Tommo and Hawk

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘What know you of this war, Black Maori?’ he asks. ‘It is not the Maori way to leave their women and children. Have you yourself fought by these methods?’

  I have to confess to him that I know of these tactics only through books.

  ‘Ha! Books! Missionaries have books! What have books to do with making war?’

  I explain to him that the British are fond of writing about their military tactics and methods of fighting. ‘It is one of the ways in which they have conquered the world— they learn from history.’

  This seems to impress the chief, but still he is obdurate. ’We have beaten the pakeha before. I shall build tunnels underground in our forts so that the big guns cannot harm us.’

  I tell him that this is an excellent idea, but that a pa can only be defended for a limited time. ‘If they cannot bring you out by means of muskets and artillery, they can starve you out, Chief Kingi.’

  ‘That is true, it has happened before, but perhaps we will defeat them before it can be done?’

  ‘It is possible that your fighters will be victorious once, or even twice, but the pakeha outnumber you in men and firepower. Sooner or later they will defeat you.’

  At this remark the chief grows furious. ‘Are you a coward to speak of defeat? We will kill all the pakeha. They cannot defeat us! This is our land, Maori land! Be gone. Come back only when you will talk of victory!’

  I leave the hui, thinking that I have disappointed Tamihana. Expelled from Wiremu Kingi’s presence and his tribe, I can do no good here. But it is late and I cannot travel until morning, so I prepare to rest.

  Before I can close my eyes, a messenger, one of Kingi’s warriors, enters my hut. ‘Chief Kingi wishes to see you at once, Black Maori,’ he says.

  I wrap a blanket about me and go to the marae where the rangatira are still assembled. The old chief is silent a moment, then he points to me and barks, ‘Black Maori, we have watched you now for many months. Why have you not taken a woman from our tribe? Is a Maori wahine not good enough for you? Answer, please!’

  How can I tell him that I am a virgin? I have all the markings of the rangatira and though I have just turned nineteen, I look much older.

  ‘I have had no time to look for a wahine,’ I say, ‘to find one who would take me willingly.’

  ‘Willingly?’ The Maori chief looks puzzled. ‘I shall find you one!’

  I thank him but say that I would like to choose her for myself.

  His eyebrows shoot upwards at this. ‘My choice is not good?’

  ‘Your choice is most excellent, Chief, but it is a feeling I seek.’ I put my hand to my heart. ‘A feeling in here.’

  Wiremu Kingi thinks this very funny, but after he has stopped chuckling he says, ‘I have heard of this feeling, but it comes later, when a woman has been with you a long time and she has proved a worthy wife and given you many children.’ He sighs as though he is talking to a young child. ‘It is a good feeling to have for an old woman, who is a precious thing. How can you have such a feeling before you know what you are getting? When a wahine is still young and you have not tried her out?’ Then, before I can answer, he adds, ‘Perhaps she is barren, perhaps she cannot cook, or the milk in her breasts does not make your children strong. What if she is bad-tempered or lazy, cannot weave flax, or sings like a crow? What then of this feeling?’

  ‘There is no Maori woman who sings like a crow,’ I reply, smiling. How can I tell him that if I should love a woman, none of these things would matter to me? I shrug. ‘It is something I cannot explain.’

  Chief Wiremu Kingi looks at me shrewdly. ‘Tell me, Black Maori, have you taken a woman to your bed?’ The rangatira, who have been following our conversation with interest, wait tensely for my reply. I have never lied to the Maori but I think now is the time to do so. But Mary has trained me too well. ‘No,’ I say softly.

  The assembled men howl with laughter and look at me in disbelief. Only Wiremu Kingi doesn’t laugh. ‘That is good, Black Maori. The Maori only die for two things, for women and for land. You will show us how to fight better for our land and I will show you how to choose a good woman to die for. A man cannot go to war without having known a woman! If you die now your ancestors would regard you with shame.’

  ‘But…but…’ I stammer.

  ‘What is it?’ The chief grows impatient.

  ‘I am most honoured that you would choose a woman for me, Chief Kingi, but do I understand she is henceforth to be my wife…forever?’

  This brings a fresh outburst of laughter and Wiremu Kingi shakes his head. ‘There are a great many young widows in the tribe. I will choose one for you and she will bring her longing to your need. That will be marriage enough for the time being. She will not be your wife, Black Maori. We go to war and I would not have it that she be widowed twice over and so become bad tapu.’ The chief waves me away. ‘We will talk of your warfare after you have become a man.’

  Some of the rangatira grin, but most nod their heads solemnly. I walk from the hui feeling small and ashamed, knowing all eyes are upon my back.

  My heart is pounding as I try to think how it should be with a wahine. I have asked Tommo what it is like to make love, but his answers do not provide much enlightenment.

  ‘Same as pullin’ yerself off,’ he offers. ‘Only better and lots more happening upon yerself.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Tommo thinks for a moment. ‘Softer, and her doing things back to ya.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  Tommo looks a bit foolish. ‘Kissing. Her tongue in your gob. You know, touching.’

  ‘Tongue in my mouth, what for?’

  Tommo grows impatient. ‘It’s nice, tongue in one soft place and cock in t’other.’

  ‘Oh,’ say I. Even though I have thought a thousand times about kissing, I have never imagined it as having anything to do with tongues. Soft, sweet lips touching my cheek or even sometimes my own lips, but I have never envisaged tongues anywhere but safely in their owners’ mouths.

  Watching me, Tommo suddenly gets a most mischievous look on his face. ‘Not to mention sixty-nine.’

  ‘Sixty-nine? What is sixty-nine?’

  ‘Christ Jesus, Hawk! Didn’t the blokes at the brewery teach ya nothing? Frenchies call it sixty-nine!’ He grabs a twig and writes the two numbers in the dirt. ‘Look! Can’t ya see?’

  I tilt my head to one side but all I can see are the numbers roughly marked. ‘What’s to see?’

  Tommo looks plainly exasperated now. ‘Your cock in her mouth and your tongue in her pussy!’

  ‘Really?’ I am taken completely by surprise and try to imagine such a thing happening. ‘I am not at all sure I should like it,’ I finally respond.

  ‘Or just her doing it,’ Tommo says.

  ‘Just her?’

  ‘Yes, sucking you, your cock in her mouth.’

  ‘Oh,’ is all I can think to say. This shocks me less than the idea of doing things to her with my tongue. ‘What more should I know?’ I ask softly, my heart pounding.

  ‘Lots!’ Tommo says. ‘But I ain’t telling you no more, you’ll find out for yerself soon enough.’

  We are both caught up in our own thoughts until Tommo breaks the silence.

  ‘It’s the softness,’ he confides. ‘Softness all over, and creaminess.’ He has a faraway look in his eyes and a half-smile. It’s a look I have not seen on his face before and it pleases me, for it contains none of the old bitterness. Perhaps it is the first sign of real happiness I have seen in him.

  All the same, Tommo’s description doesn’t match the dreamy picture I’ve got in my imagination. My picture is a bit hazy, I suppose, and has the scent of roses about it, the rustle of crinoline dresses and someone very pretty standing on tip-toe so her ankles show. Her kiss is like a summer breeze touching my cheek.

  And in my dreams, making love is something done politely, although I am not sure how. I know I would wish it to be most decent and allowing of every possible sensit
ivity. But exactly how to bring this about, I can’t imagine. In my mind, it just happens and then is all over, beautiful and not spoken of, except with quiet looks.

  Who would be the woman to let me love her so? As far as I can see, there are but two choices. At one end of the scale, there are the dockside whores, women damaged by life who would take a nigger the same as anyone else if he had the price. Then, at the other end of the scale, where I want to be, there is a prettiness pure as the driven snow. I don’t rightly know what it would be like, loving all that purity, sort of like trying to touch a beautiful, perfumed ghost.

  In the days following Chief Kingi’s promise, I find myself looking at the Maori women, who are all most attractive. I can’t help myself. I look at their lips. They have beautiful lips, soft and luscious, and I imagine them kissing me with their pink tongues inside my mouth and elsewhere too.

  I try to put these thoughts from my mind. Nobody, I tell myself, is going to kiss a nigger that way, unless he pays extra for it with a whore. As Ikey always said, ‘To brood over what you can’t have be stupid, my dear.’ On the other hand, he always added, ‘But to believe you can’t have something be even more stupid.’ So I decide to keep the thought of it alive but tucked in the back of my mind, just in case Ikey is right.

  It is my fourth sleepless night since my conversation with the chief, and the moon outside my hut is near full. The night is warm. Thoughts of softness and creaminess keep drifting about in my head, although I am tired and it is late. There is an owl hooting somewhere and soft laughter coming from one of the groups around the fires. I think of Tommo and Makareta, and how gentle Tommo is with her, though he does not say much. I think too about Chief Kingi and how I hope to teach him guerrilla warfare from the books I’ve read. He, a great warrior afraid of nothing, learn from me, who is afraid of a pop gun. I must be mad!

  I must have fallen asleep, for I feel a stroking of my body. Soft hands glide across my chest and my belly. I am in a dream, a beautiful dream. I move. ‘Hush.’ It is a woman’s soft voice. ‘Do not open your eyes, Black Maori.’

  I do as I am bid and feel a touching on my lips. A wonderful softness from her mouth seems to go through my whole body. My heart starts to thump, I can hear it: boom, boom, boom. Her hand moves down across my belly and her lips seem to melt over mine, opening my mouth. How this is done I cannot say, but there it is, the creaminess, as her tongue moves into my mouth and at the same time, her hand reaches me where I have grown hard.

  I have already removed my coat and blouse the better to sleep, but now her hand works at my breeches, as her other takes my palm and places it on her breast. My fingers are hungry for her softness, and her nipples soon grow firm from my touch. I now lie naked inside my blanket. My eyes are still closed and I dare not open them for fear that I am dreaming.

  The woman speaks to me, her voice soft but clear. ‘Oh Black Maori, I have wanted you so very long. I have eaten you with my eyes and I have tasted you in my heart a thousand times. I have moaned for you alone in my blanket and my mouth has cried out to hold your manhood. My breasts have grown hard from longing for you and I have brought pleasure to myself in your name.’

  I am almost fainting with desire and her hands are everywhere at once. She places her lips upon mine and her tongue seems alive in my mouth. Then she draws back. ‘Black Maori, open your eyes. I want you to see the woman who would make love to you.’

  I open my eyes. Moonlight is flooding into the hut and throws a silver sheen across her skin. She is beautiful beyond belief, her breasts cast upwards and generous, and her stomach clean-curved as she sits on her heels beside me. Her thighs are strong, smooth and shining in the light, and I can see the curve of her buttocks and the narrowness of her waist. He dark hair falls across her shoulders, shadowing her eyes so I cannot see into them.

  I open my mouth to speak, but she presses her finger to my lips. ‘Hush, do not speak.’

  Now she begins to kiss me across my chest and belly, moving lower and lower, and then her lips part and take me into her mouth. ‘Oh, oh!’ I cry. ‘Oh!’ I am in heaven. I fear I cannot last a moment longer as her soft lips stroke up and down, and each time seem to take in most of me. Then, when I am sure I shall die, she withdraws her lips from my trembling hardness. A moment later she is astride me. Her hand guides me so that I sink into a softness and a creaminess I have not imagined in my wildest dreams.

  ‘Oh, God, oh, oh, oh!’ I moan.

  ‘Black Maori, you must wait for me,’ she says, panting now, her voice urgent. ‘Wait!’ I don’t know how she can believe I am in enough control to do anything. ‘Wait, wait, I will tell you when,’ she gasps. Her eyes are closed and her mouth half open, and I can see her white teeth and pink tongue.

  I want to tell her I cannot wait a moment longer, but all I can do is moan as she moves up and down on top of me. Every part of her is pressed against me, her slender body caressing my skin. Now her lips are upon mine and her tongue is in my mouth. The softness and smoothness is everywhere and I must die for I cannot live another moment without release. Then she takes her lips from mine, and begins to moan. ‘Now!’ she says. ‘Now, Black Maori! Hard, hard, I must feel your hardness! Now!’

  With this permission I lift my body from under her and roll her over on her back, driving into her. Her legs clasp about me as she opens up so that my every inch is taken deep into her. I cannot stop the explosion inside me.

  ‘More, more!’ she screams, her nails raking my back. I feel nothing but the delight of her. ‘Oh, oh, ohhhh!’ she cries, and more and more of the same, which thrills my ear. She gives a loud and glorious moan and then a sigh. I drive the harder into her wetness as her voice dies to a whimper and her hips push back up into mine. Her arms come around me and she draws my head into her breasts. Then my explosion is over and, jerking wildly, the world collapses and me with it. I am emptied out and my youth has flown away.

  We are gleaming sweat, panting together, our breath hot about our heads. I have never felt more a man, never more alive, more embraced by love and tenderness. I fear I shall not again in my life have another moment as beautiful as this.

  ‘You are a warrior now, Black Maori,’ the woman says at last. Pushing me gently away, she rises so that once again I see the length of her legs, the curve of her waist and the beauty of her glistening breasts. Her hair falls across her face as she kneels again. She brushes it away as she wraps the blanket about me and kisses me. ‘Ah, you are beautiful,’ she smiles. ‘You are beautiful, and you waited.’ Then she gathers up her own blanket and rising, wraps it about her and moves to the door.

  ‘What is your name?’ I call urgently, for I do not want her to leave.

  She pauses at the door, the moon shining on her face. ‘Hinetitama.’ She laughs softly, then is gone in the moonlight.

  ‘Will you come to me again?’ I call, but there is no reply. I lie still, a great smile upon my face. ‘Hinetitama,’ I repeat. Flooded with happiness, I fall into a deep slumber.

  In the morning I am summoned to the marae by Chief Kingi and the rangatira. When all are seated the chief addresses me, ‘Five days ago, we talked to the boy but today it is to the man.’ He grins. ‘Did you dream well, Black Maori?’

  I laugh. ‘Better than I ever have, thank you, Chief Kingi.’

  ‘That is good. Your ancestors will be most relieved.’

  Laughter follows this reply, also applause, and then no more is said of it. The thing is done and I am welcomed. I feel as though something different has happened between these people and myself, something I cannot quite understand.

  ‘We will talk of these small wars of yours,’ Wiremu Kingi says. ‘You will tell us all you know. Like the British, we too can learn from books, though blood is better!’

  ‘Only when it does not belong to your side,’ I reply.

  ‘Ha! There is no shame in dying. If you have fought well it is an honour,’ the chief replies.

  I shrug. ‘There is also no shame in living, if you have
fought well.’

  ‘Black Maori, keep your sharp tongue for the pakeha!’ Wiremu Kingi rebukes me, but I can see from his eyes that he is not insulted.

  ‘I have known a woman whom war has made a widow in your tribe, and all I can say is that the dead must grieve greatly for their loss.’ I hope that this compliment makes up for my forward manner.

  The chief laughs suddenly. ‘Well spoken, Black Maori. You are right, our strength is more in the living than the dead. Already the Maori have done too much dying in these battles. It is not only the dead who grieve their wahine, the tribe laments the barrenness that is then forced upon them. You will tell us more of this new way to fight the British.’

  I spend the remainder of the morning outlining the principles of guerrilla warfare and listening as the rangatira discuss it among themselves. This is a most equitable process and Wiremu Kingi shows a great deal of patience. The tohunga argue fiercely that the ancestors will frown on a departure from the practice of fighting from a pa, but the chief is most persuasive. ‘In addition to this new way of fighting, we will build a great pa in the mountains where our women and children will stay with sufficient warriors to defend them,’ he declares.

  ‘Perhaps the tribe should build many forts in the mountains so the women and children can keep moving?’ I suggest. ‘Food may be stored in secret caves, for I have been told there are many such places and few are known to the pakeha. We can control the mountain passes so that they cannot penetrate. Then we can attack them on their own ground, always where they least expect us. The mountains and the forests are where we will hide.’

  ‘The Maori always hold the ground under their feet. We cannot defend ground which is not our own,’ proclaims one of the tohunga, an old man who is much respected.

  ‘Ha! It is all our ground!’ the chief snorts. ‘Our land, which the pakeha have stolen from us!’

  But the old priest will not be dissuaded. He has been most persistent all morning and much involved with the thoughts of the ancestors in the matter of this new way of warring. He shakes his head as I further my argument.