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It is with some trepidation that I write this first blog on my blogsite.
I am a little concerned because I don’t want to be labeled a racist. I do not believe I am. Yes, a little pissed off by what has been happening in this country over the past few decades, but that does not, I think, make me a racist.
I would like to believe I am speaking for and to middle New Zealand. The New Zealand of hardworking, law-abiding, mortgage owning ordinary New Zealanders, who have watched with growing dismay, the grievance industry in the country.
What I want to know is, when is it payback time? When, after all the millions spent to settle Treaty of Waitangi claims, we are going to see a reduction in the crime rate, fewer prisoners in our jails, less gang associations and so on.
Some time ago I wrote some short satirical pieces on the theme of the Treaty of Waitangi. They have never been published because they are simply not politically correct enough for the present climate, though one publisher described them as well written and interesting.
I intend to post one chapter at a time of the first of my satirical sketches, in the hope that there may be readers who will relish a bit of fun poked at the Treaty. The history is good, by which I mean accurate, but obviously the main character is fictitious.
Chapter One of ‘The Treaty of Waitangi.’
The Treaty of Waitangi
A satirical sketch.
James Haltar.
Edited by Anthony Veitch
“Rescued from the fire that burnt the government offices in Official Bay, Auckland, in 1841, the treaty documents were held until 1865 in an iron safe in Auckland and later Wellington, at the Colonial Secretary’s office.”
“The Treaty was lost sight of until 1911 when it was rediscovered, stored in the Wellington Government Buildings. It was then found to be damaged by water and rodents, particularly the two parchment sheets, viz the original Waitangi document and the HMS Herald sheet.”
www.wcc.govt.nz
Introduction:
The Treaty of Waitangi, signed on the 6th February, 1840, is seen by many as New Zealand’s founding document, in much the same way as the Declaration of Independence is considered in the United States.
There the similarity ends, if it ever began, for while the American Declaration is noted for its clarity and forthrightness, for its political vision and uncompromising standards of precise English, the Treaty of Waitangi is vague, obscure, ultimately meaningless and so subject to wide interpretation.
Such is the problem inherited by this generation.
We view the creation of the Treaty of Waitangi through rosecoloured glasses, while at the same time, depending on our point of view, lauding the justice of the document or decrying its present disruptions.
But was it the work of superior-minded missionaries and colonial officials who strove hard to protect the backward Maori from the deprivations of the hard-headed and lawless Europeans who were washed up on the shores of New Zealand? Did all participants, on both sides of the signing, act with altruistic motives for the greater good, or did they, in fact, behave as normal human beings, with their focus solely on the main chance?
Are we to believe the men of 1840 and previous years acted like saints while surrounded by earthy sinners?
This sketch is based on the unthinkable idea that the colonists and natives of the time thought and acted like ordinary men and women. No better, nor worse than others of their own time.
So, regardless how the Treaty of Waitangi may be venerated, or abused by our own age, it was, in the context of the New Zealand experience, circa 1840, nothing more than another scrap of paper.
It’s currently politically correct, and quite literary pretentious, to lard writing with half-understood Maori words and phrases. I’ve managed to resist this no doubt laudable trend. Maori is spoken by four percent of the inhabitants of this country. This story is aimed at the remaining ninety-six percent. Words spoken in Maori have been translated into English. I know this is a regrettable oversight on my part, but in the interests of understanding, I intend to persist in my misguidedness.
Editor’s Note:
What follows was found in an old exercise book in a dusty attic of a recently deceased aunt. How it came to be there, I’ve no idea, what her connection with James Haltar, the narrator of this yarn, again, no clue. Had I thought to clear her attic, even if I knew she had one, which I didn’t, before she died, I may have found some answers. But I didn’t.
Of James Haltar, there is no trace in the history books of this country. He has vanished as completely as if he had never been. Yet he lingered long enough to leave behind a valuable commentary on the events leading up to and including the drafting and signing of our ‘founding document,’ the Treaty of Waitangi. His beautifully crafted, spidery, faded, copperplate handwriting speaks as clearly today as when he wrote it down, the date of which, like so much else, is unknown, though probably in late 1842 or early 1843.
No editing has been attempted: what you read here is as James Haltar intended his story to be read. Who he was writing for, again, I have no idea; that he has an audience one hundred and fifty or so years after the events he describes, I have no doubt.
I imagine him to be a smallish man, slight of build, this James Haltar, with a pinched wiry face and mischievous sharp eyes. Perhaps his mouth curved often into a sardonic smile. Perhaps his penetrating eyes ever looked ironically at the events he wrote about. A likeable, but self-effacing man, destined to be a good servant all his life?
What became of him, I have no idea, beyond his own comment that he left government service to ‘take up farming. Some day.’
There the chapter closes, the exercise book runs out of pages. The man vanishes, but his words linger on
Russell, November, 1834.
Just do me the courtesy of believing me. All right? I was there, after all. I saw all, I knew the men involved. I sat in on the deliberations. Because I spoke and understood Maori, I talked to the chiefs. I helped write the document.
The name’s Haltar, James Haltar. Personal servant to the Reverend William Bates, missionary to the heathens in this far off land. Also batman, gardener, aide de comp, general dogsbody to that worthy as well. And later to James Busby, the British Resident at Waitangi.
I could tell you a few stories about my own background, stories of sealing in Dusky Sound, way to the cold south of here, yes, and before that, of transportation to Australia for a crime I didn’t commit. (I have to say that, you understand, for posterity’s sake). But I’ll spare you all these dull details. Maybe I’ll write of them one day.
Really, my story begins when I walked in on my master as he sat in his study in Russell. It was called Korarareka in those days, and a more disreputable place on the face of the earth it’d be hard to find.
The Reverend William Bates, a tubby, pleasant round faced little man, looking for all the world like a country parson, which, of course, he was, was seated at his desk by the window of his room. An unfortunate room really, for the window looked right down the main street of the small community. And out onto the beach.
My master, for so I must construe him to be, even though there shouldn’t be the old divisions of landed aristocracy and poor peasants of the old country in this new land, my master is a wellmeaning man without a great deal of intelligence. Now, don’t get me wrong. He’s not stupid, not by any means, but he’s not exactly acute either. With their subtly and their ability to say exactly what they mean at the moment, but not at the next, the average untutored and uncouth Maori chief is more than a match for him.
It’s a mistake that colonial do-gooders like the Reverend Bates fall into quite naturally, I find. They think that because the naked savage in front of them hasn’t received all the dubious distinctions of an Eton or Harrow preparatory education, hasn’t caroused and drunk away three years at Oxford or Cambridge, they somehow hold the moral and intellectual ascendancy. They being the product of those finest of all schools and universities. Mind you, having said that, they also treat the unlettered among the white settlers and traders the same way. To be honest, they look down their stubby patrician noses at all who can’t trace their lineage back beyond their grandparents.
To return to my master, the Reverend William Bates. The view down the main street of Korarareka was not prepossessing. Right beside the Reverend’s modest cottage Kitty had erected a wooden facade with a canvas roof behind. A large painted sign shouted ‘Girls! Girls!’ on that wooden front. Just in case the message didn’t get across a crudely painted picture of a dancing girl, skirt afloat, left no room for doubt.
The building next to Kitty’s brothel, for that is what it is, is an hotel. Of no more substantial construction than the buildings on either side of it, it recognised no closing hours, nor any age limitations. Drunken Maori of both sexes and as young as six or eight, spewed out of its doorway at all hours. The next building was another knocking shop, the one beside it a similar establishment, then another hotel and so on, right along the waterfront of the bay upon which the township of Korarareka had been built.
The Reverend William Bates had a telescope in his hand. Now he lifted it to his eye and ran it across the length of the beach, as if searching for something. He’d obviously been doing just that before his servant, that’s me, entered, for he soon fixed his gaze on one particular part of the waterfront.
I saw him run his tongue across his lips, once, twice. The telescope never wavered from the view.
I stepped up to his desk and looked through the window. A group of natives were frolicking in the sea a hundred yards or so away. Even at this distance I could see they were naked, and that they were female, though they looked a little young for my taste.
The Reverend licked his lips again, and I observed small beads of moisture on his high forehead.
“What’s so interesting?” I asked, innocent like.
The Reverend lowered his telescope and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Haltar,” he said, “it’s disgusting, the way these natives display themselves naked. Have they no shame? Have they no chastity? Don’t they realise they’re an abomination before the eyes of God? Don’t they realise they’ll fry in hell’s everlasting fires of sulphur and brimstone for a thousand ages if they don’t cover their nakedness with clothes? Don’t they know . . .”
He went on like this for a few minutes more, working himself up into a fine lather of righteous indignation, but I’d heard it all before, so I didn’t pay particular attention.
After he’d exhausted his invectives he lifted his telescope to his eye again and trained it on the group of young native girls. “Disgusting!” I heard him mutter. “Abominations! Shameless hussies!”
He lowered his telescope. “Haltar,” he said, looking at me, “I can no longer countenance such a mockery of the word of God. Haltar, my hat. I’m going down to the beach to show them the way of Christ, to insist they cover their naked limbs, their rounded . . . bosoms, . . . their ripe young thighs . . . their . . .” he stopped and mopped his brow again.
“Follow me, Haltar,” he ordered. “Follow me and observe God’s will being done.”
I grabbed my hat, a cloth one to designate my lower status, and followed the crusading reverend out of his cottage.
He strode off down towards the beach as fast as his fat little legs would carry him. I had no difficulty keeping up with the black angel of a right-minded Jehovah.
Our progress was not very rapid, as it turned out. We got as far as the boozer beside the nearest brothel. A group of about a dozen natives lay sprawled over the beach front, bottle of rum in their hands.
“Hey, minister!” one of them called, “have a drink with us!”
The Reverend William Bates stopped and looked down at the almost naked men. His face turned bright red and his side whiskers seemed to fluff out with fury. “You sirs,” he said in the native tongue, “You sirs, are an abomination unto God. The avenging angel of God’s damnation will cast you all, one and all, down into the fiery pits of hottest hell!”
But the Maori had drunk too much to take heed of the minister’s condemnation. “Aw, come on Pope!” one of them yelled, and immediately burst into immoderate laughter.
“Don’t you dare compare me to the anti-Christ!” the reverend shouted, going even redder in the face, hands on indignant hips. “Don’t you call me the anti-Christ!”
The men all laughed. My master’s phobia about the Catholic religion was well known in Korarareka, even by drunken natives.
One man began a song. He’d only sung a few words before the rest joined in.
“Come on and dance, dance, dance to my ten nose-flutes,
And very soon you’ll know just where you are,
Through the eyes of love you’ll see a thousand stars,
Oh, when you dance, dance, dance to my ten nose-flutes.
I have a tribe of men, and all they do is play for me,
They come from miles around to hear them play a melody.
Beneath the stars my ten nose-flutes will play a song for you,
And if you’re with the one you love,
This is what you do.
Come on and dance, dance ….”
The men sang loudly and with evident enjoyment. The tune was sort of English but the words were native.
The Reverend Bates turned to me. “Haltar, it seems to me I hear nothing but that stupid asinine song on the lips of every damned native in the town. What is it, their national anthem or something?”
“I don’t know sir,” I answered. “If it is, it doesn’t rhyme very well. They’ll have to work on the words a bit.”
William Bates turned on the group. “You’re all doomed!” he shouted, “Condemned to eternal hell fire. You’re all lost, you hear me, lost!”
“Aw, fuck off, parson!” one of the men shouted back in English, and the rest laughed and lifted their rum bottles to their mouths in mock salute.
The Reverend strode on, physically, like Pilate, washing his hands of the ungrateful heathen. I followed the frustrated man of God as he muttered imprecations to himself.
We passed Sally’s Bar, probably the most popular of the many brothels in Korarareka. A girl leaned wantonly in the doorway, an European woman. When she saw the minister she hitched up her skirt to above one knee and stuck out a leg provocatively.
“You coming in Willie baby?” she called, giving him a beckoning finger and a wiggle of her toes.
“How can you madam, how can you . . . disport yourself so . . . so brazenly?” the Reverend Bates spluttered, his indignation making him inarticulate.
“You wanna come in on the quiet again, hey minister?” the whore said demurely. “We got some new native girls. Young. Just like you like ‘em.”
“You despicable slut!” my master shouted, so purple in the face I feared he was about to have an apoplexy. “You . . . you strumpet!”
The Reverend almost ran to the beach, pursued by the mocking calls of the prostitute. I winked at her, and followed. He pulled up short, however, about a dozen or so yards from the cavorting maidens and stood watching them. I stood beside him. I noticed he was running his tongue across his lips again.
“Are you going to show them the word of God?” I asked.
“Oh!. . . Oh, yes, the word of God,” he said abruptly. He walked forward until he was very close to the young girls. “Now look here,” he said in the native tongue, “look here, you shameless young hussies. Cover your nakedness, do you hear me, cover your nakedness if you want to get into heaven. The prophet Isaiah said of such wantonness that eternal damnation will stalk the perpetrator!”
The girls listened for a moment or two but, I’m sure, in their truly innocent eyes they were doing no harm, merely enjoying themselves. They couldn’t understand the concern of the minister, so one girl, the oldest and most superbly developed of the naked maidens, spoke to her companions. “It is the man of the bedroom without a weapon,” she said derisively. “Follow me.” She dived into the warm waters of the Bay of Islands and began to swim away from the shore with confident strokes. The other maidens laughed and followed her, leaving my master annoyed and spluttering on the beach.
“You see Haltar,” he turned to me, “you see the state of this country. When a God-fearing man such as myself is openly mocked, blatantly ignored, even ridiculed, then it’s time the British Government took control. It’s time we had some authority to enforce a little Christian decency, a little Christian modesty on these . . . these blaspheming heathens!”
“I couldn’t agree more, my good Bates.”
Both my master and I jumped, for we’d not heard the speaker approach. Both of us were looking at the departing Maori girls. We turned and saw the Reverend Samuel Martin.
“My dear Martin,” Bates began, extending his hand. “My dear sir, you witnessed a painful moment, my humiliation in the service of Christ?”
“I did, my good sir, I did.” The Reverend Samuel Martin stood almost as tall and well built as my master was short and stubby. He was modelled on the lines of a prize fighter, with enormous shoulders and forearms the thickness of an oxen’s thighs.
“We need some good British justice,” the Reverend William Bates said, “some good British authority to impose some order here, sir.”
“We do indeed, Bates,” Martin agreed. “I tell you sir, I could make God-fearing citizens of the lot of them in two months. Two months sir! You and I together, Bates. You to read the prayers while I flog ‘em. Nothing like the cat o’ nine tails to instil a little Christian piety in the hardest of men, or so I’ve always found.”
Bates scratched his head. “I do believe you’re correct, my dear sir, I do believe you’re correct. But what have we got instead? I ask you? Busby!”
“Yes,” the Reverend Martin agreed, and spat on the pebbles at my feet. “The man’s a trendy liberal dogooder, as much use as a eunuch in a convent.”
“Sir, I’ll thank you to keep references to the religion of the antiChrist out of our conversation,” Bates said with some asperity, trying to draw himself up taller than his five foot five.
“Oh, come now, Bates,” Martin said condescendingly, “Old Pompallier isn’t such a bad fellow, for all his misguided views.”1
“Sir, he’s doomed. Condemned to roast in hell’s eternal fires!”
Martin shrugged. “Well, as you wish. Let’s not quarrel over a mass or two.”
“Sir!”
1. Which points to the fact that Halter’s memory is not infallible, for Bishop Pompallier didn’t arrive in New Zealand until 1838. Ed
“About Busby,” Martin said, a sarcastic smile hovering on the edge of his mouth as he changed the subject, “about James Busby. The man’s a hopeless progressive,
you realise that?”
“Of course I do sir,” Bates said with some dignity. “In my opinion the man’s nothing more than an incompetent vine grower who has no idea of what the Maori need.”
“I agree Bates, I agree. He’s too squeamish by half. A touch of the cat is mightily effective sir, even the natives recognise the effectiveness of the cat.”
Now, I’ve got to say, in defence of my master, that sadism was not one of his endearing characteristics. But Sam Martin was both too important to disagree with openly, and too large to pick a physical fight with. So the Reverend William Bates restricted himself to a slight wrinkling of his nose. “The sooner, sir,” he said, “the sooner the Home government recognise the deplorable state of this country’s morals and gives us the authority to impose a few Christian values of decency and chastity . . .”
“And discipline,” Martin interjected.
“. . . er, yes, and discipline, the better we’ll all be . . .”
“You hear what the fool’s up to now?” the Reverend Samuel Martin asked. “He’s called a meeting of all the northern chiefs. Something about establishing some sort of law and order.”
My master snorted. “Yes, you know why, don’t you? The natives did his house over a few weeks ago.”
“Ah yes, I heard about that.” The Reverend Martin smiled.
“They stripped his food store, I believe,” Martin continued, “while James stood by and wrung his hands, pleading with them to leave him something. Hang a few of ‘em, that’d soon teach ’em a lesson. Leave their bodies strung up for all to see until there’s only bones and cartilage left. Damned effective, that is. They get the message pretty quick, I can tell you. Nothing like a few toes off the ground to reinforce authority.”
“Er . . . yes,” the Reverend William answered, a tad tentatively.
“You don’t agree, Bates?” the Reverend Samuel sneered. “Listen man, I was chaplain of a prison colony in South Australia every bit as impervious to persuasion as the natives here. Well, I flogged a bit of Christianity into the bastards, and those who were beyond reach, I hung. Best behaved penal settlement anywhere in the Antipodes.”
“But with a high mortality rate,” I murmured quietly from the background.
“Eh?” The Reverend condescended to notice me. He peered at me for a moment from below his bushy eyebrows and his words, delivered slowly and clearly, held real menace. “I sent a goodly number of them to explain their account with their maker, and if I had my way, I’d do the same here too.”
I looked away. Sam Martin was not a man to cross.
My intervention, however, ended the illuminating conversation between the two pillars of the Protestant church in Korarareka. They bade each other ‘Good day,’ and the Reverend Samuel Martin wandered off, no doubt in search of a few men to flog, or read prayers to, or both.
A word in passing about the expression which so incensed my master. The maiden called him the ‘bedroom man without any weapon.’ Now I’m not certain, you realise, for I’m only repeating the gossip I hear from some quite disreputable quarters, who, it must be said, have no love for the Reverend William Bates. But apparently he’s not able to get it up in normal circumstances, if anything that happens in Korarareka can be considered normal. You understand, this is only three quarters innuendo and one third rumour.
We left the beach, mission accomplished, at least to the extent that the naked girls were not in sight any more. And we took the long way back to the cottage, skirting far away from the impudent whore who taunted my master, the drunks who mocked him with, well, it can only be called the native drinking song.
Once back in the sanctity of his snug study, the Reverend William Bates looked at me speculatively once or twice. Then he said, “Sit down Haltar. Sit down for a moment.”
I did as I was bid and awaited his next words with some anticipation. I wasn’t often talked with, you see. Ordered about, shouted at, talked to, yes, all of these, but very infrequently talked with.
“Haltar, you’ve been a good servant to me for . . . how long now?”
“Two years sir.”
“Has it been that long? Well, bless my heart, I suppose it has. Well, Haltar, I intend to return to Sydney soon. Well, some time. Mrs. Bates is getting quite restless and importunate in her letters. It’s time I returned to the bosom of my loving family again. I will, of course, take you with me, Haltar, if you wish to go.”
I shook my head. “No sir, I’d rather not. I’ve . . . reasons for not wanting to go back to Sydney.”
“Ah yes, Haltar, I am aware of your past indiscretions. Well, I can’t blame you, my man. But if you ever see your way round these er . . . difficulties, there’ll always be a place in my household for you.”
I thanked him. He stretched out his legs and patted his thighs in his comfortable chair. “But that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. Haltar, you saw the way those
. . . those whores defied me today.” He sat up and his face flushed with remembered anger. “Defied me! Me, a representative of the Holy church! One of God’s chosen! Damn me, Haltar, they laughed at me!”
“Yes sir,” I said meekly. “I did observe.”
William Bates squirmed in his seat. “Blast them to everlasting purgatory Haltar! They mocked me, the whores. Naked as the day they were born. Cavorting in full view of . . . of . . . eyes. Glorifying in their firm young bodies, their rounded delicious . . .” He stopped and took out his handkerchief to mop his brow. He licked his lips.
“Haltar,” he continued, “I get so indignant, so mightily indignant!”
I ventured an opinion. “It’s your moral rectitude sir.”
He stared at me, a little open-mouthed and goggle-eyed. “What? What’s that you say, Haltar? Moral rectitude? Damn it all sir, what do you know of moral rectitude?”
I smiled at him. “I’m not as uneducated as you imagine, sir, even though I didn’t go to the right schools.” Or any school, I could have added. “Rectitude, sir, comes from the Latin root word ‘erectus,’ which means ‘up ‘em.’ It’s the same root for rectum, which you know is the Latin word for posterior, sir.”
“Er, yes, Haltar, you amaze me.” He really looked astounded at my knowledge.
“It’s what you feel, sir, at seeing all the sin around and not being able to do anything about it. To put it in more street language sir, it’s like having a turnip up your bum.”
“Er, is that so Haltar?” He squirmed on his seat again. “You know, I do believe you’re right. Most uncomfortable. But more to the point, Haltar, what can I do about it?”
“Well sir,” I said after a moment’s thought, “It seems to me there are three courses of action. First, you could do as you intend to do eventually, go home to the loving bosom of your family. That’s Mrs. Bates. Probably the best course of action, sir.”
Bates smiled. “Oh, undoubtedly Haltar. But I’d be running away from a fight, from God’s fight, wouldn’t I?”
“Well sir, the second course. The Reverend Martin scoffed at Mr. Busby, so maybe he’s on the right track?”
“Right track? Explain yourself Haltar?”
“Well sir, I thinks that the native chiefs might be able to exert some authority over their more lawless followers. And if Mr. Busby can get them all to agree, maybe you could get them to dress a bit more modestly?”
“Ha!” The Reverend Bates snorted. “You can’t get any agreement out of them heathens. They’re treacherous sir, unreliable and treacherous. They can’t be trusted to honour any agreement unless it suits them.”
“Very much like the European powers,” I answered.
But the Reverend William Bates didn’t hear my slight objection. “No,” he went on, “you’ll never get them to all agree for one thing, or to stick with their word if they do agree. Busby’s barking up the wrong rimu there. Your third idea, Haltar my man?”
“Well sir, it’s really just to continue on doing what you’re doing now. It’s like water on a stone sir, your example must be doing some good.”
“Hmm. Well, a damn lot of good your advice has amounted to Haltar. Carry on being mocked by a horde of naked savages, eh? Carry on being humiliated by impudent strumpets who wave their naked breasts in my face . . .?” He squirmed in his seat. He licked his lips.
“It’s that turnip again sir,” I said.
“Damn you Haltar. Remove yourself from my presence sir!”
I did, for in the past when the Reverend Bates gets his temper up he’s been known to throw things. And books are heavy.
The next day, when I bought my master a cup of tea in his study about ten o’clock, he put his pen down and fixed me with his eyes. “I’ve been considering my options, Haltar,” he said. “As you know, in the past I’ve scoffed at Busby’s futile gestures. But I think the man’s right. Yes,” he went on, as if seeing my look of blank amazement, though he didn’t raise his head, “yes, silly, stuffy, ineffective old James Busby, with his foolish love for the fickle heathen, may just be on to the right answer. You see Haltar, if one could somehow harness the authority of the chiefs for positive ends we may be able to control the worst excesses. What do you think, Haltar?”
Of course I agreed with the Reverend William Bates. I went further and told him he’d come up with the only viable solution. Then I asked him what he intended to do about Mr. Busby.
“Why Haltar,” the little man said, “give him my full support, of course.”
The next day a ship appeared in the bay. An American whaling vessel.
“Look at ‘em,” the Reverend William said in disgust, his telescope up to his eye. “Just look at ‘em, driving those poor heathen maidens down onto the beach, penning them up like cattle. It’s disgusting Haltar, nothing short of an abomination in the eyes of God.”
“Yes sir,” I said meekly. The penning in of native women for use on the ships which came into the Bay of Islands was a fairly frequent occurrence, and an event which was bound to get the good parson all steamed up.
“Well, I’ll not put up with it any longer,” he exclaimed decisively, laying down his telescope and standing. “I’ll put an end to their vicious trade in human flesh!”
“You’re not thinking of going down there sir?” I asked anxiously.
“I’ll drive these money-lenders out of the temple of the Lord, Haltar, I’ll banish them to the fiery furnace!”
“They’re pretty tough characters, these whalers sir, and the Maori chiefs won’t thank you for interfering in their commerce,” I advised.
“Did Daniel falter, Haltar, when he stepped into the arena? Did Noah hesitate when the call came from the Lord?”
“Er, no sir, but they didn’t have to face a tattooed heathen savage after money for rum or sex-starved sailors hungry for women. Sir, if you go down there you’ll not escape with less than a beating.”
The Reverend William Bates sat down again. “Oh Haltar, how difficult it is to be a man of God in the midst of these vulgar and uncivilised sinners.”
“Sir,” I said, “may I make a suggestion?”
He lifted his eyes to my face. “Yes Haltar, you may.”
“Well sir, why don’t you buy a couple of the maidens, they’re slaves after all, and give them their freedom?”
He banged his hands on his desk and leapt to this feet. “Haltar!” he shouted, “a capital idea! A capital idea! But you shall make the purchase for me.”
“Me sir?” I retreated a step. “Oh no, not me sir?”
“You sir,” Bates repeated. “Surely you see it’s not becoming for a minister of the cloth to be seen in such an iniquitous place actually buying young female flesh. No,” he continued as I began to protest, “no Haltar, you must go for me. Speak to the native chief conducting the sale and purchase two, no three of the unfortunate women. You know the sort I like, Haltar.”
“The sort you like, sir?”
“Ah yes, by that I mean the youngest girls, Haltar, the most innocent, before they’ve been corrupted. And bring them back here Haltar, so I can . . . so I can . . . so I can instruct them in some Christian principles.”
“Back here sir?”
“Yes, back here Haltar. Are you deaf, man?”
“But sir, surely if Mrs. Bates was to hear of . . .?”
“How dare you Haltar! You forget yourself sir! Impugning my dear wife! You don’t think I’d expose Mrs. Bates to such scenes of lasciviousness? No, I have purposely kept my wife in Sydney to spare her the sight of naked men and women cavorting all over the place. Now, take my purse and off you go.”
“Yes sir.” I retreated to the door, not very happy with my commission.
“And Haltar,” he called to me just as I closed his study door.
I came back in a little way. The Reverend had picked up his telescope again. “Yes sir?”
“Show them in here when you return, there’s a good man. Then you may have the rest of the day off.”
“Very good sir.”