Young Guns

Copyright © 2014 by R.M Hogan.

ISBN:          Softcover            978-1-4931-9237-3

                    eBook                 978-1-4931-9238-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 08/25/2014

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Contents

Chapter One Influence

Chapter Two Titoki

Chapter Three At School

Chapter Four Organised Crime

Chapter Five Very young Guns..

Chapter Six Crickle Creek

Chapter Seven Castle Cliff

Chapter Eight Animals

Chapter Nine Further Education

Chapter Ten Bombs….

Chapter Eleven Pharmaceuticals

Chapter Twelve Revolvers

Chapter Thirteen Arrested

Chapter Fourteen Apprenticeship..

Chapter Fifteen Romance

Chapter Sixteen Misses Ministers and Mr.

Chapter Seventeen One Hundred Eighty

Epilogue

This Book is dedicated to my three sons…Davide…Benjamin & Samuel

Young Guns: Based on a true story with places and names changed to protect individuals. It tells the story of some young people who through boredom and the need to get adrenalin high, begin a career in crime. The main character leads a life full of unusual happenstance which turns about to become an irony of sorts when a young man with a huge number of crimes attributed to him becomes a civil servant working with young criminals.

A boy’s story is the best that is ever told Charles Dickens

Young Guns by Richard Malcolm Hogan June 2005

Based on a true story in which people, places and a few events have been changed slightly, to protect the characters that made this tale happen in the way it did.

In 1966 the highest crime rate in New Zealand was found in one small provincial town. This story tells why.

The beginning…. The sun twinkled upon the leafy fragments of the sea as it stretched far into the distance from where she stood on the wharf. Byron looked up from the bollard that he sat on, as her ladyship moved toward him, tip-toeing along the uneven planks of the dock whilst every eye, peasant and prince, watched as her long skirts glided round her ankles. As she went, silence had suddenly fallen and the familiar sound of the hawsers creaking against their tethers pervaded the atmosphere, broken by the Captain who called out All aboard who’s going aboard. On the boat her companions waited: Mister Gregory the renowned retailer, Mister Murray the physician, Mister Harvey the administrator; while her faithful porter, young Byron remained on the dock, wishing he could join them. The vessel was about 30,000 tons and on her maiden voyage, down the Thames and off to the Americas. As she boarded, hustled along the gangway, preparations were going on up and down the ship, she tried not to look down at the water. There were systems being tested, ropes tidied, luggage being secured, itineraries checked.

Clarice knew she was attractive to most men just by the way they always looked at her, some for too long, others for too short a time, but if she looked back she would turn them red as if she had caught them with a hand in the cookie jar. She also knew she could control them with emotions, emotions she could turn on like a tap and off just as easily. Of her three companions, she knew they all wanted to be the special person in her life, but for now they would have to be happy to all be her very special friends. Only each of them wondered who might be the first. It was Clarice’s choice. Besides this was the era of adventures, wasn’t it?

Chapter One

Influence

In this era, in this reality, Byron saw Clarice come down the track to where the boat was tied against the jetty. Clarice was pretty, with skin like a golden queen peach, naturally blonde, darker than, but nevertheless like a sort of tomboy version, of Norma Jean. She normally always wore jeans and they were pink, white or turquoise.

The jetty was constructed of dirt packed against branches stacked like planks and held back by stakes driven into the streambed. The ropes creaked as they strained with the moving water that pushed against the hull. The sun was warm and sparkled over the ripples in the water. All the guys looked up and paid attention to her and how she pretended to hate it, but she so much wanted to be part of the adventure, to be more than equal even.

Weeks earlier, on a rain-soaked day, the adventure had begun, over in Harvey’s sitting room. His mum had produced homemade ice cream, and the strawberries were from their garden. The movie ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ had just been showing in town. The group, affectionately, and often not so, were known as The Kids. A mood of euphoria rose in them as the one-upmanship rounded the room as they reminded each other of bits of the screen play, and as they did so, embellished it. So it wasn’t long before they had decided to reinvent the adventure for themselves.

Construction began, with fervor, on a boat about fifteen feet long and about two foot six wide. It consisted of long lengths of timber nailed to the sides of several fruit cases, the front one having been modified to a triangular shape to form the bow. The whole thing was then covered with an old tarpaulin; only one problem was encountered- there were the many holes in it!

A solution was found; Gregory and Byron were detailed to take old candles gathered from their families’ back shelves, and melt them into the holes.

A day later, with rowlocks fitted, she was ready. Other children from the general neighbourhood were persuaded to come along and lift it down to the water. All in trepidation, they stood to see if she floated.

Clarice had wondered how the queen felt when she launched one of her ships. Being the logical choice, she was given a champagne bottle filled with lemonade, and bunching up her courage made her speech, to bless all who sailed in this ‘ship’. Given later circumstances this may have been just the right thing to do. Now, today, she was centrally located in her ‘cabin’ - an apple box amidships. The rickety builder’s plank she had just crawled over on all fours was withdrawn to unceremoniously fall into the water. The stream current took them forward.

Great hawsers dropped into the water aft first, then forward. Slowly the great ship moved away from the docks and out into the channel, the tugs pulled but seemed to make so little difference they may as well not have been there at all. Hundreds of coloured paper streamers fell away and floated in the breeze along the side of the ship. The excitement welled inside, to bubble continuously like happiness; she opened her parasol and relaxed in the deck chair nearby, while all about were busy with the navigation process. Lazily she though that soon it would be time for lunch, perhaps she would go for a swim in the ship’s pool or play deck quoits.

A picture of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile popped into her head, and she wondered if the elephant cliffs really looked like elephants, and if the hotel was still there, or if it was all just movie make-believe. Looking up she could now see the hotel. She had in fact spent many a day in, enjoying its ambience, and particularly the beds- they were just divine, as was the company. It was one of her special places… her soliloquy was broken by a blast of the steam whistle.

Chapter Two

Titoki

Drifting with the stream of water, which ran alongside Clarice’s dad’s property they got to the big Titoki tree, which grew high over the front of the section of land. High in its boughs the kids had split large grain sacks down the sides and nailed them between the branches at selected places, about a hands width apart. Being about a person’s length, they formed perfect hammocks on which one could lie with a view of the trees canopy. Perhaps to sleep in the midday sun or to dream of flight as the wind gently rocked the tree. This was Hotel Titoki.

About now Gregory and Harvey, busy bailing water over the side as it was getting deep in the bilges, fancied they were expediting makeshift repairs to the engine room. Murray, who envisaged himself as ship’s captain, was at the helm. This was a borrowed oar over the stern and motivated with a lot of dexterity, which would then turn the boat ever so slightly.

Clarice wished she was in her usual jeans like everyone else, but had worn her one dress today, (for once in her life), as she felt to launch a ship one must look the part, however the slop of the ever increasing water around her feet had made the hem very sodden, and she had to wring it out over the side.

So, everyone being busy at their tasks, no one noticed the arc of bamboo that spanned the creek, or at least they didn’t notice that Murray had his oar stuck in it, and that the boat had continued away without him … until he yelled!

Suddenly Clarice realized she couldn’t swim for him in a long dress, but Harvey was already in the water, heading for Murray, because he knew Murray couldn’t swim. Gregory was generally in a panic, not knowing what he could do except try to control the boat and perhaps get it back to Murray.

Byron, being quite a lot younger than the rest, had never boarded but had gone home. Apparently the adventure was too dangerous for one as young as he.

That was the day Murray nearly drowned. He survived by holding his head above water, grabbing onto the bamboo branches, which proved to be very strong once he had a good hold on the thicker ones. Although Harvey laughed at the episode, Murray ended up home in bed with his mother bashing his ear about how careless he was and how much he would have upset his father once he got home from work and found out what had been going on. To which, Murray pleaded with his mother, bargaining a way so that his father might not take to punishing him.

This ‘near death’ experience for the young was not to be the only one that was impressed on the lives of the ‘kids’. On the other side of the creek lived another bunch of guys, which we knew as the O’Hara’s. A feud developed between the kids and these boys, to the point that one-day a huge, violent war erupted.

Clarice’s father owned the property next to the stream. He was a builder and had a pile of concrete gravel stored there, which was very useful as ammunition for our ‘shanghais’ (or slingshots as the Americans call them.) We had long discovered that red car tire tube rubber was best for springiness and for the most accurate shot a marble would hit the bulls-eye most times.

At the back of the property was a playhouse built of an asbestos material known as fibrolite. The O’Hara’s had punched several holes through it with their shanghais. This was the kid’s fortress and the defense on that day was vastly wanting as the stones flew heavily in their direction.

They also, being of a higher vantage point, managed to inflict some pain now and then, onto someone in the bushes below. They very often did not see them at all, but the fury of the rain of stones that occasionally hit a leg or arm would cause somebody to yell in anguish at the pain. If they were sure of the target they would use a marble, for being nearly absolutely round, it was the most effective and accurate projectile, but then, if they were just about being plain devilish, might load up with a ‘cheerio’. These little cocktail sausages splattered spectacularly and Mr. Carter’s garage, accidentally hit, during a battle sported a grease mark for several years.

Despite this war, which was remembered with particular dread, everyone rarely had wounds that lasted more than that of a deep bruise, at least on our side anyway. That was not to be so for the O’Hara’s. Some weeks after the war had been settled, we heard the call down the street, late one afternoon, that the older O’Hara had, in a quest to impress some girls, climbed a particularly tall tree near the bridge. He then climbed out on a limb, which, under his weight, lowered enough to allow him to alight onto the bridge walkway hand rail. Applause followed.

The girls watched him from the bridge position and gave a good long ovation as he achieved the task. Since several more of the kids had arrived as a result of this great feat, dare or not, he had decided to prove it by repeating the effort again. Except this time the branch broke from the tree. He fell from the bridge height approximately thirty-five feet onto a water pipe, which ran across the creek just a few feet above the water.

He lay there, unmoving, until the ambulance crew arrived. He had broken his back!

A bell rang, up the street, reverberating from curb to curb. A jolly fat man was ringing it .Right behind him was an ancient, steam driven contraption, dressed in bright coloured paintwork, with a fringed sun shade, and propelling itself along on heavy wooden wheels with solid rubber tires.

"Hear ye, hear ye all!