The Ferret
Out of Print
The Ferret tells the story of Sergeant Eric Batchelor, DCM and bar, m.i.d who was one of New Zealand’s most decorated soldiers of World War Two. He was known as the ‘Waimate Warrior’ in his South Canterbury home town but as secretly as “The Ferret”, by his commanding officers during the war. That name arose from his exploits as an adventurous youngster in and around Waimate as much as his night time exploits against the German Army when just 21 years old.
Such was his conduct and courage under fire that he won the rare Distinguished Conduct Medal, not once but twice and was the only New Zealand serviceman of World War Two to do so. The DCM is surpassed only by the Victoria Cross, the highest military award in the British Commonwealth.
ISBN 978-0-9941059-9-8 Published 2017 by John Douglas Publishing. Hardcover with dust jacket. 250 x 190mm. 190 pages.
The Irish Convict Series
True stories of several real Irishmen in the early 1800s are told through the adventures of the fictional Maurice O'Brien. After being convicted and transported to New South Wales, he escapes to New Zealand to carve out a new life with heathen savages and a new name. Hoping for peace and anonymity, he finds anything but. Maurice witnesses New Zealand’s pivotal moments as the Maori grapple with the arrival of Pakeha. When tensions rise over land, he must decide whose side is he on.
Maurice O’Brien is an Irish youth struggling with the mysteries of the transition from boyhood to manhood in Ireland in the 1830’s. Like most young men of the time he was bound to get into trouble with the church, his family and British authorities.
His new life as an Irish convict in the New South Wales penal colony was difficult than Maurice could have imagined. From a tiny well-ordered rural community in Ireland he was caged up with the roughest men in the British Isles for three months at sea.
When Maurice O’Brien reaches New Zealand he was a mutineer and an escaped convict. Surviving in the so-called land of heathen savages and cannibals would be as difficult and dangerous as New South Wales. He has to now settle in a new land.
In spite of the dangers of sailing small boats around Cook Strait and surviving a gunfight with one of the most ferocious musket armed tribes in New Zealand, Maurice O’Brien had made his home in this far flung new British colony.
