Free The Soldier who Said No by Chris Marnewick

intimidate competitors in the hunt for scarce methamphetamine or to rob the local dairy.
    Of the nineteen people arrested in the Urewera raids, only three were Tuhoe. The tribe’s anger intensified. Free of the police presence on their lands, the training moved to the more inaccessible valleys, where no white man had yet set foot, and increased in both frequency and intensity. The recruits got stronger and fitter. The training moved from basic drills to advanced techniques. Dummy wooden rifles were exchanged for real ones and blank ammunition for live rounds. Their training had started long before the October raids, and by the end of the year the recruits had the look of soldiers. A passing-out parade was organised and prizes awarded for the best performances in a variety of skills: tracking, marksmanship and logistics. Every prize winner was immediately allocated a role as an instructor for the new intake. The other graduates from the course went deeper into the forest for specialist training in urban guerrilla operations, intelligence gathering and evaluation as well as the manufacture of explosives from commonly available goods like household bleach, diesel and fertiliser.
    It was planned that each class of twenty-four would be involved in the training of the next class.
    Henderson and Kupenga followed Emma de Villiers from her house to the hospital. They kept their distance to avoid detection, but in the last-minute Christmas rush, there was little danger of her becoming aware of their unmarked car, unless, of course, she was expecting to be followed. They watched her enter the hospital before parking their car. Emma led her daughter, a little girl about six or seven years old, by the hand.
    The hospital, a nondescript two-storied building, was at the upper end of Brightside Road, at the foot of Mount Eden, in the wealthy suburb of Epsom. The two detectives sneaked into the hospital, trying to be inconspicuous. Henderson leaned across the desk and flashed his warrant card at the nurse at the reception desk. ‘I need to speak to you in private. Where can we go?’
    The nurse was used to authority and pointed to a door behind the counter. ‘Let’s go into the office.’
    ‘The woman and the little girl who came in just ahead of us, who are they visiting?’
    ‘The patient in Room 6. His name is De Villiers.’
    Henderson and Kupenga exchanged a glance.
    ‘Where can we wait?’ Henderson asked. ‘We need to see him.’
    ‘But we don’t want his partner to see us,’ Kupenga added.
    ‘There’s a bench outside the women’s general ward around that corner over there.’ The nurse pointed. ‘I’ll call you when they’ve left,’ she said.
    Henderson and Kupenga made themselves comfortable outside the women’s ward. It had eight beds and there were visitors around every one of them. An hour later the visitors had left, but the nurse hadn’t called them. They slowly approached the door of Room 6. They heard voices inside. They stood on either side of the door, not knowing what to do.
    ‘What’s this button for?’ they heard a small child asking.
    There was a pause before they recognised De Villiers’s voice. ‘To raise the backrest of the bed.’ His voice sounded tired, like he was in pain.
    ‘Oh,’ said the little voice. ‘Let me see.’
    ‘No, Zoë, Dad can show you next time we come to visit.’ They recognised Emma de Villiers’s voice. They would have preferred to speak to De Villiers in her absence, but the Prime Minister wanted results and the media were beginning to ask questions. They had to speak to De Villiers within the hour.
    ‘No, it’s okay,’ they heard him say. His voice was followed by the whirring of an electrical motor.
    ‘Do it again.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘You didn’t say please.’
    There was a small pause.
    ‘And what is this thing for?’ It was the child again.
    ‘It’s medicine,’ Emma de Villiers said.
    ‘It’s a blood transfusion,’ Pierre de Villiers