Henry Edmund Monk

Hi. recently i have been writing a story about my great great grandfather. I hope you like the intro




The sun broke the hills in the same glorious fashion as every morning. Within minutes the town of Wellington was ablaze with activity, farmers preparing for a long day ahead. But Henry was already awake and out in the fields, enjoying the moments of silence that every morning brought him. His sheep were awake as well and were standing around him, letting him stroke their white wool gently. Henry picked up one of the lambs that was running past and placed it carefully on his lap. He stroked it’s head until it fell asleep then placed it back on the damp grass for it’s mother to take care of. He lay back and looked up at the morning sky and sighed deeply. Another day in Wellington, another day of the same old things.
Henry was back in the house by eight o’clock, his father angry as usual about his lack of appearance for the morning jobs. He managed to avoid his father as much as possible before starting his day’s work. He was a shepherd, he had been since he was twelve, and loved his job. His entire life revolved around the sheep that he had to take care of, his money, time and love all went into the flock of one hundred. The sheep were particularly restless that day, walking around the hills far away from where they should have been. The grass was a deep green because of the torrential rain that had hit the area over the last month and the sheep were, as normal, trying to find their own place with the best grass. The grass is always greener on the other side. That may be so, but it was causing Henry Monk trouble.
At noon he counted his sheep, as he did every day and found that, as he expected he was two sheep short. He normally wouldn’t have bothered trying to look for them as they would wander back, ironically at feeding time, but these were the new lambs from the prize sheep of the farm and his father would not be happy if they were lost. He called over the mother and walked with her around the perimeter of the farm, listening for the frightened calls of the lambs. But no matter how hard he searched he couldn’t find them.
Huge hills dotted the landscape, trees sanding on the edge of them. The valleys between them were deep and often had streams running through them. As a child Henry had loved playing in the cool clear water, especially in the summer when the sun was shining and you could see your reflection in the stillness. He had played for hours in the water, in his own world of fun and excitement. He would only retreat from the water when his skin was wrinkled and folded and he was suffering from hypothermia. His mother would always tell him that it was not doing his body any good putting it through that stress all the time, but it never stopped. The simple creeks didn’t interest him anymore. He much preferred heading to the river on the far side of the property with his father and fish for Salmon. He never caught any, his father on the other hand would catch enough to feed the family for a week. But his father would always say that they had caught them together and he never even had to gut the fish.
The sun was starting to lower in the sky by the time that he returned to the farm, and he was still empty handed. He told his father that he was going to go and look for the sheep, even if it meant that he would be out all night. He had been camping before, very rural kid had, and had even gone by himself, but he knew that he was going to be further away from the farm than he had ever been before, and it would be night.

“Please father,” he pleaded. His father was, as usual being protective of his youngest son and not letting him go without a fight.
“How will I know you are safe,” his father questioned.
“Don’t you trust me,” Henry replied.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you. I just couldn’t live with myself if something happened.”
“If I never get to go then how will I know how to take care of the farm when you’re gone?”
“Not this again.”
“None of my brothers want to take the farm on, so it’ll have to be me,” Henry said defiantly.
This was an argument that they often had. Henry was one of seven sons that his father had and none of the previous six had wanted to take on the farm when the father died. This left the father in a precarious position. He didn’t want to leave the farm to the exited seventh son. He didn’t want his farm to become just another modernised farm in a district that was once pure and clean from all things not invented before 1900. He wanted it to stay that way, but with the world’s technology increasing so rapidly he was sure that his son would take his land and turn it into a factory. But he could hardly deny his son a share of the family wealth.
The father sighed, “I just don’t know what to do. I will let you go… but you had better bring me back a sheep or two.”
Henry jumped into the air, rejoicing his mental victory. He ran over across the room to whre his father sat slumped in his chair and kissed him on the cheek, thanking him over and over. When he left his father, Henry ran up the stairs to his room. The house was built out of wood frames with a less-than-solid roof. The inside of the second story was blue, the coat of paint cracked and dusty. Near the end of the house there was a hole in the wall where Henry’s older brothers had once kicked a ball into it. The layout of the area was quite simple. On the far side of the room one could see the bedrooms, four of them, all lined up neatly. When you came up the stairs you could see, on the right, a window that opened up a view of all of the east side of the farm. To the left there was a room with a large fireplace, lit all year round and deep purple velvet couches circled around it.
In winter the entire family would crowd into that room and their mother would cook jacket potatoes in the fire and they would eat them, savouring the warmth. At night no one would want to leave the room to go to sleep, so often they just talked until the stars left the sky and the sun came up. The things they talked about, life, the farm and more recently the unrest in Europe. That was becoming more and more of a talking point in family discussions.
“let the Germans even try to fight us,’ Henrys eldest brother would say, “They’d never get here, not with Britain standing in their way.”
“Now dear,” their mother would say, “we must savour the peace while it lasts. We don’t want to be all off at war too quickly.”
Henry didn’t ever know where he stood. He loved the sheep and he never wanted to leave the farm, but all of his friends were talking about the excitement and adventure that would be right over the sea if they chose to fight. And it was decent pay. Many of the young men of the town had signed up for the army, hoping to get in there before the rush came.

Henry moved to his room, the smallest, with a sloping roof which allowed only enough room for one bed, and a closet which sat near the door. There was also a window that faced towards the hills in the west so every night he could watch the sun set and the stars rise. His room wasn’t much but he enjoyed being alone and not sharing a room. He loved being alone, so he could read and plan his life, wild fantasies about adventure and excitement. He longed for something bigger, not that he didn’t like the farm. He wanted to know what was beyond the mountains in the south and the rising sun in the west. There has to be more to life than the fields, the sheep and the hills. His life had been the same ever since he was born and he wanted the winds of change to come and blow through his life. His father was right to think that he would change the farm if he was able to take control of it. The world was too new for things to be the same.
Henry packed his belongings. A warm pair of clothes, his trusty boots that his father awarded him when he turned twelve to honour his shepherd and a wide brimmed hat, finest quality, made of leather was all that he had to pack. He walked back through the house, past the kitchen in which his mother was busy cooking the night’s dinner. His mother tossed him a small pack of food and wished him luck. He then headed to the shed which lay about twenty metres from the house. It housed everything from paint to food supplies and even an occasional cow that would manage to get in.
In the darkest corner of the large aluminium shed lay a tribute to Henrys grandfather. His grandfather had lived in South Africa for his entire life, working in the mines. He had been in the militia whilst working there and had fought in many battles against the natives. Henry too had been born in South Africa But his grandfather had been dead for almost ten years by then. Henry never knew how his grandfather died, but he liked to imagine that it had been heroically. The shrine to his Grandfather consisted of pictures of him and his friends, standing by mining equipment smiling, even though there wasn’t much to smile about. The battles were frequent and peace was always tense. They still had something to smile about though. These pictures sat on a wooden desk that was bought as the first piece of furniture that was bought by the family when they arrived in New Zealand.
In a glass case above the desk there lay a rifle that the grandfather had owned. It was a beautiful weapon, crafted in 1850 by the finest gunsmiths. Henry opened the case that made a creak and took the weapon out. It was loaded so he avoided the trigger but play aimed and shot at items in the shed. A bicycle, the wall and an old tin were all shot in his imaginary rampage.
Henry had played with the gun before but had always placed the gun back, safely in its case. This time he kept it with him, placing it in the pack that housed his camping gear. He moved to the other side of the shed, pushing past the collections of antiques that his family had acquired over the years before finally reaching where the family’s small tent was packed neatly in the corner. Henry dragged it out of the shed, there was not enough space to lift it in the shed and then placed it in his pack. It weighed down the pack hugely, and Henry had to brace himself to stop from falling over. But he wouldn’t give his father the pleasure of seeing him fail to even get down the road.
Henry walked to the front room to say goodbye to his father. He was sitting in the same chair that he had been in when he had left him and as he walked over his father brushed him away. Henry wasn’t too worried though, his father was often in bad moods.
Henry walked down the path away from his home, excited and refreshed by the freedom he had been granted. The trust that his parents had given him had been broken already though, with his stealing of the rifle. He knew that he wasn’t going to have to use it, but in the troubled times in which he lived it was always good to have some method of protection.
Henry followed a ledge that stood between two deep valleys that had been cut away over time by the creeks that flowed in them. They looked so harmless but their power was not to be underestimated. The ledge between the valleys ran almost forever, following the creek before opening up into a wide circle ending which seemed the end of the path. Henry was only half way down the ledge when he stopped to take a breath. In the silence he noticed the quiet noise of the water in the creek. The sounds of the water trickling were calming for Henry and he decided that he would set up camp at the end of the ledge, as to begin his search for the missing sheep.
With an objective finally, Henry picked up his pace and started to jog towards the end. He arrived at the end and collapsed onto the green grass, taking in his surroundings. The ledge was now widened into a rough circle of twenty or so metres across. It was fairly clear, except for two trees that sat three metres away from each other. There was an area in the middle of the clearing that seemed to hold a kind of natural fireplace, which would block out too much smoke and still cast light over the entire clearing. There was no firewood though, and Henry knew he would have to make the long trip back along the ledge to get to any other trees.
The ledge was amazingly untouched though, and Henry felt some kind of attachment to the place that he had discovered. He set up the tent, a slow and gruelling process, and one he had never attempted before. Wooden bars made up the framework while a skin of plastic sheetin covered the outside of the tent, shielding him from any trouble. When the tent was completed, he prepared himself for the journey back to the forest on the other side of the ledge. He moved towards where his bag was and tipped it upside down, letting everything fall out: he was only going to make one trip to get firewood. The first item that Henry saw though was his grandfather’s rifle and it made him feel somehow dirty. He quickly placed the weapon in his tent, not wanting it to desecrate the campsite with its fierceness.
As Henry moved back along the ledge he realised how that single moment had changed him. When he was younger, that gun had been one of the best things he had ever seen. He had always wanted to touch it, and when he finally plucked up the courage to do so, he always felt so powerful afterwards. But then, when he had taken it out of the Backpack, he had realised the true nature of the gun. It was a weapon. People had died when its dark trigger had been pulled. In its own sense the gun had caused thousands of people to change. How many children had grown up without a father? How many mothers had mourned the loss of a son because of this one weapon? The gun was no longer a toy in Henry’s mind; it was a mindless killer, which should never have to be used.
In his wonderings Henry almost missed the entire walk and when his eyes came back into focuse.