Call of the Kiwi (43 page)

“I am Gloria, and the stream a mile south of here runs to the land that anchors me in the here and now. The
pakeha
call it Kiward Station, and they call me heiress. But this girl, Gloria, has no
tupuna
, no ancestors. The woman who calls herself my mother sells her people’s songs for fame and money. My father never granted me my land—perhaps because his father once drove him from his own. I know not my grandfather. The story of my predecessors is soaked in blood. But I, Gloria, came to Aotearoa on the
Niobe
. I crossed an ocean of pain and traveled on a river of tears. I landed on foreign shores; I crossed a land that burned my soul. But I am here.
I nga wa o mua—
the time that will come and has passed—finds me in the land between the lake and the circle of stone warriors. In my land, Tonga. And don’t you dare ever challenge me for it again. Not with words, not with deeds, and certainly not with trickery.”

Gloria glared at the chieftain. When the tribe spoke of this performance later, they spoke of an army of raging spirits whose souls had given her strength. Gloria herself needed no spirits. And she did not wait for a reply. With her head held high, she left the
wharenui
and her tribe.

She only began running once the door had shut behind her.

Peace

D
UNEDIN
, K
IWARD
S
TATION
,
AND
C
HRISTCHURCH

1917–1918

1

J
ack McKenzie stared out at the horizon. A white mist was slowly becoming visible. New Zealand—land of the long white cloud. The South Island looked as it had for the first settlers from Hawaiki. When it had been announced that they were approaching their destination, anyone who could walk or be pushed in a wheelchair had come on deck. All around Jack, people laughed and cried. For many Gallipoli veterans, it was a bitter homecoming—and not one was the same man who had left.

Jack looked out over the water, but the waves made him dizzy. Depressed by the sight of the men, he considered heading down below deck. All these boys who had gone into the war singing, laughing, and waving were returning with arms and legs shot off, blind, lame, sick, and dumb. And it had all been for nothing. A few weeks after the last offensive, when Jack had been wounded, they had pulled the troops out of Gallipoli. The Turks had paid for their victory with blood, but they had won. Jack felt a leaden heaviness. He still had to force himself to make any movement; he had only hauled himself up on deck because Roly had insisted on it. At the first sight of home, Jack thought of Charlotte. A shiver went through him.

“Are you cold, Sergeant McKenzie?” Roly O’Brien wrapped a blanket around Jack’s shoulders. “The nurses are coming with hot tea. The men are going to stay on deck until the land really comes into view. It’s exciting, Sergeant McKenzie. Do you think it will be long until we dock?”

“Just Jack, Roly,” Jack said wearily. “And yes, it will be hours before we dock. The land is still miles off. You can’t even see it yet.”

“But it will show up soon, Sergeant McKenzie,” Roly chirped optimistically. “We’re coming home, and we’re alive. Lord knows there were days I didn’t believe it would happen. Now cheer up a little, Sergeant McKenzie.”

Jack tried to muster some joy but felt only exhaustion. Perhaps it would not have been all that bad to sleep forever. But then he chided himself for his own lack of gratitude. He had not wanted to die. Just put God to the test. But he had reached a point where he no longer even cared about that.

Jack McKenzie owed his survival to a chain of fortunate circumstances but most of all to Roly O’Brien and a small dog. Roly and his rescue brigade had used the time between two attack waves to retrieve the dead and wounded from the battlefield—or rather, out of the no-man’s-land between the opposing trenches where the Turks shot the ANZAC soldiers like rabbits. The assault had been doomed to fail from the beginning; Jack and all the other veterans of the Turkish offensive could have told the high command that much. Earlier in the year they had used the onrushing Turks for target practice—in August the position was reversed. After the first wave, the plains had been strewn with casualties, and even a tenth or twentieth wave would have perished in the enemy fire—as long as the Turks had enough ammunition. And the reinforcement lines to Constantinople had functioned flawlessly. It was only out of kindness that the Turks left the rescue troops unmolested.

Jack would not have survived if anyone but Roly had found him. During battles such as that one, resources were extremely limited and rescue troops had to decide which of the wounded could be saved and which to leave behind with a heavy heart. Shots to the lung belonged in the latter category. Even when the staff doctor could operate in peace, only a small percentage of victims survived. In the chaos behind the front lines, the chances of making it were practically nil.

Roly had been unwilling to accept that. Although his men shook their heads, he had insisted that Jack McKenzie be placed on a stretcher and carried out of the line of fire.

“Best you hurry,” he had pressed the men, “and don’t just unload him in the trenches. He needs to be on the operating table right away. I’ll take him to the beach.”

Roly had known he was overstepping his authority, but he didn’t care—the young man knew he owed Jack for saving him from a court-marital. So he waved the medics with Jack’s stretcher over to the ambulance in one of the support trenches, where another decision was made. Only those who had a real chance of surviving were taken to the beach. Someone saw to the others later if it was still possible. Roly and his men lined up with the stream of medics who were carrying stretchers through the trenches, past the deathly pale young soldiers waiting in the reserve trenches for their turn. By then they knew what awaited them.

“You can let him down here,” Roly had said, breathing heavily. Once they had reached the open country at the beach, he had driven his men at a jog. As they entered the field hospital, another selection took place as the doctors determined who went on the operating table first.

Roly had felt Jack’s pulse and wiped the foamy blood from his mouth. He was alive—but wouldn’t be for long without a miracle.

“I’ll be right back. Hold on, Sergeant McKenzie.

“Commander Beeston,” Roly called, running through the tents.

But before Roly found the doctor, Paddy had found Jack.

Dr. Beeston had been operating for hours, and Paddy was not allowed in the operating tent. The little dog yapped helplessly by the door and then crawled inside, only to be thrown back out again—until he finally picked up a scent he knew. Whining, Paddy nuzzled Jack McKenzie’s hand, which hung limp from the stretcher. Yet Paddy’s old friend made no motion to stroke him. In any case, something was not right. Smelling blood and death, the little dog sat down next to Jack and let out a heartbreaking howl.

“What’s wrong with that mongrel? I can’t stand it.” One of the young caretakers cast a glance at Jack and reached forward to open his jacket, but Paddy growled at him.

“Great, now the cur means to bite too. What’s the commander thinking, letting him run around like this? Dr. Beeston,” the young man called to the doctor, who had just come out of the operating room. He looked around, utterly exhausted, at the unending flood of new cases. Dr. Beeston gave up the idea of having a sip of tea between patients.

“Commander Beeston? Your mongrel, er—” The young caretaker stopped, realizing that the doctor could send him directly to the front if he said something wrong now. “Could you, er, remove your dog, sir? He’s impeding our work.”

Dr. Beeston walked over, irritated. He had never heard complaints about Paddy before. Granted, he might be in the way a little now and then, bu
t . . .

“The dog won’t let me close to the wounded man, sir,” the nurse reported. “I coul
d . . .
” He reached again for the buttons on Jack’s jacket, but Paddy snapped at him.

“What’s this about, Paddy? But wait a moment, that’
s . . .
”

As soon as the doctor recognized Jack, he ripped his shirt open himself.

“A punctured lung, sir,” the young corporal said. “It’s a mystery to me why anyone brought him here. It’s hopeless.”

Dr. Beeston glared at him. “Thank you for your professional opinion, young man. Now into the OR with him. Quickly now. And keep your opinions to yourself.”

Roly had fallen into a panic when he could not find Jack after giving up his search for Dr. Beeston in frustration. But Paddy was still saving Jack’s place and whined when he saw Roly.

“Now where could he have gone off to, Paddy? Could you find him? Our Sergeant Jack? Well, aren’t you good for nothing?”

“Who are you looking for, Private?” asked the young corporal in passing. “The punctured lung who was here? He’s in the OR. Personal orders from Beeston. Now the pets decide who ends up on the chief’s table.”

Roly did not return to the front, but he assuaged his guilt by making himself useful in the hospital until Beeston finished his operation. Dr. Pinter, an orthopedic specialist, noticed the experienced nurse and ordered him to his own operating table, where he worked on men whose limbs had been shredded by hand grenades and mines. After the fifteenth amputation, Roly ceased counting. The wounded kept coming. Jack’s fate was out of Roly’s hands. He would have to wait for a break and then look for him.

The shooting had not died down until late in the night, and morning had already begun to light the sky by the time Dr. Pinter sent the last invalid to the hospital.

“They won’t be attacking again, will they?” the doctor asked a captain who had his arm in a sling. He looked at Dr. Pinter with empty eyes.

“I don’t know, sir. No one knows anything. Major Hollander was killed yesterday. The high command is still taking counsel. But if you ask me, sir, this battle is lost. This whole damn beach is lost. If the generals have even a spark of reason left, they’ll call this off.”

Roly had expected the doctor to upbraid the young officer, but Dr. Pinter merely shook his head. “Don’t ask for trouble, Captain,” he admonished gently. “You’d do better to pray.”

The prayers of the doctors and soldiers on the front had not been answered, however.