"The hay will be ready to cut soon," said Fred one evening as he picked up the paper after tea. "It will be the thirtieth time we have made hay on Okoropong."
"This should have been the year we went home to England," observed his wife, her needles clicking on the balaclava she was making to send in the parcel the Gordonton women were preparing for the navy.
"Instead the civilized countries are fighting for their very existence; the second time since we have been here," said Fred glancing at the headlines. "And the news isn't very good at all. The Jap army seems to be sweeping through the Islands unchecked. Will it be Australia or New Zealand that's their goal, I wonder?"
"Haymaking will be rather different this year," remarked Esther. "What are you going to do?"
A year or so before the Waikato Mounted Regiment had held maneuvres in Waiouru, and riders from all over the area had taken their own animals. Somehow, strangles broke out among the horses, and farm hacks unused to hard feed and to the cold of Waiouru, with few having developed immunity, succumbed quickly to the disease. A mob was brought back to Gordonton to recover. Which should have been alright, except that a neighbour's school pony somehow made contact with a horse that was still contagious and brought the disease to the school pony paddock. The school ponie carried it home to the working horses. By 1943, carrying firms had extended their services to Gordonton, and very seldom did the waggons go to town for fertilizer, timber or any of the heavy goods needed on the farms. The horses had little contact with animals from other farms and no resistence had been built up and the effect of the strangles epidemic was devastating. Probably half of the working horses in the district died.
Usually Mary took the cream down to the roadside stand in the dray, but this morning, because both horses were unwell, she harnessed Jock and Charlie onto the waggon. At the cream stand on the main road, she hitched the reins round the brake, and climbed down the waggon to lift off the cans of cream.
Charlie was restless, tossing his head and stamping his feet as Mary maneuvred the first cans off the waggon. Suddenly the horse found he could not breathe properly. He plunged forward; the waggon swayed; Mary ran up the tray to try to reach the reins, but Charlie's panic communicated itself to Jock. Off went the horses at a gallop, spinning round the corner on two wheels, the cans crashing and rattling and the waggon lurching like a cork in the ocean. With cool courage Mary succeeded in reaching the reins, calling to the terrified horses as she guided them up the steep hill that led to the house, rather than taking the sharp bend on the track to the cowshed.
"There's another right-angle bend at the house," she thought, "but perhaps the hill will steady them."
It did. Charlie dropped dead at the top of the hill, and Jock, gallant Jock who had never refused a task offered, died quietly in the paddock that night. Lassie, Esther's wedding present from her father, went peacefully in her sleep not long afterwards.
A new Farmall tractor stood in the "Blacksmith's" shed and a Fordson
with big iron wheels made its home where the well-kept harness was still carefully in place by each nameplate.
"What are you going to do about the hay making?" asked Esther again, and Fred sat up with a start.
"I was thinking about the horses," he confessed. "The government has said that soldiers from Hopahopa will be available to assist farmers haymaking."
"Bill says he will come if you need him," said Alexa shyly. "After all, we'll be married next year, and he wants to help."
"We'11 cut Westinghouse paddock for hay this year too," said Fred. "I do not think the hill will be too steep to work on, but I am worried about the machinery. It's all built for use with horses and the allignment is all wrong to use with tractors. It is difficult to buy the right equipment while this war is on, but I do not like using gear that might not be safe. We will just have to be very careful."
While Fred took the car to Hopahopa (the military camp near Ngaruawahia) to collect the two young soldiers who were to help, the rest of the team went down to the hayfield.
"I'll take the rake on the Farmall." suggested Edith, a qualified teacher now home for the holidays. "I've never driven it before but I guess it's not much harder to drive than a car."
Mary's husband, Alec, showed her where the gears were, and off she went.
"I don't like the noise this thin makes.'' thought the driver as she went up the rather steep slope in the paddock. Suddenly she realized that the front wheels were lifting off the ground. Quickly she changed into a lower gear and the tractor obediently went back onto its four wheels to finish the journey to where the stack was to be built. With knees still trenmbling, she switched off the engine, reflecting that her father had remarked that a rake built to be drawn by horses wasn't really suitable to pull behind a tractor. "But it will have to do till the war is over."
The stacker was almost erected.
"You can get some hay," Alec called as he tightened a guy-rope. The tumbler sweep had been built tc be pulled by a horse, but this year, it was fastened in front of the truck; nine wooden teeth tipped with steel that ran along the ground to slide under the hay. Edith got into the truck to bring in enough hay to form the base of the stack. She set off for the top of the hill that was part of this paddock. Fred and the soldiers, Jim and Tom, had just arrived but they all looked in consternation as the truck with its load of hay in front, came hurtling down the hill to stop with a jerk at the stack.
"It would be better not to go so fast," said her father mildly (though he really had got a fright). "If the teeth struck a snag, the truck would turn a sommersault, and they'd break, and we do want to get the hay in today." Edith knew all the suggestions he'd left unsaid.
"But the truck wouldn't go any slower," she said, "I was nearly pushing the brake pedal right through the floor boards."
"But you also had your foot on the clutch, I think." said her father. Thinking it over, Edith agreed that was what she had done, and next time with the truck in low, she came back much more carefully.
They started off with a horse pulling the grab-loads, and young Rewa guiding it into place. When Jim put a whole truck-load on, old Duke gave a groan and flopped down.
"He's too slow," said Tom, one of the soldiers, "let's put the car onto it."
Fred was reluctant. He and Tom were stacking, and he felt a strange breathlessness as he tried to keep up with the younger man. Like most farmers who have passed the 50 mark, he did not want to admit that he was not as strong as in other years. But the hay must go in.
So the change was made, The car was hitched to the stacker; Alec and one of the soldiers took over the work on the stack. Fred, himself, drove the truck bringing in the hay, while Edith and Rewa were sent to rake all the rest of the paddock. Mary was told to bring down the lunch.
"It will be quicker to have it here," they said, "we'll get all the paddock in in one day instead of taking two."
Forward and back went the car. Forward and back, Up went the grab with its load of hay, then down for more. Up and down. Up and down. The loads were very big now as the grab dropped a whole sweep-load onto the stack and the two working up there had no rest.
By evening, the hay was in the stack. Fred took the soldier lads back to the barracks and the rest of the team went to milk the cows. The job was done, but somehow the exhileration that usually attended the end of the haymaking was missing.
"The youngsters make me feel old and finished," thought Fred. "I don't think this modern passion for hurry is good on a farm."
"I did not hear a sky lark all day," thought Edith, "and I still smell the petrol fumes.''
Alexa, who had been driving the car most of the day, just felt sick. "The rock, rock of the car as it moved forward and back; the smell of the hot engine....."Oh, dear, it's not my idea of a good haymaking day,"
The two soldiers just thought it had been a day out of their training - not that they were keen to fight, but someone had to stop the Japs soon.
After tea, Fred prepared to go out. "It's Home Guard tonight," he reminded his wife.
"Esther looked at her husband's tired face. He seemed to be limping more than usual too.
"Do you need to go tonight?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied responding more to the loving concern in her voice than the actual question. "We're making plans for a series of maneuvres with the Raglan company, and besides, I've promised to take that new man from along Sainsbury Road."
About 100 men gathered at the Gordonton Hall for the parade where Don Riddell was the C.O. and the genius behind the success of the company.
Years later someone said, "You know, Don Riddell was one of the most courageous men I have ever met. In spite of being in a wheel chair and ulmost blind, I never heard him complain. His ideas at Home Guard kept us on our toes."
Fred Said, "When I first came to Gordonton we would say 'Where Don is there will be fun and laughter.'"
At the parade, sticks were given out. Some of the men had shotguns or 303's but no guns or ammunition were available for Home Guard Units, at least not in the early part of the war.
The bag caught on the crank handle and the truck could not pull it along.
"Never mind. It's good exercise with sticks instead," said Claude Mexted who took the P.T. part of the programme.
Don Riddell explained the rest of the evening's work.One platoon were to take up their position in trenches near Woodlands Homestead. "The enemy" was to take the homestead. It was a moonless night, and the defenders had covered their trench with the dry bracken that grew plentifully around the area. They were sure none could come near with out being heard this time. Silently, one of the "enemy" approached the trench, (the Maori men were particularly good at this), and he was undetected until he threw a match onto the dry bracken which burst into flames immediately. As the men dived through the fire above their heads, the attackers easily "popped them off".
"That's not funny!" they stormed, some of them very angry indeed but they did realize what would have happened in a real war situation.
On the way home, another man in the car told the new recruit that on a previous parade, they had assembled at the barn at Okoropong.
"It's ideal for the purpose." he said. "It's almost completely hidden under the big macrocarpa trees and a solid barbary hedge surrounds the paddock and there is room for us all inside. We were to reach the Horsham Downs Hall without being captured by that platoon. Across the swampy bed of the old Lake Tunawakapeke the fences are rather low, but there's a drain beside them. Several of the men forgot the drains and jumped the fence to land splash in the water. You'd be surprised how much noise that makes on a clear night; and it's much harder to move quietly when your boots are swishing with water, too."
"But what's the use without guns and ammunition?" demanded the new man. "We couldn't do any real good."
"I suppose not," Fred answered rather reluctantly, "just delaying tactics really. We can blow up the bridges," (he did not tell of the gelignite stored for that purpose in his wool shed)" but a modern army can build a bailey bridge quicker than we could blow one up. Our only real hope is to stop them before they reach New Zealand. The most important function of the Home Guard is that in working together like this, we are getting to know the countryside and learning to take orders and co-operate with each other. New Zealand farmers are individualists, you know."
References:
Rushes ‘an Raupo, To cows an’ Clover by Edith Williamson