Greg Scowen: The Spanish Helmet

‘I thought that automatic translations were supposed to be shoddy and hopeless.’ Rose teased Matt, reminding him of the French websites that were machine-translated into English, which he always laughed at. They had often chuckled over some of the lost meanings, or odd new ones, together.

‘Oh, they are. But it’ll take a few days for the full human translation to be completed. A trusted colleague from the European languages department is already on it. I just want to get a bit of a preview, as it were. I’m sure I can at least make sense out of what the software will offer me.’

‘Back in a sec.’

Rose took off out of the room. Matt had no idea where she had gone. Less than a minute later she reappeared and proudly put a shiny new laptop in front of Matt on the table.

‘I took your laptop to the repair guy. He said it was beyond help, so I thought I’d treat you to a new one. Everything’s been copied over.’

Matt looked up at Rose full of love. This woman managed to single-handedly renew his trust in mankind. She made him feel like gold every time he saw her. He had no idea what he would do without her in his life and hoped they would be friends, family, for years to come.

‘You shouldn’t have, Rose, you can’t afford it!’

‘Rubbish, your rent for the last month paid for that. I figured, if this little muppet won’t let you get to the computer, I’d get the computer to you.’

Matt smiled and lifted the lid of the curvy Asus computer and pressed the power button. He barely heard a thing as it sprang to life and Windows 7 greeted him. Retrieving the memory stick from his satchel, which thankfully was right next to him, he placed it in a USB socket and loaded Google’s translation tool up on his screen. He copied one journal entry at a time into the text box, and marvelled at the English, albeit imperfect, which greeted him at the click of a button.

‘I’m gonna put some dinner on. I figured you would be hungry, so I got us some stewing beef,’ Rose said, as she walked over to the kitchen bench and clanged stuff around.

Matt continued quietly scanning the entries through the first half of the journal. He had already had this part summarised to him by Julia, so there was nothing new or shocking, but it was nevertheless a riveting read. The journal continued in the same manner most of the way through toward the end. The translation wasn’t the best but it was readable. Only once had Matt thought something was seriously wrong with it, when the journal seemed to spring wildly over a section about the North Island. But then Matt remembered the missing pages. Odd, but not critical. Glancing at his watch as he heard Rose say something about dishing up in a few minutes, Matt realised he had been reading the journal for over two hours.

‘I just have a few pages to go,’ Matt said. ‘It’s great stuff. The Spanish definitely discovered New Zealand before we did. They co-existed with the Maori and all.’

Matt copied the last entries across to the Google translator and read through them. He was very close to the end when it happened. The words flew out of the page at him and nearly threw him off his chair. He must have jumped, because Meridian leaped off his knee like he had been shocked with a cattle-prod. The words on the screen rendered Matt utterly speechless.

Thursday, December 12, 1529

The ways of the Waitaha are interesting. They are a gentle and loving race, yet they are also warriors. Cannibalism is not unknown to us, and we have witnessed occasion when there has been an attack from an outside tribe, and the killed have been decapitated and parts of them eaten. They only eat defeated enemies though. Almost comically, they won’t eat of the lesser men. Only the strong and worthy opponents are worthy of the dinner mats. The people also practice infanticide. Two of the half-cast children were killed before Tane put a stop to it. Both of them were girls. Thankfully, he couldn’t allow it to happen to his own heir.

I want to learn more and to find out about the other people. Particularly, I really want to know more about the race of people described to me by the natives that we met in the harbour we explored on Isla del Norte. So, we have decided to venture on another exploration. This time we will sail north to the straits and take supplies from the harbour there. Then we shall continue up the western coast of Isla del Norte to the long harbour I wrote about at the time. This is, therefore, my last entry before we return to those stones in the north to find out more about the people who were here before the natives. I have removed the three pages from my journal where I wrote about this before. I need them to locate the harbour again. To summarise the content of those pages, in the event that something happens to me on this journey, I will briefly reiterate here what we saw. My journal will, once again, be safely stored in the jar buried in the cave until my return.

Summary of Thursday, October 20, 1527

We have entered the harbour successfully and explored it as deep inland as it goes. There are wonderful forests and many villages throughout the harbour, and the people have all been friendly, trading with us as we explore. Finally, we have returned to one of the villages near the mouth of the harbour. Here, we have anchored and gone ashore. The villagers were very excited to see us. White men, white men, they chanted. They led us on foot down the coast, five or six leagues, where we were shown a field of standing stones. This array of large obelisks is familiar to me. Exactly the same styles of stones can be found throughout Galicia. The natives say stones were erected like this by a race of men hundreds of years before us. The natives seemed to think that the stones would mean something to us. The excitement they had couldn’t be hidden. Is it because we are white-skinned? Do they relate stones like this to fair-skinned people? It was a strange experience. We are back in the village tonight. I want to spend some time exploring the hills and forests around here.

Summary of Wednesday, November 9, 1527

We have explored a great deal. Over this time we have found more and more sites of stones in the forests. Someone had established a civilisation here. I asked the local tribe about the stones. They are from the first people, the ancient ones, they explained. When they arrived here, the mountain or stone people were already here. They learned from them the ways of the moon, stars and sun, though much has been forgotten. Over the years, they have killed most of these people. The ones that remain are feared and respected. The fact that these men live, makes them Gods. They are highly intelligent people. The natives tell stories about the ancients to the children, saying they are fairies. Little Gods. They barely ever see each other now. The stones remain standing.

Matt approached the imposing Wallis Memorial theatre with confidence. He was fifteen minutes early, giving himself plenty of time to get everything set up for the lecture. He savoured the thought of the announcement he was about to make. This was the making of him. Dr. Matthew Cameron would be, from this day onwards, the revisionist responsible for discovering the true history of New Zealand. He smiled inwardly as much as on the surface. Matt felt great.

He took his place behind the podium. He wasn’t nervous, just excited. This was his first official lecture as Head of History at the University of South-West England. The promotion was announced as a response to his discovery. Dwight Pick was furious, and proud enough to resign when offered the deputy head role. The last thing Matt had expected was to be given Dwight’s job. But he wasn’t going to complain. It was his dream job.

He fidgeted with the mouse, trying to calm his excitement, as students, fellows, and members of the public streamed in. There was a purpose about their actions. No one was meandering about looking lost or unsure what they were there for. No, everyone seemed to know exactly what they were coming to hear. The lecture had, after all, been billed as the lecture-event of the year. Posters had popped up all over the campus during the last week, and the announcements all made it clear that some exciting research was going to be revealed. The theatre was packed to capacity and overflowing in a matter of minutes.