Sole Survivor

“Yeah. She was a good girl, that one. Real cheeky.”

“A woman?”

“Yeah!” Bernie cackled. “Thought that would get ya! Oh, she was a beauty, hair as black as any Maori’s, and wicked black eyes. Always up to mischief. Stole fags for me, too. One day I suggested to her that an occasional nip of scotch wouldn’t go astray, so she started filling up an old cordial bottle for me. Trouble was, she knew that if she filled the whole bottle with scotch her father would realize someone was nicking it, so she had this idea. She filled it with a drop from every bottle they had. Mate, I’d never had a cocktail like it. Had everything in it! Bloody Pimm’s and chartreuse, bloody crème de menthe, and that bloody eggnog stuff. Had whisky, rum, gin, vodka and I don’t know what. The only way I could drink it was in my coffee. They took it off me before I was halfway through. My singing gave me away.” He burst out laughing, stopped when he started to choke.

“You reckon this will find her?”

“Who knows? If it does, it does. Long time. I told her, though, told her every time she came in that I’d remember her in my will.”

“Reckon she’ll come?”

“If she does, she does.”

“Wish you hadn’t done that, Bernie.”

“Aw, ya never know. Ya might thank me one day, a pretty woman and a good-looking bloke like you.” He started laughing again. “Never know, do ya?”

“I’ll get your things from the bathroom.”

“Not yet.” Bernie coughed and gestured to Red to sit down. “Something else. I want to be cremated.”

“Why?”

“I want you to toss my ashes into the ocean, out past Aiguilles Island where I used to fish. Used to dive there a bit, too. My secret possie, my secret spot. On the rise where the shells are.”

“What shells? Paper nautilus?”

“Nuh. Army shells.” The old man was cut off by another bout of coughing. Red handed him the toilet paper just in time. “Where they dumped the old munitions after the war.” Bernie’s face had gone from wax to scarlet beneath a sickly sheen of sweat. All the talking was taking its toll. “Christ! I just might decide to kick the bucket today. Nobody’s supposed to know about dumping the shells, but they used to take me out with them when they wanted to do a spot of fishing on the sly.” He began to laugh, but his laughter quickly turned to a rattling cough that snapped his breath. Red rolled him over and stuffed some more toilet paper in his hand. Bernie coughed and hawked and sank back exhausted on his bed. The smell of his sweat rose bitter and pungent. That was what had stunk the room out. Still, Red had smelled worse, a lot worse.

“Tell me later.”

“Might not be a later.” Bernie slowly drew in deep breaths until his breathing was back to normal. Red noticed tears in Bernie’s eyes, but that could just have been from the effort of talking. “I’ll give you the markers. Line ’em up and you’re right over the rise.”

“I didn’t know there was a rise.”

“Neither did the army. It’s like a small island that never quite made it to the surface. I got them to drop the shells on it because I thought I might go back later and salvage some for scrap. Now listen carefully.”

Red listened until Bernie had finished.

“Now you can give me a wash, if it makes you happy. And Red, when you go to Fitzroy, do you think you could leave Archie here?”

A normal man might have welcomed the prospect of an attractive young woman coming to share his lonely neck of the woods, but all Red could see was disruption to his daily life. Women didn’t belong. They didn’t belong in the camps and they didn’t belong at Wreck Bay. His day had begun like any other, yet suddenly Bernie had pulled the rug from under him. His whole world hung in the balance. Bernie’s letter threatened change, the thing Red feared most. Change brought risk, the risk that he’d no longer be able to cope. The Japanese fishermen threatened change, challenged his existence by stealing his fish and by destroying the ocean bottom so no fish would ever return. He could fight them but he couldn’t fight Bernie’s letter. There was nothing he could do about it, nothing at all. He was powerless and bound by duty. He could not deny a dying man the right to leave his few possessions to whomever he chose. The wishes of a dying man were also sacrosanct.

Red couldn’t get Bernie’s letter out of his mind. He thought about it constantly as he stopped off at his shack to grab a pair of shorts and a sweater, and made his way down to the beach. He thought about it as he fitted his forty-four-gallon drum onto the jib arm at the end of the jetty and loaded it onto his boat. He worked hard to stop himself thinking, but still the thoughts persisted. What would a woman do at Wreck Bay?

The double-prowed lifeboat was immaculate, its clinker hull kept brilliantly white. According to hearsay, it had once swung from davits on the ocean liner Oronsay, though some claimed it was from the Orsova. Somehow it had ended up in the hands of the whaling company, and Red had taken it over when the station closed down. It had been fitted out with a Cummins diesel that was more powerful than need be and something of a glutton for fuel. But Red could squeeze economy out of it, never feeding it more revs than the hull or conditions could use. Diesel was expensive.

Each resident of Wreck Bay kept a drum at the jetty and another at their house. They drew diesel off into four-gallon tins for the long haul up the hill to fuel their generators, and used hoses and gravity to refuel their boats. Red filled a four-gallon jerry can from the Scotsman’s drum and funneled the contents into his fuel tank. He repeated the process twice to be on the safe side, then filled his emergency can. That was sixteen gallons he owed, and a debt he’d pay in full. Red was good to the grain in all his dealings. He checked to see that his freshwater tank was full and his life jacket where it should be, and cast off. It was strange motoring out of the bay without Archie standing up on the bow, telling the gulls where they were headed. It didn’t feel right. It was not how things were done.

Red was always cautious before putting to sea because there was little chance of hailing another vessel if he got into difficulties. Although Great Barrier Island was only fifty-five miles by sea from Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city and main port, it might just as well have been five hundred and fifty. Only twenty-five miles long north to south and ten miles at its widest, there was little reason for anyone to visit or live there once the logging had finished, the mines had petered out and the whaling station had closed. There were few roads and few guest houses to encourage visitors. The locals either worked farms or caught fish and crayfish for a living. Nobody got rich.

Red was fortunate that the land around Wreck Bay on the northeast coast was too rugged and too poor for commercial cultivation and had proved too inaccessible for the loggers. The forbidding cliffs that lined the coast did not encourage visitors, either. As a result the entire northern end was left to the seagulls, terns and gannets. Only Wreck Bay provided shelter, and the three bachs were well sited to avoid the worst of the storms. It was possible to live there if you were sufficiently bloody-minded.

Red motored due north toward Aiguilles Island off the northern tip. With the tide almost full and the seas slight, he decided to take the narrow channel south of the island. Normally, even on a moderate swell, the surf pounded in on Aiguilles Island and Needles Point like heavy artillery, which was fair warning for all to give it a wide berth. He slipped through the channel and increased speed, swept around past Miners Head and across the mouth of Katherine Bay. Seagulls and gannets began diving on a school of kahawai. Even though a catch was guaranteed, Red was far too preoccupied to throw out a lure. Leaving Archie behind had unsettled him, but even worse was the prospect of a woman coming to live at Wreck Bay. It had taken him long enough to adjust to the Scotsman’s arrival.

His keen eyes picked out the dorsals of two mako sharks, circling around the periphery of the feeding school. He knew what the predators were waiting for and it wasn’t for kahawai. They were just a sideshow. The sharks were patrolling, waiting for the massive schools of migrating snapper, part of a never-changing cycle. Red had the utmost respect for never-changing cycles. He glanced up to the bow compartment where he’d stowed Bernie’s letter, carefully protected inside his oilskins. Red also had the utmost respect for letters. He’d seen dying men survive because of them. He found it hard to reconcile the fact that letters, which could do so much good, could also do so much harm. He tried to imagine what would happen if the woman came. But why would any woman, perhaps even a beautiful one, want to come to Wreck Bay? Red didn’t know much about women, but he knew enough about Wreck Bay to know that it held nothing for them. Even the hardy Barrier women couldn’t imagine why anybody—male or female—would want to live there. If they couldn’t handle it, how could a city woman? The letter worried Red all the way from Wreck Bay to the Port Fitzroy wharf.

The store at Port Fitzroy was aptly named the Last Gasp. It was opened originally as a holiday canteen to service the summer yachties. The owner, Col Chadwick, maintained he called it the Last Gasp, not just because of its remoteness, but because of the objections and obstructions of the other residents who were opposed to change of any kind as a matter of principle, particularly since they hadn’t thought of opening a store themselves. Once opened, the store instantly became indispensable to the point that the locals would have fought to prevent it closing. Col gave up his crayfishing to become full-time shopkeeper. The Last Gasp sold everything Red needed—except alcohol, because the shop wasn’t licensed. Col ordered in Bernie’s jugs of sweet sherry anyway, on a nod-and-a-wink basis.

Red waited outside the store until Col had time to attend to him. The locals thought that was just another of Red’s eccentricities. They still recalled the time he’d come ashore without remembering to put his pants on. But the fact was Red got claustrophobic in the little store with its crowded shelves. If anyone else came in while he was there he found it unbearable. The locals also still talked about the time he’d had one of his turns in the store. He waited outside until two visitors, guests of Fitzroy House, had left.

“G’day Red.”

Red shook hands with Col Chadwick and handed over his two shopping lists. “And two jugs.”

“How is the old bloke?”

“Not good. He wants this letter to go off to Auckland.”

Col raised an eyebrow. Bernie had written a letter? “Okay. Anything else?”

“Need a hand with the diesel.”

“No problem. I’ll just fill your orders and walk down with you.” Col trotted off with the orders. He glanced down at the envelope. Rosie Trethewey, Daughter of the Professor, Green Lane Hospital, Auckland. The handwriting was Red’s. “Jeez,” said Col to himself. “Helluva address.”

Red fretted for Archie. It was hard to stand around without a dog. It wasn’t right. They were a team, and splitting up only weakened them both. But the sick man needed company and that was all there was to it. Archie—his Aussie mate in Burma—would have stayed, he was certain of that. Archie had never let anyone down, never refused anyone. Red decided to walk on ahead to his boat and unload the empty drum. The simple mechanics of the job brought the woman back into his mind. How would she get by handling drums of fuel? How would she handle a boat and rounding Aiguilles in a blow? Old Bernie had done the wrong thing by them, no doubt about that. He hoped fervently Bernie had also done the wrong thing by the woman and she’d be smart enough to realize.

Red’s boat was an oddity on the Barrier, where all boats, with the exception of the visiting yachts, were working boats of one kind or another and bore the scars of their trade. A wise man never had a picnic downwind from a beached fishing boat. Red used his thumbnail to scratch off seagull droppings. Wherever there were seagulls there was no place for idle hands. He hated idleness in the same way he abhorred dirt and untidiness. There was always something that needed attending to. He’d seen blokes stop working one day and be dead the next. The two went together.

“I’m amazed you even let your boat get wet.” Red looked up to see Col on the wharf above him, a carton of supplies under each arm. “Reckon I could eat my bloody dinner off it. I’ll have to go back for the sherry.”

They manhandled a fresh drum of diesel over to the edge of the wharf, secured it, swung out the jib arm and lowered the drum gingerly onto the deck. Red jumped aboard and untied the ropes.

“You seen the Jap longliner yet?”

Red looked up sharply at Col. “Tuna? I freed some birds.”

“Nah. Snapper. I’ve been getting reports of a Jap longliner sending its dories in to within one or two miles of the shore, night after bloody night, all the way up from Mount Maunganui. He’s following the bloody snapper, ripping out millions of the buggers. He’s been working the Coromandel Peninsula for the last week. They reckon he was off Whitianga a couple of nights ago. He’s not like the others. This bloke doesn’t use lights. Bastard’s ripping out the fish. Just wondered if he’d made it up as far as you.”

“Tell the fisheries?”

“Reckon. Rang the fisheries but they already knew about it. Apparently the navy’s been informed.”

“They doing anything?”

“Dunno. They sent a Sunderland flying boat down around Great Mercury Island. Didn’t come up with nothing.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

Col smiled. He knew Red would, too, and it would serve the Japs right. He was still chuckling as he made his way back up to the store to fetch the two jugs of sherry. Red might not be able to do anything about the snapper the Japs had already stolen, but he’d give them something to think about if they tried to steal fish from his patch. Col tried to put himself in the place of the Japanese fishermen in their dories when a raging, naked Red descended upon them. What on earth would they think?

Two

It was pitch dark when Shimojo Seiichi, the skipper of the Aiko Maru, gave the order to lower the dories. He hadn’t come six thousand miles to pull up six miles short of his objective. The nor’easter had freshened, and the helmsman battled to keep head-on to the sea. The crew was grateful for the rehearsals their captain made them do blindfolded every month, for they worked without lights. The sliver of moon had been and gone, and the stars might as well have been hidden behind clouds for all the light they gave. The four dories edged slowly away from the unlit Aiko Maru in a staggered line astern. The skipper watched until they were swallowed up in the darkness. He couldn’t help feeling apprehensive about fishing so close to New Zealand’s major naval base, and home of the Sunderland flying boats. If the navy got wind of their presence and dispatched a Sunderland, it would be upon them within twenty minutes. Then there’d be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. But the potential rewards justified the risk. They were right on the navy’s doorstep and about to steal the rice from their mouths. That would be something to boast about later, in the bars around the docks at Kitakyushu.

The wind whipped the tops off waves and showered the crouching dory crews with spray, stinging eyes and leaving a bitter salt taste on lips and tongues. But it was the lot of all fishermen to taste the sea. Almost to a man, the crews came from fishing families. Their fathers had tasted the sea, and their fathers before them, though none had ever ventured far from their little fishing villages and rarely out of sight of land. Now they were living their fathers’ dreams six thousand miles from home, catching more fish in one voyage than their forebears had caught in their entire lifetimes.

Their course took them west of Aiguilles Island where they could fish in the relatively calm waters of the lee. They didn’t use spotlights this near to shore, in case they alerted unfriendly eyes to their presence. Instead they slowed so that any change in wind or sea would be more apparent. Once they felt the softening of the sea and wind, they slowed even further, and moved in closer as quietly as the dories’ twin outboards would permit. The greater darkness of Great Barrier Island loomed up in front of them. Once they were within half a mile of shore, and two to three miles west of Aiguilles Island, they took up position and began fishing in their prearranged staggered pattern. By the light of hooded lamps, they released the end buoys. As the buoys drifted away into the darkness behind them, they counted off the knots in the line until they’d released one hundred yards. Then, creeping slowly forward so as not to foul the props, they attached the weights that would hold the fishing lines to the sea bottom. The crew of each dory began to bait and lower the one-and-a-half-mile lines of double-barbed hooks, each set eighteen inches from the next. They worked with practiced hands and enthusiasm. Half a mile from Aiguilles Island they lowered the last of the baited hooks, the lead weight and head buoy. One after another the dories turned westward to return to their start position to lay the second of their four lines two hundred meters out to seaward from their first. Away to the east, the new day was yet to dawn.

At first light they began to retrieve their lines. They caught the end buoys with their boat hooks, turned and wound the lines twice around the winch drums. The lines tightened as the winch took up the strain. The men looked at each other, smiling, shouted to the other crews. The lines sang from weights far greater than those they’d lowered a few hours earlier. “Tairyo!” they shouted. Good catch!

They stared into the depths of the water, straining to catch the first glimpse of color. It was there, flashing pink and silver and sometimes gold in the pale light. The lead weights came up over the side and were expertly detached. The first snapper came aboard to be unhooked and thrown into fish boxes before they were aware they were even out of the water. Fewer than half of the hooks came up empty and less than ten percent with by-catch. Fish after fish piled on top of each other, spilling over the fish boxes.

“Tairyo! Tairyo!” the crews shouted, as they hauled in the snapper that justified the risk they’d taken, that ensured their end-of-trip bonuses, that brought profit and esteem to the company, that brought glory to them all. The crews worked as fast as they could and needed no urging. The fish flashing red in the water flashed gold in their pockets. Still the fish came up, some over twenty pounds, most over six. Tairyo! Tairyo! Lengths of line where mako sharks had stripped both fish and hooks provided the crews’ only rest. The superstitious fishermen saw this loss as a good sign. The spirits of the water would approve of them sharing their catch.

The sun broke free of the ocean as they neared the heads of their second longlines. Eager hands tossed more ice over their haul and made room for the fish from their third lines. So many fish! The gods had smiled upon them. Some of the younger fishermen laughed at the superstitions and devotions to the old gods. But the gods had not let them down and they only had to look at the overflowing fish boxes to know who had the last laugh.

As the crew of the lead dory began to retrieve the head buoy of their third line and work their way back to the end buoy, the sun edged above Aiguilles Island, bathing them in its brightness and impressing urgency upon them. Their line sang with the weight, crackling around the winch drum. They stared intently into the depths, looking for the first flash of color, the blaze of red that would confirm that this catch was as good as the last. Perhaps it was the grinding of the winches or their concentration on the catch they were steadily hauling up from the sea bottom, but they were slow to hear the speeding motor. When the sound registered, they turned as one toward the source. But the morning sun blinded them. They covered their eyes with their hands to peep through the slits between their fingers. Then they saw it, their nightmare, and cries burst from their lips. There was a bow wave dead abeam, coming out of the sun on course to ram them and cut them in half. But that was not what chilled their blood. It was their fathers’ and grandfathers’ fears and superstitions come alive before their eyes. It was the drawings shown by other fishermen whose terror they now shared. The local kami had turned on them for their theft, and a Red Devil riding a boat of pure white foam was upon them, hair ablaze, breathing fire from its nose, its whole body fringed by the flames of damnation, seeking vengeance.

The helmsman screamed in warning. His crew, who had many times fled both plane and patrol boat, did not hesitate. No sooner had a knife flashed when the dory’s twin props bit into the ocean, throwing the bow high, scattering fish and ice across the deck, and almost hurling one man overboard. The other dories saw the lead dory cut and run and did likewise. They rose instantly onto the plane despite their heavy loads and raced across the water. The helmsman risked a glance astern and saw that the Red Devil had fallen behind. Nevertheless he held the throttle wide open, determined not to slacken off until they’d reached the sanctuary of the mother ship. Then he would have to face up to the loss of fish and lines. Then he would have to justify his actions to his captain.

The skipper of the Aiko Maru saw his dory crews cut and run and sounded the alarm. The longliner was waiting just beyond the six-mile limit. He scanned the radar but could pick up nothing that would indicate a patrol boat or Sunderland. None of the lookouts had spotted anything, nor had the representatives ashore radioed in to say that the patrol boat at Devonport had slipped out during the night. Yet the skipper knew his crews would not run without good reason.

The number four and number three boat had cleared the six-mile limit when he heard a lookout call down on the intercom. He raced to the window and looked astern. He strained his eyes to see it, then spotted it, low and hugging the coast, using the land mass of Great Barrier to hide from his radar. Where were the number one and two boats? Half a mile astern and closing rapidly. They were safe. Just. Shimojo Seiichi breathed a sigh of relief that the last working day of their tour of duty would not end in disgrace, but he was curious. How had his dory crews known about the Sunderland?

Three

Red throttled back as the more powerful dories left him in their wake, hands shaking from rage and helplessness. “Bastards!” he screamed. “Bloody bastards!” His boat was no match for the Japs’ outboard motor-powered dories and he knew it. Even at half throttle their motors could leave him floundering in their wake. His fists clenched in frustration and his shoulders shook. He tried to pull back from his anger because he feared the consequences. But he was too late. Already his chest was tightening, his throat contracting. His breath came in sobs and he could feel the panic coming on again. He began to battle for breath, to fight the panic rising inside him. Cold sweat prickled his body, his hands turned clammy and the shaking intensified. Blood pounded in his temples and roared in his ears.

“Bastards …” he cried desperately, but there was nothing he could do. It had happened often enough before and he knew there was nothing he could do. His vision blurred and he was back on the railway with his mate Archie, and the Big Bash Artist and imminent death. He could feel the heat and heavy, water-laden air. Taste his fear and helplessness, too weak to cry out, too weak to stand. His hand went up to Archie. For help? For comfort? Reaching, reaching, for his mate and protector before the bullet’s hot passage ended his life. Archie could not save him this time, nothing could. He saw the little man with the long rifle and prayed that he would pull the trigger and end his suffering. Pull! Pull now! But it always ended the same way, and there was nothing he could do to change it.