PRIZE STORY COMPETITION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 217, 13 September 1930, Page 15 (Supplement)

PRIZE STORY COMPETITION.

"LIGHT IN OUR DARKNESS." (By E. MARY "GURXEY.) This is not my story, but Tom Gerard's, and I shall tell it, for the most part, as he told it to me. It happened, of all places on earth, in tie King Country. Vast stretches of flat land —desert or prairie have an allure —a mysterious beauty of their own; but the endless sameness of the hare, stump-scarred hills of the King Country give one a real sense of the meaning of the term "the abomination pf desolation." Since man destroyed the bush, you may ride fox a day and not come in contact with a sight or sound that even verges on the beautiful. Gaunt bare hills, gaunt charred stumps, God-for-saken shacks dropped in the heart of nowhere; surrounded by ramshackle pigstyes, where fat swine wallow and stink —the only prosperous thing in all that barren land. Tumble-down cowshed, round which, lean cows hang fearfully' fighting for a miserable existence, seemingly afraid to wander afield, lest they perish of want. Squalid men and frowsy women, who toil more from habit than from any hope of ever wresting a living from the barren, grudging land. In the summer it parches brittle and brown —the hilltops as bare as the palm of your hand. A dry wind blows across it _ ceaselessly, and the only moisture existent is th» -brown tussock swamp that fills every valley bottom. Veritable death-traps, these, for starving beasts. You may track them on every hand, hy the foetid stench and the swarms of mosquitoes that ping above them during the long, drought-like summers.

In the winter, in this land that seems to know no spring nor autumn, it rains endlessly—a seeping, searching rain from leaden clouds that press down until they obscure the bare breasts of the hills and fill the sodden valleys with weeping grey mist.

I was thinking of all this as I sat in the Wellington-bound Limited, and watched the tiny lights that sprang ever and anon out of the darkness j sprang, flickered for a moment and vanished again,, like will-o'-the-wisps. What stories. lay behind those little lights, I wondered, pondering it? Little lights in the wildernesE. What stories of deathless love and hope? Of love turned to hate by grinding poverty; hope long since turned to despair ? Tales of enekss toil, of toneless- monotony, of grief and pain and loss—but rarely— dear God—how rarely, of happiness and gain!

Strangely, partly through Tom Gerard and partly through the woman herself, the tale of one of those terrible little places was revealed to me.

Imagine, if you can, a woman transported from Kew, near London, into the most desolate part of the King Country. If she had had everything—a comfortable home, husband and lover—children —neighbours—-her lot might have been bearable; but of these she had not one.

A three roomed shack of. sorts, fenced off from the rest of jthejsroxjd_by- a. wire fence that in no place approached the shack within a mile; surrounded by the usual stinking pig styes, with the inevitable cow shed- a bare hundred yards from the door; and a husband who had brought her* there on account of his insane jealousy.

Alice John had been the handsomest girl in Eew. She could have married almost anyone, at any time, but Graham Burn, her cousin, came over with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, and married her during leave, in less than a week.

They were a magnifleeirfc couple—she and Graham, and many were the giria who envied her; but could they "lave {een her as Tom Gerard saw her, when ehe had been five years in the King Country, when all her beauty had been done to death, they would have envied her no more.

Yet but for those years Tom- would never have come Into her life—dropped into It, literally, from the sky, on the anniversary of the sixth year of their marriage, when Burn was celebrating the event in his usual wav.

Towards midnight, he rolled on the bed, dead drunk, and for the better part of an hour, Alice sat on her Tipturned 'benzine box, and stared blankly it the blank wall.

Once, in the early days, she had tried to run away, three miles across the h213, to the railway line, where she had Jioped to flag the daylight express. Five hoars it had taken her to cover those three miles—five hoars of agony and fear; and then, as she crouched beside the line, and heard the express come thundering up from the valley below, there had been a faint sound beside her, and she looked up into the distorted, bloated face of her hnsband.

He did nothing then, but take all her shoes and burn them, giving her, in their stead, an old pair of Ha own boots, to wear for the milking: taking even those away when the milking was done. Bare-footed, she could go neither fast Bor far, and in any case, she was utterly epirit-broken and afraid. She had sat for an hour —perhaps for two, before the hum and throb of it penetrated through the waE of her despair. Hum and throb of "an engine—a car engine, she thought at first—sound she had not heard once in five years. Yet how could it be a car when tnere was no road within a dozen miles? For the first time in God: knows how manv years, some sort of emotion P« ne " trated the armour of her stony apathy, and she stumbled up, and out ot tne •^ OOT - A' +1-0-The noise, shattering now, was directiy overhead, and she looked up and saw it -a great blot against the splendour <k the moon-bright sky. Behind it, a trail of blue light from the fuselage madej path of unearthly beauty, while tue stiu air was heavy with the angry zo °£ in » that seemed to hold a note of weariness and unease. + t ,titip(l For a moment she thought she was dreaming; then reaus that the machine was sweeping up an down in ever-lessening circles; wa -\ he wanted to land, yet dared not ; t thought, agonised, ef the bare s^P s crowned hills; stood beating aer helplessly. . ± i-Ua, dis■S» P Le «omcd away into *to roaring back, ior world, she thought, like angry Sv hovering round, a Then her imagination long want and despair, found Dimly at first, and then with claritv, she imagined them— joun -strong men-men who had elements-staked everything, per*»P on one throw —and lost. ■ - vM *n<r— There were men and beautiful because they men, who, realising that this >v*

The first place tW, month j, g ; Ten £ Mary Gurney> Waipekurau, Hawke's Bay, for her rtory "light in Our Darknen."

end, clasped hands in the darkness; said, perhaps—"So long, old chap!" and waited quietly for the crash that would precede the dark.

"Light in our Darkneijs!" Light was what they needed —and she had none to give—none.'

And soon—-in a minute or two, perhaps, those beautiful young bodies would be just so much broken waste, because there was no light. No light—but there "was Graham's wood pile, down on the flat by the deep creek—a pile twenty feet through, and ten high, dry as tinder after the summer drought. Like tinder it would burn if once she could get it going.

Graham -would kill her for it, but what matter? Life as it was now was bnt living deaths —

She turned back into the shack as the 'plane swooped again in the darkness; and, swift and noiseless as a cat, she found matches and half a tin of kerosene; sped like a shadow away down the hillside to Graham's wood pile.

Feverishly, in a dozen spots, she soaked the tinder dry wood, stuffed paper beneath and set fire to the whole. Softly the dry "wind fanned it, and in an incredibly short time, great tongues of flame shot skyward, lighting the ground for yards about it. Twice the 'plane swooped round it, then came hurtling earthwards; landed in the great circle of light and spun on, away into the dark.

Tom Gerard told me the rest with a wealth of vivid detail that made the whole thing live.

Gerard—everybody has heard of him by now, did the pioneer Moth trip from Australia to New Zealand, aad hajf way over ran into a terrific storm—local, it was—lrat it added three hours to his time, and upset all his instruments, so that he had to fly blind. It was dark long before he sighted land, but by the grace of God, it was brilliant moonlight, so that he knew when the dark mass of the earth loomed beneath him. He hadn't the foggiest notion where he- was, and he knew that gas must be pretty low hj then, but though he circled and circled, he could spot no group of light that might disclose a town.

He was to land at Palmerston North, and that is how I happened to be on the south-bound Limited, for Gerard happens to be a particular pal of mine.

Well, he circled, and every minute he expected the juice to give out —and that would be that.

He circled and went as low as he dared, but all he could see was hillswave upon wave of them, stretching away .to nothingness. And t.Ti-pn., just as he had given up all hope, a great light flared up almost Beneath him, and he saw flat ground!

Two swoops decided him, and he made an almost perfect landing, but the old bus finally stopped against a tree stump, with a jerk that seemed to Gerard to dislocate every hone in his body. He sat still for a minute, quite dazed, and profoundly astonished to find that he was still alive.

He expected every second that someone would come, font no one did, so presently he clMbed started back towards the blaze, and there, in the outer circle of light, he came on the most amazing figure he had. ever seen.

Tall, with masses of golden hair tumbled about her face —a ~ sunken, emaciated face, colourless, even in the lurid glare of that immense fire, with cavernous hollows that looked almost as if the eyes were gouged out of the sockets; with a long, draggled skirt beneath a man's coat, and bare feet, that Gerard told me afterwards, must have been covered with blood and abrasions, for she had run half a mile barefooted, down the MIL

She stood and stared at Mm, and he stared back at her, and she spoke abruptly, looking beyond him into the night. "Where's—the other?" "There's no other," answered Gerard, marvelling at the pure melody of that cultured voice. He gestured to the wood pile. "You didn't do that alone?" She nodded, and turned back up the hill, and, dumb with amazement, he followed her. She flitted in front, speechless, and as they went, strange, unpleasant smells were waited to them—cows, pigs, and worse; for of all the bad smells on earth, bad milk is the worst, and it hung over and pervaded everything. Presently they reached a group of what Gerard thought were pigsties, but the woman opened a door in the biggest of the buildings, and stood back, signalling to hrm to enter. Gerard hoped that he did not hesitate, but the smell was so awful that he could not help thinking that she was offering 'him a swill and a bed with a pigThrough tie doorway was a room, about six feet square. Inside, by the feeble light of a storm lantern slung from the roof, he saw a rough hewn plank laid across two stumps; two upturned benzine cases, several empty bottles, and nothing else whatever. The woman came in, shutting the door' behind her, and Gerard gasped and : looked for the window, which consisted of a single pane built into the wall. She seemed to read his thoughts, for she said in that low. tuneful, yet expressionless voice: ''Best to keep the smell shut out!"

Then she crossed to an aperture, covered by a sack curtain, and stood beside it, listening. The noise that came from behind the enrtain sotmded hoggish; but presently the woman pushed the curtain aside, and went through. In a moment she returned with two tins and a small primus stove, which she set down on the table, and with which she proceeded to prepare a meal for Gerard. "There's only bread and butter, and not much of that," she said. "Not even a drop ex that—thank God!" She pushed a bottle aside distastefully, and it crashed to the floor. The woman stood transfixed. Behind the sack curtain, the sounds of hoggish slumber broke abruptly, and a man's voice strident with rage, thick with excess snarled: "Alice! Come to bed, j» 7< Alice neither moved nor spoke, and there was a sound of heavy feet thumpin<r to the floor. The sack was pushed aside and there stood, framed in the doorway, the most magnificent beast .in theTSe of a man that Gerard had ev-er seen. Six foot four probably, with tie torso of a giant, and the face, tawny maned, of a besotted god. He stood some minutes, swaying and Winking" and then he spat at the IS feet. "You -» He called her a filthT name- "Even in this wilderness you're managed to find a lorer!"

Sis neither flinched nor spoke, and Gerard, watching her covertly, thought from her changeless face that every emotion must have been drained out of her long ago. "Hope I'll die, don't you? ,, he sneered. "Die! Me! You'll be dead first, girl! Years and years! No good hoping that!" Hβ laughed rancously, and the girl said: "Not even that —" "Not even that?" snarled the man. "What do you mean?" " — that you were dead —or would die. There isn't any hope anywhere; for anything." He laughed again. "There isn't," he agreed. "Not even — M He made a vile suggestion and Gerard, watching the girl, saw that he'd been mistaken; for a dull, brick-red flush stained her chalky face; and Gerard pulled out his service revolver, and laid it on the table. Gerard is a small man, wiry and tough as whip-cord; but the brute in the doorway could have picked him up with one hand and slapped him with the other, so'Gerard played his trump. "Just another word,- ,, he eaid, pleasantly, "and I'll shoot you, and enjoy doing it." So that was that. The brute stared at Gerard, and Gerard looked him orer calmly, and presently Burn's eyes wavered and he stood dumb. The woman put the primus on the floor and lit it, and Gerard sat idly toying with the revolver, and the fellow stood lounging in the doorway eyeing them speculatively. When the kettle boiled, he broke the silence. •'Any objection to my going outside while "you eat my breakfast?" "The* pleasure "would be mine!" retorted Gerard, ironically. Burn snarled, but Gerard made no move, even though to get out, Burn had to Jass within inches of him, but Burn evidently knew enough of men to know that Gerard would not hesitate in the carrying out of his threat. Burn opened the door, and tSen staggered as if he had been struck. "Hell! The wood pile!" He gestured impotently at the woman. "3o that was the way you guided him here!' . He mouthed profanity until Gerard started to his feet; then ran off down the hill, drooling profanity as he went.. Stolidly the woman closed the door, turned and hung Gerard's leather coat across the single pane, then resumed the making of his tea. Gerard was glad of the tea, and he ate the bread and butter, though the smell of that foul, confined space made him feel sick, and all the time he was conscious that the woman was capable of yet another emotion—fear; though whether of him, or for him, or of her husband, he could not fathom, and wniie he was still wondering, there was a deafening explosion outside that shoo* the wretched hovel to its foundations, and blew the window pane to smithereens. , "My God!" said Gerard. "The old

With one movement he got to his feet and kicked the flimsy door open, and he and the woman tore outside. Burning debris was scattered far and near, and that was all that was left of Gerard's bus. Five gallons of petrol will not run an aeroplane for long, but heat it well in a confined space, and it will make one hell of an explosion. Subsequent investigations showed tbat Burn, crazy with rage and jealousy, had discovered "the Moth, and decided to cremate her in revenge for the-loss wood pile; so he had fetched piece after piece of burnins faggot and stuffed them in under and around the little bos. ' When she was decently heated she went off with a will, and Burn, busy poking a faggot into the blaze, went off with her. ' ' ' They found what was left of him in the morning, and the woman, when she saw it. laughed. She laughed until Gerard thought she was mad, but after a while she pulled herself together, and said, "You"d better shoot the cows, and then well go ov«r the hills to the railroad. We can flag the express." Gerard shot tie cows. They were in full milk, poor brutes, and as she nearest neighbour was twelve miles away, and not friendly, it was the most merciful thing to do. ' She rode bare-back and bare-footed on the old draught hoarse that Burn had used for hauling logs, and they nagged, the very train that I was returning to Auckland on, mourning Gerard as dead. Some two years later, at Christmas, Gerard and Alice Burn were married at St. Mary's, in Auckland. Gerard gave up flying and took a little farm just outside the city. There are two bonny kids —and the four of them are as happy as the day is long.

Even as late as the time of Henry vm. criminals were sentenced to be boiled to death. .There is on record a case of a man who was killed in this way for attempting to poison the then Bishop of Rochester. The Act permitting the infliction of the Mdeons penalty was soon afterwards repealed.