Ian Trafford - Into the Unknown : The Secret WWI diary of Kiwi Alick Trafford No. 25/469

Today I am a little nervy for tomorrow I leave the gorge to join my little brother in the war. I am close to wrapping up the last farm jobs on Fathers list. He has been gone a week now, overdue from his trip to the plains, laid up, I believe, from troubles with his rheumy heart. Mama has gone to find him.

In the early morning, I toss grass seed over the hillsides of the Rough Burn, working for a couple of hours until I hear a gunshot, the prearranged signal with my sister Eva, should she need me. Hastening home, I am disappointed to find I have wasted the walk. It was a shot-back from an explosion, let off by horsemen clearing another slip on the bridle track at the Rocky Cutting.

In the afternoon, I load three horses with a hundred pounds each and start away to the back block where the new men, when father brings them, will continue the job felling trees and splitting posts. What a lovely time. The bush track runs steeply uphill and is uneven with tree roots. The incessant showers and rainstorms that wash the gorge have muddied the trail.

On the highest point, the chestnut horse attempts to double back, spooks into swampy ground and sinks up to his stomach. Cursing and floundering, I heave off his load. The poor beast scrambles out with great sucking sounds and immediately bolts for home. I push on with the two remaining horses, until the track, about ten chain from the top camp, becomes so rough their crupper ropes get hopelessly tangled in the whitey woods. With impending darkness, I dump their loads and head back down.

Beneath me, on a terrace beside the creek, the only signs of life are the cheery glow of the kerosene lamp at the window of the hut and a finger of smoke rising from the chimney, layering into gentle wisps above the fledgling poplar row.

I breathe in the scene of our rugged bush block and the receding ridges of the Raukumara Range. I cannot imagine what awaits me far beyond.

I wander through the fire-blackened stumps, shut two killers in the woolshed pen, unlace my boots and head inside to Evas cooking.

Leaving a fitful nights sleep, I sit on the step in the early mist and spit and stroke my blade, then cut the throats of the waiting sheep, punch off their skins, haul out their guts and hang them from the rough-hewn rafters to await my folks return.

As the sun stabs its rays through the whiteness, I saddle up and ride out of the Waioeka. Perhaps forever.