A Canoe In the Mist (10 page)

I
n Sophia’s whare the Pakehas made tiny islands in a sea of strange words and strong emotions. It was quite different from the calm self-control that had kept their courage up in the Rotomahana Hotel. The Maoris did not hide their feelings of loss, grief and fear; but there was no panic either.

Death had come among them already. Sitting opposite Lillian was Mohi, a young man from the haka party. He looked sick and old as he rocked his little boy across his knees. With his wife Meriana and their baby he had gone to Wi Keepa’s timber house after the earthquake began. When that house collapsed they struggled back and found their own whare smashed in too. The devil’s rain was at its worst. It was impossible to carry the children on. Mohi laid the toddler in a hollow and lay over him with arms outstretched, making a shelter of his own body while
the stones battered his back. Meriana sat beside him and leaned over the baby. When Mohi could hold his position no longer he stood up—and found that Meriana and the baby had silently died at his side. It was a dreadful thing to leave their bodies out there in the storm, but what else could he do? It took all his strength to get his son to this place of safety.

There would be others, for many were missing. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before the mountain claimed them all. But there was a new presence since those far-off times when Tama-o-hoi had threatened his vengeance from the cleft which kept him prisoner—the Christian God of mercy. The people sang hymns and prayed all night, both the Christian prayers and the old-time karakia. The clamour of voices defied the clamour of the mountain.

Among the Pakehas only Willie Bird, who had married into a Maori family, could enter into this. When Maoris came into the stores, the hotels and the school, they fitted themselves into those Pakeha places. Now the Pakehas were flung into the Maori world. Lillian had been inside many Maori houses, but nothing had prepared her for the intense feelings which bound these people together.

A girl of about fourteen was moving about and helping people. She gave Lillian a dip of ointment to soothe the cuts on the foot that had lost its boot, but it wouldn’t do for Mattie’s lip. ‘It might be poisonous,’ she said in good English. ‘I’m sorry. The medicine chest is nearly empty.’
She moved on quickly and left Lillian wondering who she was.

Someone was coming in the door. Hope and dread rippled through the room. Was it bad news, or someone saved? There were cries of relief when Sophia appeared, bare-headed, after leaving her three hats and raincape on the porch. Then cries of recognition greeted the young boy she’d found crouching under the ruins of a shed, and he lost no time in scrambling over the sprawling people to join his family.

A hush fell as Sophia moved to the centrepost. The thundering and hissing and roaring of the volcano came through more loudly, but Sophia raised her voice to be clearly heard as she said:

‘Welcome to this house, all who have come, Pakeha, Maori. Joe McRae asked me to tell you he may stop at Hinemihi. We think the Humphreys are there, with many others. You need not worry about them.’

A tragic regret showed on her face and on the tense faces of her listeners as she continued in Maori. She had to say openly that it was now too late to find anyone in that storm. If they had not yet found shelter there was no hope of saving them. But cries of ‘Kia ora’ greeted her at every mention of Hinemihi.

‘I hope Kanea’s there,’ said Mattie, when the speech ended.

‘She’s sure to be—’ Lillian stopped. The hush had fallen
again as Sophia made her way to the inner room of the whare. She was plainly exhausted, near to collapse, in need of peace to quieten her own sense of failure.

When she had gone, the tides of talk flowed back again.

‘The volcano doesn’t sound any better,’ said Mrs Hensley.

‘Or any worse either,’ said Mr Hensley. ‘A volcano must be like a geyser—it can’t keep on blowing up. Surely it must spend its force more quickly when it throws rocks as far as this.’

Mrs Perham, who had not quite recovered yet, opened her eyes and murmured, ‘I only hope it spares my husband’s photograph.’

‘Oh Mumma, my keepsakes!’ said Lillian in dismay.

Until now she hadn’t thought much about their belongings. But those momentoes of her father and the friends she’d left in Auckland, they were precious. Her clothes and her few pretty things would be gone. ‘We won’t have anything, Mumma,’ she added miserably.

‘It’s like a house burning down. You should be glad to save your life,’ said Mattie sensibly. But Lillian flared up.

‘You can say that!
Your
treasures are in England!’

‘Not my new treasures. My pois!’ Mattie spoke with deep disappointment, but Lillian ploughed on:

‘All the same you’re only…you’re only…’

‘We’re only birds of passage,’ said Mrs Hensley. ‘We do
understand, Lillian, there’s a difference. But at this moment we’re all in the same boat.’

‘Birds of passage,’ said a voice. ‘All you Pakehas are birds of passage.’ And the girl who had given Lillian the ointment slid down into a small space in front of them.

‘I’m Miriam,’ she said, ‘and you’re Lillian and Mattie. My mother told me about you yesterday.’

‘Your mother?’ exclaimed Lillian.

‘Sophia.’

‘But you’re away at boarding school! Hukarere.’

Miriam chuckled. ‘I can’t be away when I’m here, can I? We have one long holiday instead of two short ones, because it’s so far to go. It takes two days to ride home.’

‘Not by yourself!’

‘No, with my brother.’

‘What terrible luck, to run into this!’ said Mrs Hensley.

‘It’s only by chance that
we’ve
run into it, my love,’ said Mr Hensley.

Miriam gazed at them silently for a time. ‘I don’t think it’s chance,’ she said carefully. ‘It is right that the family should be together, even if we have to die. My mother needs me. She came in just now heartbroken for what she cannot do, but she can restore herself with her prayers, knowing I am here in her place. All the time we were riding I knew we were being drawn towards home. I thought someone must be ill or dying. I couldn’t quite believe it yesterday when I found everything the same.’

‘It will never be the same again,’ said Mrs Hensley gently.

‘We didn’t mean to be birds of passage!’ Lillian burst out. ‘We meant to stay here, Mumma works at the Temperance Hotel and I go to Lake Tarawera school. It’s our only home since my father died.’

‘But it is not your birthplace,’ said Miriam. ‘You can find another home. That is the way of the English. They go all over the world and pick the fruits they find there, and if they don’t like it they move on and pick other fruits. Our land is part of us. If Tama-o-hoi destroys the land of our ancestors, we have no place to stand on.’

‘Eight generations lived in that cave at Rotomahana,’ said Mattie.

‘Yes, and we are up to twenty generations from the Te Arawa canoe. We are mourning for our people and for Papa-tua-nuku, the earth mother who nourishes us all. If she grows barren, what happens to her children?’

Miriam was weeping freely now. Lillian took her hands, as Miriam’s mother had taken hers when there was a need. Suddenly a stone smashed through the window and threw slivers of glass among the people, bringing sharp cries of pain and fear. Miriam scrambled to her feet and pushed her way to the inner room. Pieces of glass had been picked up, passed along and dropped out of the window before she returned with a flax mat to cover the frame. Mats were fixed across the other windows, too, in a burst of activity that made people feel better.

Then the praying and hymn-singing began again. The tiny island of the Perhams and the Hensleys fell silent. There was no comfort in the togetherness of the Maoris in the face of so great a calamity. ‘Their singing is so beautiful,’ murmured Mrs Hensley as she closed her eyes and dozed a little.

Nothing happened for a long time. Not until Joe McRae came stamping in with a bottle lantern and sang out in his big voice, ‘Willie Bird! Johnny Bird! Come and lend me a hand.’

‘My hands are stuck to my arms,’ protested Willie.

‘Garn, you’ve busted my sleep,’ said Johnny. But they were on their feet within a minute.

‘Yon mountain’s given up throwing stones. Come away with you, boys,’ said Joe.

A babble of excited talk filled the whare. Mr Hensley looked outside and confirmed that the eruption had declined to mud and ash, though there was plenty of that. ‘The earthquakes are weaker, too,’ he said.

‘Is it a lull or a dying down?’ asked his wife.

‘How can we tell? Let’s say it’s a dying down.’

‘In that case we won’t be buried,’ said Mrs Hensley cheerfully.

Mrs Perham wept quietly as she stroked Lillian’s cheek and said, ‘It’s going to be all right, dear.’

‘I wish we could get a drink, Mumma,’ said Lillian.

‘Me too,’ said Mattie. ‘My mouth feels awful.’

‘We might have to wait a long time,’ said Mrs Perham. ‘There won’t be a drop of clean water in Te Wairoa unless…’ She trailed off, not wishing to raise impossible hopes; but Lillian put her thought into words.

‘Unless Mr McRae can get at the drinks,’ she said. ‘I bet they’re going to the hotel.’

She was right. After quite a time the three men returned, muddier than ever, but bearing small sackloads of bread and lemonade and beer. Everyone in the whare at once owned up to hunger and thirst.

‘Don’t rush me!’ pleaded Willie Bird. ‘E hoa m
, kia ngawari. Who’ll help pass the stuff around?’

‘It’s my job,’ said Bridget firmly.

‘And mine,’ said Nora, loud and clear. ‘I’ve got over that earthquake sickness. We’ll do it fair and proper.’

Bridget broke the loaves into chunks while Nora passed round the lemonade and Willie opened the beer. Somebody cried, ‘Taihoa’ while a Maori elder rose to say grace. ‘Amine!’ They chorused, and the eating and drinking began.

The Hensleys and the Perhams shared their lemonade bottle gratefully, savouring every drop. But Mattie shrank when Bridget came with dirty hands to offer chunks of dry bread smeared with grey. ‘Oh no!’ she protested.

‘And where will you get a better breakfast, Miss Dainty?’ said Bridget. ‘You’ll be glad of food in your belly when it’s time to hit the road.’

‘Hunger is the best sauce,’ said Mrs Perham, taking her piece.

‘It tastes of sulphur, but needs must when the devil drives,’ said Mrs Hensley.

‘It’s because my lip is sore,’ said Mattie, as they shamed her into following suit. Lillian said nothing. She wanted to eat and not eat. Her hunger was fighting against the horrid taste. If only they’d kept the lemonade till after the bread!

Willie Bird now called in Maori for three volunteers to help with a second load. In both languages people were warned that nobody else was to go near the hotel either now or later. They had knocked holes in the wall to drag things through, but it was much too dangerous to do any more than that.

Away went the three Maori volunteers. They returned laden, but alone. Joe McRae and his brothers-in-law had already gone in search of the Haszard family.

T
he fire was still burning at the school on the hill, but its light was hidden from the track as Joe, Johnny and Willie struggled upwards with the feeble help of two bottle lanterns. The darkness was as dense as ever, the ash was still falling and the familiar track had disappeared. The trees, torn about and stripped of leaves, were no guide. They stumbled into drifts of mud, backtracked and tried again. ‘I never thought I’d miss the fireballs,’ said Joe as he dragged himself from a hole up to his waist.

‘We’ll have the firelight when we get to the school,’ said Johnny.

‘And what’s it going to show us? Live people or dead? And then there’s Edwin Bainbridge, where is he?’ said Joe heavily.

Something rushed across in front of them and sent Willie sprawling. ‘What the hell was that?’ he growled as he picked himself up.

‘A pig, I think. A terrified pig—poor beggar. The animals must be having a terrible time,’ said Johnny.

‘Poor beggar indeed. It’s me I feel sorry for,’ said Willie. ‘This is no rescue mission, it’s a bleeding punishment.’

‘I used to think the worst job on earth was raking for sheep in the Highland snows,’ said Joe. ‘Give me snow any time. At least it’s clean and quiet.’

They were puffing hard when they saw the schoolhouse looming through the screen of falling ash.

‘It isn’t all burnt out,’ said Willie. ‘Funny thing that. More than two hours since we saw it first and it’s still going.’

‘The old place alongside it doesn’t seem to be touched,’ said Joe. ‘Perhaps the mud kept it off.’

‘What’s in there then?’ asked Johnny.

‘Two bedrooms and a drawing room. They might have gone in there, thinking it would be stronger with the corrugated iron.’ Joe stumbled and nearly fell. He had to watch his feet for a while. Then a sudden flaring of the fire made him look up and he saw the old place as it really was—a great pile of tumbled-in roof and broken walls heaped over with mud and stones. Worse, much worse than his own hotel.

‘They can’t be alive in there!’ he gasped. ‘Was there ever such a ruin?’

‘There could be one of them trapped, all the same,’ said Johnny. ‘Give them a call, Joe.’

Joe lifted up his great voice and bellowed, ‘Is anyone there?’

Through the roar of the volcano and the eerie hissing of the falling ash, came a thin, high-pitched note.

‘Was that a woman?’ said Willie.

‘No, it was more like a bird. An injured bird,’ said Joe.

‘I think it was human. Give it another try. All together,’ said Johnny.

‘Is—any—one—there?’ they shouted.

This time the answer was unmistakable and it came not from the house, but from across the paddock.

‘Yes, yes! In—the—hen—house!’

‘Thank the Lord!’ cried Joe. ‘They’re alive!’

Willie burst out laughing. ‘Are they sharing it with the hens or have they kicked them out?’ he spluttered.

They stumbled over the rough ground towards the stout little building with its corrugated-iron roof supported by tree-trunks cut from the bush. But their joy quickly faded when they saw, huddled on the ground in blankets, three people only: Clara Haszard, Harry Lundius and John Blythe.

‘Didn’t the others get out?’ Joe asked gently.

In a dull voice Clara said, ‘I don’t see how they could. We were all in the drawing room, we’d been singing hymns, and Mere Hamiora from the mission house was there too. She came to us when the earthquake started.
The roof came down all of a sudden and Mr Lundius just had time to smash the window and kick the glass out and get me through. He cut his hand very badly—’

‘Never mind that,’ said Harry.

‘We went along and called and called and nobody answered, and the stones kept knocking us over. And then a fireball as big as a camp-oven hit the chimney, and the schoolhouse was a mass of flames in no time. It lit everything up, and we saw the henhouse was all right and we came here. Mr Blythe had held on to the blankets, or else we’d have frozen!’

All this Clara told without faltering, as if it had happened to somebody else and not herself. Now she ended with a rush, ‘Oh Mr McRae, is the fire going out? They’re dead but I don’t want them all burned up—’ and she wept freely.

Harry Lundius put his arm round her shoulders and comforted her. What could they say? Yesterday she was the eldest in a happy and successful family; today perhaps an orphan, the only one left.

‘The fire hasn’t touched the old building,’ Joe assured her. ‘That’s where you were, isn’t it? Stay here while we make another search.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said John Blythe. ‘Harry, you wait here with Clara.’

‘And the hens,’ said Willie, who had spied them packed silently in the darkest, farthest corner.

They found Ina Haszard in the lee of the broken verandah, fast asleep with her head in Mere Hamiora’s lap. It was much later before she told her story.

When the roof fell in, Ina sprang into the arms of Mere who dragged her into a bedroom. Although its roof also was gone, they crawled into a corner under a washstand. Mud and stones came down with such force that they were quickly buried in sticky mud up to their shoulders. Ina was lying face up and would have suffocated but for Mere, who kept wiping the muck from her nose and mouth and eyes. When she was breathing freely they struggled to their feet and found, to their surprise, that the top of the washstand was clear. A piece of roofing iron had jammed above it and turned the filthy flow aside. For a little while they rested there in safety.

Then the fireball struck the schoolroom. Flames swept past and around the old building, but could not get through the mud-covered walls.

In terror and despair, Ina and Mere somehow got outside. The drawing room where the family had gathered was deeply buried. With all hope torn from her, Ina ran out into the storm.

‘Come back!’ cried Mere after her. ‘Come back! You cannot choose to die. You must wait until the Lord calls you.’

Ina went back. ‘Yes, Mere, you’re right,’ she said humbly. And as she said it, peace came to her. She felt she had given
the choice to a power greater than herself. Although she could hardly hear her own voice above the din, she sang into the storm—

‘Jesu, lover of my soul

Let me to thy bosom fly,

While the gathering waters roll

And the tempest soon is nigh…’

They found a sheltered corner of the verandah and stayed there for the rest of the night.

By now, on a normal day, the dawn would have come; but there was no lifting of the darkness. The light of the fire was enough to show that they couldn’t get into the ruins of the old house. It would take a team of men with shovels to clear away the drifts of mud piled high against the leaning walls.

‘We must get the girls to shelter,’ said John Blythe.

‘Aye,’ said Joe, ‘and the sooner the better. We cannot tell but it may set in again. There’s food and drink and comfort at Sophia’s.’

And so, after the sisters had been reunited and wept together, the sad procession descended the hill. Joe went first with the lantern to try the path, Clara was supported by Johnny Bird, Ina by Willie, and Mere by John Blythe. Harry, with one hand bound up, came last with the other lantern.

A dozen Maoris were filing out of Sophia’s whare. They had cleared a sort of track from the door by using a spade which, by some lucky chance, Sophia had taken indoors the day before. Some went in silence, but most were weeping or mourning aloud in the Maori way for the people dead or missing, and for the death of the land they must leave. They had passed like shadows in the murky morning before Joe was near enough to wish them a safe journey to the world outside.

Bridget was on the porch. ‘That you, master? Any luck?’ she said.

‘Only five so far. They’re very distressed, Bridget, they need to recover. Don’t let anyone trouble them with questions.’

‘Leave it to me,’ Bridget assured him.

She asked no questions herself as she ushered the five into the far corner beside the group of sick and aged Maoris, and fetched them blankets and pillows, while Nora served their humble breakfast of bread and lemonade. Taking their own rest with a bottle of whisky, Joe and Willie and Johnny peered through the dim light of the last bottle lantern and saw that the whare was half empty. Most of the Maoris had gone and the Pakehas were in a fidget. When Bridget had finished her duties she came back to them.

‘We’re ready to go, master, as soon as you say the word,’ she said. ‘Us that came here with you.’

‘I thought as much,’ said Joe. ‘Once the Maoris started
leaving it was sure to set in. Those that cannot be of any help are better out of the place. But d’you know what you’ll be going into, Bridget? It’s still raining ash, and the road will be clogged, and we can’t tell what it’s like further on.’

‘It can’t be worse than hanging round here. If it sets in hard again we’ll be caught either way. Only there’s Mrs Hensley, she’s not fit to walk. Just you listen to them trying to talk sense into her.’

Joe got up and went over to where the five were clustered. ‘Oh, Mr McRae, do tell her she mustn’t!’ begged Lillian.

‘You’re not thinking of walking out, I hope, Mrs Hensley?’ said Joe.

‘And how else will I get out?’ she demanded.

‘Wait till the rescue parties can take you on a stretcher.’

‘How can you be sure they’ll come? And what if the eruption sets in again? I can’t hold these children back to be trapped because of me.’

‘So that’s the way of it,’ said Joe. ‘You’ve been good and reasonable up till now. It’s the lassies you have on your mind. I can tell you we’ll all be worse off if you get so far and no farther. I doubt you’ll find any shelter on the way. I’m in charge and I order you to stay.’

‘Then someone must take the children—’

‘We’re staying with you, Mama,’ said Mattie quickly.

‘We’ve agreed to stick together, all five of us,’ said Mrs Perham.

‘Sophia is here, and Miriam,’ said Lillian. ‘They won’t leave these sick ones.’

‘Aye, you’ll not be left on your own,’ said Joe. ‘I’ll wager my fortune there’s rescuers already on the road. If I’ve any fortune left, that is! That’s settled then! Now if you’ll excuse me I’ll see the others on their way.’

Sean Falloona, Bridget and Nora, George Baker and Mr Stubbs, whose leg was not broken after all, two Maori women and three Maori men were ready to leave. Willie Bird was in a dither, not knowing what was best to do: to go out with his wife and baby son, or to stay and help in the search for missing people.

‘You
go
, Willie,’ his brother was saying firmly. ‘I’ll stay. I’ve got no wife, and besides there’s my horses to see to.’

‘The horses!’ exclaimed Joe. ‘Where are they?’

‘Standing in the yard. I didn’t take them out of the shafts last night. It was dark when I got here, too late to unload the waggon. How was I to know this would happen?’

Joe sighed. ‘I’m not blaming you, Johnny. It just reminds me we’ve got animals to think of too. I don’t know about my Rosinante, come to that, or what happened to Lollop, or—’

‘—or Edwin Bainbridge and his Monarch,’ said Willie bluntly. ‘I don’t want to quit, Joe.’

‘You owe it to your wife to go,’ Joe insisted. ‘Don’t leave her on her own a second time, Willie. Besides, Bridget and the others need you more than I do. That’s not a strong
party if the unexpected happens.’

A few minutes later the refugees set off with Sean Falloona in the lead and Willie Bird at the rear, promising to walk in line, each one keeping the next in view. A heavy shower of mud came with the ash, but nobody hesitated. They vanished almost at once into the grey wasteland.