Tommo and Hawk

by Bryce Courtenay

  My fear has left me, drummed out by the pounding of me blood. Next instant there’s a face in front of me. It’s black from gunpowder and almost comical-looking, the eyes red-rimmed and showing white eyelashes. The soldier’s in up to his waist, with half of his musket under water. All he wants to do is get to the safety of the reeds and rushes. He’s looking directly at me, but his eyes show no recognition of what they see. The axe in me hand seems to know its own way, and I feel the blade bite into the man’s head, soft as butter. The poor sod don’t have time to think, from the moment he sees me to the moment he’s dead.

  Now the British be everywhere around us. Some is trying desperately to fire, but most has come into the swamp with their muskets unloaded and not ready to use their bayonets. They’re belted and booted, and their shako caps sit high and awkward upon their heads. They be weighed down with their packs and most clumsy-like. With us bare to the waist and carrying nothing but our light fighting axes, it ain’t no contest. The men at the front are forced towards us, as others come in behind them, pushing them forward in their haste to gain what they think is the safety of the swamp.

  Another redcoat comes at me now. He’s seen his mate die and he’s got his bayonet at the ready. ‘Bastard!’ he shouts, and tries to run me through. It’s clumsy stuff in the water and I brush the bayonet aside, hitting him on the jaw with the butt end of the axe handle. His head goes back at the impact of the blow, baring his neck with the strap of his shako biting into it. It’s clear and cleanshaven, and me blooded blade finds its mark. It is all too easy, and he don’t even have time to cuss again before he’s a gargle of frothy blood sinking into the water. His eyes look sort o’ surprised, though his neck is almost cut through and he’s already dead before his head hits the drink.

  All around me there’s screaming from the British, and shouting and grunting and whooping from the Maori lads. The strange thing is that the redcoats keep coming. They can see us clear as daylight now— well, maybe not that clear given all the smoke— but they must not know that trouble lies ahead. They’re at the edge of the mud, not yet in the water, but they doesn’t turn back. They just keep coming, shoving on those in front as they line up to die at the hands of the Maori axe fighters.

  And then I hear the shotguns on the flanks driving them towards us. Bah-bam! Bah-bam! If they keep coming like this, we’ll soon be too weary to kill them all. We’re fighting in the water and the mud is heavy going, and there’s too many o’ the dumb bastards for one afternoon’s killing!

  From the corner of my eye, I see a soldier coming at one of my lads from behind. The Maori don’t see him ‘cause he’s fighting another trooper with a big yellow moustache what’s trying to stick him. ‘Die, nigger!’ shouts the moustache. The redcoat behind has his bayonet ready to run me lad through his back. I got no choice and my axe leaves my hand. It flies through the air and takes the trooper in the back of his head, splitting his skull, and lodging itself tight. The other man sees this and stops for one second, and that’s enough for the Maori’s axe to take him.

  I starts moving towards him, shouting to the Maori lad to grab my axe. The trooper I’ve hit has sunk slowly into the swamp. He is dead, but he must be resting on his knees somehow, his head still showing above the water. My axe handle pokes up out of the crimson water still stuck in his skull. But in all the noise the lad I’ve saved don’t hear me and moves forward to take on another redcoat.

  In the back o’ me mind I think I hear Hammerhead Jack shouting behind the smoke on the higher ground. There are bodies floating everywhere, troopers’ jackets stained dark from the swamp water with little air pockets of brilliant scarlet bobbing above the surface, bright lilies in a blood-red stream.

  A few wounded redcoats try to beat a retreat in the shallows, but they don’t last long. The mud sucks at their boots, and most slip and fall to their knees. The Maori lads has stopped their whooping and has turned into a killing machine. The axe kills more surely than the musket and more swiftly than the bayonet— its aim in a good warrior’s hands is always to the head or neck.

  I’m wadin’ towards my own axe, its handle now only six inches above the surface. The trooper’s head has gone under. I hear a shot ring out and suddenly I’m knocked over. I’m down under the water, kicking out wildly, trying to catch me breath. Bloody hell! I’ve been hit. There is a terrible pain in my head and I tries to come to the surface, kicking and flailing my arms. The top of my head bumps against somethin’ and I push against it. I try with all what’s left in me to push me noggin past whatever’s in me way but I can feel my strength failing. Then it’s lights out for yours truly and I don’t remember nothing no more.

  When I come to, all is blackness and I can’t open my eyes. Around me frogs is croaking and crickets chirping. I know I’m in water, suspended-like, not floating, though I’m not sure how my head comes to be above the surface. I am frozen stiff, so I can’t tell whether me feet touch the bottom or whether I float upright. I try to force my eyes open but they’s stuck closed. Perhaps, I think, they are open and I’m dead, or I’ve been blinded by the musket ball what hit me. Me head aches something terrible, but I have my senses about me. Only I can’t move or see nothin’.

  Slowly it comes to me. My eyes are stuck with blood, dried blood, my eyelashes glued together. In the distance I can hear singing. It’s the singing what brings me back. The Maori is singing in the forts, singing their victory chants and shouting their fierce war cries. I must try to get my arm up, but it too seems stuck. How is my head held up out of the water? Why don’t I sink? I try to work my eyes open again but cannot.

  Then I hears me name. It’s Hawk, shouting, ‘Tommo! Tommo!’ His voice is hoarse, as though he has been shouting a long time. I try to answer but nothing comes. Then I hear a swish of water as if someone passes nearby, and small waves lap against me head. Hawk is passing me! Calling for me and I can’t say nothing! I can’t lift my arm or kick or shout out or move me head. Inside, I’m screaming and, for the first time, I truly know how it must have been for Hawk when he were dumb.

  An hour or more passes and then someone goes by again, calling out in a desperate voice. It is Hawk, still calling my name, though his voice be near gone.

  Suddenly there is a bump as Hawk brushes into whatever is holding me. I hear a gasp and a great howl, like the cry of a hurt animal. Hawk pulls frantically at me, sobbing in big gasps as he lifts me from the water in his arms. ‘Oh, Tommo! Oh, Tommo!’ he bawls. ‘Oh, Tommo, what have I done? I have killed you!’

  He splashes out of the swamp and I hear others shout, then Hammerhead Jack’s voice. I am laid down on firm ground and a head is put to me chest. It is Hammerhead Jack again. ‘Tommo good!’ he says. He starts laughin’. He can’t stop and others join in. Then everything goes dark as I fall asleep or pass out.

  When I awakes, I can see again. I’m lying beside a fire, wrapped in blankets, and my whole body aches as though it has been clubbed. But I ain’t cold anymore, though my head still hurts fierce. Hawk is seated cross-legged beside me, his head on his chest and his hands in his lap. He is asleep. I am so tight-wrapped, I cannot move, though I can wiggle me toes and move me fingers. Best of all, I can see, but my throat’s terrible sore from the cold and I doubt I can talk.

  I look at Hawk sleeping and the tears run down me face. I dunno why, but I can’t stop crying. Maybe it’s relief ‘cause I can see again. Maybe it’s seeing Hawk. He has deep lines under his eyes and his mouth is pulled down from tiredness. Hawk and his stupid conscience got us into this bloody mess. Why can’t he just be like other folk and not care, not give a bugger for naught, like his brother Tommo?

  Then I think of Makareta and the baby what’s due any day now. Maybe it’s even come. God bless me soul, I could be a father already! Makareta were nearly a widow! With a shock, it hits me that I do care. I cares about the two young lads we axed, about Makareta, my unborn child, Hawk, even Mary! But, still and all, I don’t know how much I care. Would I have done anything diff
erent if I’d known those two settlers were mere lads, even if one was pointing a loaded musket at me gut? Would I risk me life to save his? I don’t think so. Hawk, he would. But not yours truly, that I doubts very much.

  That’s the thing about me brother— he don’t measure how much he cares. If a man is kicking a dog he’s gunna stop him, whether it be a flea-bitten mongrel not worth tuppence or a squatter’s prize sheepdog. It don’t bother the big bloke. Hawk just gallops to the rescue, bugles blowing, nostrils flaring, huffing full of indignation!

  Hawk can’t bear what’s unfair in this world. I, on the other hand, knows everything’s unfair. There ain’t nothin’ fair about this sodding world. The mongrels don’t never go away. We has beaten the British but I know it’s only this time. They’ll be back. The Maori cannot win. The pakeha wants their land and they’ll get it, come hell or high water.

  Hawk opens his eyes and sees me looking at him, sees me tears. ‘Tommo?’

  I smile.

  ‘Tommo, speak to me!’ He reaches out and shakes me. ‘You all right?’

  I nod.

  ‘Can you speak?’

  I open my mouth and a small croak comes out.

  ‘Throat sore? But you can speak?’ he asks, anxious. I nod again and he smiles. It’s Hawk’s real big smile, what can’t be resisted. I smiles back, me gob nearly as wide.

  It seems I owe me life to a dead British soldier, the redcoat I killed when I threw me axe, as a matter o’ fact. When Hawk found me, my head were jammed in between the dead man’s legs, the back o’ me neck tight against his crotch, my axe still sticking out o’ the floating corpse. The redcoat’s knapsack kept him floating and my feet touching the bottom of the swamp kept him level in the water. His big British bum were the resistance I felt when I tried to come to the surface. It ain’t a pretty thought, my head up a soldier’s arse for ten hours.

  In two days I have me voice back. There’s a wound to the side of my head where a musket ball grazed me, taking some hair and a bit of me skull as well. I guess I’m lucky. I could’ve caught pneumonia in the freezing water. All them years in the wilderness must have toughened me up. And now I’m just a bit snotty and chesty and has a terrible headache. But I’m alive and grateful and, best of all, it’s the end of the Maori wars for Hawk and me.

  ‘Sydney! We is going to Australia!’ It’s the first thing I says to Hawk when me voice returns.

  Hawk is too relieved at hearing me speak to object, and he nods his head. ‘Enough of war and killing, Tommo. We cannot do any more here.’

  I know Hawk’d rather head for Hobart Town, but I don’t want to go back to Mary, not just yet. I’m not ready for the brewery or for mama and her green eyes looking at me— even though I know she wants us back and will do anything to accommodate us. In her last letter she underlined the word anything four times! She’s talking about me— she’ll have me back however much trouble I be. She wants her precious boys home, she says. But I knows in me gut I’m not ready to see her again yet. We’ll make our fortunes in New South Wales first, I’m certain o’ that.

  A gold rush be a gambler’s paradise if you plays your cards right. For the man who can do a little relocation, there ain’t no better place to be. I’m not intended for hard work of the digging kind. But with cards we can clean up. Then I’ll return to New Zealand and bring back Makareta and me baby. Mary will have a grandchild and yours truly will be a respectable citizen, puffing his pipe and nodding his head and looking like he knows what he’s doin’ when he most probably don’t.

  I think about the grog. I ain’t been near the black bottle for nigh on four years now. Perhaps I be cured of the drink at last. But I ain’t been tested yet. Sometimes the craving still comes upon me awful. It gnaws at me gut, rips and snorts, and leaves me tongue hanging out panting for it! Other times it goes away for days at a time and I thinks it might be over. Perhaps having a woman and child to care for will help. I wants to get back to our village and see Makareta, to hear her soft, happy voice, to have her hold me tight in the dark and, if our baby be born and she be well enough, to make love to her again.

  Now as I lies here and thinks of sweet Makareta, I realise how hard it will be to part from her and from all our Maori friends. They has been so good to me, Hammerhead Jack and the others on the whaling ship, with their axe revenge on Captain Mordechai O’Hara and our escape from the gaol at Kororareka. The one-eyed, one-armed giant is overjoyed at my recovery. This morning he comes to me and says, ‘Always, Tommo, when we fall in the water, Ork comes to fetch us!’ He throws back his ugly noggin and roars with laughter at his own joke.

  But mostly I owes me thanks to Makareta, what loves me in every possible way. When I cries out in me sleep, she soothes me and holds me tight, or quietens me by letting me love her.

  At last we take our leave from Chief Kingi and War Chief Hapurona, for I am strong enough for the journey back to our own tribe. There has been much praise heaped upon us and lots of feasting. Our fighting axes has killed more British than the muskets or shotguns and I am made rangatira. I am pleased for it means Makareta will have a higher status in the tribe of Chief Tamihana and when we’re away, she’ll be especially well cared for.

  Chief Tamihana has grown in reputation among the Maori tribes, for though he is known as the kingmaker and peacemaker, he is also now known as a chief what is prepared to fight. His axe fighters has played a decisive role in the Ati Awa people’s victory. Hawk, in particular, has been honoured for the work what he’s done, and the honour is equally Tamihana’s by rights and tradition.

  In his farewell speech, Chief Wiremu Kingi says that we has both honoured the Maori people in battle. Hawk has proved he has the heart and mana of a Maori. There is nothing he cannot ask of the Ati Awa tribe save a chieftainship, what can only be bestowed by birth, though all says Black Hawk would make a very good Maori chief.

  Hawk, as usual, don’t ask for nothing. He just says it’s been an honour to serve the old chief and his brother. Honour? I near loses me flamin’ life and Hawk speaks of how privileged we be to serve! The chief says they want one of our ancestors to be included in the Maori tribe, to become an ancestor of the Ati Awa.

  What ancestors? thinks I. Ikey Solomon be the only male what we knows, and he ain’t either of our natural fathers. Ain’t no good telling them about our true papas neither, ‘cause we don’t even know whether they be alive or dead. Maori can’t have no female ancestors on their Council of the Dead, so we can’t give them the fat old whore, Sperm Whale Sally, our true mother, or Mary, what I reckons might be of some use to them. More than them, we ain’t got no ancestors to speak of. But to tell the Maori that would upset them something terrible.

  ‘You must give the tohunga the name of your greatest ancestor and we will include him with our own, him you wish to sit beside the great ones. Will you tell us now who this shall be?’ Chief Wiremu Kingi asks very solemn.

  I can see Hawk don’t quite know what to say. He can’t insult the Ati Awa by giving no name, like we don’t want our ancestor to be included in their tribal company. He scratches his head.

  ‘There is one,’ he answers, to my surprise.

  The old chief turns to his tohunga. ‘Black Hawk will give us this ancestor’s name and he shall henceforth be in all your councils.’

  The tohunga don’t look too happy about this instruction. They don’t seem to think it’s a good idea, but they can’t come out and say it, right there in front of us. Maybe later, among themselves, they will have the necessary arguments.

  ‘Ikey Solomon,’ Hawk says slowly.

  ‘Icky Sloman!’ all the rangatira repeat. ‘Icky Sloman! Icky Sloman!’

  ‘I-key So-lo-mon.’ Hawk pronounces it carefully.

  ‘We have it!’ Chief Wiremu Kingi announces. ‘Icky Slomon!’

  I am hard put not to burst out laughing, but Hawk stays serious. ‘I am most honoured,’ he says, giving me a sharp look, ‘and my brother is most honoured too that our venerable ancestor will commune
with yours. Our ancestor’s wisdom will always be available to the Ati Awa. On the affairs of the pakeha he is a great expert and will be happy to be on your side. I thank you deeply from my heart and on his behalf.’

  ‘Tell us of this Icky Slomon,’ War Chief Hapurona asks. ‘To what tribe did he belong? What of his ancestors, what do you know of them?’

  ‘A great deal!’ replies Hawk. ‘He belonged to the tribe of Israel and his greatest ancestor was a most wise king, King Solomon.’

  ‘A king?’ The old chief looks impressed. ‘And this king, was he black like you?’

  Hawk ain’t gunna look at me in case he should laugh. ‘No, he was like Tommo, like my brother, but it is said he took a black woman to his bed, the Queen of Sheba.’

  ‘Ah, a white king and a black queen! So that is why you are black, General?’ Hapurona nods towards me, understanding now how we come to be different, one from t’other. ‘And Tommo is white.’

  ‘Well, yes, it was not quite like that,’ says Hawk, rubbing his chin.

  But Hapurona don’t hear, or don’t want to. ‘Then we are most honoured to accept the ancestor of a great king to sit with our ancestors,’ he announces. I think he is glad we got a king, or someone what comes from a king, and is of the rangatira. Everyone, even the tohunga, now seems to agree that Ikey should be a Maori ancestor o’ some prominence.

  Hawk’s turned two bastards born to a whaleman’s whore on a beach into two noble princes. And there’s old Ikey, peacefully dead in the graveyard in Hobart Town when, all of a sudden, without so much as a beg your pardon, he’s whisked away in the middle o’ some argument about who owes who tuppence ha’penny. Next thing he knows, he’s sitting amongst a bunch of fierce cannibal savages what don’t much care to be called ’my dears’ and what thinks him more useful for the cooking pot than for his opinions on the art o’ relocation.