Chapter 10

Kelly’s journey with Pania, back to Auckland was an uneventful return to his makeshift home in the storage shed of the fire ravaged property. After he’d settled in and rested from his journey, Kelly reported to Dilworth.

“Yes, I see you’ve met with a bit of misfortune,” Dilworth commiserated. “But we can still do business as agreed, when you’re fit to work, if you’re still willing. Get yourself checked over by my doctor first.”

Which Kelly did and it was the doctor’s opinion that he could have done no better than the treatment he had already received and there was no sign of infection, but that was still a risk. Pania continued to be an angel of mercy. She tended to his wounded groin every day with a warm poultice until one day his anatomy betrayed an ardour he could not conceal. His swelling member and then his face became flushed with blood. Pania, for her part seemed unperturbed. “He tohu pai,” she said. “A good sign.” She deferred to Kelly’s modesty and withdrew to the other side of the curtain, which had become her bedroom, and left him to finish tending his wound. Kelly gazed at the curtain and mused: A good sign? A sign of healing, returning health and vigour? Did the good sign portend something other than his health? It became apparent that it did when that night his angel of mercy slipped quietly, nakedly, irresistibly, into his bed, and ministered to a need long suppressed. “For your wairua,” she said. “For healing your spirit.”

In the light of dawn, Kelly’s conscience pricked him. What of Annie? She was still his fiancée. Pania was a temporary affair, nothing binding – she understood that. A soldier’s dalliance – like so many others, even the married officers. Sowing wild oats, McCann had called it.

Kelly thought of Ᾱwhina whenever he looked at Pania. “What would Ᾱwhina say?”

“Ᾱwhina would not approve,” Pania said, “but she’s not here. I’m here. Do you want me to go?”

“No. Yes, before Annie arrives. No. You can stay a while longer if you want.”

“Don’t worry,” Pania said. “You’re still a single man. When you’re married I’ll be gone.”

Kelly decided to try to be as casual as Pania. He found himself with a live-in housekeeper, lover and gardener as Pania restored the gardens that Ᾱwhina had planted and tended.

*

Kelly was soon discharging his assigned duties, carting goods to warehouse and sales deliveries, and Dilworth was soon satisfied that his instincts had been right concerning Kelly: an energetic young man with aptitude and great potential. James Dilworth was a man of considerable means and was much higher up the commissariat food chain than Quinn had been. He tendered on large and lucrative contracts directly to Deputy Assistant Commissary General J. Leslie Robertson.

Dilworth called Kelly into the warehouse office and opened a newspaper on the big kauri desk. “It starts here, Finbar” he said, pointing to an ad in the public notices. Kelly read the call for tenders for the supply of a large quantity of ‘beef of the best marketable quality’. He could read proficiently and had a good head for numbers so why should he not learn the business?

Kelly accompanied Dilworth to One Tree Hill Farm where they walked about admiring the view and inspected a herd of steers. Dilworth negotiated a price with the amiable merchant farmer, John Logan Campbell. From there it was a visit to the Hellaby brothers to negotiate the slaughtering and butchering. The tender was submitted in duplicate in a sealed envelope and the contract was duly won and expedited with good profit. Strong demand continued while Her Majesty’s troops remained in New Zealand. Other lucrative contracts followed and Dilworth continued showing Kelly the ropes.

 There were no more Māori merchants supplying farm produce and the Treasury was still diverting British tax revenue to feed the troops still stationed in the Albert Barracks and around Auckland province; also in Taranaki where renewed fighting had broken out, instigated by Titokowaru, and in Poverty Bay where troops were pursuing another ‘troublesome rebel’, Te Kooti.

Dilworth was hurriedly preparing a bid for a contract including the supply of a large quantity of flour. He was, at the time, preparing to meet with Deputy Commissary General Humphrey Stanley-Jones in Alexandra and left Kelly to finalise the tender. Kelly noted with some concern that Dilworth had simply estimated a purchase price of thirteen pounds, nine shillings per ton of flour, based on previous transactions. Kelly had observed a very large increase in the price of flour on the open market and doubted that Dilworth’s estimate would suffice. His doubts were confirmed upon visiting Mr McFarlane, named on the tender document as the miller. McFarlane was happily selling flour at thirty pounds a ton on the open market and had to be persuaded of the wisdom of continuing to deal with Dilworth and the commissary. Kelly hurried back to Dilworth with a negotiated price of twenty-four pounds, eight shillings per ton, which, on Kelly’s advice would still win the contract and return a good profit. Kelly’s analysis proved to be correct. He had, in fact, saved the deal and Dilworth rewarded his protégée a bonus payment in recognition of his acumen and stewardship of the business.

*

Kelly was assisted in shipping goods by a new Dilworth employee, another Irishman by the name of Francis O’Neill, and at times, relieved of these duties altogether by the new man. Dilworth entrusted Kelly to more of the commissariat business, leaving himself free to concentrate on his various other business interests and Kelly to spend more time on administration. O’Neill had sold up the military allotment he had been granted on being decommissioned from the British Imperial Army and taken lodgings in Auckland. His money had run out and he was looking for work and he had the good fortune to be hired by Dilworth, who, as always, favoured fellow Ulstermen.

Dilworth was busily buying more land, in addition to his three hundred acres in Epsom, and investing in various business ventures. He was very aware that the commissary economy would likely have a limited future. On his desk, among various newspapers was a copy of The Times of London, open at an article which questioned:

…how long the lives of 10,000 English soldiers and over £1,000,000 of money raised by taxes in the United Kingdom annually have been, and will be, under the control of the Legislature of New Zealand, which contributes not one penny to our taxes, which gives not one soldier to our army, which makes and unmakes its own Ministers, passes and repeals its own laws and pursues its own policy, without the least references to our wishes, our conveniences, or our interests. We doubt if the whole history of the world can afford a parallel to this portentous phenomenon.

We have lost all Imperial control in this portion of the Empire and are reduced to the humble but useful function of finding men and money for a Colonial Assembly to dispose of in exterminating natives with whom we have no quarrel, in occupying lands from which we derive no profit, and in attracting to their shores a vast commissariat expenditure, which we have the honour to supply out of the taxes of the United Kingdom and from which they derive enormous profits. The next Maori war must not be fought with British troops nor paid for out of British taxes.

Kelly was attending to his administrative duties, receiving the paperwork on a consignment of rum to the Hamilton military camp, and was concerned to see that a considerable sum of money had been deducted from the sale owing to a shortfall of two hogshead barrels, amounting to over one hundred gallons of rum. He questioned O’Neill on the matter, as it had been one of his deliveries.  O’Neill assured him he had delivered the full load to the dock and the barrels must have been stolen overnight.

“And where were you when the rum was stolen?” Kelly asked.

“Well, I wasn’t out on the dock freezing my arse off all the night,” was the reply.

It didn’t take much sleuthing to get to the bottom of what had happened; just a few enquiries and some time wasted in the field. The quartermaster at the Hamilton headquarters confirmed that there were two barrels missing when the consignment was uplifted in the morning and the shortfall was later made up by another merchant, a Mr. Slater. Kelly inspected all the barrels and found that the two late arrivals bore the same barrel batch numbers as the rest. O’Neill had sold off two barrels to Slater, who watered down the rum and on sold it to the quartermaster. Kelly confronted O’Neill about the theft.

“Will you tell him?” O’Neill asked.

“No. You will,” said Kelly.

“He’ll fire me.”

“You’ve brought it on yourself,” said Kelly. “You shouldn’t have bitten the hand that fed you.”

“It’s all right for you,” said O’Neill sourly. “You’re his blue-eyed boy, getting a share of the profits.”

“Well, I started off on wages, the same as you and worked my way up.”

O’Neill didn’t stay to hear any more but left and was never seen again. Dilworth could not abide disloyalty and yet he showed some concern for O’Neill. “Where do you think he’s gone?” he asked Kelly.

“I don’t know, Sir. Maybe to the goldfields. Do you want to prosecute him?”

“No, no. I’ll just write it off as a business loss. Good luck to him.”

*

Kelly had engaged a carpenter, a Mr. Reginald Jackson, to begin rebuilding the home the fire had destroyed and now, with his hard work and good fortune he was assured of completing the build. Under the burnt rubble the charred kauri piles were still firmly anchored into the earth and most were still serviceable for the foundations of the new build. Jackson arrived with a cart load of rough sawn totara and proceeded to lay four by three bearers and joists of the red wood for the subfloor. The proposed floor plan was almost identical to the original building and Kelly was gratified to see his former home gradually taking shape as the carpenter erected the rimu framing. Jackson was a Samuel Parnell man and would not work more than eight hours a day, so the building work progressed slowly. Pania kept Jackson fed and watered and often served as a builder’s labourer. Jackson assumed that she was Kelly’s wife, de facto or otherwise, and considered it none of his business to enquire. It was not uncommon for Pākehā men to take Māori wives and some had acquired land by marriage.

Kelly continued to write encouraging letters to Annie. He said that all was going well with his work and the construction of the house. Naturally he made no mention of Pania. Annie was loath to leave her family but would have no regrets about leaving her employment as a scullery maid in the Richardson manor. Life was only getting harder in Ireland and she could see no other prospects for herself, so she finally agreed to make the move to New Zealand. When the news of Annie’s decision finally reached Kelly, he wasted no time in booking her passage, with the aid of Dilworth’s contacts in shipping.

Kelly was eventually able to shift his camp from the storehouse into the shell of his new home and he tried his hand at building a bookshelf, a double bed, and a few fittings. The whole interior of the house had a pleasing fragrance of rimu, kauri and matai, cleanly cut and dressed, and treated with flaxseed oil.

 Dilworth was a devout Christian, who strictly observed the Sabbath, so no work was done on a Sunday. Kelly and Pania lay languorously together in bed on a Sunday morning. “So your Irish girl is coming soon?” Pania said.

“In a few months,” Kelly said.

“What is she like, your Annie?”

With some mental effort, Kelly shifted his thoughts from the present Pania to the absent Annie. “She’s sweet and kind and hardworking,” he said.

“Is she pretty?” Pania asked.

“Yes.”

“Prettier than me?”

“Just in a different way,” Kelly said.

“In a Pākehā way,” Pania said.

“I suppose so,” Kelly said, “but Pākehā or Māori – it doesn’t matter. Race doesn’t matter.”

“What matters?”

“Character.”

“Character.” Pania considered this word. “So Annie is a woman of good character?”

“Yes.”

“What about me? Bad character?”

“No.”

Why so few words for me? Pania said. “What kind of character?”

“You? You are also kind.” Kelly thought for a moment. “And spirited.”

“Ha, spirited, like a wild horse?”

“I wouldn’t compare you to a horse.”

“Why not. I am your mare. You are my stallion.” Pania giggled at Kelly’s discomfort with her questions.

“Shall I compare thee to a horse? Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” There was a dim memory of a poem from Kelly’s school days.

 “What about Ireland?” Pania said. “What is Ireland like?”

“It’s a good land of green hills and good people, but poor people.”

“Are all the people poor?’

“The landowners are rich. And the people are oppressed by the British.”

“Just like here,” Pania said. “Just like New Zealand. Why are the British so greedy? Bad character?’

“There are good and bad everywhere,” Kelly said.

“And the bad are greedy for land and money and power.”

“Just so,” Kelly agreed.

On his day of rest Kelly would often ride out along the coast with Pania, past Point Britomart to Mechanics Bay and along the shoreline to Hobson Bay. Pania often rode to the coast on her own, fishing and foraging, and returned with kaimoana. She always rode astride her horse, as Ᾱwhina did, unlike the Pākehā ladies, who demurely rode side saddle. It would be unseemly for a Pākehā lady to spread her legs over a horse. Kelly was pleased with the way Pania cared for the horses and exercised them with her riding. “I like riding,” she said. “I like the feel of the beast between my legs when I gallop along the beach and the wind in my hair.” She also just liked getting out of the town. She never accompanied Kelly in town and she understood the reason for that. Nor did she go there on her own, not after the time she went to a store to buy some soap. The shopkeeper had refused to serve her. “I got money,” she’d told him and put the coins on the counter. At first she stood her ground but the shopkeeper threw the coins on the floor and shouted, “Get out of my store you black whore.” Other customers in the shop complacently watched the performance, adding to the humiliation. Pania felt the eyes of the townsfolk on her still as she walked down the road. At home, she went first to the stables and lay on the hay in the company of the horses till the rage in her gut subsided. She never went back to the shops and never told Kelly of the incident.

*

Mr and Mrs Dilworth attended Saint Mark’s Church in Remuera every Sunday and were respected pillars of the community. Kelly declined their invitation to join them. He had attended church with his family when he was younger but he decided church wasn’t for him when he was old enough to have his decisions respected. He had seen enough of religion in Ulster, where Catholics and Protestants were tribally pitted against each other in a divided community. He believed in God, the God of the Bible, and he would say, if he were pressed, that he was a Christian, but not a Protestant or a Catholic. The Dilworths were Anglican and didn’t care for all the popish pomp and ritual of Catholicism and actually did not care about denominations either: Catholic or Protestant or whatever. For them there was but one Church, the Church of Jesus Christ.