of the forge and the guard-post. As a precaution against being ambushed, Monsieur Crozet told them to cut down the head-high bracken fern that encroached on the shore camp on all sides. According to Jean, it was the first sensible decision he made. Although the rain had stopped, the wind still blew hard enough to prevent any savages from crossing the turbulent passage to the island, and their tasks were completed without interruption.

  Earning more of the ensigns’ scorn, Monsieur du Clesmeur on board the Castries then fired several cannon shots at canoes negotiating the inner bays, even though they were clearly well out of range. ‘No doubt he’ll claim a hit or two,’ said Jean, snorting. ‘Trying to make up for his inaction.’

  When the wind died down at last a few days later, Monsieur Crozet sent André and Jean with the longboat to the burnt-out village on the island to arrange retrieval of any usable timbers, that being the only part of their report he had accepted as worth pursuing. By then Jean’s thigh had begun to heal, the swelling much reduced and the puckered edges of the wound a healthy pink. Although he was still limping slightly, the pain had gone and he was back to his vigorous self. Even so, he confessed to André that the wound had given him a nasty moment or two. ‘It was a long few days until we knew for certain that these savages don’t use poisons.’

  As they made their way up the steep path to the village from the landing cove, accompanied by a detachment of soldiers, the last gusts of wind carried the acrid stink of burnt timber tainted with the unmistakable sweetness of charred human flesh down the slope towards them. They stopped to tie handkerchiefs over their mouths. André could not help starting at e
very rustle in the clumps of sword-grass, his hand going to the pistol on his belt.

  Jean noticed his nervousness and scoffed at him. ‘You shy like a startled horse! We’re not about to come across any savages—they’re all holed up in their fortifications on the mainland, reduced to sounding their trumpets and lighting signal fires at our every move.’ He added, looking pointedly at the bulge under André’s shirt, ‘Besides, aren’t you protected?’

  The young ensign flushed, but said nothing. Although Jean thought him perverse in continuing to wear the pendant Te Kuri had given him, André was unwilling to discard it. He knew he was being superstitious about the protection it gave him, but the gift had indeed saved his life. Despite the treachery of the savages, neither could he dismiss his friendship with Te Kape as meaningless. Deep down, and barely formulated, was the hope that continuing to wear the pendant might in some way also protect the youth who had saved him.

  Now, as Jean waggled his eyebrows at him, grinning provocatively, André realized something else was troubling him. He seized the chance to change the subject. ‘Haven’t you noticed there are no bodies lying around? Despite our watchfulness, the savages have been back here undetected.’

  He was right. When they reached the site of the burnt village, its blackened palisades still standing silent sentinel, they found no trace of the corpses they had left piled at the entrance gate. The soldiers reported recently disturbed ground in several places, and when they dug down, they discovered charred human remains.

  ‘They must’ve returned under cover of darkness,’ said Jean, trying to hide his consternation.

  André was more disconcerted by these signs that despite their savagery, the Zealanders respected their dead in much the same way as civilized peoples. Once again, his thoughts strayed to Monsieur Marion and his unknown fate. Although he knew the wooding party survivor’s reports of bodies being dismembered and shared amongst the savages did not bode well, he took some comfort from a new hope that maybe they had respected the expedition leader’s status as their chief and at least given him proper burial.

  Keeping a wary eye on the mainland, where they could now see canoes plying back and forth along the northeastern coast and amongst the islands on that side of Port Marion, the men started to dismantle the charred palisades. Others knocked down the fighting platform. As Jean had predicted, inspection soon showed that the timbers of both structures would prove ideal for firewood. It would take many trips with their one remaining longboat to transport all the usable timber back to the ships.

  During the next few weeks, the ship’s people were kept busy laying in necessary supplies of firewood and water. The longboat alternated trips to the burnt village to collect timber—enough to provide the seventy cords of firewood still needed—and to the watering place where they were filling seven hundred leaguers for the two ships. The blacksmith erected his forge on the deck of the Mascarin to assist the carpenters in fashioning a new jury rig for the Castries. The senior officers had quickly decided it would be futile to try to retrieve the two logs that had been hauled so tantalizingly close to the shore in the southern bay. Apart from the danger of being attacked while they hauled them the last half-league to the sea, it was highly unlikely the savages had not already destroyed them. Even Jean conceded that going to check was not worth the risk.

  The carpenters accordingly set to. They converted the Castries’ mizzenmast to serve as the main piece for a new foremast, as it could be stepped down into the hold. Its length was extended by fishing together the remaining spare yards. The new mast was made up of nine pieces of timber in all, held secure by iron hoops and hawsers tightened with wooden wedges. As the carpenters worked, they could not help constantly lamenting the superb logs they had been forced to abandon. A spare topmast then had to serve as the replacement mizzenmast. At the same time, another group put together a new bowsprit on the deck of the Castries, using the last spare topmast also strongly fished with lengths of timber for reinforcement. All this meant that the rigging had to be shortened accordingly and sections removed from all the sails to reduce the overall proportions of canvas to mast height. As the sailmaker commented ruefully, losing the main mast would have caused them less trouble, the foremast being crucial in maintaining the necessary balance of the sail plan. Despite his calculations and careful adjustments, he complained to anyone who had time to listen, ‘She was awkward to steer before, but she’ll be ten times worse now.’

  The loss of their boats caused almost as much frustration—the Mascarin’s clerk not being the only one concerned. Every now and then, someone on board their surviving longboat, as it beat across the bay on the way from the ships towards Marion Island, would insist he had seen the other longboat or the yawl lost to the savages in Tacoury’s Cove. On one such occasion, Lieutenant Le Dez succumbed to the concerted testimony of the twenty men on board that they had seen both boats close to the mainland. Against his better judgement, he set off in pursuit. The exasperated Monsieur Crozet sent the yawl with reinforcements after him when he failed to respond to signals ordering him to return immediately. When the lieutenant did return to the ships, he reported they had found no trace of their boats, but had managed to seize a length of newly worked timber he thought would serve well for the mast repairs.

  The lieutenant had an extraordinary tale to tell. ‘We’d barely landed when several savages came down to the beach from a nearby hamlet, bringing us fish—fish!’ He spread his hands in disbelief. ‘Ma fois, I’ll never understand what drives these people. What could possess them to approach us so calmly and with such confidence, as though nothing dire had happened between us?’

  ‘What did you do, sir?’ André could not help asking, even though he feared the response.

  ‘We soon showed them their folly in thinking we’d be willing to trade with such treacherous beings.’ His party of men had promptly fired a volley of musket shots at them, wounding several. Lieutenant Le Dez shook his head. ‘We tried to take those wounded captive, in the hope we’d learn what happened to Monsieur Marion and his companions, but they were still too strong for us and got away.’

  Finally, the detachment took pleasure in setting fire to the hamlet behind the beach, making it the third village they had razed in the wider bay.

  It was only a few days after this that the savages tried to mount a surprise attack on the party fetching timber from the village burnt on Marion Island. In charge for the day, André and Jean anticipated that the savages might seek retaliation for Lieutenant Le Dez’s foray. They took care to set a sentry on the mountain above the village where he could see the country on all sides, leaving the rest of the soldiers on alert at the start of the narrow path along the ridge to the village entrance. They were precautions well taken. Almost before the wooding party had crossed the most difficult section of the path, the sentry fired off his musket and shouted a warning that he could see savages lurking in the fern. He reported later how one dressed in sailor’s clothes and wearing a sailor’s hat tried to stroll past him, his head down to hide his tattooed face. When the man failed to respond to his challenge, he shot him.

  Realizing they were discovered and all advantage of surprise was lost, about fifty armed savages rose up out of the fern. Many of them were dressed in the clothes of the sailors killed on the mainland. André could not help a snort of laughter. ‘Quelle folie! They thought they’d take us by surprise, that we’d not notice them approaching in such a guise.’

  As the savages now took to their heels, Jean shouted, ‘After them!’ He drew out his pistol and set off in pursuit, with his cousin and the soldiers close behind.

  It seemed like déjà vu to André as they plunged down the steep fern-covered slope to a small beach on the far side of the headland from the usual landing cove, with savages fleeing before them. They cut most of them off before they could launch the canoes hidden amongst some rocks. Half a dozen fell to pistol shot or cutlass blow on the beach, and twenty or so more were killed in the water. Others drowne
d trying to swim away after being injured. The survivors landed their canoes at a fortified village on a small rocky islet just off Marion Island. Two canoes were left behind, and Jean immediately had them chopped up for firewood.

  After this defeat, the savages made no further attempts to attack them—perhaps at last realizing that the Frenchmen were in no mood to seek peace, nor likely to be caught napping. Any canoes that foolishly ventured near the ships were fired upon. One was split in two by a lucky cannon shot from the Castries, which had Monsieur du Clesmeur preening as though he had blown an English warship out of the water. From then on, the savages contented themselves with keeping a close watch on the French activities from the safety of their fortified villages on the mainland, their sentries calling with loud voices that could be heard from the ships. Every night, the signal fires flared along the coast. But with no further skirmishes to distract them, the ship’s people were able to complete their repairs by the end of the month.

  Extract from the Te Kape manuscript, 1841

  Those ships continued to stay in Tokerau, but the strangers from the sea no longer ventured ashore on the mainland, remaining instead on their ships or on Moturua, which they took as conquest. The people of Tokerau made a few more attempts to surprise te iwi o Mariou, seeking blood for the blood shed, but to no avail as they suffered yet more deaths at the hands of the guns. Accordingly, some tried to sue for peace, bringing fish to a party of the strangers who came ashore at Manawa-ora. But their efforts were spurned by those strangers, who proved ignorant of the traditional way of quenching the fires of war. Instead, those peacemakers were fired upon, then, their village was burnt. Honour required that this further blood-letting should be reciprocated, and, accordingly a war party was sent to surprise those strangers at the burnt-out stronghold on Moturua. That too ended in disaster, for the vengeful appetite of the strangers from the sea knew no bounds, and, in spite of their difference from us, they were proven to be a brave fighting people.