Te Aukati

An historical 'play on reality' in which the reader is given the role of an eighteen-year-old militiaman serving at a frontier redoubt in 1867. He and two colleagues hire two teenage Maori prostitutes for an expedition south to search for gold reputed to be found on the border of the Maori King Country. Initially feeling sorry for his prostitute, the reader comes to love her. She, however, despises him and has her own agenda involving kin from across the border. The main story revolves around the two young people trying to overcome their context enough to respect each other. As the militiamen pan for gold, the group is also joined by two lots of refugees fleeing south. The stories of the three groups, and a small band of Maori waiting across the border, intermingle as tensions rise towards the climax which reveals the reader to himself.