‘I think we ken the message, sir,’ growled the Scottish sergeant. ‘Yer need have no fear of my men talking.’
‘Good. I’ll hold you to that, Sergeant. Any one of these men talks and you lose them stripes. That’s a fact.’
‘Yes, sir. I understand.’
The sergeant understood, but knew there was not a hope in hell of stopping the troops talking about this action. It would be all over the place before a day was out. Especially concerning the woman. Women had been killed in this war before now, but never in such a terrible slaughter as the one these soldiers had witnessed.
Abe, though, was satisfied he had put the fear of God, or at least fear of army discipline, into the troops. He was convinced they would not speak of this incident again. The column continued on its way back to New Plymouth. Again they spent the night out in the open and again did not make fires for fear of reprisals from other Maori tribes. The Maori were notoriously quick at discovering such deeds. Abe would not feel comfortable until he was back in New Plymouth, within the protection of several thousand British troops.
They arrived back the following evening. After bathing and stowing his precious gun, Abe Wynter dressed in civilian clothes and went out in search of Captain Jack Crossman. He was told the captain was at that moment in time in Auckland or thereabouts so he would have to wait to complete his business. He was glad to have something to offer the officer, whom he had kept dangling a long time. In the meantime he paid for the services of a clerk to write his dictated report to the colonel.
Abe Wynter made no mention of the dead Maori woman in his report. He knew who she was; the woman who had led him to the Maori rebels in the first place. The woman he had once discussed with his brother Harry; an indiscretion Abe wished he could now retract. However, the damage was done and, all in all, what did it matter? She was only a Maori and Crossman could get another if he wished.
Sixteen
Jack was still convinced that Private Harry Wynter had stolen part of the gold shipment that he and his men had recovered, the value of which he knew to be close to a thousand sovereigns. To a private soldier, whose pay after stoppages was around three or four pence a day, that was an absolute fortune. But how would Harry Wynter convert raw gold into money he could spend? The answer to that was obvious. He would do it through his brother, Abraham Wynter. Abe was shrewd enough to know he could skim a good profit from handling his brother’s ill-gotten gains, even after declaring that he would take a percentage. Harry Wynter had no real idea of the price of gold on the market, would not know how to go about discovering it, and would be happy with what he got.
What was more, Abe was clever. He would know that money in Harry’s hands would be spilt like water on drink, women and gambling. It was doubtful if the whole thousand sovereigns, given all at once, would last a week. Abe would therefore be careful to dole out the cash to Harry in small amounts. Harry would grumble but would be in no position to make a great fuss. After all he was a thief who faced dreadful punishment for his crime if he were found out. So Harry would reluctantly accept his brother’s plan and make the best of a rather pleasant situation. Now, though, the private had slipped up a little and Jack pressed forward with his enquiry.
Coming before him, in the room Jack was using as a temporary office, Harry Wynter looked as if he had crawled out of ditch. His uniform was filthy, his skin looked unwashed, and his boots were covered in mud. When he saluted, he swayed violently to one side. Sergeant King had to nudge him up straight with his shoulder to keep him from falling over altogether.
‘Sergeant,’ snapped Jack, seated behind the shipping crate he used as a desk, ‘is this man drunk?’
‘Tired, your honour,’ murmured Wynter, his eyes half-closed. ‘Not drunk. Leastways, I was a bit tipsy yesterday, but that were yesterday. Today I an’t drunk, sir. I din’t get me much sleep last night, bein’ as I’m havin’ certain dreams.’
Jack ignored the bait about dreams, which would have led to all the injustices Wynter felt he had undergone in the army.
‘Sergeant, where has this man been to get in such a state?’
‘He won’t be able to tell you that,’ replied Harry lazily, ‘’cos I an’t told him. Oh, he asked all right, but I still din’t tell him nothin’.’
‘Sergeant, why is this man speaking to me directly?’
‘Sir,’ said King, ‘I can’t stop him, short of gagging him. Shall I gag him, Captain?’
Jack removed the prosthetic metal hand that he wore when he was in his dress uniform, laid it on the shipping crate before him, and scratched the sore stump which was his wrist. Wearily, he replied, ‘No, no. No gagging, Sergeant.’
Thus Jack swiftly abandoned the procedure he had hoped to adopt; he had hoped to use Sergeant King as a buffer between him and Private Wynter. He had known in his heart beforehand that he would not be able to keep it up, but had thought it worth a try. He now spoke directly to the private.
‘Suppose you tell me, Wynter? Why do you appear before your commanding officer in state of filth?’
‘Sir, I was as smart as you look when I started out this mornin’, but was set upon by the navy on me way here.’
‘The navy?’
Wynter’s hideous milky eye rolled in his scarred face as he gave Jack a twisted smile.
‘Not the whole navy, o’ course. Just ’alf a dozen.’
Now it was Wynter’s turn to scratch at something: the black furrow in his forehead left by a handgun he had used in an abortive attempt at suicide. Wynter had blamed this attempt at taking his own life on the ‘abuse’ he had received from Sergeant King and the then Lieutenant Crossman. He claimed to have been callously abandoned in an Indian thorn bush, which blinded his eye and tore wounds in his body, only later to be thrashed by King for insulting the Asian host who had nursed him back to health.
This subtle scratching action infuriated Jack, who knew it was being done for the sole purpose of making him feel guilty. Yet if he charged Wynter with this accusation, he would be met with a look of astonished innocence.
‘Leave your face alone, Wynter.’
‘Oh, sorry, sir.’ A contrived innocence springing immediately into place. ‘I ’spect it was ’cos you was scratchin’ your stump. Unconscious like, I did the same. We been through a lot together, an’t we, sir? Battles here an’ there. That’s what I told them navy boys when they started insultin’ you. I said if they’d seen half the action you and me ’ave, over the years, they’d take refuge in a woman too.’
King stepped away from Wynter’s side and stared in shock at the private.
Jack, deep down inside, went very cold.
The captain was silent for a few moments, then he said in a low threatening voice, ‘Be very, very careful, Wynter.’
‘I’m just tellin’ you, sir, what I heard. I din’t believe a word of it, o’ course, you bein’ a married man of honour, but them navy boys wun’t stop yellin’ stuff. So I told ’em even if – even if you was goin’ with a Maori bint, which I was certain you wasn’t, there was good reason when you’d bin through so much action, like us. That was when they laid into me, sir, and I got this dirt on me. I fought ’em like a wild ’un, for the honour of the regiment, like, but they dusted me over good.’
Jack knew of course that these ‘navy taunts’ were fictitious. He strongly doubted there had been a confrontation at all. More likely Wynter had spent the night in a ditch, sleeping off his latest drinking bout. Where had Wynter got the knowledge of his liaisons with Amiri? This much Jack had to find out, to see how far his indiscretions had spread. God help him if it had reached the ears of a private soldier who hated him already! The silver cigarillo case was now irrelevant. More important was the source of Harry Wynter’s knowledge. Jack fought his feelings for a few minutes. He would have much enjoyed planting a fist on his private’s nose, an impossible scenario, but he had to control his cold anger and attempt to outmanoeuvre a man who owned more cunning than Shakespeare’s Iago.
�
��I want to thank you, Private Wynter, for intervening on my behalf,’ he said, much to the complete astonishment of his sergeant. ‘These groundless insults are not to be borne, are they?’
‘No, sir, they an’t. It’s why I waded into ’em with me fists.’ He showed Jack a grimy set of fives. ‘I showed ’em what soldiers is made of, that’s certain. An’ anyways, it’s none of the navy’s business.’
‘Well, I think we have established the complete lack of evidence behind these insults, Wynter, don’t you? After all, if there were any truth in the matter, I would be in deep trouble, wouldn’t I? In such a case I would have conducted my affair with great caution and secrecy, which would have meant . . . what?’ Jack paused for thought. He furrowed his brow. ‘Yes – it would have meant that someone had to be watching me, observing my movements all hours of the day, for weeks at a time. No one I know has that sort of time and energy, and therefore it could never happen, could it, Wynter? You can see that, can’t you?’
‘Yes, sir, there an’t nobody I know who could do that of themselves.’
Of themselves? A revelation! Jack suddenly realized who Harry’s informant might be. The knowledge hit him with a hammer blow. Now he remembered seeing a man, just once or twice, close to his quarters! Good God, it was worse than Jack could have imagined. The sweat came to his brow and he blinked. If this scandal broke, he would be ruined both in his marriage and probably in his career as an officer. It was not the act – many officers had been with local women – but the terrible consequences of being found out by a man who could use the knowledge to destroy him. What a stupid thing it all was! How weak he had been. Carnal lust had been the downfall of many a great man, let alone a small man like himself. All for a few moments of ecstasy between the sheets. Yet – yet, it had been more than that, hadn’t it? He loved Amiri, did he not? The difference only had meaning to himself though.
Harry Wynter was jabbering again.
‘Is this about the cigarillo case, sir? – ’cos I can explain that,’ said Wynter, cutting into the silence.
Jack had been staring at the crate top and now his face came up and Wynter saw the horror in it. The private smiled. Triumph was his. At last he had the bloody captain on a hook.
‘What? What can you explain?’
‘’Bout the cigarillo case, sir. It was give me, by my dear brother Abe Wynter, for a favour I done him.’
There it was, the confirmation of Jack’s fears. Abraham Wynter had had him followed. Or his man had witnessed Amiri entering Jack’s quarters surreptitiously. There was no doubt about it. Jack could read the message in Harry Wynter’s face. It was there in every crease. Harry Wynter had been with him when Amiri had flirted with him the first time they met. He had obviously mentioned this incident to his brother, who then had had Jack watched by one of his Maoris.
‘Quite so, Private Wynter, you are dismissed.’
Sergeant King suddenly found his voice. ‘But, sir, Wynter previously said the case had been given to him by a comrade.’
‘Well,’ replied Harry, grinning, ‘who’s my best comrade? None other than my dear old brother. Best mates, we are and always ’ave been.’ He came to attention and saluted Jack. ‘Justice ’as bin done, sir, ain’t it?’ Then he swaggered insolently from the room.
Jack buried his face in his hands.
Sergeant King was mortified.
‘Sir – are you ill? Is it the headaches again?’
Jack lifted his head. ‘No – that is, I’m not feeling altogether well, but you need have no concern, Sergeant. Just a little fatigue I think. If you wouldn’t mind, I would like you to take Private Wynter and Corporal Gwilliams and give them a lesson on map-making today. That’s all, Sergeant.’
King saluted. He clearly suspected that something had gone on between his captain and the private that had escaped him. Whether King would take it further, Jack had no idea. Perhaps he would try to question Wynter. Jack was sure Harry Wynter would keep his knowledge to himself, for if he gave it away to King, or anyone else, it would immediately become a weaker weapon. Harry Wynter was not one to let his strengths dissipate before he had used them to the full.
Jack sat staring bleakly at the wooden walls of the room he occupied. What was he to do? Confront Abraham Wynter? Where would that get him? What about leaving sleeping dogs to lie? In which case he would have the affair hanging over his head for ever. If only there were someone he could talk to, to get advice. He wished Nathan Lovelace, though he would have been excruciatingly embarrassed to take Nathan into his confidence. Steel-souled Nathan did not understand the failings of men.
Later in the day, Sergeant Farrier King came to see him.
‘Sir, I may have got us a new Maori man – you know, for your network? I thought you’d like to see him yourself. Recruit him personally.’
Jack was lost in his own thoughts. He had been so distracted and dismayed by Harry Wynter’s inferences he had hardly left his shipping-crate desk all morning. In the early afternoon he had paced up and down, trying to see a way forward. He certainly could not punish Harry Wynter in any way, though the man’s insolence warranted some form of punitive action. Nor could he make any sort of rebuttal. The facts were the facts, and Wynter knew it. Now that the knowledge of his affair was out in the public domain, Jack’s marriage was under serious threat. It would have been one thing to admit such a misdemeanour to Jane privately, quite another for her to discover that even the rank and file knew of her husband’s indiscretions. Jack’s mind had blazed with feverish thoughts and his spirit had plunged into the deepest imaginable misery. He would rather be dead.
‘Sir?’ said King. ‘I said . . .’
‘Sorry, Sergeant, I did hear you,’ murmured Jack, ‘I’m just not feeling myself at the moment.’
‘I understand,’ replied the sergeant, quietly.
Jack’s head came up, glad to be able to change his emotions, glad to have a target for anger.
‘Oh, you do, do you?’ he snapped.
He had never seen eye-to-eye with his senior NCO. Sergeant King and his obsession with map-making was a constant source of irritation to him. Sergeant King was more of a civilian surveyor in army uniform. He could not shoot straight, his discipline consisted of taking soldiers behind the latrines and knocking their teeth out and he obeyed only those commands which he felt were justified. It was true that King’s intelligence and dedication to his profession made him valuable to the army, but Jack would have much rather have had a sergeant with the mind of a good thoroughbred horse. One who thought less of charts and coloured inks and more of following through his captain’s orders.
‘That is, I know why you’re down, sir.’
‘I think this conversation should stop here, Sergeant.’
‘Well, sir,’ said King, ‘I would stop it here, if I thought it was the best thing for the group. But it seems to me that this problem you have goes too deep to be left alone. It will affect us all, when we’re out in the bush, where our minds need to be sharp as tacks.’
You see, thought Jack to himself, this was just what he hated about this man. King had the impertinence to intrude upon his commanding officer’s very private business. It was no use Jack doing his ‘how dare you, this is my personal life, I do not need a sergeant’s advice’ speech. It would be like water off a duck’s back. Jack tried to imagine what an officer like Lord Cardigan or Wellington would do with an audacious sergeant who had the temerity to patronize them. Why, the man would be sitting, hands tied behind his back, astride a newly sharpened wooden horse within seconds! Yet Jack was no Cardigan or Wellington; he could not explode in wrath and destroy this upstart. His nature was to writhe in cold anger and try to demolish the man with an aristocratic stare. Sergeant King’s nature was to ignore haughty stares and continue intruding upon his officer’s private trials and tribulations.
‘You see what I mean, sir? It’s not just about you. It’s about all of us. It’s about keeping our minds honed to the work and staying alive in dangero
us situations. It’s about keeping our heads clear.’ The trouble with King was he had been born an intelligent man and made a great deal of sense. ‘You see, sir, it’s not like we’re just going off into battle. If that was what it was, the fighting would take your mind off what’s worrying you and I wouldn’t have the sauce to say the things I’m saying. It’s hard to worry about things when people next to you are getting blown to bits and heads are flying off bodies. But what we’re doing takes slow and deliberate thought. Out in the bush we have to think clear. Your head’s not clear, sir. It’s full of dark dreams. You could kill us all by just – well, by just going in on yourself, sir.’
Jack picked up his iron hand and used it to point at King’s face, hoping to intimidate him.
‘And you, Sergeant King, have a solution to my problems, do you?’
‘No, you know I haven’t got that, sir. Look, can I just say if it were me – caught out like you’ve been – I’d make a clean breast of it, sir. Write to Mrs Crossman – tell her. It’s no good you look at me like that, Captain, we all know. Harry Wynter doesn’t keep things like that to himself. It doesn’t matter to us, does it? We’re no saints. I got an Indian woman into trouble when I was younger, didn’t I? But think about it, sir, getting it off your mind, I mean. If Harry Wynter has anything to do with it, she’ll hear anyway. Sorry to intrude, sir.’
King stood before him, a square man with a square jaw, square fists and a square honest expression. Jack’s anger melted and the feelings it had temporarily replaced returned with a vengeance. His spirit plummeted like a stone thrown into a chasm. He only wished it would hit the bottom and his heart would stop with the impact.
Kiwi Wars Page 20