Chapter Three
MARINO
At the same time that Max was having his first taste of his new life at Victoria University, filling his eyes with racing robots and one Miss Harriet Leith, his heart pumping faster than a piston in one of her Father's great locomotives, a different scene, not at all remarkable, was playing out down on the waters of Collingwood Haven.
A three masted Chinese Junk slowly rounded Whopping Point and with the incoming tide entered Rua Taniwha Inlet, also called Collingwood Haven. Once she had slipped behind the protective arm of Gibbstown the wood ribbed sails came down like a collapsing squeeze box accordion or indeed an oriental fan being neatly folded away. With such a shallow draft the Chinaman could find a mooring almost anywhere, her flat bottom resting on the mud when the water sucked back out into Murderer's Bay once more. However, the helmsman made for the dock opposite Haven Station and the Customs House, bringing his charge to rest against the hardwood piles with only the slightest bump.
People, who had been locked in the hold while the ship made port least they hinder the operation, swarmed ashore as soon as they were released, only to stand looking somewhat dazed and directionless on the bare timbers. They were all Chinese and most were men. Once they had been from the teaming cities of Tsengshing or Chungshan, on China's humid South Sea coast and Pearl River Delta. But to the customs man, who now stood before them, they were simply from Ballarat, via ship from Geelong. Like so many before them, they had come for the gold and before long would simply, as far as the customs man was concerned, disappear into 'Chinatin' on the valleys western side.
They were unceremoniously reunited with their bundled processions and as the customs man finished with them they began, in small groups, to traverse the iron pedestrian bridge that crossed the tracks between the dockside and Haven Station. The old xenophobic idiom seemed truer now than ever; they all looked the same. Same grey jackets, long queue plaits down their hunched backs, same shoes, same hopes. Just another faceless mass of bent and burdened humanity shuffling past.
But if one were to pause and watch, one might; with the closest watching and the slimmest chance, notice a small group amongst the others who were possessed by the slightest difference. One small group, so almost the same as the rest in every way, that maybe only one of their own kind would tell them apart. Three men and a woman. A most beautiful woman.
Maybe they stood a little straighter, walked with a tiny bit more direction and assurance, looked around at the world a little less. Maybe their baggage was less bulky, lighter, easier to carry across the bridge. Maybe their clothes fitted just that little bit better. Certainly, any differences one might notice were intended to remain hidden. Their fellow passengers might have noted how the privations of the journey wore on this group a little less harshly than the rest, but certainly none would have known that while they were locked below late each afternoon it was she, the beautiful woman, who practised her martial art alone on the deck above.
If the keen eyed watcher was to look now, he would see nothing, for almost at once they had drifted apart, like a little dye added to too much water. Individuals now lost and unnoticed in the crowd. Never again would they be observed together in public.
The Valley Train arrived, and they all bundled themselves into its coaches. When it departed again they would ride it to Eeling or Kaituna if you preferred the Native. Here they would pile out, hearing for the first time, when the train had gone, the calls of Tui and Birdbird. Then across the Kaituna footbridge they would find an archaic narrow-gauge railway, a relic of the logging days that would bear them on rough, wobbling wagons. Next to a dusty path, across rough land and to the foot of bush covered hills it would go, right to where the Kaituna River came out of its dark gully, and to Chinatin.
The westering sun would have the place in deep shadow long before they found a place to sleep that night. But the smell, at least, of cooked pork and noodles and opium would be theirs once more. The next day would dawn, and they would start to dig again, and the beautiful woman would serve tables at The Golden Dragon.
* * *
For Max Skilton the Christmas Holidays dragged by painfully, slow, in a way that summer breaks never had before. His whole being was bent toward beginning his new life at Victoria University, and, although to tried to ignore it, to seeing again Harriet Leigh.
Those endless holidays were punctuated by the funeral of Tamati Pirimona Marino, the usual festivities on Christmas Day, and the surprising return of Director Von Haast from South Westland, which set in motion one other small event, at which Max first saw his enemy.
* * *
Māori died well, and Tamati Pirimona Marino being a Māori who lived particularly well, died splendidly.
It had been a long day, but Max endured, his bowler pulled down over his ears and his long black overcoat keeping the wet out. His sense of history, of the marching forward of time, of the passing of an older age, and of family and connection with his people's new land kept him rooted to the spot when others twice his age might have felt their respects well paid and drifted off to find a tavern and talk of other things.
The seasonal 'Christmas Rain' and a strange sea mist partially obscured the city that almost surrounded the hillside cemetery in its midst. Max felt that he had entered another time, a distant past, and despite all the concrete and marble and wrought iron – the city seemed to flow away, to pass back into the future. He was aware only of the others around him, standing in their best blacks, the people; and of the earth, the stones deep beneath their feet, and the river, the Aorere, over two miles away, flowing ever on into the sea.
The singing was beginning again, the calling, the karanga. He could see the wahine, the women, who bought the prayer forth from the past, from the soul of the people. Regal in black, moko darkening their chins, hands shaking at their sides.
The sound of their call is like nothing that can be heard anywhere else, at any other time. So complete for the task. Rising and falling, perfectly encapsulating the grief and loss, and the richness of life and the joy that is its counterpoint. It seemed somehow worthy of a life, of all that is packed into one man's long life, it seemed even to express a little of what cannot be expressed. The widow Riria stood encircled by her women.
Max was reminded, for the hundredth time that day, of how poorly the English do death. He thought of his Grandfather's funeral. Funerals.... as soon after the death as one can arrange, another job to get done, a few hymns in a cold church, songs sung to God... in hope... in superstition... in contrast to the songs the deceased sung, speeches by inarticulate brothers or uncles, some nice flowers, kind words from the priest, back to the house or local hall for a cup of tea, polite conversation, and general avoidance of the subject.
Tamati Pirimona Marino had lain in state, in an open coffin, on the flax mat covered floor of the wharenui, the meeting house, at the Aorere Pā, for five days. There people could slip off their shoes and walk in to 'visit with' the old Chief. His friends and family would talk to him, cry, sleep, sing songs, wander off for some food, come back, talk some more, hold one another, pray and generally take their time to say goodbye.
Maybe the Irish and Welsh get a little closer to this. Sure, they drink themselves stupid, and they sing. Then in the small hours, when things quieten down, they sing some more, and they are together, the people. Then maybe someone gets out his uilleann pipes, and plays them slow, and that sounds in a way like the karanga.
The coffin came then, carried high on the shoulders of six Māori men, their faces sad and proud, the Archbishop; Henry John Chitty Harper, in all his finery, leading the way.
As the procession passed, Max noticed one of the pallbearers. He was younger than the rest and although Max had no name for him, he seemed at once vaguely familiar. Maybe he had seen him when accompanying his Father to the Pa. They would be of similar age to each other.
Max wasn't sure what his relationship to the old Chief could be, or that of any of the others. It would have to be close to be carrying his coffin.
But it was no secret that old Marino had never had any children of his own, so there would be no grandchildren either.
Maybe just a boy from the Aorere Pā then.
But that didn't seem right. Max looked down as the casket went by, he didn't want to intrude on anyone's personal grief, or to be seen to stare.
It had been a long day.
Earlier the Cathedral had been full. All the right people had been present: The Right Honourable Sir Julius Vogel - Premier, The Most Honourable George Phipps - 7th Governor of Britannic New Zealand and 2nd Marquess of Normanby, Chancellor Sir Hugh Rankine-Easterfield, Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort, Dr Ferdinand von Hochstetter, a number of Anglican and Methodist personalities, Māori Chiefs and Elders from both Isles, the mine owners Johnston, Druggan and Lightband, surveyors, civil engineers, Moorhouse, Fredrick Mace and William Washborn, boat builders and captains, and traders. The Rail Lords were all there; Lavisham, Philpot and Chesterwick, as were the Master Engineers; Rotheram, Scott, Alfred and George Price and Coval Leith. But no daughter, Harriet. The Māori Chiefs were strange and splendid in their mishmash of cloaks and old Navy uniforms, top hats and tattoos, pounamu and feathers.
The Archbishop spoke a fine homily which began...“Tamati Pirimona Marino, Te Pua Ringahuri, baptised Thomas Freeman, Ireno. A man known to us all, a man who we all have to thank, a man without who there may well have never been a Dominion...” And he went on to tell the tale of Marino's life, which in turn also somehow morphed into a shortened history of the entire Dominion.
First how Marino, himself an immigrant to Mohua - Murderer's Bay, always welcomed newcomers whether they were miners, surveyors or missionaries. How he had owned two ships which he used to trade anywhere between Westport, Wanganui, and Blenheim. How he had intervened on numerous occasions in conflicts between Māori and between Māori and European, always bringing about peaceful resolutions and avoiding the spilling of blood.
Then how ultimately when in 1840 the proposed Treaty of Waitangi was rejected by the Confederation of United Chiefs and war threatened the north, Marino resisted the call to arms from his northern brethren, choosing instead to remain on good terms with the English in the south.
It was this action, Archbishop Harper claimed, that saved the fledgling colony. His reasoning for this bold statement was simple. The story was well known, indeed it is the bedrock of the Dominion's short history, still the Archbishop held forth with his own retelling.
When the Northern Chiefs sensed English duplicity within the hastily scribed lines of the suggested Waitangi Treaty, despite missionary reassurance to the contrary, they responded by seizing every European of import from within their territories. It was a well-done thing, uncharacteristic in its unity and co-ordinated execution. At once they pressed upon their English captives the alternative Treaty of Te Upoko-o-te-Ika. This treaty reaffirmed the 1835 Declaration of Independence, the governance of the Congress of the Confederation of United Tribes and included the colonist’s own banishment from the entirety of the Northern Isle.
Every subject of Queen Victoria had to leave, every last one of them, whalers, sealers, timber merchants, traders, ship builders, missionaries, politicians, soldiers, women, and a couple of children, almost two thousand people. With them also went the handful of French and Americans who had also attached themselves to the north.
The newly exiled English cried out to their captors; "Where shall we go?”
The triumphant Chiefs, still bitter at Marino's potential inaction, replied;
“Go you to Mohua, to Te Tau Ihu. Marino who is there loves the white man, the Pākehā!”
And so, they came, leaving from Te Upoko-o-te-Ika, which was briefly called Wellington, where they had once hoped to found their capital, from Wanganui, New Plymouth and the far North, bound by a new treaty, never to set foot again on the Northern Isle. And the chiefs said as they left;
“For you said to us 'we shall protect you from the French and the Spaniard', but we say; 'who will protect us from you? From your diseases, from your greed, your stealing of our land, from your raping of our women, from your scorn for our ways?' We shall protect ourselves from you, and if the French ever do come again we shall protect ourselves from them also!”
No one in the Colonial Office had imagined that such events would ever unfold. In fact, so sure were those in London of the treaty process that settler ships with even more English souls aboard had departed Gravesend for New Zealand before the document was even drafted.
And so it was that through Marino's hospitality toward the English he was 'gifted' a whole English nation. Almost overnight the booming gold rush settlement of Gibbstown expanded to become Collingwood, the capital of the Dominion of Britannic New Zealand.
In the last thirty-seven years of Marino's long eighty, a great city had sprung up, built to Thomas Brunner's original plan. Made possible by the abundance of workers and the never dwindling supply of gold from the Aorere Hills, coal from the west, iron lodes from the east, dolomite, cement, timber, and flax.
The changes that Marino had seen come to pass in his lifetime were mind boggling. He had witnessed, endured, and survived the end of one world and the emergence of another. As a child he had lived in the Stone Age, but by late adulthood he was a leader in the Industrial Age. That he 'successfully combined his responsibilities as Rangatira with the qualities necessary to succeed in the new society formed by colonisation' was no understatement.
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Max looked up from his musing over the Archbishop's take on their shared history as people began to shuffle forward toward the grave. The young pallbearer he had seen earlier took a handful of earth and dropped it into the hole. Two wet lines streaked his brown face.
* * *
It had been a long day.
After dinner Max retired to Skilton House's sitting room, where he sat in his favourite high-backed lounger. It wouldn't be long before he was joined by his brother and Father, so he made the most of the chance to dive back into the newly arrived Von Tempsky paper back.
The story so far had the dashing Captain Von Tempsky laying siege to the stronghold of a particularly nasty Nicaraguan bandit Lord, who had, in a scheme of his own devising, undertaken to make off with the rather buxom daughter of the local governor and a large sum of bullion. Von Tempsky had been accompanied in his noble task by a sizeable force of the governor's coolies, all of whom had long since either been cut down by musket fire or run off in cowardice. Only our hero and his sometimes sidekick, a Negro whom he called Ivory, endured.
So, with 'pistols blazing hot death' and flashing sabers that 'drunk deep of the crimson blood of the foeman', Von Tempsky and Ivory entered the fortress. The enemy fell before their blades, 'like wheat before the scythe', and other such clichés, as the pair advanced with a lusty vengeance! They kicked open many a door in their search, and then all at once the well-described lady was in our dashing captain’s arms. A final sword fight with the bandit lord ensues, from which Von Tempsky emerges victorious, naturally. At last, the town is overjoyed at the return of their jewel and Von Tempsky is moved to ask the eligible lady for her hand in marriage. The book ends with her well worded response “Sir I know you are adventurous in everyway. And though I would desire to please you, I fear that in a short time I would sadly find you too much man for me.”
With a wry chuckle Max closed the cheap card cover. An action that was almost in time with his brother opening the sitting room door and marching in.
“Von Tempsky!” he mocked good naturally. “That stuff is terrible... And the word is that he writes it himself!”
“Who?” answered Max, reflexively pushing the penny-dreadful down the back of a pillow, as their Father also entered the room, carrying a bottle of port and three small glasses.
“Why Von Tempsky! The man is a tireless self-publicist. None of it's true of course. Isn't that right Father?”
“What's that? Yes, yes. Now a drink old men?” he asked brandishing the port bottle. At his son's nods he began pouring. “Bless the Portuguese, they are getting something right.”
A little later Max had a question for his Father.
“Today at the tangi, there was a pallbearer, maybe about my age. I'm wondering if you know who he was?
“Of course. That would be Wiremu Marino. Tamati Marino's grandson.”
“But...” began Max.
“...Marino died without issue,” finished Gerald using the oft heard quote.
The two sons looked at their Father questioningly.
“Max...” the professor replied, taking a sip of his port “...I don't touch on this lightly, and I trust you will give it the kind of respect in keeping with its nature.”
Max leaded forward intrigued, cradling his own port between his hands.
What was he about to hear? That Wiremu Marino is the living embodiment of Maui? The love child of Hone Heke and Queen...
The professor loosened his neck tie and relaxed into his easy-chair.
“When Te Rauparaha invaded south... it was the late twenties... a terrible time, many were killed, massacred really, enslaved and... if you'll excuse me; eaten. The Māori population here in Mohua was decimated. After the fighting the conquerors installed Tamati Marino as chief in the Aorere Valley."
Max sighed inwardly.
Hadn't they had a day of this already today?
But his Father continued on;
"Marino must have been sympathetic to the plight of the subjugated local Māori, for he quickly chose a wife from among the prisoners, her name was Erena. However, Marino had adversaries among his own people... and in the turmoil of conquest and migration Erena was raped.” The Professor took a sip of port and continued. “Erena bore a boy child, and Marino, bless his broken heart, raised him as his own. The Chief never had any other children. The boy was named Hihi and in time he took a wife, also from his mother's people. But she died in childbirth, leaving a baby. Hihi, grief struck and wanting to provide for his new son wandered off into the goldfields... he never came back. By now Erena had also died and Marino had remarried, this time one of his own people, Riria Wikiato. Riria nursed and raised the infant, and that boy is Wiremu Ironside Marino.”
“Will he inherit?” asked Gerald at once. Max hadn't even thought about this. He had been occupied trying to figure out Wiremu's lineage. It seemed that he would be of Northern Isle descent from his Father's side, but southern native from his mother and grandmother's, half each. Although Gerald certainly posed an interesting and practical question. It was of course all academic for Max, at this stage.
The Professor sighed.
“Sadly, it appears not. Marino had wished, even willed it. But there are claimants from Ngati Tama, Te Atiawa and Ngati Rarua with strong links. Marino was Grandfather to Wiremu in every way... but blood. And in these things it is often only blood that matters.”
The two brothers were silent for a moment as they thought this through. It was a shame, Marino owned considerable land in the Aorere Valley and on the West Coast near Westport, and Wiremu who it could be argued had relational rights to it, would get none. He had lived with Marino and Riria at the Pā on the banks of the Aorere River all his life and now he would be reduced to a brother-less orphan.
“What will happen to the land?” asked Gerald, again quick with the questions.
“Hard to say...” responded their Father “...the northern tribes aren’t so sympathetic to their southern cousins these days. Maybe they'll carve it up and sell it to the highest bidder, which will of course be a European interest. This certainly seems to be the pattern whenever a strong unifying personality, like Marino, a leader with mana, is taken from the land and its people. There is undoubtedly a leadership vacuum now he is gone. I dare say many with strong roots in the north will simply return there, either way.”
Max finished his port and not unlike with the Von Tempsky paperback, felt a little unsatisfied.
“But Max...” continued the Professor “...I am glad that this has come up. As I did wish to touch on a little of it with you before the University year got underway.”
“Oh, how so?” responded Max relaxing back into the chair and indicating that his empty glass should be refilled. A subtle gesture that was ignored.
“Marino has made some provision for Wiremu, and he will be attending the university this coming year. Now I know that one cannot manufacture a friendship, and I do not ask that, but just that you... how could you say? Look out for Wiremu... just until he finds his feet.”
Max looked to Gerald expecting him to send a supportive rolling of the eyes. But his older brother just lent forward in his chair and stared back at him, with some intensity.
“Yeah, sure. Of course,” responded Max, not entirely sure how he felt about it.
“Really? That's great. Thank you Max.” The Professor seemed relieved and maybe a little surprised. Then possibly as some form of conciliation offered “Wiremu really is a fine young man.”
“I'm sure he is,” stated Max, wanting this particular discussion to finish. He knew that such simple sounding tasks often grew in complexity if talked about too much. At this stage he preferred to escape with the vague, it afforded him a little more freedom. Ignorance is bliss and the like.
“Does he have one of these new Native Scholarships then?” asked Gerald.
“Unfortunately not. Those are conditions of the treaty and therefore only available to treaty partners, thus only northern tribes.”
Gerald grunted at this in a way that seemed to convey empathy for Wiremu's situation, before rising to his feet and announcing;
“Well I'm for bed. Goodnight Father, Max.”
“Likewise, Goodnight Father,” said Max following his brother out.
“Goodnight men,” replied the Professor pouring himself another port.
* * *
The following day Gerald returned to his station and life at the Milnthorpe Army Base. A short journey he made on his Roper Steamer, an American built steam velocipede. A machine that turned heads. Not that steam cycles were uncommon, but more that a number of good folk had taken issue with the fact that the young army captain had imported a Yankee built one. It certainly wasn't proper for a Captain in Her Majesty's service to be seen riding something so unbuttoned and freebooter as a Roper Steamer. A Bristol Belligerent maybe, but never a Roper.
Gerald didn't care and nor did any of the brass at Milnthorpe, they knew Captain Skilton's true value. If he kept delivering, which he did, what did it matter if he enjoyed a bit of a flirt with some American engineering?
Dickie Pearse hovered around the cycle whenever Gerald was home, practically dissembling the machine with his mind’s eye. Max, The Professor and Mrs Skilton turned out to wave Gerald off, Dickie appearing as the machine rocketed away. The farewell really wasn't a big deal, as he would be back in a couple of weeks for Christmas. But Max enjoyed his brother’s company so was happy to come out and wave. There was maybe something to be said for a large age gap between siblings. Certainly, the gap between Max and Gerald was large enough that they had always inhabited different spheres, thus they were spared from the constant competition and ongoing, often well into adulthood, sibling rivalry that boys separated by only a couple of years naturally fall into.
* * *
Professor Skilton had roasted a suckling pig and toasted The Advent with a fine Pinot grown by F M Ellis and Sons in the limestone soils of their Clifton winery, on the eastern side of Murderer's Bay.
The Professor had enjoyed a productive year at the University and a splendid breeding season in the National Aviaries.
To date all the Australian Parakeets and most of the larger parrots had bred. The English imports had done well; Chaff, Gold, and Green finches particularly. Yellowhammer, Redpolls and Cirl Buntings not so well, and Bullfinches, Robins and Nightingales not at all. Thrushes, Blackbirds, Starlings, and Pigeons had long ago filled the valley and city. The Ornamentals and Soft-bill novelties; Canaries, Java Sparrows, Zebra Finches, Gouldians, Buntings and Cardinals fairly much looked after themselves. These last, although greatly admired by the many visitors to the Aviaries, held little scientific value, other than bringing donations that could be directed toward more deserving projects.
The real issue and thus the greatest triumph were the natives. Huia had bred for the first time with two chicks now fully fledged. Kokako were proving harder work, although this season the female had actually sat on her clutch for a full week before abandoning it. The Professor felt that some more tinkering to that particular aviary would bring positive results the following season. All the other Wattle-birds and Nectar-eaters; Tui, Bellbird and Saddleback were so prevalent outside the mesh walls of the National Aviaries that none were retained within. Likewise, the bright green Kakariki, the native parakeet, was so abundant that it didn't warrant keeping a captive stock and wasn't even on the protected species list.
Kaka and Kea were retained for their interest and entertainment value, as was the common Kiwi. Nortornis had long proven a good captive breeder, while on the other hand the characterful flightless nocturnal parrot Kakapo, impossible. Native Quail, Snipe and Thrush all maintained and slowly added to their populations.
The tour de force continued to be the Moa or Te Kura. These great flightless birds which are similar in appearance to Emu and Cassowary or even Ostrich to the less travelled, lived in enclosures that had more in common with sheep paddocks than traditional aviaries. In these large spaces they flourished and even became quite tame.
To everyone’s surprise the The Professor had recently stated that it was only a matter of time before breeding pairs of Moa could be made available for private farming. The National Aviary held and bred all of the four remaining Moa species; the giant Dinornis robustus, which is the largest bird on earth, it's back (where one might place a saddle) being two metres above the ground. The Crested Moa Pachyornis australis, the Upland Moa Megalapteryx didinus, and the Little Bush Moa Anomalopteryx didiformis. Moa were simply amazing birds and attracted visiting Ornithologists from all over the world. Dickie was the only one who seemed to have no time for the ancient fowl and Max suspected that this was entirely due to the fact that they are flightless.
On the policy front Professor Skilton had been successful for a second time in stalling an attempt by a group of landowners lead by one Jeremiah Lavisham and a faction within the Acclimatisation Society to introduce Red Fox, Vulpes vulpes, for the expressed purpose of being English. In other words, so that they could mount up their fine horses, release their beagles, blow their horns and then hunt the wretched creatures to death. Turning the hunters had been no small victory. Jeremiah Lavisham was massively powerful in his own right, and had many friends of rank, owing in a large part to the fact that he just happened to own most of the company 'Coast & Main Railways.'
Max had gotten many laughs with a toast that referenced both this latest round of politics and the meat of the day;
“Here's to Father for skilfully carving up such a Lavish ham.”
The Professor and brother Gerald laughed freely. His Mother looked more like she knew she should not be amused at such baseness but could not suppress the mirth that welled up at her younger son's wit.
A similar result had also been achieved, in politics not comedy, this time with the aid of The Professor's French and Scottish counterparts, in stopping the introduction of mustelids; stoats, weasels and ferrets. An idea that was justified as a way of curbing the massive growth of the introduced rabbit population. A combination of arguments, including two wrongs don't make a right, had eventually won the day.
With the disastrous introduction of the Australian Brush-tailed Possum confined to the Northern Isle the unique birds of the South Island were safe, for now.
There had never been any question of being able to stop the rats. They had poured ashore with every ship load of immigrants, even from the time of the first Māori arrivals.