Tommo & Hawk (33 page)

'Ikey,' Tommo repeats, 'I-key So-lo-mon!' He rolls his eyes, as though he has tried to teach her a hundred times and failed.

Makareta ignores him. 'Now you must eat,' she says, putting a large, steaming clay pot of fish and vegetables down in front of us.

'Ikey Solomon never saved anyone any trouble!' I laugh as I reach to fill my platter.

Tommo chuckles too. 'So, what's wrong with Mary?' he asks. 'It is our mama's name after all.'

'Nothing,' I say, 'Mary is a fine name, Tommo.'

'Well then,' says he, 'it's settled. Mary it is if we have a girl.'

But my thoughts have flown back to Hinetitama, and as soon as I return to the village of Chief Wiremu Kingi I try to find her. It is a large village of a thousand souls, perhaps more, but a widow of such beauty would, I feel sure, be well known.

My hopes are quickly dashed. All the wahine I ask about Hinetitama look anxious and shake their heads. 'We have no wahine of that name, General Black Hawk, not in this tribe,' they say. I come to believe it is a conspiracy, led by Chief Wiremu Kingi, to keep me from Hinetitama and, although I search widely, she is not to be found. I take to looking at every woman's face I pass. There are many who are great beauties, for the Maori are of the Polynesian race and perhaps the most handsome people on earth. Though many are comely, none could be mistaken for Hinetitama. I know from Makareta's explanation that the chief has honoured me with a princess, not just an ordinary wahine. But this makes it stranger still. A disappearing princess is surely an odd occurrence. Perhaps, after all, it was a dream? I have resolved, if ever an opportunity arises, to ask Wiremu Kingi if he will let me see her again. My heart is broken by her disappearance and I try hard to concentrate on matters of warfare instead.

*

I am now so engaged with the Maori and their struggle that I am too busy for thoughts of home and too occupied to yearn for our dear Mary. Christmas passes unnoticed amongst the tribes, although I send our greetings to mama.

I have not told Mary of my close involvement with the Maori fight against the pakeha, informing her simply of Tommo's recovery to health in Tamihana's village. If she suspects I dissemble, she says not a word. Nor does she refer to the bitter argument that preceded our leaving. Instead, she writes of the brewery and of the loving thoughts she holds for her two boys. I am anxious about how we shall ever get to see her again, but for now we prepare for guerrilla warfare against the settlers and my mind is much occupied with this.

In great secret, War Chief Hapurona and I plan our first attack against the settlers. But before we can carry it out, martial law is again declared in the Taranaki by Lieutenant-Colonel Murray, who is commander of the militia and the Taranaki Rifle Volunteers, a mounted corps armed with carbines, revolvers and swords. The pakeha soldiers do not wait for us to come against them but immediately attack, looting and burning several Maori villages without warning. The war has begun in earnest, for it is now clear from these actions that the settlers will use whatever force is needed to occupy Maori land.

'We must drive the pakeha from their farms into New Plymouth,' I cry, 'empty the whole countryside.' New Plymouth is a town of some two and a half thousand souls, which depends on the surrounding countryside for food or else must obtain it by sea. War Chief Hapurona agrees and small units that can move quickly over the terrain are sent out in a series of daring night-time raids. In each are two or three of Tommo's fighting axes from Chief Tamihana and they prove most effective. Tommo has lengthened the handle of the axe so that it may be used to fend off a bayonet or even in the manner of the taiaha, the Maori fighting stick. In these raids we do not kill the settlers, but simply force them from their farms with their women and children, thereafter burning and looting their homes and taking possession of their livestock.

Soon New Plymouth has become the only safe haven for all the pakeha in the district and the countryside is empty save for the Maori. The soldiers have fortified the town and created a citadel on the site of an old Maori pa, now known as Marsland Hill. From here they plan to defend New Plymouth against our attack. We are well pleased with this development, for we have no intention of attacking the town but only plan to contain the pakeha within it.

It is now that War Chief Hapurona and the old chief show their great skill as leaders. Hapurona commences to build a pa about nine miles from New Plymouth. He has studied the trenching systems the British have used to fortify the town, and he constructs his pa with a double row of palisades containing rifle pits and similar trenches. We also have underground passages to protect us from the British artillery.

The pa holds one hundred fighting men, whom Wiremu Kingi places under the command of War Chief Hapurona and his chief aide, a Maori war leader named Tamati Kapene. Though one hundred men is not much of a fighting force, we hope that it sends a direct challenge to the British militia to come out of New Plymouth and get us. We trust they will think this small force presents a great opportunity for a victory, and an easy one at that. 'They will think it is the old times when the Maori fight on the defensive,' Hapurona explains, 'and it will give them great heart. This is the way they think they know how to defeat us.'

After much debate, I persuade Wiremu Kingi to purchase a hundred double-barrelled shotguns. At first the rangatira and even the chief are in great doubt about the wisdom of this, thinking the new rifled muskets to be much the better weapons. They have long used shotguns to shoot duck and small game and have even fought with them before, but they have only a few in their armoury. It is my plan to use the shotgun as the main weapon of defence, to entice the British near and greet them with a hail of buckshot at close range.

Though I know little of guns, my argument is simple enough. A shotgun charged with buckshot is deadly when used close-up, which is the way fighting occurs in the pa. It has double the barrels and hence twice the fire power of a musket. The fact that the shot will pepper widely is to be recommended in close combat, and at ten or fifteen yards, it will kill more effectively than the pu — the musket - with its single lead ball.

As I point out to the war council: 'We will have the shotgun and the long-handled fighting axe as well as the taiaha, the spear, and the musket. All the enemy will have is the musket and the bayonet. At close range, when the British storm the pa, we will be the better armed.'

'Oh, so now General Black Hawk would be an expert on fighting in a pa. Do I not recall he was altogether against it not so long ago?' It is the voice of Hapurona's aide, Tamati Kapene, who from the beginning has opposed me in almost every endeavour. He is against guerrilla warfare and would return to the old methods if he had his way.

Tamati Kapene is in charge of organising the defence in the forts and though he is most talented, he is vainglorious for a man not more than twenty-five years of age - even I, at nineteen, can see this. As the son of a chief he has risen quickly and he is said to be a brave man. I do not contradict him but simply answer that we are no worse off with the shotgun and the axe, for we still retain all the traditional Maori weapons as well as the musket. 'We have added the shotgun and the axe without losing anything,' I point out.

My argument carries the day. But although in favour of the shotguns, War Chief Hapurona has decided that I shall remain an observer when the Maori fight in a pa, until I am well enough acquainted with the Maori fighting system.

Meanwhile my brother is also preparing for war. Tommo's men have not yet been tested in open warfare with the long-handled fighting axe, which the pakeha have come to call the tomahawk, after the American Indian weapon. This is, of course, a coincidence and not intended as a compliment to me and Tommo. However, it is not lost on the Maori warriors who think the pakeha must fear the new weapon to have named it in our honour. I explain the real origins of the axe's name to Hapurona, for of course the pakeha do not know about Tommo and still think of me only as the Black Maori. But he laughs. 'General Black Hawk, it is our luck that the men think it so. They will follow you and Tommo the better for it.' In Hapurona's pa there are fifteen axe fighters from the Tommo Te Mokiri and among them is my twin, so that I am secretly most afraid for his life.

We are still waiting for the British to come after us when Hammerhead Jack turns up. 'I have come to fight with my brothers,' he says simply. 'I have one eye and one arm, but one eye is sufficient to see the British. My one arm will use a fighting axe and my eye will see it find its mark between the two eyes of the British soldiers.'

I ask if Hammerhead Jack might be my aide and it is agreed. Tommo is greatly pleased by this. He has spent much time teaching Hammerhead Jack the fighting axe, and knows him to be a formidable opponent who will do much more than his share in any fight. He is much reassured that he will be by my side in the event of close combat.

*

A few days later, in early March, we hear that the British have moved out of New Plymouth with a contingent of four hundred officers and men, as well as a naval detachment with artillery. Although they have only nine miles to go, they come with a long baggage train of wagons and carts.

I send out a small war party to reconnoitre and they report that the column is exceedingly well guarded by the 65th Regiment and that the navy is well equipped with heavy artillery. It is as though they expect to be attacked at any moment, for horsemen constantly patrol their flanks. This is not surprising as the surrounding country is wooded, scrubby terrain criss-crossed by ravines and gullies, with giant flax providing plenty of cover. Given their surveillance, it will be difficult to catch the British column by stealth. Moreover, there is little hope of cutting off their supplies. The Maori do not have much respect for the British regular who fights in the ordered and predictable manner of Waterloo and the Crimea, but I believe it will be a tough battle.

The British build a large redoubt overlooking the river and this becomes their base. War Chief Hapurona and Chief Wiremu Kingi decide our forces are too few, and their reconnaissance patrols too well armed, to attempt to ambush them. So, in the time-honoured manner of the Maori, we wait for the enemy to come to us. In the meantime, we send urgent word to Chief Tamihana and several other chiefs asking for their support against these superior odds. My chief, Tamihana, has already sent fifteen axe fighters with Tommo but he sends a dozen more, and encourages the Ngati Maniapoto, the Waikato and the South Taranaki tribes to also come to our aid. Though we are still greatly outnumbered, our overall strength is much increased by the time the British attack.

It is the seventeenth day of March 1860, a bright morning without so much as a cloud in the sky. A rain-storm last night has made the approach to our pa heavy going. At last Tommo and I are at war, though I very much doubt that I have the stomach for the killing of men. As the fighting gets under way, I quickly become accustomed to the crack of musket fire and the whine of bullets, even the swish of an artillery canister or the boom of cannon shot. We are mostly underground when the firing from the British lines is at its heaviest and we fire back at them whenever the occasion allows. The explosions produce much sound and light, but little harm seems to be done. Some of our palisades are damaged, and much mud and soil is kicked up from the cannon fire. Once, a roof catches alight, though this is quickly doused.

Tommo is most impatient. 'When will they come?' he asks repeatedly. Like me, he is a greenhorn, anxious not to make a fool, of himself.

Towards afternoon, a shot from the British cuts the rope which holds our flag, a red banner, more there so that we should have a flag like the British than for the purposes of any loyalty. The Maori die for women and land, not for this piece of bunting which we name the Waitara flag so as to annoy the governor.

The flag flutters to the ground, close to the palisades outside the pa, and we do not think to retrieve it. Then, in the late afternoon during a lull in the firing, we are met with an amazing sight. The British, ever the heroes, have sent two horsemen to capture our fallen banner. Up gallop these two cavalrymen, bent on glory. Up come our muskets, bent on destruction. Bang, bang, bang! One of them is dead, while the other is medal-bound, for he has scooped up the red flag with his home-made lance, turned his horse in a shower of mud clods, and galloped away again, showing us his horse's arse. I daresay they will one day hang the flag in Westminster Abbey as one of their battle honours - telling their children of the bright bunting hard-won from the ferocious Maori in a noble war of the Empire. Meanwhile, the first man in this battle lies dead in the mud and we are happy that it is an English trooper and not a Maori warrior.

'Do we have another banner to throw into the mud?' shouts Hammerhead Jack to much laughter among the men.

At sunset the British decide to cease fighting for the day. They have been pumping shot and cannon fire into us since the early morning and have by now done considerable damage to the pa. It is too dangerous to repair our fortifications and there is some doubt in my mind that we can take another day of bombardment. We have seen from the firing that we are greatly outgunned and that the British still have much the superior numbers. At the war council, however, there is some elation at the day's events. We have not lost a single man, our food and water supply is intact and our men remain in high spirits.

Tamati Kapene is the first to speak after the general has summed up the day. He is full of bravado and looks meaningfully at me. 'We have proved the value of the pa to all who may have doubted it. The British guns cannot harm us, their artillery fire is like flies on our skin and their cannons are no more than noisy mosquitoes. If these pests should come tomorrow or the next day, we will brush them off with contempt!'

War Chief Hapurona, who has observed that his aide's remarks are directed at me, now speaks. 'What say you, Black Hawk? Have you now observed sufficient of pa fighting to see its value?'