Chapter 29
The Haast Engine
There were people everywhere. The platform of Collingwood Central Station was swamped. The cobbled expanse of St Vincent Place was crowded. In fact, the need for space was so great that all of the rail lines, bar one, were closed to traffic. So, safe from the usual trains, spectators covered the gravelled yard in front of the platform as well.
In the sky above a number of dirigibles maintained position while the passengers on-board watched the spectacle below.
Bunting in Collingwood's gold and black and the Empire's red, navy, and white hung from buildings and fences and gas lamp posts, completing the festive atmosphere that Jeremiah Lavisham, chairman and majority holder of The Coast & Main Railway Company, had desired for the start and finish of his locomotive race. A grandstand had been erected beside the open rail, for the comfort of worthies, and looked for all the world like a ship afloat in a sea of lesser people.
The engine works had all closed for the day, and it appeared that most of Addingtown had turned out for the spectacle. A spectacle that owed itself largely to the men folk of that grim neighbourhood.
One of the city's better brass bands entertained everybody with a happy tune and the newspaper men’s tripod cameras seemed to cover every angle. Station Guards, in dark blue uniforms with silver buttons, stood on the iron pedestrian bridge that spanned the rails, keeping people moving and thus preventing the structure from becoming a bottleneck of excited watchers.
In the grandstand Premier Vogel chatted with Jeremiah Lavisham, while all around them the dominion's notables, army captains, politicians, men of business and commerce and their ladies, passed the time in polite conversation. Seated also were the mayors from each of the towns along the route of what would become the ‘Dominion Section’ of the ‘Collingwood – Dunedin main trunk’; Granity; under a charcoal top-hat, Westport; a silver monocle, Charleston; a golden fob watch, Cobden; a smoking pipe, and just across the river, Greymouth; a grey beard, Kumara Junction; gloved hands folded atop a walking stick, Hokitika; Greenstone buttons and cuff-links, Ross; pinstripes and a gold tooth, Hende's Ferry lately called Hari Hari; rich from felling ancient forests, and at the end of the current line, Fox River; the potential of glacier tourism reflected in cool blue eyes.
A second structure had been added to the stations normal fixtures; a wooden frame holding aloft a great, black, three handed station clock. Its purpose, the keeping of the official measure during each locomotive's time trail, a fact obvious by its placement and authoritative Roman numerals. Below the clock there was what could only be described as a crow's nest, a viewing platform complete with a swivel mounted bronze telescope and a hanging bell. Two wires, insulated in calico, dropped down from a nearby telegraph pole and found termination, next to the telescope, in the side of an elegant wooden box. Atop this box was affixed a single Morse key. The timekeeper, in black tails, currently climbed the ladder to his post.
It was a big day for The Dominion. The day when the contract for the supply of express locomotives for the soon to be completed Haast Pass railway would be decided by time trial. It was true to say that the world watched, for the winning company would grow in prestige exponentially, and would have no difficulties in securing offshore contracts. That company would join the ranks of Baldwin, Rogers and North British, certainly not in unit output from its factories, but definitely in design prestige.
It was a day that the three friends were never going to miss, especially Max.
Gilbert Lavisham was also in attendance, sitting next to his Father, staring out at the crowd blankly. But Max couldn't see Harriet anywhere, although her father, Coval Leigh, sat right next to Gilbert. Max was glad he didn't have to endure a view of the happy couple.
He watched Vogel, the Premier, as he switched from speaking with Lavisham Senior on his right to addressing a stern gentleman on his left and seeing him now Max wondered how he had earlier missed this other. For where Vogel was small and dark with an expansive black beard, his new conversation partner was striking; tall and muscular, military in bearing, with a great tangle of ginger whiskers spilling over his chest. Turning to Wang and with a nod toward the stand he said,
“If I'm not mistaken that would be Gordon McKendrick.”
“You aren’t mistaken,” said Wiremu. “Word on the street is that the delegation from Dunedin arrived by steamer yesterday.”
“Aren't you well informed, Mr Word on the Street,” remarked Max, slightly put out that his deduction was already common knowledge. Then favouring Wang with a wink to cover his sudden boorishness, he went back to studying the ruddy Scotsman. Max found himself agreeing that McKendrick was a man who, in appearance, matched the stories told about him. It wasn't hard to picture a large black bearskin atop his head.
For it was in such a head-dress Sergeant-Major Gordon McKendrick had made himself famous on the 17 of October, 1854 when he was the first through the breech in the Malakoff Redoubt, ahead his Scots Fusilier Guards. An action that led, in turn, to the end of the Siege of Sevastopol, and the defeat of the Russians in Crimea.
For his grim work with bayonet and sword, and as a leader of men, he received one of the first ever Victoria Crosses, freshly minted from a captured Russian cannon. His distinguished military career had come to a practical end when he entered politics. McKendrick departed Edinburgh in 1867, and after a steamer journey south to the colonies, took up his new role as the Patriarch of The Free Presbyterian Republic of Otago.
Wiremu, Wang and Max had arrived half an hour before the advertised start time and quickly found themselves a place to stand on the platform proper. Shoulder to shoulder they watched the festivities. Wang had gone missing for a time but was now reconnected with the other two. Back then Max and Wiremu had spent a week in frustrated worry, fretting at Wang's unexplained disappearance. They had known that they couldn't simply go to Chinatown to look for him and that the constabulary wouldn't be interesting in the case of a missing Chinese student. Their impotence had been suffocating. The pair had even gone to Wang's accounting Master, Professor Buford-Bennet, who had only shrugged and said;
“Should Master Wang reappear, he would be welcomed back to lectures and issued some catch up notes. Him being of exceptional skill and a little ahead of his peers.”
Then two weeks ago he had reappeared, riding the 7:15am to school, like normal. At Max then Wiremu's expressions of surprise and relief, then subsequent questions, Wang had appeared embarrassed and dismayed by the level of concern his absence had caused in the other two. As usual he had failed to appreciate the high regard that his friends held him in.
Wang had explained about Jo Foo's fall in the river and subsequent convalescence, remarking that he was doing better now and was back on his feet. But Wang himself had looked pale and drawn.
“Any minute now,” remarked Max, glancing at the Timekeeper's clock. Then at five minutes to ten a lone whistle called loud somewhere off down under Lyons Street bridge and every head swung toward the sound. A moment later great plumes of steam and smoke could be seen flying into the air above the Botanical Gardens. The first competitor was making its way up The Cut.
Slowly the locomotive rose into view and took shape, first just a tower of steam, then a smoke stack, now a nondescript black box riding the rails toward them all. Then as it approached closer still the faces of the Engineers, behind their glass windscreen, became visible. It was the same 'cap forward' engine that Max and Wiremu had seen on the siding at New Brighton. But this time it was full of the pulsing, volcanic, productive life that only super-heated water can bring. The crew brought their charge to a hissing halt before the grandstand.
“Looks like they got it ready in time, after all,” mused Wiremu, as the two front engineers, in their smart black uniforms waved down at the people on the platform and saluted those on the grandstand.
“It's a strange looking thing,” reflected Wang, seeing the Rotheram and Scott entry for the first time. Max agreed.
Not natural.
“Read in the paper,” began Wiremu. “That the reason it was stalled out West was due to the fact that they were trying to run it on fuel oil. But the pipes kept breaking, covering the loco and the tracks in nice slippery oil and then catching alight!”
“Not natural,” laughed Max, for some reason a little pleased with the ill report. “Front facing and fuel oil!”
“They seem to have seen the error of their ways and converted it back to coal, returned the firemen to the footplate.”
The only wagon behind the locomotive, which under normal circumstances would be the front, was an eight-wheeled tender, loaded high with shining black Pakawau coal.
“Be saving themselves a pretty penny in the process too,” reflected Wang. “Not sure how they get the coal from the tender to the fire box though.”
“That is a bit of a puzzle,” agreed Max. “Clearly they have a way.”
“Clearly. What is a Kaiwhakaruaki?”
Max and Wiremu followed Wang's eyes to the bronze nameplate on the side of the engine, 'Rotheram and Scott – KAIWHAKAUAKI.'
Wiremu gave a chuckle.
“That's clever.”
“How so?”
“Kaiwhakaruaki is a Taniwha...” then to Wang's blank look, “...a monster.”
“Right.”
“He lives in the Parapara inlet and has a particular taste for man meat.”
“Really?” It wasn't a question, more an expression of disbelief from Max.
“Go on,” urged Wang, looking over the crowd and ignoring Max.
“He used to attack travellers around that area, whether they went by land or sea. Once he got his eyes on someone, they never escaped, not a single person.”
“What happened?” asked Wang rather matter-of-factly. Wang's interest, although understated, surprised Max for a moment.
Chinese and their dragons.
“These two chiefs, Potoru and Koheta, came up with a plan to ambush and kill Kaiwhakaruaki. Potoru cut down a sacred pōhutukawa tree, the only one growing in Mohua, and had each of his warriors make weapons from its wood. Then the two chiefs split their combined force in three. One hundred and forty men would attack the beast from the front, while two groups of a hundred warriors would come from the two sides.”
“But it's not true is it?” interrupted Max. Wiremu looked at him, appearing puzzled for a moment, then continued the story.
“When all was ready and the tide was low, a nameless champion daubed himself in red ochre dye, which he had dug from the hillside near the sea and strode into the Parapara River. In a rush Kaiwhakaruaki came out of his lair in the river bank, at the base of the hill, and did battle with the warrior. The champion fought bravely but within moments his weapon was cast aside, and he was himself destroyed in the monsters’ mighty jaws. But it had been enough to distract Kaiwhakaruaki and the hidden warriors closed in from the left and right and from the front, to subdue and kill the Taniwha.” Wiremu finished the tale with a downward slash of his hand.
“At the start,” began Wang as soon as the telling was done. “You said that Kaiwhakaruaki lives in the Parapara inlet. But you end the tale with his death! Which is it?”
A show smile began to curl Wiremu's lip, but Max interrupted;
“It’s not real is it!”
“How do you mean real?” Wiremu tilted his head to one side and looked at Max.
“I mean it's not a true story. There wasn't really a monster in the Parapara Inlet. It's just some tribal memory, a tale to scare outsiders away from natural resources, food gathering areas, iron oxide clays. Isn't it?”
The smile didn't leave Wiremu's face as he studied the locomotive for a moment before answering.
“No Max it's not real.”
For some strange reason Max found this answer, although fully expected, empty. He turned to find the young Māori watching him. Wiremu spoke again.
“Although when the Government built it's causeway across the Parapara Inlet, for the Eastern Line, the rails were scarce laid a day before they planted the sides near the water’s edge, with sacred pōhutukawa trees.”
The finer workings of the race administration were hidden from Wang, Wiremu and Max, by the stationary locomotive and the crowd around them. But as it neared ten o'clock the engineers aboard The Kaiwhakaruaki seemed to make ready to depart and the crowd began to stir again with renewed excitement. Loud 'chugs' and displacements of water or steam could be heard from deep within the Taniwha's black iron body as pressure was rebuilt.
A flagman, holding a red flag aloft, moved out onto the rails. The two engineers behind Kaiwhakaruaki's glass windscreen watched him closely. The flagman stepped off the tracks again, flag still up, and fixed his eyes on the time keeper’s tower. A moment later the bell on the tower began to clang loudly, the flagman dropped the red flag and replaced it with a green. The engineers, now ignoring the flagman, his purpose well served, began adjusting controls on the dash and roof of their cabin.
With a sudden hiss of white steam, from somewhere under its wheels, the Kaiwhakaruaki rolled smoothly forward. The three friends watched the drive gear effortlessly turning the big steel wheels as the locomotive slid past them. Then the first great 'chuff' resounded from the engine, followed a moment later by the second, then the third. The crowd began to cheer as the locomotive gained speed and passed between them. Then the 'chuffs' came in earnest and the Kaiwhakaruaki drew quickly away, it's wheels appearing to spin for a rotation or two on the iron rails as it gained momentum. People continued to cheer and wave their hats in the air as they watched the red light on the back of the departing monster's tender.
Then as the smoke began to clear the band struck up again. Max looked to the time keeper in his tower. The clock above him had just gone ten and the man himself was bent over his telegraph key, busy tapping out a message. The Kaiwhakaruaki, somewhere up the line near Appo's Creek, let out an eerie salute from its whistle and the people cheered again.
“How are they working it?” asked Wang a few minutes later. They had been watching the hot air balloons and spectator dirigibles that drifted about in the sky above the city, loaded with Aeronautics Students and paying customers. On the rails before them now, stood the A&G Price entry 'RZ-1'. Which, when compared with the Kaiwhakaruaki, was a rather traditional looking engine with a 4-6-4 'Baltic' wheel configuration.
However, if one favoured RZ-1 with more than a passing glance, any number of apparent innovations could be noted. First was the fact that the outside of RZ-1's boiler and smokebox were covered with snaking black pipes and strange looking elongated cylinders. Although to discern what purpose these served one would need to have a far higher degree of training than most gathered at Central Station that morning. Different too was the way that the nose was covered with a kind of swept back metal cowling, which most could tell must provide some... what Dickie might call 'aerodynamic' advantage.
“It's fairly simple,” responded Max. “The engines are leaving here on the half hour for the run down to Westport. That timekeeper in the tower is telegraphing their departures to Westport station. Westport in turn will tap back their arrival times. Once all three are in Westport, they'll spin them on the turntable and send back the fastest, followed by the next and then the last. Westport will send the departure times to us, and we'll time the run back home. The winner will be the company with the quickest combined time.”
Earlier the timekeeper had drawn his eye away from his telescope and called down that the Kaiwhakaruaki was crossing the Perry Saddle, at the head of the valley, and making good time. This news had caused another general stir of applause and a number of those on the grandstand had produced their own personal seeing instruments and trained them on the mountains in the south. Soon it would be RZ-1's time to depart.
Max returned to his friends, pushing through the crowd on the platform and nursing three thick white mugs of station house coffee as he came. He had used the lull after RZ-1's departure to collect the substandard refreshments. He handed mugs to Wang and Wiremu and as if on cue, a mournful whistle sounded off down the line. Despite his best efforts, Max's heart missed a beat. He took a sip of the warm coffee.
The third entry; Leith Engineering.
“I feel a little bad for Dickie,” he began, distracting himself from the sound of the oncoming locomotive. “He would have loved to have seen all this.”
“Very much so,” agreed Wang. “Let’s hope he has found his eagle.”
And nothing more was said, for every eye was drawn down the line as the loud 'chuffing' of the final racer filled the air. Naturally, as with the other two, great black and grey billows of coal smoke were seen well before the behemoth that produced them. For a moment Max figured that the Botanical Gardens would be getting an extra sooting from the prototype locomotives. But the opposite was true, the race was actually producing lighter traffic than normal day running. Come late afternoon, with the time trails done, there would be an almost continuous stream of trains though The Cut as the backlog of port bound coal from the West Coast, worked itself out.
Max blew needlessly across the top of his coffee and squinted at the approaching column of smoke. It seemed to take an age, but the machine belching the tower of spent coal finally came into view, at first only the top of its stack, then the whole engine appeared. It blasted its whistle as it came, sending a plume of white into the air.
Station Guards started blowing their own tiny whistles and those who had lingered below, left the rails, so that the crowd parted before the locomotive, like the Red Sea before Moses. Max felt his chest constrict as the brakes were applied and the engine squealed to a standstill, obscured for a moment in a great 'wheesh' of its own white steam.
The Leith entry was an impressive looking machine, classic and traditional built like the 'RZ-1', and cab at the back where it should be, but big like the Kaiwhakaruaki. So big in fact that people steeped back involuntarily from the giant wheels and side-rods that had appeared towering before their eyes. Max, standing about level with the front buffers, was likewise stuck by the immensity of the engine. As with the last two entries he searched for the engineers, a sign of human life in the iron construct. But the cab was simply too far back from him, and he couldn't see anyone. He could however look across to the grandstand where the worthies waited. Coval Leith looked pleased with himself, Jeremiah Lavisham a little impressed.
With the steam clearing, Max, along with almost everybody else, quickly counted the wheels, 4-6-6-4. Double cylindered on each side, like the Kaiwhakaruaki, but with an extra pair of wheels in the driving sets! The polished name plate on the side of the boiler proclaimed it simply as 'The Leith Flyer'.
“If it isn't under powered,” said Wiremu. “It's the one to beat.”
Max agreed. If enough power could get to those twelve driving wheels nothing would stop it. He let his eyes follow the network of golden tubing that travelled its way over the engine as Wang gathered up their empty cups and went to return them to the station house. He was back in a moment and together the three friends continued to point out to each other this and that aspect of the locomotive before them.
All at once a general commotion arose among the crowd opposite the platform. The good folk on the grandstand were pointing and clapping, while the masses around them started waving and calling up at the engine. Max couldn't see anything from his side, but evidently the engineers had made an appearance on the other.
Max's eyes flicked back to the grandstand. Coval Leith still looked pleased with himself, as did Gordon McKendrick. Jeremiah Lavisham even had an amused smile turning the corner of his mouth, but his son, Gilbert looked pale and positively... murderous.
Max's heart started banging at the inside of his chest. I know, he thought in answer to the question.... he knew Wang was about to ask.
“What has them so worked up?”
The Leith Flyer wheeshed steam again and rolled slowly forward into the starting position, hiding the grandstand from view.
“Not sure. But I think we are about to find out,” answered Wiremu.
As it drew near Max noticed how large the cab appeared. At least twice as big as he, in his limited understanding, imagined to needed to be.
Maybe they've got a galley and bar in there.
Then he was staring up at the footplate and at the grim engineer who stood upon it, ignoring the crowd beneath him. The man was none other than 'Baldy Burns', the administrator from the Leith Factory. 'Uncle Hector,' Harriet had called him. The locomotive stopped in place. Max checked his fob, three minutes to eleven.
Then clapping and cheering began all around them. Even in the swelling noise Max heard Wiremu clear his throat, as if signalling. Max slowly lifted his eyes from his time piece.
Harriet stood above them, next to her stern Uncle, and waved her gloved hand at the crowd. Max almost took a reflexive step back, almost turned and walked away, pulled his hat down to cover his eyes... almost, but not. Instead he noticed, at once, her exposed wrists, the turned up sleeves of her cream coloured hemp shirt, the black braces that rose up her front and crossed over her back, a dark green kerchief around her elegant neck, the golden hoop earrings, red hair tied behind her head, engineers hat and bronze goggles perched atop her head, the generous smile, a sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, the sparkling green eyes...
From further along the platform some other young men were loudly calling out their encouragement. Possibly Tick and the rest of her robot crew.
Max looked back up and their eyes met.
He did not look away but clamped his jaw hard so that its bones showed in his cheeks. She did not look away either, but gave a sad, hesitant smile.
Then the connection was broken by Hector laying a heavy hand on her shoulder and pointing forward to the flagman waiting on the tracks in front. The pair threw themselves into the twisting of taps and the setting of valves. Max rechecked his watch; one minute to eleven.
Again the pressure, in every sense of the word, began to grow. Then with the ringing to the watch tower bell and the exchanging of the red flag for green, it was released. People cheered loudly as steam billowed around them and the Leith Flyer, on giant iron wheels, drew out of Central Station.
Uncle Hector clutched the coal shovel and didn't bother with even a simple wave to the people, but as they passed Harriet seemed, for a moment, to seek Max out again. But he was lost to her in a sea of waving hats and hands. She returned to her task and then they were gone.
* * *
The whole crowd, even the grubby children who had come along with their parents from Addingtown, were silent. Everyone watched the timekeeper in his tower. He, in turn, was hunched over his Morse key, which, unheard by most, was tapping out a message from the station at Westport. The little man's lips moved as he deciphered the dashes and dits, turning them into words with busy pen on the note pad next to the ornate telegraph box.
After a short time, the key became still while the writing hand continued. Then straightening from his work, the timekeeper studied the pad a moment before filling his lungs and announcing in a loud voice toward the grandstand;
“Rotheram and Scott. Kaiwhakauaki. Westport Station. 11:47.”
The timekeeper silenced the chapping and discussion that followed this by ringing his bell and scowling down like some peeved vulture, before continuing; “A total time of one hour, forty-seven minutes!”
Now people really began to talk in earnest, not least of all the three friends.
“One hour forty-seven!” repeated Wang, his eyes round behind his spectacles.
“56 miles per hour!” added Wiremu.
“That is the whole run to Dunedin in less than twelve hours,” concluded Wang. “Impressive. Even faster on the sections which are not as mountainous as from here to Granity.”
Max left them too it. His mind was on Harriet. To say that he had been surprised at seeing her on the footplate of the Leith Flyer was an understatement. A shock it appeared, from his pale face, that he shared with Gilbert Lavisham. Max realised now that he should have expected it, she was after all Harriet Leith, therefore 'surprises should be expected'.
Expected surprises.
He couldn't find his heart. He didn't know how to feel. Gilbert sat only a couple dozen feet away, glowering over his father's railway empire, spectating with the Dominion's upper class on the elite engineers and designers who had cued up to race for his father's approval. Chief amongst those vying for this approval, Lavisham approval, was Harriet.
Max knew that he was as much out of the picture today, as he had been on that night months ago at the Railway Hotel, when he had first seen the pair together and first heard of this very race.
Yet his prayers were with her now, willing her to win.
Godspeed.
He imagined her, somewhere in the Heaphy Hills, goggles in place, coaxing every last inch of speed out of her locomotive, trying to chase down RZ-1 and close the gap on the monster Kaiwhakauaki. Why?
Because she had looked at him?
No, more than that.
Because she seemed to look for him. And because seeing her on the footplate had been just like seeing her again that first time at the end of year robot race. Harriet in control, Harriet in the centre, Harriet like the whole world revolved joyously around her.
Am I the only one her sees her this way? Surely everyone does. Or am I the only poor moth drawn to her flame?
Max looked across at Gilbert.
Why so displeased with her Master Lavisham?
He studied Gilbert, heir to the empire, supposed killer of boys, as he lit the cigar his Father had just handed him and drew on it so that the end flared hot orange.
Is it that you feel her power too? That you see her fire, but fear it. Fear, like Von Tempsky had once said of you. Do you fear that if you embrace who she truly is, she will eclipse you? That next to her, your flame will be shown for what it really is; a weak, pallid thing.
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Max laughed out loud.
Truly? The very same thing that draws me to Harriet, threatens you Gilbert!
He shook his pony tailed head in silent mockery of his onetime adversary.
Some people don't know they are alive.
“Come on,” urged Wiremu. “A good joke is worth sharing.”
“Not when it is on me,” answered Max, matter-of-factly, as he returned from his daydreaming. He sniffed dismissively and stuffed his hands in his pockets. He wasn't going to be dragged after Harriet again. Once was enough. “Let's get something to eat.”
Still it hadn’t taken him long to work out that if the Leith Flyer left exactly one hour after the Kaiwhakauaki, which it did, it would need to reach the Westport Time Keeper before 12.47pm to manage a faster time. The RZ-1, only half an hour behind, would have to make it by 12.17pm for the Price's to have a chance. It was still early days, and well time for lunch.
* * *
At the edge of Hector Park Max paid a street vendor for three skewers of hot mutton. People had spread picnic blankets out on the green and were settling in to enjoy the wait in the sun.
“We are being followed,” said Wang out of the corner of his mouth.
“Really? Us?” responded Max, handing a kebab to each of his friends, before using his teeth to draw off a piece of meat from his own. He didn't try to disguise the sound of his scepticism.
“Yes.”
“Who is it?” asked Wiremu, around a mouth full.
“Not sure. But they have been with us since we left the station.”
“Really?” echoed Max again. He couldn't think of why anyone would be following them. We aren't in Chinatown now.
“Yes,” mouthed Wang, in an accentuated way which communicated that he possibly thought Max was being mental. “Use your head!”
“Why, when I can use yours!? What are your Ninja senses telling you?”
Wang rolled his eyes.
“Can we just walk on, like we haven't noticed. Find a place we can duck into. We'll let them pass and get a look at who it is.”
Wiremu fixed Max with a firm 'no nonsense please' look. Max shrugged and they set off.
Dodging between hissing locomobiles they crossed the cobblestones of Excellent Street and strolled casually along the side walk.
“Why would anyone follow us?” asked Max, repeating his earlier question and fighting the temptation to look back.
Wang sniffed.
“Could be Tong, Northerners, crew from the Elizabeth...” it crossed his mind to add Coin Hunters, for effect, but Max interrupted his train of thought.
“Could be spooks!”
“What has got you in such a... silly mood… Mr Skilton?” Wang asked, holding an image of the supposed Chinese agents in his mind’s eye.
Max shrugged.
“He's seen Harriet Leith again,” answered Wiremu. Max stayed quiet for a time after that.
Wang knew that they weren't be being followed by those he had nicknamed Coin Hunters, they were simply constantly on his mind. As far as he could discern there were only three of them; one women and two men. And he knew they wouldn't be here because they were deep undercover in Chinatown.
He had watched them for weeks now, crossing the mountains to the west coast, each weekend, in the cover of darkness. Once, in his desperation for some alleviation to the suffering endured by him and his Grandfather, he had been tempted to reveal himself to them, to cast his lot in with theirs. But the dangerous moment had passed with inaction on his behalf.
He knew that they would interpret his approach as a compromise to their cover. A situation that they would find most unsuitable and would lead to him being killed. He had no doubt that she wouldn't hesitate in executing that sentence.
After a few minutes Wang spoke up again.
“Here is our chance. Let us take an interest in that.” He pointed up at the smoking dirigible that was slowly flying along above the street. Airships weren't a novelty, but the three of them stopped for the sake of whatever rouse Wang was working on. Looking up they could see the top-hatted pilot at his controls as the airship approached and passed almost directly overhead. When the shadow of the giant gas bag and the open-air gondola suspended beneath it slid over them, Wang said;
“Max and I will walk on. Wiremu you take a special interest in that thing. Let it draw your eyes after it, down the street. Don't linger, just a glance, see if anyone is waiting in a doorway or standing suspiciously still.” Wiremu nodded once and Max and Wang left him there.
The chug of the departing dirigibles' engines was still loud when Wiremu fell back into step with his friends.
“You were right! There are at least two bods back there. Big fellas. They were standing flat footed, looking like they had no good reason to be on the street.”
Wang sniffed.
Big fellas. Max didn't like the sound of that.
“What now?” he asked.
“What is around this next corner?” answered Wang with a question of his own.
Max looked ahead the intersection with the optimistically named Golden Road, the main thoroughfare out of town.
“More shops.”
“Specifically?”
“A haberdashery, menswear, drapery...”
“The menswear will suit us well,” interrupted Wang.
“Nice pun.”
“What? Oh. Anyway, behind? Parallel street or alley?”
“Alley… we are passing it now.”
Wang quickly peered into the dark alleyway which opened up on their right.
“Closed at the other end. We’ll circle back out here if we need to. Force the shop's back door if it comes to that.”
“You are taking this pretty seriously.”
“I'm from Chinatown.”
Then it seemed to take an age to complete the last few steps and gain the corner. Max's heart starting to speed up and he felt like he was in that bad dream... the one where terror is just behind and safety always just out of reach. The middle of his back began to itch, like a target was painted there and the thrower was readying his knife.
“Max, slow down,” commanded Wang, and then right on the corner he stopped and started an idle conversation with the shoe shine boy who had set his box up there!
Don't look back, don't look back!
Max could recognise that Wang was playing the game well. Still, it wasn't easy to play along and help create the allusion that they didn't know they were being tailed. Everything in Max wanted to get around that corner and into the promised safety of that menswear shop.
Wang and the surprisingly talkative shoe shine finally concluded their conversation, which had been largely about the weather, and the three friends headed around the corner and onto The Golden Road. But not before Wang called back;
“It looks like you have found a good spot for an honest boy to make a good day's profit.”
The boy squinted after them.
The bell on the door of 'Bennett & Hatchett's Men's Apparel' clanged loudly as Wiremu, Wang and Max trooped in. The man behind the counter, Hatchett by the look on his face, eyed them doubtfully.
He knows a Māori and the Chinaman will never buy anything.
“Can I help young Sir's?” he asked, interlocking his fingers on the bench in front of his belly. Wang was watching the street from behind the window manikins and Wiremu starred at the ceiling. It didn't matter, the question was directed at Max. The one with the money.
“Ah yes. Good sir,” began Max, quickly finding his stride. “Hats. Top hats of course. Three of the best!”
“Yes of course,” responded Hatchett slowly, as he watched Wang surveyal the Street from within his shop.
“Three of the best,” repeated Max, turning his back and joining Wang at the window. Hatchett hesitated, undecided as to whether he was about to be robbed or worse. He looked to Wiremu, who gave him a friendly wink and added;
“I think Maximilian just wants to look at hats. If he wanted to burgle the place... well he would have had the mad Chinaman do that by now.”
“I see,” said Hatchett, stiffening in an attempt to regain some dignity, before disappearing into a back room.
“Guess he has heard of The Gibbstown Three,” remarked Wiremu to Max.
“And their friends, The Murderer's Bay Musketeers!”
“Still nothing,” called Wang from the front window.
When Hatchett returned a moment later bearing three hat boxes he found Max standing at the counter.
“Here we are young Sir,” he said opening the lids and laying the hats out.
“Yes very good,” remarked Max giving them the once over. “Mr Wang? Top or Bowler?”
“Bowler for me.”
“Right you are. These are a good cut. Now can you supply them in black leather?”
“Black leather!” Hatchett was aghast. “These are the finest of gentleman's hats young Sir.”
“Yes of course, of course, just figured I'd ask. May I have your card, if you please, with the amount on it for two of these and a single bowler. I'll have my man call to deliver measurements and then collect in due course.”
“Certainly,” said Hatchett producing a small printed card, scribing a handsome sum on the back and sliding it across the counter. Max retrieved the card and without looking at it, slipped it into the inside pocket of his waistcoat.
“Now,” said Max quietly. “If present company should find themselves needing to use your back door, to, shall we say, avoid certain Jervis Street Ruffians, would they find it serviceable and unhindered from the inside.”
“Certainly, they would,” confirmed Hatchett, replacing the box lids, and returning to the back room, from where there was the faint sound of rattling keys.
“Much obliged,” said Max under his breath and returned to the front window.
“Maybe there was no one,” said Wiremu, joining the other two. Wang shook his head.
“There was someone. More than one. Patience.”
“Maybe they are getting their shoes shined,” remarked Max.
“Doubt it.”
It was getting late.
Surely the times for the Price and Leith locomotives will be back from Westport by now.
Max was about to suggest that they give up and head back to the station, when five figures passed in front of the shop window.
As one the three friends dropped down below the manikins.
“It's The Five!” hissed Max.
“And not out for a simple stroll either,” added Wang.
Max felt sure the door bell was about to clang and that they would be discovered.
“We are going to look a little stupid down here if they do come in,” said Wiremu. Max agreed. Then silly grins captured their faces and need to giggle with excitement and fear rippled through them.
"We know what this is about don't we?" said Wang.
“Pou whenua” whispered Max.
"They've figured it out."
“I think they might have,” agreed Wiremu, from the corner of his mouth. “But they can't prove it.”
“And that my friend is why they will settle for cornering us in some dark alley and giving us, how do you say? What oh.” remarked Max, before edging up to get a better view of the street.
“What's the problem?” called Hatchett from the rear of the store. Then with more than a hint of sarcasm added; “You three misfits could take those five swells no trouble. I mean one of them was a girl!”
“Yes, thank you for your input Sir,” replied Max, standing. “Truly, we could unleash Mr Wang here on them. But in doing so, your noble shop would be destroyed, not to mention the two apartments above it! It is a mercy for all that we pick our fights carefully.”
Wang favoured Hatchett with a slightly crazed looking smile.
“Shall we gentlemen?” continued Max, indicating the door.
“I think it is time,” agreed Wiremu.
Max held the bell so it didn't clang and they slipped back out onto the pavement.
“I'll send my man,” called Max to a bemused looking Hatchett and closed the door.
“Boy you can talk up some nonsense Max,” reflected Wang as they checked the street for any sign of The Five. There was none. Wiremu gave an amused chuckle, and they began back the way they had come. Once around the corner and back on Excellent Street Max dug a coin from his pocket and tossed it to the shoe shine boy who still sat there.
“A penny for your time.”
The boy caught it and quick as a flash it disappeared into his waistcoat pocket.
“Sure thing gov.”
“A minute ago five rather flash looking Māoris came up here...”
“I seen em.”
“When we got around the corner did they stroll on... all as you please or...”
“They came on with a purpose as soon as you was round. I wouldn't want to tangle wiff them if I was you cob.”
Max nodded.
“Another penny for your tongue then,” said Max. The boy caught it.
“As you please. Shoe shine?” He held up his nugget blackened brush.
“Another time.”
“Working the watchers, Mr Skilton. Impressive,” said Wiremu as they strode away. Max looked back over his shoulder at the little bootblack.
“Wang groomed him on the way in. I just needed to finish the deal and pay him off.” Unmentioned was the fact that Wang didn't have the money himself to close off the task, but they all knew it.
“I can see you at the centre of a web of informers.”
Max ignored Wiremu. He liked to see himself more as a man of action, a fantasy that didn't extend to peddling information.
“Here is what I don't quite understand,” he began, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Hatchett was right. We could have taken them on and won. Just like with Ginger and Co. I mean Wang here could have opened up a canister of kung fu on them.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Sorry, just sounds better than; a canister of wing chun. A wagon load of wing chun then.”
Wang sighed.
“Then you are jumping to the same, possibly wrong conclusion, as Mr Hatchett.”
“Which is?”
“Which is, that The Five were out to beat us up.”
“Weren't they?”
“Don't know. Do know they were interested in at least following us and seeing what we were about.”
“But we weren't about anything, well nothing particularly interesting,” offered Max, taking another look behind them.
“Oh I know that, believe me.”
“I was happy enough with some hot mutton and a new top hat,” said Wiremu, to no one. “How are you going to pay for those Max?”
“So, what's the point?” asked Max of Wang, ignoring Wiremu's question.
“Indeed. Oh, I don't think that The Five learnt much from their little stroll. But we have.”
“Have we? Enlighten me.”
“The most important thing that we now know; is that The Five, as we seem to like to keep calling them, have taken an active interest in us. I guess that we can suppose that they do indeed suspect us of being your Gibbstown Three.”
“I prefer The Murderer's Bay Musketeers,” sniffed Max flippantly. “We must instruct them to address us thus when we next speak. And of course, we will need to acquire some muskets.”
Max and Wiremu laughed. But Wang strode on earnestly.
They had only taken a couple more steps when the bootblack called out.
"Oui, Oui..." All three friends swung around to see him hook his thumb back down The Golden Road, toward 'Bennett & Hatchett's Men's Apparel' and say "...theys coming back at a pace."
"Hide!" commanded Wang, pointing to the opening of the alleyway that ran behind the menswear store. He and Wiremu darted back to at once.
"What?" said Max, moving at a more leisurely pace. "Can't we walk our own streets?"
"Come on!" hissed Wang. "It's more satisfying to play them." Max could agree with that. Amused by Wang's uncharacteristic leadership, he joined him and Wiremu in the shadows of the narrow service alley. They waited.
The minutes ticked by, but The Five didn't come past.
“Maybe it is us who are being played,” whispered Max, not wanting to miss any of the action back at Central Station, and thus quickly losing patience. “I'm going to take a look.” Wang and Wiremu followed him back to the entrance of the alley, where they peered around the corner.
Their pursuers were standing menacingly around the small shoe-polish back at the corner. Words reached the watchers at once.
“You put us wrong!” accused Kingi. Then the one, Ihaka, actually kicked at the cowering boy with the tip of his boot.
“I'm not your slave!” spat back the boy, sounding defiant and scared in equal measure.
“Yes you are!” hissed the woman Mahuika, from behind the young men.
At that point Ihaka's boot connected with the boys wooden footstool-come-toolbox sending it flying to the side and spilling polishing rags and cans of Kiwi brand nugget across the foot path.
“Slave's need a beating,” said one of the others, whose name Max didn't know.
“Guess it is time,” muttered Max to Wiremu. Wiremu met his eyes and nodded once.
“Bluster.”
“And bravado.” They both ignored Wang who, maybe appropriately, looked a little more reluctant. However, they all knew that the bootblack was in this trouble because he had chosen to help them out. Honour said they owed him.
Max tugged the front of his waste-coat down with both hands, as he and Wiremu strode back toward The Five, Wang only two steps behind. Max didn't need honour to propel him, he had liked what he'd seen of the cocky boy. The Five did unnerve him, but the coming clash wasn't going to be played out in some back alley now. In fact, he welcomed the release in tension that intentionally walking toward the conflict gave him.
“What's going on!” he demanded as they drew near the corner. Five brown faces whipped toward the sound of his voice, their eyes going momentarily wide in sudden recognition. Then forgetting the boy at their feet, The Five rounded on the newcomers.
“We've been looking for you,” said Kingi, hooking his thumbs into his waste-coat.
“Have you indeed,” remarked Max, knowing almost intuitively that it was actually only Wiremu in whom they were interested. As if to prove the point Kingi seemed to need to force himself to actually look at Max.
“Maxamillion Skilton.” A hint of paternal exasperation sounded in his voice, before his eyes slid away again.
“Kingi Kuratahi,” responded Max. “How may we be of service?”
Kingi made a show of ignoring him.
“We need to discuss a small issue of trespass and robbery.”
Max, likewise, overlooked the menace in Kingi's tone.
“Really!” he replied, drawing the big Maori back to him. “We'll help where we can. What have you gone and done? The Dominion's laws on this sort of thing are fairly simple once you under...”
“Enough!” roared Ihaka. “Shut your infernal mouth Skilton! You know exactly what we are talking about.”
“Do we?” said Wang, on the other side of Wiremu.
“Of course,” spat Kingi.
“I'm at a loss,” sniffed Max.
“Naturally,” Mahuika suddenly said, through clenched teeth. “We are speaking of the removal of ancestral Po Whereua from Wapping Point.” Both Mahuika’s unexpected intervention and her words ratcheted the tension up a few more notches. Between Wang and Max, Wiremu remained silent.
“Yes, a sorry business,” said Wang, removing his glasses calmly and polishing them on his shirt. “But I still fail to see how we may be of assistance.”
“Enough!” spat Kingi, again. “I tire of your games. We know it was you!”
Max made a show of blinking in surprise.
“Ah, how so exactly?” he asked after a moments pause. “Is it because there is three of us? And the... the papers say there were three... three musketeers!? Really!?” Kingi glared at him murderously.
“We know it was you,” repeated Kingi. Max gave a quick nod of farewell to the bootblack boy, who, behind The Five's backs had finished gathering up his spilt possessions from the footpath. The nod was returned and the boy slipped away.
“This is foolishness,” said Wang.
“Indeed,” agreed Max. “If you have nothing sensible to say, we shall wish you a good day.” He and Wang turned on their heals and set off for the railway station. Wiremu remained a moment longer. Fixing Kingi with narrowed eyes he uttered his only contribution to the entire exchange.
“You cannot steal what already belongs to you.”
* * *
The crowd at Central Station, having ebbed away over lunch like the water in Ruataniwha Inlet, was now back in full. Max led the other two in a short search for a new place to watch from.
When I was seven I would have climbed onto the station roof.
A quick glance above revealed that the next generation had already taken up that spot. The board grins of a good number of likely lads lined the top of the platform veranda. One of them dropped his six pence hat and a gentleman below, caught up in the festivity, tossed it back up with a good-natured laugh.
Eventually they found a place on the iron steps of the pedestrian bridge. Leaning over the diagonal hand rail they asked the people below them;
“What news from runs to Westport?”
“Rotheram & Scotts done best,” called up an overall clad boiler man. “1.47. Then comes Leiths wiff 1.58. And last, dragging the chain a bit was Price. 2.22 if I remembers right. That Kaiwhakar... whats-a-name left Westport again at one fifteen.”
So Harriet hasn’t managed a faster time than the Kaiwhakaruaki. Max felt his heart drop. Still there is the return run.
He looked at the timekeeper’s big clock; quarter to three. The man beneath it had his telescope trained on the head of the valley, undoubtedly looking for the first sign of steam crossing the Perry Saddle. A number of those on the grandstand were following suite.
“If Kaiwhakaruaki departed Westport at one fifteen,” began Wang. “And is making similar time back as it’s run down… then it could make an appearance any time now.”
A few minutes later Max saw The Five making their way, in single file, through the crowd to some unseen destination. He watched as they found a place and settled in to wait for the arrival of the first returning locomotive. Kingi, Ihaka and the other two young men looked off expectantly up the valley, and Max remembered that there were no railways on the Northern Isle.
Maybe it is true that a fascination for trains runs in the blood of every man.
But Mahuika remained unsettled, looking about her and studying the crowd. He watched as her dark eyes moved over the faces of the people opposite her. She was looking for someone and Max had no doubts as to who. Eventually, inevitably her eyes came to rest on him and did not roam on. Max returned her blank stare, and it was a moment before he realised that she was not looking at him at all, but Wiremu next to him. Then she turned and joined her comrades studying the distant hills.
“Did you see them?” asked Max.
“Noted,” confirmed Wang. Wiremu remained quiet. A minute later he was the only one.
A white snake of steam had been spotted at the head of the valley and even though only those with eye glasses could see it, everyone was pointing and talking. The Kaiwhakaruaki was coming!
Shortly the eye glasses came down as the locomotive disappeared from view in the Clark River Valley. The Timekeeper consulted his clock and croaked;
“Making good time.”
People milled around again, talking restlessly, and looking every other minute to the south. Then the smoke plume was back in view, visible now to all, on the hills above Salisbury. Above the Salisbury Slate Quarry and the Pullman Palace Car where Max and Harriet had spent the night.
The Timekeeper had his telescope back up and those who had bets on the Kaiwhakaruaki started nudging those who didn't. Again, Max imagined Harriet at the controls of the Leith Flyer. He had no idea what was involved in driving a modern railway locomotive, but imagined accurately that it was a combination of managing pressure, operating an accelerator and if absolutely necessary applying the brake. In his mind Hector was shoving coal into the fire box, trying to place it so that it burnt clean and hot. Harriet was monitoring the water, come steam, tapping gauges and twisting taps. Beneath them the crank rods were pumping to a blur, spinning the great iron wheels with unstoppable force. The return strokes of the four cylinders would be sending a massive tower of spent coal smoke and used steam high into the air. The noise... the motion... everything...
Kaiwhakaruaki's smoke had just come over the Stateford Viaduct and was heading across Druggan's Flat toward the Devil's Boots Station. One hour forty seven was the time to beat and from the look of the big station clock, the Kaiwhakaruaki was going to do it! The monster engine was on the Collingwood Plains now, coming though Appo's Flat station, so close that people cheered when they heard it sounding its whistle from up the line.
One more minute, then people were clearing the line, standing back to cheer louder than ever and dance about, as the great black locomotive shot between them, under the pedestrian bridge and off down the cut.
When the Timekeeper's bell stopped clanging and the combined roar of the crowd and the chug of steam pistons finally faded, the unmistakable sound of squealing brakes could be heard from somewhere down Havenside.
“Look! Look!” shouted someone all of a sudden, maybe one of the children on the station roof. “Another engine!! Look!”
Surprised that a second should follow so soon, everybody swung their attention back to the top of the valley. But the tell-tale steam wasn't coming over the distant Perry Saddle... it was already showing above the Salisbury!
“A it is another loco,” cried someone else in amazement. “The Leith Flyer! The Leith Flyer!”
The majority of the crowd were dumb struck. The Leith Flyer should be half an hour behind the Kaiwhakaruaki, at least that was the delay when it was released from Westport. Instead it was coming only five minutes after, at the most!
Now people were really starting to get excited. Those who had bets with Leith threw their hats in the air. Those whose money was on The Kaiwhakaruaki returned their hands in their pockets.
Max laughed out loud and banged his hand down on the hand rail.
She was going to do it!
He wanted to dance a jig and swing Harriet around. But of course, she was still miles away and hardly his for such celebration. Instead, he blew the air out of his cheeks and looked at Wiremu.
“That's quite a thing my friend,” said the Māori, shaking his head. “Quite a thing indeed. What's the maths Wang?” Wang finished mumbling to himself, clearly working out the times.
“Kaiwhakaruaki; 1:47 down, 1:43 back up, that's 3.29. Leith Flyer; 1:58 down, but something like 1:15 back up, so that is a total of 3.13!!”
“RZ-1 is never going to beat that, not after such a slow run down.” They all nodded in agreement at Max's statement of faith.
“She must be going at least eighty miles an hour!” Even Wang was amazed.
The Leith Flyer sounded its whistle coming though Appo's Flat and had every one’s attention again. All the worthies in the grandstand were on their feet, eye glasses abandoned. Station Guards blew their whistles and ushered people back from the track. The sound of the approaching locomotive's massive engine filled the air, running faster than anything Max had ever heard. Closer now it was hidden from view behind the city's tenements and outlying factories. Then the smoke was shooting above the tiled roofs of the nearer buildings. Seconds away, all eyes were on the bend in the track. First came the golden shine of the head light on the polished rails, then the Leith Flyer bust into view. Everyone was cheering and hats were high in the air again. Harriet's engine roared between the jubilant crowds, screaming pure white steam from its brass whistle so that children covered their ears and men shouted Huzzah!
Max was close to tears, such was the raw emotion of the spectacle, and Wang was pumping the air with his fist. Wiremu threw back his head and laughed, adding his joy to the clatter, chug, roar, and whistle.
She had done it!