The Nevis Valley in Central Otago is a stunning, challenging place. A gravel road reaches it over a mountain range from the Cromwell/Bannockburn area. It has a couple of farms, a few houses - some used, some in ruins - and a small graveyard. One of the inhabitants was a soldier, and the task of researching his military record has already been done.
CITY POLICE COURT
Wednesday, SEPTEMBER 26. (Before Mr H. A. Young, S.M.) Drunkenness.—William Powell, Charles Henry Heatly, and Albert James Dillon were each fined 10s, or 48 hours' imprisonment, and Duncan Kearns McDiarmid, who did not appear, was fined 20s, in default 48 hours' imprisonment. Charles Risk was remanded for a week for medical treatment. There were two charges against him, one for drunkenness and the other for committing a grossly indecent act. -Otago Daily Times, 27/9/1917.
I should add here that the "grossly indecent act" allegedly committed by Charles Risk could easily have been nothing more indecent than public urination. The remand detail is interesting - his tuberculosis might have been very bad. His character on his Discharge Form is described as "very good" - perhaps the return home and the illness which eventually killed him (described as a permanent disability on his Army record) produced the conditions which led to him being arrested on a Dunedin street in 1917, a few months after his return home.
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