As the Earth Turns Silver (4 page)

The news spread from one shop to another, from laundry to greengrocery to market garden. There had been the shooting in Naseby the previous year, and then the murder of Ham Sing-tong in Tapanui only a few weeks before, but this was Haining Street. This was where Cousin Gok-nam lived, where Shun and his brother Yung went on Sundays for wontons and roast pig, for tea and gossip.

Joe Kum-yung was not a clansman, but with maybe three hundred in all of Wellington, every Chinese was a brother, especially one shot at point-blank range. Yung heard from Fong-man, who heard from Joe Toy, that Kum-yung had been walking home when a man came up behind him and shot him twice in the head. No one got a good look at the murderer. It was a Sunday evening. It was dark. Haining Street was almost deserted. The man with the revolver wore a long grey coat. He was tall. He was
gweilo
. When Joe Toy got there, his cousin was lying outside Number 13 in a dark pool of blood, a paper bag of peanuts scattered about him.

Shun wondered whether the locks on the doors were adequate. Kum-yung had been in New Zealand thirty years – a cripple from his gold-mining days on the West Coast. His clansmen had raised the money to return him to China, to return him to his wife, but instead the fool had gone up the coast to try his hand at market gardening. And lost everything! He'd only been back in Wellington a few weeks. Why hadn't he gone home? When he'd had the chance . . .

Shun rubbed his gammy leg. He told his brother not to go out after dusk. Not to go out at all, not unless absolutely necessary.

But the murder had barely passed three hundred pairs of lips when stranger, even more compelling news broke. A man had turned himself in. The murderer was in custody.

A crowd began to gather early on the morning of the trial, eager to see Lionel Terry brought down from the Terrace Gaol. Donald half-ran down Lambton Quay, and by the time he arrived at the Supreme Court his armpits felt uncomfortably wet and his shirt stuck to his back in a film of sweat.

‘Damned hot for November,' he said as he joined a group of reporters.

‘We get this in Auckland all the time,' one of them laughed. ‘But not the blinking wind!'

Thompson, whom Donald used to work with at the
Evening Post,
offered a cigarette. ‘I hear you've met Terry.'

‘Yeah. Good bloke, Terry.'

Thompson struck a match and held it up, sheltering it from the breeze. ‘Did you have any inkling he was going to do this?'

Donald drew on his cigarette, blew out. ‘Hell no,' he said. ‘Didn't like Chinks, that's for sure. A scourge, he called them. Wanted them sent back. Who doesn't? But . . .' Donald shook his head sadly, drew on his cigarette and blew a long plume of smoke. ‘Sure knows how to make a point . . .'

They stood on the steps of the courthouse, shifting their weight from foot to foot, discussing the case as the crowd grew and became more boisterous and spilled across the road, threatening to close Stout Street.

When the doors finally opened and Terry still hadn't appeared, Donald and the press and a mass of spectators charged for the main courtroom doors; yet more snaked up to the public gallery by the steep staircases on either side. Donald found a place in the press area. There was not enough room and some reporters ended up sitting with Chinamen and other spectators. The doors closed with hundreds still amassed outside.

Perhaps it was the sheer number of chattering, excitable people, the sour taste of stale sweat, everywhere the darkness of stained wood. Donald gazed upwards where the walls were paler, off-white, where faint light filtered through second-floor windows. This was not some inexplicable error, some minor indiscretion. His friend was on trial. For murder.

The crier called out and the crowd fell silent and rose. The Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, entered and sat at the bench.

Donald took a pencil and pad from his pocket.

Even as Terry came up from the cells, as he stood tall between his guards, a white handkerchief neatly folded in his suit pocket, Donald noted that he had a dignity uncommon in those who frequented the dock. He caught his eye and Terry smiled, nodded slightly.

He had declined counsel. If anyone could defend himself with honour, then surely that was Terry, yet a vague uneasiness stirred in Donald's stomach. He watched as the registrar read the charge and asked how Terry pleaded.

Terry lifted his chin and peered down at the man. He objected to the word guilty. He had nothing to say except that his action was right and justifiable.

‘That means not guilty,' said His Honour.

Not guilty
. The words reverberated in Donald's mind. As the jury was empanelled, he listened to the names, good British names, examined each face, speculating on each man's views. How could they not agree on the Asiatic problem?

He listened as the Crown opened with Charles William Harris, who was in Taranaki Street on 24 September at 7.35 p.m. Harris had heard a report from the direction of Haining Street and seen a man standing on the footpath. He saw a flash and heard a second report, then saw the man come towards him. The man was tall and wore a long, light overcoat. Only then did he notice a Chinaman lying on the footpath twenty to twenty-five feet from where the man had been standing.

Terry looked on implacably. He had no questions for Mr Harris or for the next witness, Constable Fitzgerald.

Now Joe Duck, a resident of Haining Street, was sworn in.
Joe Duck
.
What kind of name is that?
Donald watched the scorn on Terry's face as the interpreter lit a match, handed it to Duck, mumbled something unintelligible and waited for him to blow it out.

Duck had lengthy discussions with the interpreter.

‘We need an interpreter for the interpreter,' the Prosecutor said.

Donald, Terry and half the court snickered.

If the interpreter was to be believed, the Chinaman saw a man in a light overcoat fire a gun in Haining Street. The man who fired walked off. The man who fell was Joe Kum-yung.

For the first time Terry asked questions. WAs Joe Kum-yung taller than Duck? How tall was Duck, how many English feet were there in five Chinese feet . . .

Donald smiled.
Confound the bugger with irrelevant questions.

Dr Ewart gave evidence that death was caused by injury to the brain from the bullet wound.

Then Ngan Ping of Molesworth Street swore on the Bible and spoke without an interpreter. One Friday night Terry had come into Number 5 Haining Street where Ping and others were playing cards.

‘You were gambling,' Terry said.

Yes. Undermine his credibility – that of every Chinaman – by revealing his criminal nature.

‘No gambling,' the Chink said. ‘Only Chinese cash. Cannot spend it here,'

‘Are you a Christian?' Terry asked.

‘Yes.'

‘You believe the Bible is better than your own religion?'

Ha!
As Terry continued to interrogate, he reminded Donald of a boy pulling off the wings, then the legs of a fly.

Now Constable Young and Inspector Ellison stated that Terry had come into the station and given up his revolver. He'd shot a Chinaman to call attention to the evil of alien immigration. He'd signed a written statement.

Damn.

Horace Clare Waterfield, Private Secretary to His Excellency the Governor, produced the letter which His Excellency had received through the post the morning after Joe Kum-yung was shot. The letter, signed ‘Lionel Terry, British subject', stated that to protect the rights of Britons against alien immigration he had ‘deemed it necessary to put a Chinaman to death' that evening in the Chinese quarter known as Haining Street.

Oh damn.

Terry cross-examined Dr Martin as to the nature of the wound, and the Crown closed its case.

Terry declined to call evidence. He had nothing to give except a short statement.

Donald leaned forward in his seat.

Terry pulled out a thick pile of papers and addressed the jury. He objected to His Majesty being placed in the position of protector of unnaturalised race aliens, he said. He was surprised at the number of Asiatic witnesses and officials. Evidently the vast difference between European and Asiatic veracity had yet to be realised. The evidence given by the Chinese witnesses, especially that of Ngan Ping, the Christian, was distinctly Asiatic in quality, and he suspected the Chinese interpreter of being more shrewd than honest. Although in any other case he would decline to reply to a charge in which so many aliens were concerned – he glanced at Donald – he had brought this charge against himself for the purpose of protesting against this very evil.

Not entirely unreasonable.

Terry denied emphatically that he was the victim of an insane delusion or that his intellect had been impaired by sunstroke or any other ailment.

No.

Donald stared at Terry. Of course he agreed with Terry about the Chinese, but this was a capital charge. Surely it would be easier to excuse his action if there were some underlying condition. Something as innocent as sunstroke.

Terry continued with a long explanation of his position. The New Zealand Government needed to ship its aliens to other shores, so that it would be a country fit for white settlement . . . Upwards of 100,000 people were dependent upon the Asiatic alien for staple food products . . . The enemy was tampering with the food supplies, polluting the source from which the country derived its strength . . .

Donald tried to concentrate. He'd always enjoyed Terry's speeches, but this time his mind started to drift. Terry's
short
statement was full of polysyllabic words and contorted legal statements. It was too long.

‘I did murder one Chinaman, presumably Joe Kum-yung,' Terry was saying, ‘but the murder was committed to test the law relating to the protection of aliens . . .'

Donald examined the Chief Justice's face. How would he interpret this? At least, as a fellow member of the Anti-Chinese League, His Honour hated the Chinese too.

‘As it is naturally impossible for people of two distinct races to possess the same characteristics, therefore it is equally impossible for the laws of the people of one race to govern those of another.'

Well, well, well
. . . Donald stabbed his pad with his pencil.

‘As the laws representing one race cannot be applied to people of another race, therefore it is unlawful for people of two or more distinct races to dwell together in the same country.'

Mmmmm
. . .

‘Therefore, there cannot be a law according protection to or in any way recognising the presence of unnaturalised race aliens in British possessions.

‘In reply to the charge that I killed
this
alien,' Terry paused, looked at Donald, the jury, ‘the Chinaman, being a race alien, is not a man within the meaning of the statute.'

Donald closed his eyes. Opened them again. There were few men he'd met who could match Terry's charisma or indeed his powers of rhetoric. Of course he agreed that decisive action was required. But the audacity of the man!

As the Chief Justice summed up, Donald gripped his pencil. The law applied to every human being in New Zealand, His Honour said. There was no answer to the charge.

God! Here was the Chief Justice, fellow hater of the Asiatic element, having to protect Chinamen!

The only possible question, His Honour said, was whether the prisoner knew the nature of his act and was responsible for his actions. Donald's knuckles, his fingers, turned white. There was no evidence of mental aberration, the Chief Justice continued, and the prisoner himself plainly contradicted it. He paused, surveyed the courtroom. Therefore, it was the duty of the jury to find the prisoner guilty.

Donald wanted to jump up and shout, ‘This is an honourable man. You know that, Your Honour. You agree with his position. I've seen you at the meetings . . . He's a Briton. A gentleman . . . Perhaps a little misguided . . .' Why the devil had Terry denied any mental incapacity? Surely it could have been sunstroke? Why did he refuse counsel?

Terry caught Donald's eye as he was led away, head held high, emotionless.

The jury retired. Donald sighed and took out his pocket-watch. Seven minutes to one. He stood up and glanced at the gallery, at the crowd of spectators. There, behind that woman with the outrageous hat, the grapes and the pineapples and the fiddly blue ribbons – damn it, if he'd had to sit behind her, he would have given her an earful – as she moved, behind her, suddenly he saw Robbie. The boy was wagging again, but for once Donald didn't mind. He would have done the same himself, had he been in his shoes.

He went out into the breezy blue-eyed day, lit a cigarette and walked from Stout Street into Whitmore, from Ballance into Lambton Quay and back to the main entrance on Stout. He took a piss, then hurried back towards the courtroom.

The jury returned at 1.25 p.m. with its verdict:

‘GUILTY, with a strong recommendation to mercy . . .'

Donald did not hear all the words.

‘. . . not responsible for his actions . . . suffering . . . from a craze . . . his intense hatred . . . mixing of British and alien races.'

The registrar asked Terry if he had anything to say. WAs there any reason why he should not receive the death sentence?

Terry stood very tall and straight, his voice strong and clear. ‘Nothing except to repeat what I said formerly, that my action was a right and justifiable action.'

‘Prisoner Lionel Terry,' the Chief Justice said, ‘the recommendation of the jury will be duly forwarded to his Excellency, the Governor . . . The sentence of the Court is that you be taken . . . to His Majesty's prison at Wellington, and thence to the place of execution,' Donald broke the lead of his pencil on his pad, ‘and there be hanged by the neck till you be dead . . . may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.'

A hush fell on the court. All eyes were directed at Terry, who stood very still, his blue eyes calm.

Donald watched as Terry was led out. He sat in his seat as others leapt up and chatted excitedly. He would write about his friend – how he'd held the court spellbound by his oratory, how he'd risked all for the honour of his race, how he'd stood clear-eyed and erect, a knight errant lifted from the pages of chivalry.