Dreadnought Jim

by Sid Marsh

Dreadnought Jim is set in the South Pacific Ocean, at the turn of the 18th century. Hop aboard the first whaler Albion working the Kermadec grounds, then swing southwards with the three-master for the Cannibal Isles.

Some years later, a strange brigantine sails down the Northland coast and anchors off Waiheke Island. Ngati Paoa, the resident tribe, receive the vessel and its rag-tag crew with mixed feelings, but the encounter presents a rare opportunity to trade for novelty items and powerful weapons.

Stone Age Polynesians press together, nose-to-nose, with Age of Enlightenment pirates. Can it end happily ever after?

Dreadnought Jim is a Pakeha-Maori who was adopted by Ngati Paoa and lived with the tribe for over two decades. These are his accounts, soon to be followed by others. They are taken from his long lost journals discovered recently in a small tin trunk buried at the foot of an ancient puriri tree near Te Matuku.