Kiwi Wars

by Garry Douglas Kilworth

Genres: Historical Fiction; War & Military

Synopsis

This is a thrilling new military adventure for Captain Jack Crossman.Captain 'Fancy Jack' Crossman has been sent to New Zealand, where the Maori Wars are in progress. His remit is to map the bush country and to set up a network of spies. During conflict he finds that the Maori are an honourable and formidable enemy. However, nefarious Europeans are at work, enriching themselves as land agents.Jack becomes entangled with one of these agents, the brother of his lifetime burden Private Harry Wynter, and is in danger of being sucked down into a morass of evil affairs. When the final revelation comes, Jack realises just how heinous these crimes are, and he must hunt down and destroy these monstrous elements...

Release date: March 21, 2013

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 160

Sample

1851, Australia

Three sailors slipped over the side of the moored British man-o’-war into a stolen skiff to sail across the bay to the harbour of the small Australian port of Melbourne. They had contrived to serve watch together in the early hours, to provide themselves with this opportunity of jumping ship. The officer of the watch, a Lieutenant Urquart, was standing fast asleep with his head on the rail of the quarterdeck. Urquart was famous for his catnapping. By the time he lifted that sorry head of his, he would be in the deepest trouble of his so-far short life.

‘Watch the prow,’ whispered Danny, urgently.

He was too late, the stolen skiff’s front end bumped against the ship’s hull, not loudly, but with a definite thump.

‘What?’ called the officer above, obviously waking from his doze. ‘Who’s there?’

The three men in the skiff swiftly manoeuvred the boat around and under the stern of the man-o’-war. There they waited with hearts beating fast, knowing that directly above them was the captain’s cabin. They could hear that very man snoring like a pig with a blocked snout. Urquart’s footsteps sounded on the deck. The three sailors followed them with their ears, knowing he had walked to the port side. There he would be searching the surface of the sea, looking for a log or whatever he imagined had made the noise. If they were caught the least they could expect was a term in the brig. Most likely it would be a flogging.

For the next few minutes all that could be heard was the lapping of wavelets against the hull of the great ship. Then the footsteps travelled again, probably to the quarterdeck, where the lieutenant would again rest his head on the rail. Urquart was nothing if not consistent in his habits.

‘What now?’ hissed Striker.

Abe said, ‘Wait.’

They stayed where they were, holding on to the anchor chain for the next quarter of an hour.

‘All right,’ Abe murmured. ‘He’ll be off again now.’

They pushed off, out into the bay. All three looked anxiously at the man-o’-war for the next few minutes, as they slid across the quiet waters, but it seemed Urquart had indeed returned to his slumber. There was another seaman with him, a sailor by the name of Longfield, but he too had no doubt succumbed to the invitation of the sandman.

The dawn came up over the waters of the huge natural harbour which curved like a giant fish hook around the small skiff. To the east were green hills, to the further west a flatter drier landscape. Ahead though, was the welcoming mouth of the Yarrow River. It was towards this stretch of fresh water the three sailors were heading. They did not intend to touch land, but, tacking through the other quiet ships which littered the harbour, they were desirous of sailing upriver towards gold country. It was a source of bitter disappointment to them that they could not go directly to the goldfields, where daily fortunes were being made, since they had no money. They did have a stolen ship’s mainsail, which would stake them once they were there, but they had no provisions for the journey. They needed a horse or donkey to carry the canvas, since they could not sail all the way to Ballarat, their eventual goal.

They passed rather too close to a frigate where the officer of the watch was far more alert than Lieutenant Urquart. Striker gave the officer a friendly wave, relieved to see that it was a visiting American vessel and not a British ship. The officer, hands locked behind his back, merely returned Abe a hard stare.

‘Bloody gentry,’ muttered Striker, ‘same everywhere.’

‘They don’t have no gentry in the United States,’ stated Danny in his thick Irish brogue. ‘They’re a republic.’

‘Oh, they have gentry all right,’ Abe said, getting in on the conversation. ‘They just don’t call ’em lords and ladies. It’s a fact of human nature to have your high brows and your low. That one there, he comes from a family that don’t speak civil to Chinamen, you can be sure of that. He’ll have servants in the kitchen, same as our lot.’

‘Was you in service, when you was a landlubber?’ asked Danny of the leader of the group.

‘Me?’ cried Abe in a shocked voice. ‘I never served no one nothin’. I’ve got my pride. I was a lengthsman, me. Since I was fourteen.’

Danny, being Irish, did not know what a lengthsman was and requested more information.

‘Why,’ said Abe, loosening the sheet and letting out more sail as the wind dropped, ‘it’s a workman for the council who looks after a length of greensward and ditching. I had five miles on it, ‘tween Rochford and Hockley, in the county of Essex. Scythe and spade was the tools of my trade. I cut the verges with one and kept the ditches clear with the other. That and help the sexton dig his graves. I’ve shovelled earth on many a gentry’s corpse, I can tell you. I s’pose that’s servin’ ’em in a manner of speakin’, but all I’ve done for ’em direct is throw the dirt of county on their dead faces. All I ever intend doin’ for ’em, what’s more.’

Abe was tall and lean, with a huge scar that ran from the corner of his right eye down to the tip of his chin. The scar came from a knife fight with a Lascar seaman in a Liverpool tavern. He wore it proudly, as if it proclaimed him to be a man to be reckoned with. Privately his shipmates said they would be more afraid of the man who gave it to him. Still, it looked gruesome and worried them enough that they gave him a wide berth when he was in a temper.

The three made it upriver for five miles before they abandoned the skiff. Striker wanted to sell it to get money for provisions, but such a sale would have attracted too much attention, and they could not afford to be detained while their non-existent credentials were checked by the purchaser. Instead they lugged the mainsail, and the sail from the skiff, a further mile along the bank and hid them in some bushes. Then Danny led them to a tree-fellers’ camp he had been told about by some Victorian sailors. Here they joined a self-employed gang of men who cut and sold eucalyptus wood for the boilers of the paddle steamers that plied their trade up and down the Yarrow.

‘See them gum trees down by the water’s edge, them’s river reds,’ explained one of the gang to the three sailors. ‘Them others, further back on the drier parts, them’s black box. River reds burn to charcoal, but black box goes down to dust. They wants both types of wood, see – they needs a mix. And a warnin’ on the river reds—’

At that moment an explosion occurred on a paddle steamer that was about quarter of a mile downriver. A look of satisfaction spread over the faces of the cutting gang. They nodded to each other in grim fashion as they saw that the steamer’s paddles had come to a halt and the boat was drifting on the current.

‘What’s that?’ asked Abe. ‘What’s happened there?’

‘Captain of that there vessel,’ said the same man who had been explaining about the types of wood, ‘went off without payin’ us our dues.’

‘And?’

‘And so we packed some gunpowder in a hollow log.’

Abe laughed. ‘I like that. They threw it in the furnace without knowin’ its content?’

The rest of the gang smiled. ‘Just so,’ said the second man. ‘It’ll remind the captain of his debt. They won’t not pay us again. That engine’ll cost a tidy penny to get put right. Now, as I was sayin’, don’t stand at rest under the river reds. They call ’em widow-makers here. Boughs break and drop without a warnin’. Here watch.’

The sawyer hefted a log into the water and it sank quickly to the bottom of the Yarrow.

‘Heavy enough to defy nature,’ said the man. ‘Imagine that coming down on your back.’

The three sailors only stayed with the cutting gang long enough to earn money for provisions. Then they struck inland for a short way to hire a beast of burden. They found a man willing to let go of an old camel called Bessie. Bessie was brought, not without protest for dromedaries are belligerent beasts at the best of times, to the spot where they had hidden the sails. They loaded her up and then set out for Ballarat, the town that served the goldfields.

It was about six o’clock in the evening as three sailors and a camel entered the Victorian town. The camel was thirsty and so were the men. They tied the beast to a tree by a long piece of ship’s rope and left it to drink from the town’s lake. They themselves entered an eating house and ordered steaks and beer. The fare was eye-wateringly expensive. The cutting gang had warned them of the prices on the goldfields, most of them having tried their luck themselves before deciding that a steady job was more lucrative.

‘I could buy the whole damn cow for that money,’ grum-bled Abe, ‘let alone this bit of gristle and bone.’

But there was nothing they could do about it. Demand exceeded supply. While they were eating, a man shambled in and asked if anyone wanted to buy a cheap digging licence. Abe signalled to the fellow, who was in rags and said he had not eaten for three days.

‘No luck, eh?’ said Danny, who was beginning to realize that you could not pick up gold nuggets from the ground like pebbles as they had been told by a visitor to their ship. ‘Giving up.’

‘Giving up and going home,’ said the man, who was a well-spoken and clearly educated gentleman. ‘You can dig in a thousand holes and find nothing. That’s what I’ve found, absolutely nothing. Look at these hands.’ He showed them his palms. They were raw and bleeding with split skin. ‘I’ve had it up to here.’ He drew a line across his throat.

‘Need some grub in your belly first, eh?’ Abe said. ‘Well, we could come to an arrangement . . . ;

And so the licence to mine on the goldfields was purchased.

Striker kept a keen eye out through the open doorway. The load carried by the camel was very precious and the sailors did not want it stolen. They were aware that marines from their vessel Comet were searching for them in the brothels of Melbourne, but it was doubtful they would reach as far as Ballarat since the ship was due to sail. By the morning the Comet would be on its way to Sydney and the three deserters would be relatively safe. They believed themselves safe now and drank to that fact, laughing and joking, and cursing their old captain and his officers for pigs and pi-dogs, saying they were well out of it.

All three had spent time in the brig and one of them, Abe, had felt the lash on a number of occasions. Punishment did not greatly bother Abe for very long. Oh, he got mad all right, spitting mad, and cussed and swore at the man wielding the cat, but his body seemed to absorb the hurt and pain. Abe had eyes like chips of flint. There were few who liked him as a person, but they respected his eyes.

Danny and Striker were typical seamen of low birth. As young men they had been press-ganged into the Royal Navy, and like many shanghaied sailors they subsequently made it their living. Yet they had never taken to it in the way a gentleman does who makes it his career. A young lad of a high family who becomes a midshipman, lieutenant or captain will speak of the sea reverently and of his ship as if it were the Ark of the Covenant. To sailors like Danny and Striker the sea was a wasteland of water and the ship ‘a bloody old lime barrel’. They did not hate the ocean or vessel: they were indifferent to them.

‘Well, here we are, lads,’ said Abe, looking up from his steak. ‘Down under and off to be as rich.’

Danny, the small elderly Irishman, said, ‘I’m eager to be slopin’ off to the diggings, lads, that I am.’

‘Well,’ replied Striker, a willowy Cornishman who had previously been a tin miner and knew what hard work lay ahead, ‘you can be at it soon enough, an’ we’ll stand and watch.’

Danny made a face, but he was full of humour tonight. Not far away, just a bit of a walk, were the goldfields of Sovereign Hill, where the three of them expected to make their fortune. The fact that thousands of others also expected the same, and there was only so much gold in the ground, did not dim their enthusiasm. They had the glint in their eyes, the fever as men called it, and it would take many months of hacking through clay to diminish it. They had read the reports in The Buninyong Gazette and Mining Journal of wild riches being found, and they believed every word. This was one chance in a lifetime and these three chancers were not going to miss it.

They finished their meal, paid for it with the last of their coin, and collected Bessie with her load. On Bessie’s hump was their stake. The spare mainsail from the Comet and the sail from the skiff. Canvas was at a premium in the goldfields, having its uses as tents, shaft covers, buckets and roofing for cabins. They could sell the canvas, keeping a little for their own use, and live comfortably for a good while as they set about mining. Hopefully there would be enough to purchase a shaft. There was a great deal of canvas in the mainsail of a man-o’-war.

When they reached the goldfields they were dog-tired and the sight of so many lamps dispirited them. Lights were scattered on the hillsides like fallen stars. There were shafts and winches; as many as trees in a forest. The whole landscape looked like a battlefield, with piles of earth and slag every few yards. Up on the main hill were shacks and false-fronted buildings. One of these was an alehouse which the three sailors entered, not to buy more food and beer, but to sell some of their canvas. As expected they had more buyers than canvas to sell, and very soon their pockets were lined with money. One man even sold them an old shaft he had worked for enough canvas to cover his current shaft and winch. He did not tell the sailors it had been worked down to a layer of clay beyond which gold had never been found.

‘Look at the likes of this humanity,’ Danny said, wonder-ingly, as they stared around them. ‘Every shade of people.’

There was indeed every type of person the world had to offer on the goldfields, from Chinese to African, from British aristocracy to beggars in rags, from hatchet-faced women to hussies in flounce. What amazed Danny, Abe and Striker, though, were the would-be prospectors straight out of the schoolroom. Dozens of boys still wearing school uniforms had dropped their books and headed for the glory holes of Ballarat, hoping to strike it rich. The street and surrounding landscape were seething with prospectors, all with hope in their hearts. As they left the saloon, the three sailors found the smells were ripe too, and awful, for sanitation was primitive here. And these were men who had lived in the closest proximity with humanity on shipboard.

‘I an’t goin’ to be able to sleep tonight,’ said Abe. ‘Who’s for going to our claim and tryin’ our luck right now?’

The other two men agreed.

So they found the shaft Abe had purchased and Striker winched Danny and Abe down the narrow hole to the bottom. There they lit candles and placed them carefully on the earth shelves that had been cut for the purpose. They found themselves ankle deep in water and soft mud. Striker lowered the canvas bucket and before long they had removed most of the water. Abe began clawing at the mud with his bare hands, slopping it into the bucket. Within a few inches they hit dense clay, which required more than fingernails to shift.

Striker sent them down two small shovels. Not knowing any different, for they were complete novices at the gold-digging game, Abe and Danny began to cut through the clay, slicing it with their shovels and taking out pieces as if it were a cake of marzipan. Any seasoned prospector on the fields would have stopped right there and left the mine to nature, as the previous owner had intended before he had been confronted by three gullible sailors straight off the ship. But they were ignorant of the lack of possibilities and so dug away.

Gold deposits obey certain rules, which knowledgeable prospectors are aware of. Gold is the heaviest metal on the earth and finds its way to the bottom of softer material. But, occasionally, just occasionally, there is a quirk of nature. Sometimes a nugget exceeds all others in size and weight. Sometimes it is so large that over a period of time it sinks down even further into the dense thick clay.

Danny’s shovel hit a hard object with a clunk.

‘Somethin’ here,’ he cried.

Abe went down on his knees and began clawing again, using his sailor’s strength to work around the rock. He cleared and cleaned a single knob on the boulder, an ovoid about the size of a goose egg. Danny kneeled down with him, a candle in his hand. Together they shined it on the stone. The flame reflected a yellowish hue.

Abe could hardly get the word out. ‘G-g-gold!’ he shrieked. ‘We struck gold. We’re rich, boys, rich!’ He continued to scrape away the clay from the monster beneath.

‘No, no,’ replied a worried Danny, ‘it can’t be gold – it’s too big. It’s as big as the bosun’s head – bigger, even. No gold, this.’

‘I tell you we’ve struck rich,’ yelled Abe, angry with his partner. ‘This is a nugget. A damn giant nugget. Look – see.’

Up on the surface, Striker was running backwards and forwards, only stopping to look down into the hole every two seconds.

‘Is it really gold, lads? Are we rich, boys? Is it a nugget for sure, Abe? We’ve only been here not more than four hours. How can it be? Others have spent months! Shall I come down there and assist?’

‘Don’t be daft, man,’ cried Abe. ‘How would we get it out? Here, we’ve cleared it now. Try to lift it, Danny-boy. If you can lift it, it’s not gold, for it’s only as big as an iron bucket. Lift it, and I’ll allow it’s not gold – but lift it, man, and I’ll kill you, for I’m anxious to be rich.’

Danny could not move the thing. It was indeed a nugget. Now the elderly Irishman let out a shriek of joy that pierced the ears of distant men, who came running in the darkness, waving their lamps. Suddenly the whole region was afire with the word. Riches had been found. A nugget the size of a bullock’s head. The earth had disgorged its old wealth and paupers were suddenly elevated to the status of kings.

Only one man for ten miles around was not excited. The man who had sold the earth’s bounty for a strip of canvas. All he could do was bury his face in his hands, and curse the fact that his deal had been made in a crowded saloon with witnesses all around, into whose faces he had smirked and winked, being such a clever fellow as to outwit some stupid sailors.

Oh, that Lady Luck, she was both princess and whore.

1860, New Zealand

Captain Jack Crossman and three soldiers of the 88th Connaught Rangers were among the landing party. They were accompanying a naval party of some 60 bluejackets. Captain Cracroft, the commander of the bluejackets, was bringing his men ashore as reinforcements to assist in the defence of New Plymouth, which it was feared was about to be attacked by Maoris. However, once there was sand under their feet, firing could be heard away from the town. Cracroft decided to divert his men in that direction. For Crossman it was a rude welcome to the recently acquired colony known as New Zealand: he and his men had been thrust immediately into fresh conflict.

‘Captain Cracroft,’ said Jack, ‘do you need us?’

Jack and his men were laden with their kit, unloaded from the Niger, the ship that had brought them to New Plymouth.

‘We need all the men we can get,’ replied the naval officer, who looked a little harassed. ‘Are you willing, Captain?’

‘No, we an’t,’ said Private Wynter, a one-eyed pale individual, from behind his commanding officer. ‘I’ve still got the sea sickness on me. I an’t a well body.’

Sergeant King, his NCO, snapped, ‘Keep your silence, Wynter, or I’ll bring it on you myself.’

Jack nodded at Cracroft. ‘We’re with you, of course. It sounds like quite a battle up there . . .’ He cut his sentence short as a lieutenant-colonel leading a company of soldiers emerged hurrying from a woodland area ahead of them. The firing could still be heard, so the battle was not over, yet here were soldiers heading in the opposite direction. Captain Cracroft hailed the colonel.

‘Where are you going?’

The other officer looked anxious and seemed upset.

‘I have to return to New Plymouth by dark. My orders.’

‘But isn’t there fighting up there?’

The lieutenant-colonel looked uncomfortable as he urged his officers and men, most of whom appeared disgusted with their commander, onward towards the town.

‘Yes, the Taranaki Rifles and militia are attacking the Kaipopo pa – but I have to get on. Colonel Gold’s orders, not mine.’ He looked anxiously at the darkening sky. ‘Not mine,’ he repeated. Then, seemingly as an afterthought, the lieutenant-colonel added, ‘I have sent some men to assist.’ Then he hurried away, waving his small force on with his sword.

‘A bunch of civilians,’ snorted a midshipman standing alongside Cracroft, ‘and he’s leaving them to it?’

‘Let’s get on,’ ordered the naval captain, ‘before we can’t see our hands in front of our faces.’

Wynter started whining again. ‘What about our kit, sir?’ he said, addressing Jack. ‘If we leave it here, it’ll get stolen for certain. You know what these darkies are like.’

Corporal Gwilliams growled, ‘Not everyone’s got your morals, Wynter. Some folk respect private property, darkies or not.’

Sergeant King said, ‘Pile it up at the base of that palm tree . . .’

‘This ain’t no palm, Sarge, this here’s a fern,’ corrected Gwilliams, dumping his kit. ‘Ancient plant, the fern. Older’n history.’

‘Thank you for that botany lesson, Corporal. Just heft your Enfield on your shoulder and we’ll be on our way,’ King said, with a touch of asperity in his tone. ‘Come on, catch up with the officer, you two. Move your backsides. And don’t give me one of your looks, Wynter, or I’ll knock it through to the back of your head.’

Sergeant King believed discipline had to come from his fists, which were indeed heavy and hammer-like objects. normal means of correction were too slow for him. His small command of two spies and saboteurs was always on the move, often in enemy territory. To place a man under arrest was not feasible when in enemy country and needed consideration of rules and laws, and required paperwork. This method was far too slow and indeed impossible when one was crawling through the bush, surrounded by insurgents. Physical threats were swifter and more effective. Sometimes King actually needed to carry them out, taking his man out of sight of the officer and flattening him with fists that had been formed in the forge of his father’s blacksmith shop. Gwilliams had been thumped soundly. So had Wynter, more than once. Gwilliams had learned quickly, but Wynter was one of those men who forgot his pain in a very short time. Moreover he seemed to be able to absorb punishment like a sponge takes in water, and still ask for more.

As the column marched through the wooded slopes, a young midshipman, not much more than twelve or thirteen year. . .