Kiwi Wars by Garry Douglas Kilworth

them, and thus the animal bolted, sending Jack tumbling to the ground.
    He fell badly on his left foot and knew instantly that he had damaged his ankle in some way. There was some thought in his mind to draw his revolver from the inside pocket of his coat, but before he could do this a coarse-skinned brown foot pinned his wrist to the earth. Looking up he could see a grinning face staring down at him. Jack waited for that paddle-thing to split his skull in two. But the man’s right arm simply hung by his side and there was no attempt to brain him. Through the open legs of his attacker Jack could see the other Maoris going through his kit, taking his kettle, the leather belt he had removed while eating, and of course the Enfield rifle propped on a log.
    ‘What else in your pockets?’ said the Maori above him, releasing his arm. ‘Empty them.’
    Jack took out some money, a handkerchief, the key to his quarters, and a letter from Jane. He wondered if he could reach his Tranter revolver, knowing however that it only held five shots. He counted thirteen Maoris milling around his fire, including the one who stood above him. He decided against lunging for it, hoping it might remain undiscovered and he could use it later. Something in his demeanour though, must have given him away. In the next moment the Maori had reached down and found the firearm, taking it from him.
    ‘Ah, you would kill me?’ cried his captor, and turned and said something in his own language to his companions.
    There was laughter from them.
    ‘So,’ Jack said, sitting up in the dust, ‘better get it over with then.’
    ‘Get what over with?’
    ‘Whatever it is you’re going to do with me.’
    They all crowded round him now, huge muscled fellows, their brown eyes devoid of pity. He waited for the blows to come, hoping one would be kind enough to hit him on the head and kill him instantly. Finally one of them raised a club and struck him on the temple and blackness entered his brain.

Four
     
    W hen he woke, Jack was in a different place. It was not, as he expected, either the kingdom of heaven or even the bleak caverns of hell. He was still on earth and much the same earth as he had left. The river was gone though, and he was in some trees by a pool. It was a little while before his splitting headache would allow him to deduce that he had been either dragged or carried some way from where he had been attacked. Here they had dumped him, still alive. His head hurt. He touched the wound and felt encrusted blood. But worse was his ankle, which throbbed with live pain. Thirsty and unable to walk, he crawled to the pool and drank from its fly-dusted waters.
    ‘What now?’ he asked himself, sitting up and rubbing his ankle. It was swollen to three times its natural size. ‘Make myself a splint?’
    But he soon realized that would do him no good. A splint is fine on a broken ankle of normal size, but the pain of strapping wood to such a tender spot made him nearly pass out twice. He knew he would have to wait until the swelling went down, if it ever did. Instead, he put his foot in the cool water of the pool, to obtain some relief from the agony.
    He sat there until nightfall, annoyed to find all his pockets completely empty. He had deliberately left his small brass compass in one of those pockets, when told to turn them out. Without a compass he was going to have to wait until daybreak to go anywhere. The sky was opaque and no stars could be seen. Jack needed the sun to be able to tell in which general direction New Plymouth lay. He had absolutely no chance of finding the camp. It was while he was bemoaning his lot that the skies opened and the rain came down in torrents. His misery was just about complete as he found himself wallowing in mud. For the next four or five hours there was no respite from the flood. It rained, it then rained harder, then still harder. Lightning cracked across the heavens, filling the world with evanescent light, then longer