“Perhaps they blamed them for the government action on the Manchester Block, the one where many of the Scandi are building farms,” said Frank.
“Don’t see why,” said Knud. “They’ve been causing a bit o’ trouble over there, in Feilding, like. But I can’t see them coming up here and looking for two boys and killing them, just because they looked like Scandi and happened to be in the river.”
“Sergeant Frank, you said we should go down to the Pa and talk to them,” said Mette. “Why don’t we do that? Perhaps you’ll be able to tell if they seem bloodthirsty and likely to kill two of my people. Could we go there right this minute?”
“It’s getting late now,” said Frank. “What about tomorrow? Would you be able to come? Would Pieter stop you? I could come and fetch you around midday.”
They started back down to the river while Mette thought about it.
“I think I am able to come,” she said after a few minutes. “But not tomorrow. Tomorrow is Sunday and I must go to church. I could come with you to the Pa on Monday.”
He shook his head.
“I’m off to Napier on Monday,” he said. “I’ll be back late Tuesday. We’ll go to the Pa on Wednesday. I’ll come and collect you early, as soon as the sun is up.”
“I’d like that.” She smiled at him. He felt his heart lurch and smiled back.
“If you promise they won’t hurt me, and if you are there Sergeant Frank, I think I might enjoy seeing the Pa.”
“I promise,” he said, seriously this time. “Mette, I heard you speak German to Knud back there. Why did you not speak Danish?”
“My land, Schleswig, now belongs to Germany. That is why Hans Christian, and Pieter, and many people from Schleswig, came to New Zealand. We don’t want to be Germans or to fight with the Prussians against France, and the young men, they don’t wish to be forced to join the Prussian army. In Schleswig, we—the Danish people—speak Danish at home and German everywhere else. Except for at church of course, but even there…there are German people living in Schleswig as well and they go to church with us.”
“How terrible that Paul and Jens left home to avoid conscription into the army, and then died doing a simple thing like crossing a river,” he said.
“That’s true,” she said. “But their mothers would rather have them die here than die in the Prussian army. We do not love General Bismarck and his troops in Schleswig.”
“Has Hans Christian written home about his brother and his cousin?” Frank asked. “The families must be worried.”
“That’s why we must find them,” she said. “He can’t write when he doesn’t know for certain what’s happened to them, and every day he feels more and more guilty because he hasn’t told his mother.”
Frank took her hand. “I intend to try hard to find them, Mette,” he said. “Dead or alive.”
She gave him a questioning, somewhat calculating look, and said, to his bewilderment, “Do you smoke a pipe, Sergeant Frank?”
He shook his head. “Just cigarettes when I can get them. But not now. I ran out.”
They came to the river where Copenhagen stood waiting patiently. Mette pulled the back hem of her skirt forward and up, and climbed astride the horse. Frank mounted behind her and put one hand around her waist to hold her steady, holding the reins with the other. He felt her lean back against him. It felt right, and he was sorry the ride across the river was so brief.
Half way across, Copenhagen stopped and tossed her head, whinnying softly.
“What is it girl,” said Frank. “Something there?” He looked down into the water. It was muddy, but he could make out something on the bottom. He backed the horse up and took a different route. On the other side he helped Mette down, sat on a log and took off his boots.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going out to see what was stopping her,” he said. “Something is down there. Might be nothing.”
“Oh,” said Mette, understanding. “I hope…”
“If I get swept away, make sure my boots go to a deserving person,” he said, making her laugh. He stepped out cautiously, feeling around with his feet.
“Is it cold?” she asked.
“Bloo…very cold,” he said. “Ah, here’s something. He pulled up his shirtsleeves and bent down, pulling something up. He dragged it to the track and tossed it down.
“An old boot,” he said. “I thought it might be something important, but…”
She stood without moving, staring at the boot. “Paul’s boot…”
He put his arm around her shoulder and looked down at the boot.
“How do you know?”
She knelt and picked it up.
“See here? The laces are not threaded through all the way to the top. Paul always wore his boots like that. And this mark? He burned his boot in a fire a few weeks ago. A spark came out of the cooking fire and set light to the brush, and he stamped it out. I remember him joking about the shape of the burn. He said it looked like the Kaiser with his moustache and…”
She clutched it to herself and started to cry.
“He must be in the river,” he said. “I’m sorry…”
“Someone could have thrown his boot into the river to make us think that,” she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Possibly,” he said. “But at least we know he was in or near the river at some point, and however he left he wasn’t wearing his boot.”
He helped her mount Copenhagen and walked her back to the clearing. He’d enjoyed holding her as they forded the river, and thought perhaps he shouldn’t have. She was a young, innocent woman, destined to marry someone much like the missing Paul, and to have many blond children. She was not for the likes of him, with his warrior past and his nightmares. She should do better.
He left her at her front door, still holding the boot to her chest. She planned to show it to Pieter and let him break the news to Hans Christian.
10
The Papaioea Pa
“You are not going to the Pa,” said Pieter later that day. They were sitting over the last of the piglet, nibbling on the bones. Pieter had not believed that the boot belonged to Paul, and had refused to mention it to Hans Christian.
Mette’s eyes widened.
“Excuse me Pieter, but you are not my father. I believe I can do what I want.”
“I am not your father, but if he was still with us he would say the same as I do. You should not go riding off with a strange man to a village of natives who may do who-knows-what to you.”
“Sergeant Frank says they are quite safe. They trade with the people in town, and bring fish and vegetables up the river in their canoes. He says…”
“Sergeant Frank!” exploded Pieter. “Mette what are you thinking. If you spend time with this man people will start to talk. It is worse than dancing with Gottlieb Karlsen at the dance. And look what became of that.”
Mette felt as if Pieter had struck her, and it must have shown on her face. He reddened, then said quietly, “I’m sorry I said that Mette, but I’m right to say you should not be seen with Sergeant Hardy. I know he’s looking for Paul and Jens, and that you can assist him with this, but please think about what you’re doing.”
Mette looked down at her plate, at the piglet that had reminded her of Sergeant Frank each time she had another meal from it. She had been thinking what she was doing, very much so. She was thinking of little else, especially since they had forded the river, with Sergeant Frank’s arm around her holding her tightly. She was feeling something she was not sure of, but it was a good feeling. It made her think of the sounds she heard through the wall in the night, soon after Maren and Pieter stopped talking.
“I’ll think about it Pieter,” she said, not looking at him. “Perhaps you’re right. I’ll go to the Paon Wednesday with him and then that will be enough.”
Pieter grunted his approval and returned to the piglet bone.
Frank arrived at the cottage in the clearing early W
ednesday morning, shortly after Pieter and Hans Christian had left for work. The sun was rising over the trees at the end of the clearing, making the dew sparkle like the diamond necklace that Mette had once seen at Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen, where the Danish royal family kept their jewels. Frank was not mounted on his horse, but riding in a two-seater, black-painted pony trap, pulled by a pretty little light grey pony. Mette was disappointed that she was not to ride in front of him on his horse, but at least she would be beside him, and the pony trap would be fast and exciting, much better than riding in a bullock cart.
“I borrowed this from the mayor, George Snelson,” he told Mette as he helped her aboard.
“How kind of the mayor,” said Mette. “To let you use his pony trap.”
Frank grinned. “He’s in Wanganui,” he said. “He has no need of it himself. The pony was sitting in the paddock behind the Royal Hotel and the trap was behind his shop. He’ll never know.”
They rattled off in the pony trap, Mette feeling as if she was royalty, towards the Palmerston Square, which was about two miles from the clearing. Mette hadn’t been into town for some time and was amazed at the number of buildings that now surrounded the Square, even a Bank of New Zealand, an imposing brick building with a high front door and large windows. In no time at all the Square would be surrounded by buildings and the mud in the centre would disappear under grass or a pleasant park. By the end of the century they would be living in a real town and perhaps she would be near the Square, in a house of her own with children. There would be a blonde girl she would name Katerina, after her mother, and a dark-haired boy…she glanced sideways at Sergeant Frank and blushed, hoping he couldn’t read her thoughts.
From the Square, they trotted down towards the river and along the path towards the Pa. Frank sat upright, smiling and flicking the whip to move the horse along quickly. Mette gripped the seat as the bush flashed by, entranced.
The Pa came into sight, raised above the surrounding landscape on a low hill, surrounded by a wooden palisade and a high grassy bank. Mette could see a darker space, which appeared to be a gateway, but without the expected drawbridge, like the one at Rosenborg Castle. As they neared the entrance, a group of women came out and walked towards them. They carried flax baskets under their arms and looked relaxed and friendly. Frank slowed to speak to them, taking off his forage cap and putting it under his arm as his did so.
“Ra pai,” he said. “Kei hea te rangatira o tenei iwi?”
The women giggled and looked at the ground, but one dressed in a long flax cloak, her hair parted in the middle and held back low on her neck, stepped forward and looked at him, her head to one side. “Why must you see our chief?”
“Good morning,” Frank said. “You speak my language very well. Much better than I myself speak the language of the Māori.”
She bowed her head slightly in agreement. Mette thought she looked amused.
“I am Sergeant Hardy, late of Her Majesty’s Imperial Forces, and this is Miss Mette Jensen. I wish to speak with your chief to know if he can tell me anything about two young men, relations of Miss Jensen, who have gone missing. Two young Scandinavian men—Yaya.”
“Ah,” she said. “Yaya. We have not seen any Yaya here. They are afraid of us. They don’t trade with us or buy any of the food we bring up the river from Foxton. A pity, I think.”
Frank glanced at Mette and said carefully, “These young men are probably dead. We believe they drowned in the river but we can’t find their bodies.”
“And for some reason you think my husband, will know something about where the bodies are?”
The wife of the chief. Mette sat up on her seat. Did that make her royalty of some kind?
“If anyone else knows about the young men, I’m certain your husband will be able to find out,” said Frank. “He’ll know all that his people know.”
“True,” she said. “Little happens at this Pa that Hakopa doesn’t know. If you will follow me I’ll take you to him and we will talk to him together.” She smiled at Frank. “As with you and the Māori language, he speaks little English and I must translate for him.”
She gestured to the other women to continue towards the river, and spoke to them sharply. They avoided her eyes and looked at each, heads lowered, as if trying not to laugh.
“What’s she saying to them?” whispered Mette.
“She’s telling them to behave themselves at the river,” said Frank. “They’re on their way to wash clothing, and she usually supervises them.”
The chief’s wife strode briskly back towards the gateway to the Pa. Frank and Mette followed slowly in the pony trap. The gate did not lead immediately into the Pa, but moved in a three-step pattern of fences, which was somewhat awkward to negotiate in the trap.
“Is it difficult to make the horse move around like that?” Mette asked.
“Not after I’ve driven a coach for years,” said Frank. “I’ve always had a way with horses. I can make them do whatever I want.”
Inside the gate, a large open area was surrounded by buildings with elaborate carvings. Young boys tossed sticks back and forth, chanting as they did so, and didn’t missing a single stick thrown to them.
“They’re very good at that,” said Mette. “Each boy throws and catches at the same time.” She jumped down from the trap and approached the boys. Frank followed her.
“It’s like juggling,” said Frank. “Something I could never master.” He held out his hands to one of the boys, who threw him a stick, and laughed behind his hand when Frank failed to catch it.
“We have a game called Koob in Denmark that uses sticks,” said Mette. “Each person throws a stick at the king, or a line of Koobs. It’s an easy game, and not as skilled as that one. But I used to be good at it.” She held out her hands to one of the boys, and caught the stick he tossed to her. She beckoned to him forward, and began exchanging the sticks, managing to keep the game going for several minutes. When she finally missed, she bent and picked up the stick and handed it to the boy. “How do I say thank-you?” she asked Frank.
“Mini koe,” said Frank.
She repeated it, smiling at the boy. He looked back at her without smiling, and said, “Turehu.”
“What’s that?” she asked, half turning to Frank. “What did he say?”
The boy understood her question, and pointed at the river. “Turehu. I kite ahau i te Turehu.”
“He says he saw a ghost,” said Frank. “Near the river.”
Mette nodded at the boy and patted her breast in mock fear. He looked satisfied. He was like the boys in the clearing, seeing things that did not exist. Like boys everywhere, living in worlds of their own imaginations.
She looked across towards the huts which must be the living quarters.“What’s this area?”
“This is the marae,” said Frank, indicating the entire area with his whip. “The place where the hapu gather. The hapu is a family or a group of connected families, and families belong to a larger group called an iwi, which is a tribe of connected families. Māori don’t believe in individual ownership. The family or the tribe owns the land. Over there is the meeting house, with building with the carvings on the front.”
“The marae is like our clearing,” said Mette. “Many of us are related, and we all live in an open space together. Of course, we don’t have a palisade around us, just trees. What are the women doing over there? They look as if they are digging something up.”
“Cooking, I believe,” said Frank.
“But they’re pulling something out of a hole in the ground,” said Mette. “How is that cooking?”
“They’re taking out stones and ash. They’ll put them back later when they’ve built up layers of wood. That’s how they cook, that or on a spit.”
The chief’s wife, who was listening to them as she walked in front of them, turned her head and smiled at Mette, “They are making a hangi,” she said. “The food is buried in the ground, wrapped in leaves inside tete, or baskets, and
covered with hot stones. Afterwards, the women will bring it to us in the meetinghouse. The food takes a long time to cook which is why they are starting so early.”
“I would very much like to learn how to cook food in such a way,” said Mette, as Frank helped her down from the trap. “What food are you cooking today?”
“We have a pig,” explained their hostess, causing Frank to smile. “And potatoes and kumara, and puha leaves.”
“I cook puha leaves as well,” said Mette. “But they’re bitter unless I boil them twice. Does this way improve the taste?”
The woman nodded and stopped paying attention to Mette. A tall, handsome older man with gleaming white wavy hair and an erect stance had come out of the meeting house, followed by a group of young men.
“Hakopa,” said Frank. He strode forward to meet the man, and to Mette’s surprise they appeared to kiss. Her escort put her hand lightly on Mette’s arm and said quietly, “They’re greeting in the Māoriway, which is to touch noses together. We call it Hongi, which means to share your souls.”
“Sergeant Hardy has worked with your people before,” said Mette. “He knows so much about everything.”
“Worked with us?” asked the woman. “When was that?”
“During the wars…up in Taranaki I think he said.”
The woman gave her a sharp look. She looked upset.
“I have not introduced myself to you,” she said after several awkward minutes. “I am Moana o Te Maunga of Te AtiAwaiwi. Hakopa’s iwi was not my iwi, but I came here when we married.”
Mette wondered how she should speak to the wife of a chief, especially one with such a long name. It was like meeting the wife of Viggo Monrad, the son of Ditlev Monrad who had once been the premier of Denmark. She had always been nervous about meeting important people. She summoned up her knowledge of royalty and said cautiously, “Madame…”
“You may call me Moana,” said the wife of the chief.
Not the Faintest Trace Page 9