Kiwi Wars Read Online Free PDF Page A

sawyer, his black hair falling round his dark face, dropped the two wriggling men he held as if they were fish.
    ‘I am!’ snarled this giant of a man.
    ‘Right,’ replied Wynter, stepping forward, ‘you an’ me’ll fight any two others.’
    There was a moment’s silence, then the whole tavern erupted in laughter, and Wynter got the slaps on the back he expected. The sawyer invited him to partake of drink with him, but at that point Gwilliams decided to leave. He knew by the end of the evening Wynter’s temper would turn nasty under the influence of the drink and he was tired of wading in to help the private get rid of the venom in his veins. Gwilliams quietly finished his ale, said goodnight to the soldier, and weaved towards the door.

Three
     
    F ancy Jack Crossman believed his primary duty was spying and his secondary role was as a saboteur. Here in New Zealand the gathering of intelligence was carried out by Maori loyal to the government, and sabotage, which usually involved digging, was the province of the sappers. He could not, as yet, speak the language and was therefore fairly useless as a spy and there were no magazines, storehouses, railways or ships to blow up, as in the Crimea or India. Way down the list of Jack’s duties was mapping, and here in New Zealand there was a rugged wilderness that needed good maps. Colonel Lovelace, his boss, had decided Jack’s team would chart this unknown landscape of volcanic activity, mountains, braided rivers, fjords, glaciers and islands.
    When Jack had protested to a senior officer that his primary function was the gathering of intelligence, that officer had replied, ‘Exactly what is intelligence, Captain?’ ‘Why, information, sir.’ ‘And that’s exactly what we require in New Zealand, Captain, information. Cartographic information.’ Jack bowed to the system.
    The trained mapper amongst them was Sergeant King, who had never really accepted his role as a spy and saboteur. King, a terrible shot with a firearm, was best with coloured pencils in his hand. He owned and used a vocabulary which included such words as: theodolites, Gunter’s measuring chain, perambulators, quadrants, spirit levels, plane tables, barometric levellers – and many others. A lexicon that made Jack’s head spin. Jack had had triangulation up to his ears and it pained him grievously to have to hand over the main duty of the group to King. He was the officer in charge of something he did not fully understand; he would never be as proficient as his subordinate NCO. He mourned the loss of his former dashing position as the leader of a forward action group.
    Captain ‘Fancy’ Jack Crossman was not a fancy dresser, nor did he pomade his hair. He had been given his nickname by the troops when he was a sergeant amongst them. Being obviously from aristocracy he was at that time distrusted by both officers, and rank and file. The former wondered what a member of their exclusive club was doing parading as a common soldier. The latter believed him to be an officers’ spy in the ranks, there to monitor any insurrection or mutiny. Jack could have, of course, asked his father to buy him a commission, but chose instead to work his way up without the assistance of his hated father’s influence and money. Now he was a captain of foot, the old epithet remained with him, leaving others to wonder if the ‘Fancy’ referred to his way with the ladies.
    He was indeed a handsome man, despite his disability, but his interest in women stopped with his wife, Jane. Jane Mulinder of Derby, who would have been his cousin had his mother been his father’s wife, was a tall beautiful female, daughter of a merchant.
    Jilted by her former fiancé, Jane met Jack in the Crimea and they fell in love. Since then he had only window-shopped other women. He could still be aroused by a lovely female, naturally, but his fear of hurting his beloved Jane always curbed those wayward instincts. Jack believed that though