Remember Me

by Derek Hansen

  When I got it up to the surface where I could get a good look at it, my eyes just about bulged out of my head. The snapper was huge, and I realised my only hope of landing it was to climb down the pilings and somehow lift it from the water with my bare hands. I lowered myself onto one of the crossbeams and lay along it on my belly. It seemed to me the snapper had pretty well fought itself to a standstill and was beginning to wallow in the water. I lifted the tip of my rod so the fish lay on its side, and gently drew it towards me. The snapper was so big I was a bit scared of it. But I could also see my mum’s delight, hear my dad’s congratulations and feel my brothers’ envy. I also knew if anything could put a smile back on Mack’s face, this fish could. The snapper spread its gill case and I struck. I plunged my hand inside its gills and lifted. But the moment I felt its weight I knew I was in trouble. The fish was far too heavy and I was lifting left-handed, lying on my belly, balanced on a wet crossbeam. The snapper settled the issue. It kicked convulsively and the gill case cut deep into the fleshy bottom part of my index finger. I let the fish go, heard the line snap, felt the splash and watched my prize snapper spiral away down to the bottom to recover. I was devastated.

  But worse was to come.

  When I climbed back up onto the wharf, my fourpounder was nowhere to be seen. I panicked. Someone had stolen my fish! I couldn’t believe the injustice. Tears started forming in my eyes. But then gulls screeched by the covered walkway onto the jetty and I realised instantly what had happened, knew exactly who the culprits were. I dashed to the walkway, my heart in my mouth, and there was my snapper poised perilously half on and half off the wharf. I dived on it for a second time, just as it was about to topple over. My fish was no longer the beautiful thing I’d pulled from the water. The gulls had ripped at its gut and taken both of its eyes. It looked like a ghost fish.

  I kept fishing until I’d exhausted the trevally but all I managed to attract were tiny bait robbers. The fish that shouldn’t have been there had come to their senses and moved back down harbour towards the deep waters of the Gulf. I threw the rest of my skirt steak to the seagulls in the fond hope they’d choke on it, and packed up. The four-pounder stretched the flour bag to its limits. I tried to hang the bag from my cross-bar as I usually did but the fish was so big it interfered with my pedalling. In the end I wrapped the top of the bag once around the handlebars and clung onto it. It was awkward but I managed. The excitement of catching and losing the big snapper had died away, and I’d got over the fright the gulls had given me. Once again I started thinking about Mack’s story and what should happen next. Once again I became engrossed with the possibilities. I’d never tried to develop such a complex story before and my head was spinning.

  I was aware of the Ford Prefect coming towards me as I was about to make a right turn into Victoria Street but didn’t give it much of a thought. My mind was a giant movie screen with actors trying out dialogue. I automatically moved to the centre of the road and prepared to slow down to let the Ford Prefect pass by. But, because I was holding the bag of fish, I only had my little finger left to apply the front brake and I couldn’t pull the lever hard enough. I immediately tried to brake by back-pedalling. As I jammed down with my left leg, my right leg came up. The snapper’s fins, which had burst through the cotton of the flour bag, impaled themselves in my thigh. The pain was instant. In trying to pull my leg free, I pulled down on the handlebars. The next thing I knew I was sprawling on the road. I remember my fish going flying and trying to save my fishing rod. I remember a squeal as the driver of the Ford Prefect hit the brakes and swerved. The wheels missed me but got the fish.

  The driver was a young woman and she was shaking like a leaf as she helped me to my feet. She saw blood on my shorts and burst into tears but that was old blood from the finger the snapper had cut. There was blood on my leg but that was from where the fins had jabbed me. I’d lost a bit of skin off my knees but I was always doing that. I picked my bike up and it seemed all right, picked my rod up and was relieved to find I hadn’t broken it. The big snapper hadn’t fared quite so well. Its brains were splattered all over the road.

  The young woman offered to drive me home but there’s nowhere on a Ford Prefect to put a bike. I convinced her I was fine and rode off with my scraped knees and flattened fish. I’d put on a brave face but in truth I was distraught. My beautiful fish, my fourpounder, was ruined.

  Mum thought otherwise. Sometimes she could amaze me. She washed the fish and made me fillet it and remove the broken bones in the ribs. She made me slice the fillets into strips. I did the same with the two small snapper. Mum fluffed up the squashed bits with her fingers and cooked the fish pieces in breadcrumbs, as though they were fishfingers, and made chips to go with them. Dad and my brothers thought that was the best snapper they’d ever eaten. They never suspected the fish had been mauled by seagulls and then run over.

  Mum had saved the day when I thought all was lost, and now I had to do the same for Mack. Once again the weather intervened on my behalf. It started raining straight after church on Sunday and Dad gave up all hope of going for a drive. He left Rod in charge of us and took Mum off to a movie down town for a treat. Rod lay down on his bed to read, Nigel disappeared to someone’s place and I grabbed the chance to write. Everything I’d thought about on the breakwater and riding home came back to me. I could see the U-boat captain, I could feel Mack’s wariness, I could hear the dialogue as though it came straight off the silver screen. Out of the blue the missing ingredient came to me. The brain is a wonderful thing. All the while I’d been mulling over the story, it had been opening and closing filing cabinets, searching for the information I needed. It dredged up a conversation I’d had with my father and some of his friends about the German raiders that had briefly operated around New Zealand and the South Pacific. It unearthed precisely the information I needed to let Mack off the hook.

  I couldn’t write fast enough. I couldn’t keep up with the voices and pictures in my head. I sat at the desk for over two hours and I don’t think I drew breath once. For reasons that’ll become apparent, I don’t have a copy of the story I wrote, but this is sort of how the ending went and that’s the important part. The dialogue was Saturday afternoon matinee, with a touch of BBC radio drama. I remember feeling quite proud of it.

  It’s 1953, early morning. Mack is launching his boat from Medlands Beach. He senses someone watching him. He turns around and sees a man step out from the shadows of a centuries old pohutukawa tree. The man has an eye-patch. [An eye-patch! Well, I was only twelve.] And he walks stiffly with an obvious limp.

  ‘Good morning, Mack,’ he says. ‘It seems we meet again.’

  It was only when the man speaks that Mack realises who he is. He is stunned speechless, too shocked at first to feel revulsion or anger. Here is the man who caused him to betray his country. The German holds out his hand but Mack refuses to take it.

  ‘You!’ says Mack finally. ‘How dare you come here! Keeping my promise to you cost the lives of fourteen men.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ says the German.

  ‘Your mines. They sank the Niagara. Fourteen men went down with her.’

  ‘The Niagara?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know. It sank in the mouth of the Gulf.’

  ‘I’m not aware of sinking any boat in the Gulf. But even if I did, it was war, Mack, and they were my country’s enemies.’

  ‘They were my countrymen,’ says Mack bitterly. ‘You killed them. I betrayed them.’

  ‘Do you remember my name?’ says the German suddenly.

  ‘Of course,’ says Mack. ‘How could I forget it?’

  ‘Then say it.’

  ‘Christian Berger.’

  ‘That’s right,’ says the German. ‘I am Christian Berger from Germany, you are Mack from New Zealand and we are no longer enemies.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ says Mack. ‘But I can’t forgive you for what you made me do.’

  ‘Your promise changed nothing,’
says Christian Berger.

  ‘What do you mean?’ says Mack.

  ‘If I had decided to shoot you and sink your boat, would that have saved the Niagara? If I’d taken you prisoner, would that have saved those men?’

  ‘I don’t suppose so,’ says Mack reluctantly.

  ‘My priority was to keep the presence of my U-boat a secret. I didn’t take you prisoner because there is no room on a U-boat for prisoners. By rights I should have shot you. But when you asked for diesel in exchange for your fish I didn’t have the heart to do it. You presented me with another alternative, provided you were a man of honour. I made a judgement that you were the kind of man I could trust, a man who would keep his word. I gambled with the lives of the fifty men on board my U-boat. I gambled fifty lives to save one life—your life. Think about that. And you should also consider the fact that there is no certainty I caused the loss of the fourteen men aboard the Niagara.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A submarine is an inefficient means of laying mines. There is no room to carry them. The German Navy had two raiders operating in New Zealand waters in 1940, the Orion and the Komet. They were equipped to lay mines. We carried a grand total of three, which, I admit, we released. But we were not sent down to New Zealand to lay mines.’

  ‘No, you were sent to sink the troopship. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ahh…

  ‘My silence could’ve cost the lives of thousands of young men.’

  ‘No, Mack, that is not true. When we found you in your boat we knew it was already too late. We knew the troopship had already sailed and we had no hope of catching up with her. If the troopship hadn’t sailed, do you think for one moment we would have let you go?’

  Mack is stunned by this revelation.

  ‘So you’d already given up?’

  ‘Of course! We were on our way back to the Atlantic. We needed the forty-eight hours to get clear.’

  ‘And you didn’t sink the Niagara?’

  ‘No one will ever know, Mack. But what are three mines against the hundreds laid around the Gulf by the raiders? The chances that it was one of our mines are very slim.’

  Mack slumps against the side of his boat. The German reaches out to steady him.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Mack. ‘I’m fine. It’s just that for the last thirteen years I’ve been blaming myself for the loss of those men.’

  ‘It was not your fault, Mack.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No.’

  Mack looks ruefully at the German. ‘Those fish I gave you, did you enjoy them?’

  ‘The fish? Yes, they were wonderful.’

  ‘How’d you like to come out with me and catch some more?’

  ‘I would love to. I admit I came here hoping you would ask. But I will only come with you on one condition.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You let me pay for the diesel.’

  I couldn’t get those last lines down on paper fast enough. Pinewood Studios couldn’t have milked the scene for more melodrama. The pages looked a mess and my handwriting no better than a hurried scrawl. I read the essay from start to finish, growing more excited with every word. I knew I’d cracked it. Everybody in New Zealand had at least heard of the heavily armed merchant ships the Komet and the Orion and they gave my story the factual basis and credibility it needed to convince Mack. As Mr Holterman had said, a story is always better when it’s based on facts. I could hardly wait to read it to Mack.

  I usually did a couple of rewrites before the fair copy but the effort of writing the first draft had left me feeling dizzy. I decided to put my essay aside, go down to Eric’s or try to find Nigel, and come back to it later when my head had cleared. I intended to do a second draft that night but wound up listening to the usual Sunday night BBC radio dramas instead. I felt the best I had in ages. I couldn’t shut up. Nobody had a clue why I was in such a good mood and cracked so many jokes.

  I finished the fair copy after school on Monday, with barely enough time left to run a cloth over my shoes and dress for club. As soon as I got a chance I questioned Captain Biggs and discovered he was going to visit Mack Tuesday morning and not again until Wednesday. This was just what I wanted to hear. I didn’t want him around when I read my story to Mack.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘…what are three mines against the hundreds laid around the Gulf by the raiders? The chances that it was one of our mines are very slim.’

  A CRITICAL EXTRACT FROM MEMORY OF THE UNRECOVERED ESSAY ‘MACK’S STORY’

  Mack hung on every word. He didn’t move and his expression didn’t change but I could tell I had his full attention.

  ‘Read it again, lad,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘This time read it more slowly.’

  So I read it again, this time properly with pauses. A smile edged across his face, uncertainly at first, but soon gathering momentum. His eyes were closed as if he was picturing every detail.

  ‘Like it?’ I asked.

  He nodded and opened his eyes. They were shining. Mack had come alive again.

  ‘It’s a good story,’ he said. He began rubbing his hands together. It was a funny thing to do but I think it meant he was pleased. He couldn’t get the grin off his face. I could tell my story had got to him, touched him and made him reconsider.

  ‘It’s better than good,’ said Mack. ‘It’s really good. And you know something? I reckon you’ve hit on something there. I reckon that’s how it could’ve happened. Yeah, that’s how it could’ve happened.’

  ‘I wrote the story for you,’ I said.

  Mack’s face lit up in the biggest smile I’d seen since he won the poker pot on the La Rita.

  ‘You wrote it for me?’ He reached across and reverently took the pages from my hand. He held them and stared at them as though they were something really precious. ‘Thank you, laddie,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much.’ He carefully folded the pages and tucked them into the pocket in his pyjama top. I realised he’d taken my words literally and I’d have to make another copy. But looking at Mack and seeing the change that had come over him and the happiness I’d brought him, I knew I never would. I’d called the essay ‘Mack’s Story’ and it was Mack’s story and Mack was entitled to keep it. As much as I’d have loved to read it to Mum and my pals, there was still a secret to keep, a secret that could at last be laid to rest. I realised I’d read my story to the only person who really mattered and achieved everything I’d dared hope for. Mack’s burden of responsibility had been lifted.

  He was off the hook.

  I’d done it.

  I’d saved Mack and saved him without help from anyone.

  I was as proud of myself at that moment as I’d ever be.

  Mack’s grin stayed locked on his face. He wasn’t looking at me but at a June day back in 1940 and how things had turned out differently to the way he’d imagined. Nurses walking past saw the change in Mack, looked at me and smiled encouragement. Mack was lying more upright than he’d been the first time I visited but I can’t say he looked any better for it. His face was gaunt and his skin was still grey except where it was bruised. But his smile breathed life back into him.

  ‘I caught a moocher, Mack.’ I figured he’d been off in reveries long enough and I knew that would get his attention. His smile widened as he leaned towards me.

  ‘On the breakwater?’ he asked.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘How big?’

  ‘A bit over four pounds.’

  ‘Good on yer.’

  ‘Yes, but wait until I tell you what happened to it.’ Mack laughed out loud when I told him about how the Ford Prefect had flattened it and how Mum had turned the fillets into fishfingers and cooked them anyway. Mack had actually laughed, and laughed out loud. It was the best sound. He made the bed shake when I told him about the big one that had got away when I’d tried to lift it from the water. I thought I’d gone a bit overboard with my play-acting when the senior n
urse came marching up to Mack’s bed, but she only came to tell me that visiting time was over. She put her hand on my head and mussed my hair, which I hate because it takes me ages to get the James Dean wave just right.

  ‘I don’t know what you said to him,’ she said. ‘There’s no medicine in the world that can do what you just did.’

  When I reached the end of the ward I stopped to wave goodbye. Mack wasn’t looking. He’d taken my story out of his pyjama pocket to read. That was all the medicine he needed.

  The dragon lady saw me as I was leaving. Her face soured as though someone had farted right under her nose. She was writing with her right hand and waved me over with her left. She was wearing her big, chunky rings but nothing remotely like a wedding band. I saw my chance to get even.

  ‘My father says “hi’’,’ I said before she could ask how I’d managed to sneak past her.

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘Yes, you know, Captain Biggs.’

  I got her. For a moment she looked as sick as Mack.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she snapped. ‘Captain Biggs told me he’s not married.’

  ‘That’s right, he’s not,’ I said. ‘And neither is my mum.’

  Got her again. Bystanders witnessed her humiliation, which made it even better. I almost tap-danced to my bike. That was the sort of smart-arse thing Nigel would’ve said. I couldn’t help smiling when I thought of the reception Captain Biggs would get when he came to see Mack the following morning.