The air had begun to shimmer above the swamp that lies beyond our swimming rocks. Mr Sheffield, who owns the biggest farm in the valley, would like to see the swamp drained. ‘Good land going to waste, John,’ I heard him tell my father once. But it’s a special place to Maori people; they have stories of treasure hidden there.

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ grunted Mr Sheffield, when Father reminded him of this. He was in a bad mood, because Mother and Uncle Niall had told him we’d already taken too much from the Maori, and it was time we left them what was rightfully theirs.

‘There’s real riches, good money in this land, if we develop it properly,’ Mr Sheffield snapped. My parents and Uncle Niall nodded politely, but stood firm.

A hawk hovered above the swamp. There always seems to be one there — just one, never any more. Magpies scolded it from trees nearby. Mother told me once of a hawk she’d seen in Scotland, just before their ship sailed and when she could still see. ‘It shone like a jewel, Duncan lad,’ she murmured, and I seemed to see it myself, hanging like this one in the morning sky.

Treasure … jewels: I had work to do! I spat on my palms, seized the axe, and made the first cut.

I’m good with an axe. Father says so. He taught me how to let its heavy steel head do the work, to keep my footing secure, legs wide apart, shoulders swinging loosely, angling the blade so it cuts a deep V, then widens it, never sticking or jamming. I began to relax as the blade lifted, fell, bit. The notch deepened. Sweet-smelling chips flew; my body grew warmer.

Mr Sheffield says every young man must fight for King and Country. He and his daughter Lily argue about it, Jess says. She and Lily are the same age, fast friends with the same strange views about what women can do.

Lily is a tall lass, with dark hair and green eyes. Those eyes look hard at me when she asks me questions — and she’s always asking, like Jess. Just because men are stronger than women, does that make them better? Does any government have the right to force a mother’s son to fight? I didn’t like her at first: the spoiled daughter of a rich landowner, I thought. Aunt Janet married into a family like the Sheffields, and now she lives at the other end of the country. She told Mother she couldn’t understand why people wanted to spend their lives grubbing around in a backward place like this. We get just one letter a year from her, at Christmas.

So yes, I felt suspicious of Lily at first. She thinks she’s cleverer than I am, I grumbled to myself. But now, I look forward to her company, her lively mind and green eyes. At times, I have even thought . . .