Legacy

by Whiti Hereaka

  ‘Is this why the two of you are fighting? I ought to keep it. No scarab, nothing to fight about.’

  ‘Great. As if Matatau doesn’t hate me enough as it is.’

  ‘Mata doesn’t hate you.’

  Mata arrives at the canteen and Jack waves at him. Mata glares.

  ‘Well, he doesn’t hate just you.’

  After Lord Methuen’s speech, the Contingent are given the rest of the day off. Riki imagines that the history books will say it was because Lord Methuen felt moved by the patriotic display shown by the men – ‘All those that do not want to go, slope arms,’ Lord Methuen had said. The story will be told that not a rifle moved; not even an inch. But Riki knows that he wasn’t the only one whose grip had wavered that morning. Still, when the men were told that they would see action, he felt moved to join the haka ‘Ka Mate’.

  This afternoon it seems that every man has stripped off his dress uniform and joined the party. Jack’s sausages could not have fed them all – even Jesus would have struggled if he were in charge. Luckily, almost every tent has something to contribute to the feast.

  To Riki it feels more like Christmas than his birthday – probably because it is summer here, rather than the middle of winter. Big Mo and little Mo have somehow managed to fashion a barbeque, and everyone sits in the late afternoon heat eating sausages and drinking the last of the beer from the wet canteen.

  The attitude of these guys is still foreign to Riki – he’s only seen this kind of enthusiasm for war when guys play first person shooters. It’s easy to be gung-ho when it’s an avatar that’s in mortal danger and death is only as long as a restart from a save point. Most of these men seem to be celebrating that they’ll finally make it to the front. Some of them even worry that the war will be over before they make it to Gallipoli. They should be so lucky.

  Rewai brings Riki a beer. ‘Happy birthday.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Eighteen, eh?’ Rewai whistles. ‘How old does His Majesty think you are?’

  ‘Twenty-two, I guess.’

  ‘Even that is too young to die for your country. If you were my boy, I’d clip you round the ears.’

  ‘I’m sure that will happen when I get home.’

  ‘If I was your father, I wouldn’t have let you come.’

  ‘There wasn’t much choice.’

  Rewai sighs. Riki can tell he is winding up for some long dad-type story. He’s already told them so many stories about the Boer War that last time he started one Jack passed Riki a note that said: Another one about the ‘Bore’ War.

  Rewai has a ritual before he starts a story. He squints as if he is trying to read the story in the sky, and he always rolls a few cigarettes – one for himself and one each for whoever is in his audience.

  ‘You should smoke,’ Rewai says, offering one to Riki. ‘It toughens up your lungs.’

  ‘My mother would kill me.’

  Rewai laughs and takes a deep drag before he starts. ‘When I was a child, my mother took me to visit her people in Tauranga. From Rotorua that was a good day away. It was the first time I had seen the sea – I smelt it before I saw it; the salt in the air so different from the lakes I knew. I was amazed by the ferocity of the tide – the water of the lake is gentle at the shore. The waves of the sea could knock me down and drag me out. I learnt that the wave that crests before you may look small, but it has the power of the ocean behind it.’

  The point, if Rewai has one, has totally bypassed Riki.

  ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘What is there to get?’ Rewai asks.

  ‘No, I mean I don’t understand. I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.’

  ‘The few of us that are here represent many. We have the people at home behind us; we have our tīpuna behind us.’ Rewai flicks his cigarette butt away. ‘We have the entire Empire behind us.’

  Riki laughs, and Rewai looks at him – he’s serious? Rewai is cynical about war – he has already served; he doesn’t have the same romantic ideas about adventure that the others have. Riki has assumed that he will be distrusting of the Empire too.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘It’s nothing, really,’ Riki says. ‘It all got a bit heavy then.’

  ‘Heavy?’

  ‘Yeah, you know, heavy.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that beer has gone to your head already.’

  ‘Yeah, nah,’ Riki says.

  ‘Yes or no, boy? I don’t “get” it,’ Rewai says, winking at Riki.

  ‘It’s just overwhelming. A lot to think about …’

  ‘No time for thinking!’ Jack says, almost spilling beer over Riki. ‘It’s a party. Come on, you two.’

  Riki and Rewai follow Jack back to the crowd. Riki feels better to be among them, to be one of them – laughing and drinking and not stuck thinking about the future: just living in the here and now, just present. Is this real freedom, then? To enjoy yourself without thinking of consequences; without thinking of where you’ll be in ten or twenty years? Because who knows if any of them will see the year out? Now might be the only time you have left. It’s a thought that would normally freak Riki out, but maybe because of the sun and the beer it feels comforting.

  Jack raises his beer. ‘Happy birthday, Riki!’

  And the rest of his tent toasts Riki’s good health, except for Matatau, who just stares.

  10

  28 JUNE 1915

  Riki counts the days he has marked off in his diary. It has been fifty-seven days since the Contingent volunteered to go to the front, and now, this morning, they are finally on their way, before the sun has even risen.

  Volunteered. It doesn’t seem to be the exact word for it – even though they had all agreed. He remembered his mum talking about the Māori Contingent volunteering. She had read a passage from a biography on Sir Peter Buck and couldn’t believe it.

  Te Awhina had snapped the book shut. ‘I mean, it’s a beautiful image: that they all stepped forward as one – the man had an ear for the poetic; I’ll give him that. But every one of them agreed? All five hundred of them? I find that hard to believe.’

  Riki has grown up with the idea that peer pressure ought to be resisted – that it is easy to stand up for what you believe against the crowd – but he knows now this isn’t true. When Lord Methuen had read the letter from the Minister of Defense Hon. Allen that said the men could volunteer, every part of Riki wanted to say no. He knew that volunteering would mean certain death for most of the men around him; he knew that of the five hundred there, only one hundred or so would be evacuated from Gallipoli. He knew all of this, but felt like he couldn’t say no; he couldn’t refuse to take that place. The situation had made it impossible – the men had the idea that active service would honour their people. They had received a special letter from Parliament, read by the Governor – it was flattering to these proud men. And they had spent so much time together already; who would want to let his mates down? Maybe some of them – maybe the majority of them – had their doubts about volunteering, but they would never voice them.

  Another miserable journey on board the Massilia. Riki has never found his sea legs. He tries to stay on the deck as much as he can, sleeping there if he has a choice. There is a breeze, which is nice, but the ship rolls on choppy waves. He has learnt to keep his eyes open, and to try to find a point to focus on. He’ll be going on duty soon; manning the ship’s guns for a couple of hours, which is actually a welcome distraction from the seasickness. Riki knows that it is not only the rolling waves that is making him ill; it is the knowledge that they are sailing to Gallipoli.

  To try to calm his mind, Riki reminds himself that Te Ariki Mikaera survived Gallipoli; survived the war and went on to become a father and grandfather and great-grandfather. If he is living as Te Ariki now, at least he knows that he will be safe. At least he knows that Te Ariki Mikaera was safe. But there is a thought that nags him: what if his arrival here has reset his whānau’s history? What if he begins to fade
away like the photo in Back to the Future? He’s done all sorts of things since he arrived in 1915. He may never be able to get home now – at least to the home he remembers.

  It is all too much. Riki leans over the railing and vomits. A couple of guys walk past as he retches and laugh and pat him on the back. He is too sick to be embarrassed – like when you’re so drunk at a party that you don’t care that you still have chunks down your chin. You’re just glad that it’s out.

  Maybe he should tell someone; tell them that he’s from the future. But they wouldn’t believe him, would they? Who’d believe that he’s from the future? Only someone as crazy as the person telling the story. Riki thinks about all the time travellers in movies: no one ever believes them; not really. Even if they think he is mad and send him home, it’s got to be better than going to the front. But what then? Spend the rest of his life in an asylum somewhere? They didn’t have much of an idea about mental health at the turn of the twentieth century. He’s seen the horror movies where the ghosts haunt the old asylums because of the torture they received in life. They’d probably lobotomise him; at best they’d use shock therapy. And the asylum itself is the best case scenario – what if they think he’s just trying to desert? Don’t they kill deserters?

  What happens if he dies here?

  Riki decides that he will survive Gallipoli. He doesn’t hope; he will survive. And after he does he will go back to Egypt and try to undo whatever brought him to this place.

  11

  7 OCTOBER 1975

  TRANSCRIPT:

  Cassette number 2: Te Ariki Mikaera Pūweto (interviewee, WWI veteran) and Alamein Pūweto (interviewer and grandson of Te Ariki). Also present: Taimona Pūweto (daughter and caregiver of Te Ariki).

  TE ARIKI Some say it was a war for no reason. What a stupid thing to say. Of course there was a reason for war. There are always plenty of ‘reasons’: land, minerals, money, distrust of other people and their cultures. What I can tell you is that, at the heart of it, war has nothing to do with noble ideas of freedom and peace. That’s what we tell ourselves to justify our actions. ‘The War to End all Wars’, eh? Do you know how many wars I’ve lived through? They say that we fought to preserve ‘freedom’ and ‘our way of life’. Did anyone stop to think that that way of life was not worth preserving? We had it pretty rough before and after the war – we fought for change, not the status quo.

  ALAMEIN But for Māori the reason to go fight was about what was going on here, wasn’t it? What Ngata argued …

  TE ARIKI The price of citizenship? [Laughs] The idea that we fought to be visible at home. We were there, you know? For once they couldn’t help but see us. But even then they didn’t really see us, nē? We were just men in uniform, New Zealanders, Kiwis, Anzacs – not Māori.

  [Pause]

  A hundred years – four or five generations – will pass and yet that bargain will not be fulfilled. And yet our sons, our children, will still fill their ranks; will kill their enemies – and for what? To be considered equal. To be considered a citizen.

  [Silence]

  ALAMEIN And we’re not equal?

  TE ARIKI You tell me, boy. How many Māori in your class at university? How many represent us in Parliament? How many of the books that you read are written by Māori? When was the last time you saw us on the telly? Our histories and our stories are being told for us, and a story is never neutral – there is always a purpose in its telling. So what are they saying about us? And why do we believe them?

  [Pause] If we listen to the rhetoric then we might believe that we are privileged. That we were lucky compared to what happened elsewhere. And perhaps we were.

  ALAMEIN But it is better, Koro. I can go to university; books will be written …

  TE ARIKI Yes, yes. And we’ll be on the telly one day. What I’m saying is that it hasn’t happened fast enough. Why do we all believe in the great Pākehā myth that we’re an egalitarian society – yes, we’re all bloody equal if we’re all middle class, Pākehā men. Only a fantasist would believe that we ever had, or ever will be, an egalitarian society. But at least we had the ambition to become one. At least we all thought that equality was something worth striving for.

  TAIMONA You sound like one of those radicals, Dad; marching down the country …

  TE ARIKI What’s so radical about demanding a fair shake?

  TAIMONA I mean, was your life really that bad? With Mum and us?

  TE ARIKI No, it wasn’t bad … that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying it could have been better. That we deserved better. We should expect it, and we should demand it.

  ALAMEIN Isn’t that what Ngata meant? That by fighting in the Great War that you were fighting for equality?

  TE ARIKI We weren’t fighting for equality – an ant wouldn’t fight for equality with an elephant. If that’s what the deal was, then we were cheated. Listen, what I’m saying is that we shouldn’t have to fight for equality. It should be given; it should be a right. What I’m saying is that Ngata’s argument is based on the notion that we weren’t worthy to be citizens to begin with; that we somehow had to prove ourselves to the Pākehā. I say that the Pākehā ought to prove themselves to us – so far, they’ve been found wanting …

  12

  2 JULY 1915

  The days are much the same on the ship for the rest of the journey to Gallipoli – a couple of hours of machine gun duty punctuating the morning and the evening. Riki still spends as much time on deck as possible. He can’t imagine what it must have been like sailing from New Zealand. Weeks of being on board a ship sound like torture.

  This morning they have passed by many small islands, weaving a path around them. Riki has to fight the urge to jump overboard and swim to shore, like Hinemoa swimming to her love Tūtānekai on Mokoia Island. He shakes his head; he hasn’t thought of that story since he was a kid.

  ‘I’m glad I’m not the navigator,’ Jack says. ‘You could get lost in this maze.’

  ‘Where do you think we are?’

  ‘Greek Islands, I’d guess.’

  Riki leans over the rails for a better look, and Jack gives him a little shove. ‘Damn it, Jack! I almost fell in.’

  ‘I’d tell them you were enchanted by a siren,’ Jack says. ‘That you were in search of Calypso.’

  ‘The boat?’

  ‘What? No, not a boat. A maiden, a sea nymph. Have you not read The Odyssey?’

  ‘I’m not really into reading.’

  ‘What an odd expression. “Into”, like you’ve become lost in the book, eh? It’s a great story. Odysseus trying to get home after the Trojan War. Except he’s angered the god of the sea, Poseidon, who throws all sorts of challenges and temptations in Odysseus’ way.’

  The ship rolls, and Riki clamps his hand over his mouth to try to stop his retching.

  ‘If you can believe it, the sea hated Odysseus more than it hates you.’ Jack slaps Riki on the back. ‘Anyway, Calypso kept Odysseus on her island for many years, delaying his journey home.’

  Riki frowns. ‘How did she do that?’

  ‘How do you think?’ Jack traces a woman’s shape with his hands. ‘She enchanted him.’

  Enchanted. Magic.

  ‘How did Odysseus break her spell?’

  Jack is already walking towards the machine gun stations. ‘I don’t know. I think eventually the wish to go home was greater than the wish to stay.’

  Is my wish to stay? Am I keeping myself here? Riki closes his eyes and tries to think of home; tries to wish that he is there again.

  ‘Come on, Pūweto, you can moon over mermaids later. We have duty.’

  He sighs and follows Jack.

  They are to drop anchor at Lemnos. The big natural harbour they sail into reminds him of home, of Wellington. But the land seems to be bare – no buildings that he can see, which seems strange. Surely people have been living on this island for centuries – maybe millennia?

  Perhaps these people live inland, to keep to themselves, or try to; until s
omeone commandeers the harbour for their troops.

  It seems like the entire Allied fleet has dropped anchor here. When he writes of the scene in his diary, Riki will say that the harbour was full of ships of every description, but he will not describe any of them at all. He imagines his mother’s reaction to that – the howl as she reads the passage. The detail, Te Ariki! Why do you not go into detail!? It somehow makes him feel closer to his mother, to wind her up in this way. It makes him feel as if he is home.

  By mid-morning the SS Massilia drops anchor at Mudros Bay. Riki is not short of company on deck. Everyone seems to be out – some just to get some air; some to see the spectacle of the fleet they are a part of. To Riki it’s like the day they broke camp at Zeitoun; they are all waiting around for orders, wasting time until someone decides what’s next. Riki thinks of every movie and TV show he’s seen in which the generals and admirals are in a war room pushing model ships and tanks into position. Is he so different from Odysseus, then? Some unseen hand is guiding his journey; is preventing him from going home.

  Riki, Jack and Matatau watch the ships of the fleet sail into the harbour and dock. It’s taken Jack the journey from Malta to Egypt to Lemnos to convince Matatau to talk to him again. Matatau is still barely civil to Riki, but that’s OK; Riki will just stay out of his way.

  When Riki was young, Jase used to keep him amused on road trips by playing White Car – who could spot the white car first. Riki knows that Jase let him win: being in the front and much taller gave him a huge advantage. It used to keep Riki amused for hours, or at least it seemed that way to Riki, before he’d nod off to sleep.

  ‘White car,’ Riki says to no one in particular.

  ‘What?’ Jack says.

  ‘Nothing. Just a game. A point to whoever sees a battleship first.’

  Matatau speaks without looking at him. ‘What class?’

  ‘I don’t know. Does it matter?’

  Matatau tsks and snorts. Of course Matatau’s the kind of guy who would know which class of battleship is which, Riki thinks. ‘Fine. An extra point if the class of the ship is identified.’