Isle of Tears (18 page)

But Mere hadn’t heard her. She nudged Isla and pointed. ‘Look.’

Isla followed the line of her arm eastwards and, with a flare of hope in her belly, saw gathering along the skyline and moving down the hills columns of warriors, heading for Orakau. It was a sight as heartening as yesterday’s arrival of reinforcements, when they had watched as a large taua—Ngati Haua from Maungatautari, it had been said, and more Ngati Tuwharetoa led by Te Heuheu himself—had appeared to the south-east of the pa.

The defenders had voiced their encouragement, men and women alike uniting in a loud and frenzied haka of greeting and appreciation, voices roaring up into the sky and feet stamping so hard that the ground shook. Isla, the hairs on her arms and neck standing straight up, had been transported with wild exhilaration as she had screamed and hissed along with everyone else, and had felt her heart take flight as the reinforcements had responded with their own, equally explosive haka. And then the two forces had united, their combined chanting and bellowing deafening, and she had shaken her fist at the imperial lines, standing in mute awe a safe distance away, screaming, ‘Take that, ye Sassenach bastards!’, and answering Tai’s wild grin with one of her own. But
despite the blood fever generated by the haka, the Ngati Haua and Tuwharetoa contingent, in attempting to fight their way into the pa, had been driven back by overwhelming numbers of imperial troops, and had retired into the bush, where they now waited.

Perhaps they would join with the reinforcements arriving now. The two armies would still not be equal in number, as Cameron seemed to have brought every soldier at his disposal, but at least now they might have a chance of leaving Orakau alive.

Another voice rang out, this one from the parapet: it was Tonganui, a Ngati Tuwharetoa rangatira. ‘E hoa, ka whawhai tonu ahau ki a koe, ake, ake!’ he shouted, his voice echoing down the slope.
Friend, I shall fight against you for ever and ever!

At that, a great cheer arose from the defenders, then died away as the officer at the head of the sap called out again.

‘That is well for you men! But it is not right that the women and children should die. Send them out to us!’

There was mumbling inside the pa at that, but then Ahumai, the tall and handsome daughter of Ngati Te Kohera chief Te Paerata, stepped up to the parapet and called, ‘Ki te mate nga tane, me mate ano nga wahine me nga tamariki!’
If the men are to die, the women and children will die also!

And at that, the firing began again, and this time the defenders knew they were truly fighting for their lives. Almost all of the Kingite ammunition had been used, and the substituted peach stones and wood plugs were proving a mere irritant to the imperial troops. Grenades were hurled continually into Orakau’s trenches, and an Armstrong gun, dragged to the head of the imperial sap,
fired repeatedly into the centre of the pa: Isla, couching in a bunker with her hands over her ears and trying to calm the children, felt the earth rise and shudder beneath her as each shell landed. In the end, she couldn’t stand the thought of being underground any longer and crawled outside, where the dead and wounded had begun to pile up.

Someone shouted her name, and she lifted her head to see Tai and Harapeta dragging a limp body over the parapet: it was Niel. Feeling a bubble of dread rise, then burst, in her belly, she lunged towards them and fell on her knees beside her brother, crying his name over and over again. His face was covered with dirt, and blood had trickled from a small cut on his cheek, but, finally, his eyes opened and he reached up to touch her face.

‘Niel!’ Isla cried, dizzy with relief. ‘Where are ye hurt? Is it bad?’

‘Ma back,’ Niel croaked, then grimaced with pain. Laddie barged in beside Isla and started frantically to lick Niel’s face.

But to Isla it seemed that something was wrong with her brother’s legs. As she ran her hands up and down them, feeling for broken bones, Tai crouched beside her and said, ‘He says he cannot move them.’

But Isla could find no injury. She examined Niel’s belly as gently as if he were a new-born, then rolled him onto his side, his legs flopping, and pulled up his shirt: in the centre of his back, just below his ribs, was a puncture wound little more than an inch across. There wasn’t much blood, but the edges of the wound were a vivid purple.

‘What is it?’ she said almost to herself, bewildered by the apparently innocuous injury.

Then Mere was there, pressing her firm, grubby hands all over Niel’s back. She began to pinch him, starting at his ankles and working up.

Alarmed, Isla blurted, ‘Stop it, Mere. Ye’ll hurt him!’

But Mere kept pinching, moving all the way up to Niel’s belly button until finally he flinched.

‘You felt that?’ Mere asked quickly.

‘Aye,’ Niel grunted, then grimaced again.

‘But you did not feel when I pinched your legs?’

‘No.’ Shaking his head, Niel covered his face with his hands.

Mere sat back, thinking for a long moment. ‘I think something has cut into him and taken away the use of his legs.’ She glanced at Harapeta, who was looking deeply shocked and more than a little dazed. ‘Did something explode in your rifle pit?’

‘No, it happened when we were coming through the palisade. The trenches at the north end have been overrun.’

‘It was a shell,’ Tai said flatly. ‘The shrapnel killed another man with us. Then Niel fell to the ground and could not get up again.’

‘Can ye make him better, Mere?’ Isla asked, almost pleading, as she smoothed Niel’s hair back from his face.

Suddenly his hand snaked out and he grabbed her wrist. ‘I’ll no’ stay like this, Isla! I’ll no spend the rest o’ ma life as a cripple!’

Isla’s gaze didn’t waver from Mere. ‘Can ye?’

‘I do not know.’ Mere gave a ragged sigh. ‘I do not think so.’

‘But will I die?’ Niel demanded. Isla thought he sounded almost hopeful, and it hurt her heart terribly.

But Mere didn’t answer, because Wira had appeared. He bent over Niel. ‘Will he be all right?’

Mere said nothing, and Wira straightened and blew out his cheeks in weary despair. ‘Rewi says that we are losing too many men. But we will not surrender. We are to attempt to break out.’

Tai blinked in surprise. ‘When?’

‘Now. We will launch our last attack from the south-east corner of the pa, and then we will go. Pass the word to gather up our wounded. We cannot take our dead.’

Everything that the Kingites had brought with them was left behind, except for their now almost completely useless weapons. Gathering at the southern parapet, intending to break out in the direction in which there seemed to be the least number of imperial troops, the defenders awaited the signal from Rewi. When he gave it, at half past three, they fired as many precious last bullets over the parapet as they could afford, then moved out through the palisade in a tight group, quickly and silently, the women and children trotting in the middle and the most fearsome of the warriors at the front. They did not fire at the watching imperial troops outside the fortifications, but neither did the disconcerted and amazed soldiers fire at them.

Mere and Isla carried Niel between them. He was heavy, and his backside bumped on the ground every third or fourth step, but he didn’t cry out. All around them the Kingites moved quickly,
the only sound their breathing and their feet as they ran. Isla’s shoulders hunched in expectation of the soldiers opening fire, but they did not. Ahead, carrying another wounded man, Tai looked back for her. His face was tense and wary, as she knew hers would be, too. Why were they not being fired upon?

Then, before they had managed to break through the imperial cordon completely, and just as they crested a low ridge that bordered the swamplands to the south, the British troops suddenly began firing en masse. But the Kingite column didn’t stop and, although many fell, others struggled on. Mere and Isla ran with Niel between them, Isla’s arms feeling as though they were being pulled from their sockets. From the corner of her eye she saw Hera jerk, falter and fall as a circle of blood bloomed across her chest. Then someone banged into Isla and she fell herself, dropping Niel and hitting the ground hard on her hands and knees. But a second later she was wrenched back to her feet by Atarangi, who grabbed Niel under his armpits and began to run with him, Mere still gripping his ankles. Isla trotted along beside them, trying not to cry, then stooped and snatched up a little boy who had fallen. But it wasn’t until she swung him up into her arms that she saw that he had been shot in the head. Gripping his small lifeless body even tighter, she ran on until suddenly she was beyond the British cordon and into the swamp.

Rewi had said that they were to split into smaller groups once they reached the wetland, and she stared wildly around for Tai. Mere and Atarangi splashed on ahead of her, shouting to her
to hurry up, when she saw Wira floundering towards her, the swampy ground sucking at his feet.

‘Where’s Tai?’ she cried.

‘Run!’
he shouted, gesticulating at her madly. ‘Run, they are coming after us!’

Isla turned in terror and ran, the boy’s body flopping in her arms. Soon she had lost sight of everyone, but could hear splashing all around her. Then she glimpsed Mere and Atarangi up ahead, and ran even harder to catch up, the mud working to tear the boots from her feet, her lungs burning and the taste of metal sharp in her throat.

Mere, when Isla reached her, glanced at the boy’s pale, slack face. ‘He is dead.’

‘Aye, I ken,’ Isla gasped.

‘Leave him.’

‘No. Is Niel … ?’

‘Ae, he is alive. We must go from here. The soldiers are killing everyone they can find.’

‘Have ye seen Tai?’

‘No, but he will be safe.’

But Isla had stopped listening, realizing with a jolt that she didn’t want to hear the words anymore, that she had never really believed that her beautiful husband had divine immunity from death on the battlefield. He could die from a bullet or a bayonet or a shell as easily as anyone could, and
where the hell was he?

A barrage of musket fire sounded nearby, followed by several short, sharp screams, and they all ducked, squatting in the reeds
and toetoe. Niel was half-submerged, and Isla laid the body of the little boy aside to lift and cradle her brother’s head.

‘Be quiet, they are close,’ she whispered to him as swamp water seeped coldly into her skirt and soaked her thighs.

Niel nodded weakly and closed his eyes. Laddie began to growl, and Isla snaked out a hand and clamped his muzzle shut. None of them dared to breathe. A minute later they heard English voices conversing, then, at last, the sound of boots splashing away. Mere half-stood, peering through the toetoe.

‘They are going the other way,’ she said, her voice low. ‘They have shot Te Paerata and some of his people. Ahumai is wounded, but I think she is alive. I will go to her.’ And she stepped out from the toetoe and moved as stealthily as she could across the boggy ground to the fallen Ngati Te Kohera.

Isla and Atarangi exchanged panicked glances: they should not become separated from each other.

‘We should—’ Isla began, but bit off her words: someone was creeping towards them and was almost upon them.

Very carefully, she and Atarangi lowered themselves face-down into the swampy water, Isla taking care to hold up Niel’s head so he would not drown. Laddie, however, sat straight up, his ears pricked, and Isla winced, terrified that he might bark. Nothing moved for a long moment, then the toetoe ahead of them shook slightly and from its saw-edged depths slowly protruded the barrel of a shotgun.

A hammer was cocked, the sound harsh in Isla’s ears, and she squeezed her eyes shut and began to pray.

A pause, a rustle of leaves, then a voice that whispered hoarsely, ‘Isla!’

She opened her eyes, and when Tai stepped out of the toetoe, followed by Harapeta, she began silently to weep.

Tai knelt in the water and hugged her so tightly she couldn’t catch her breath.

‘I thought ye were dead!’ she said against his chest, her voice muffled. ‘I thought ye’d been kilt!’

‘Sshh, sshh,’ Tai crooned as he rocked her. ‘It is all right now.’

Isla pulled away, feeling foolish. ‘I’m sorry. I thought—’ I thought you were going to blow my brains out, she almost said, and had to swallow an inexplicable bubble of laughter. ‘We have tae get Niel somewhere safe.’

Tai released her. ‘Ae, we will go to the others. They are waiting farther into the swamp.’

‘Have the soldiers gone?’

Tai shook his head angrily. ‘They are still hunting for us, and bayoneting us where we fall. They are on the other side of the swamp, but we must still be quiet.’ He and Harapeta lifted Niel, who groaned and swore.

Harapeta glanced around, then stood very still. ‘Where is my mother?’

Isla pointed through the toetoe. ‘She said the soldiers shot Te Paerata. She went tae see if she could help Ahumai.’

Tai almost dropped Niel. ‘Te Paerata is dead?’

‘I dinnae ken. She just said he and some o’ his people had been shot. I’ll go and see, aye?’

Tai exclaimed in a loud whisper, ‘No, wait!’

But it was too late: Isla had already pushed through the toetoe and disappeared. She found Mere almost immediately, crouching over Ahumai. Around her lay the bodies of five or six others, including Ahumai’s father, all motionless.

Mere beckoned. ‘She is still alive. We must get her to safety.’

Ahumai’s hair was wet and muddy and her face deathly pale, and she appeared to have been shot in the ribs, shoulder, wrist, hand and arm. Her whole right side was a mass of blood, diluted with swamp water.

Isla and Mere lifted Ahumai to her feet, then, one on either side, they walked her back to the others. Ahumai said nothing, and her head hung down as she struggled to remain conscious.

As darkness fell, the small procession trudged farther into the swamp, resting now and again on the little islands of firm ground that dotted the wetland. Eventually, they came to what was left of the Ngati Pono contingent. They had managed to carry all their wounded out of Orakau with them, although more had been killed during the break-out than had died in the preceding battle.