Song of the Sound

by Jeff Gulvin

  The swell really began to take hold as they left the shelter of the fiord and headed for the Hare’s Ears. Beyond that they were in the Tasman and had four hours of sailing to the head of Breaksea Sound.

  ‘Will we go in at Breaksea?’ Libby asked him.

  John-Cody made a face. ‘Depends on the weather. Normally I like to sail straight for Dusky and moor in Luncheon Cove. I come back through the Acheron Passage and Breaksea. How’s Bree with seasickness?’

  Libby shrugged. ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t know.’

  He nodded. ‘Well, there’s paper sacks on her bunk if she needs them.’

  ‘Thank you for that, by the way.’

  He squinted at her.

  ‘The freezer bunk: she loves the little window.’

  ‘Porthole.’

  ‘Porthole. Right. She can see out when she’s lying in her bunk.’

  ‘That’s why I gave it to her. When we hit the real swell she’ll be able to see underwater too.’

  They sailed south on the Tasman with the wind to starboard and Libby stood on deck gazing at the coast of New Zealand, where jagged black rocks rose from boiling surf into cliffs of grey granite. Gulls cried above the seals that watched their departure from the headlands of the Nee Islands, the- beach-master bulls with their snouts in the air so they could see all the way round. Bree was on the bridge with John-Cody, Jonah at the saloon table. The other guests — Carlos and his mother, two Canadians and two elderly ladies from Christchurch — were in the glasshouse, watching the waves thundering at the stern.

  Libby stared at the rugged coastline. The rain still hung in the air, though it was finer here with more breaks in the cloud. She thought about the challenges lying ahead. So much had fallen into place, the house was great and John-Cody had given them carte blanche to change it around as much as they liked. School for Bree would be the next hurdle, but her daughter was adaptable if nothing else, and apart from the prospect of the rugby scrum she should be able to cope.

  For herself there was the initial dolphin identification process in Dusky Sound: she would need to get the boat organized and liaise with the Department of Conservation and Steve Watson in Dunedin. She had her own equipment but it would need to be modified if she was going to film the dolphins underwater from the boat. John-Cody had told her that somebody had developed a helmet-mounted camera that operated below the surface and she should be able to take advantage of a similar system. She had a lot of computer equipment and DoC would provide a mini generator so she could use it at the Supper Cove hut, which would be closed to other visitors for the duration of her stay. That would give her some privacy at least; the last thing she needed was a group of trampers turning up when she had been on the water all day.

  The wind was whipping the waves into frenzy now and they came cascading over the bows with every trough the Korimako plunged into. The sea washed over the steel deck and Libby stepped back inside the wheelhouse. She stripped off her wet gear and John-Cody took it down to the engine room to dry. The diesel heater was pumping into the for’ard cabin below and Libby went backwards down the steps and sat down on the library bunk. The bookshelves were lined with works on New Zealand and Fiordland in particular, though she also saw books on whales and dolphins and a couple on the Sub-Antarctic islands. She flicked through one and listened to Jonah and Bree up top, making pizza dough.

  ‘Tell me about the Tuheru, Jonah,’ Bree was saying. ‘You really think they’re real?’

  ‘The Dimly Seen?’ Jonah’s voice was an octave lower than usual. ‘Of course they are. But no-one ever sees them so no-one knows what they’re like.’

  ‘You said Mahina saw them.’

  ‘She did, but she told little. You see, Bree, they only show themselves to people they can trust. They knew they could trust Mahina because she was so much like them. She lived half her life in the bush.’

  ‘So you don’t know anything about them?’

  When Jonah replied his voice was deeper still. ‘I know this much, they’re nothing like the Maeroero.’

  The what?’

  ‘Maeroero: savage hairy people with long bony fingers like witches who hated human beings. Bree, they were terrifying. They are terrifying and they like nothing better than a good feed of men, women or children. They catch you by spearing you with their jagged fingernails and then they eat you raw. At night they come down from the high places and kidnap men and women, carry them off and eat them. No-one they take is ever seen again.

  ‘The homes of the old people were Tapu,’ he went on. ‘That means sacred. The Maeroero thought nothing of Tapu and they desecrated the homes of the people who came in the great canoes from Hawaiki. The Tuheru could be dangerous but the Maeroero were monsters. If you walk in the bush when we get to Preservation Inlet — beware.’

  ‘Don’t you frighten my daughter, Jonah,’ Libby called.

  His dark shaggy head appeared at the top of the steps and he leered at her. ‘Never mind her, Libby. You just watch yourself when you’re alone at Supper Cove.’

  John-Cody poked his head out of the for’ard bunkroom. ‘Jonah, quit scaring the guests and cook lunch.’

  Jonah bent lower so he could see him. ‘Aye, sir, Cap’n, sir.’ He made a mock salute and Bree laughed. John-Cody shook out the duvet cover he was holding and smiled at Libby.

  The sea was rough, a swell rising to four metres and the wind at thirty knots. The four-metre swell could be uncomfortable for some people; one of the women from Christchurch was already popping seasickness tablets.

  Jonah made sandwiches — it was too rough to do any serious cooking — and passed plates through the aft windows of the galley to the glasshouse. Libby sat with Bree and John-Cody at the table and every now and then he would get up and check the waypoints he had fed into the global positioning system. The dotted rhumb-line traced their path between each waypoint and he made sure that they did not stray more than half a nautical mile either side of the line. Bree asked him why he was not steering by the wooden-spoked wheel and he explained about the automatic pilot. Libby watched him and noted how attentive he was. Every time the boat lurched or moved differently or the engine note altered a fraction he was up and watchful: as if the Korimako were part of him, an extension of his being.

  Jonah sang songs in Maori and tried to teach Bree, and then Bree said she was tired and climbed into the freezer bunk and drew the curtains. There she lay on her side and watched as the water crashed over the porthole. Sometimes she saw the grey of the sky and at other times the dark green of the ocean. She looked for fish, but couldn’t see any.

  The weather was turning really bad now and at five thirty John-Cody made everyone be quiet while he sat with a pen and notepaper listening to the forecast on the VHF radio mounted on the dashboard. When it was over he turned the volume down and looked at Jonah. ‘We’ll go in at Breaksea,’ he said. ‘It’s blowing sou’west and over forty knots. We’ll not make any headway.’

  By six o’clock they were running between Breaksea Island and Oliver Point and Bree was kneeling on the dining-table bench looking out of the galley window at the seals perched on the rocks. She had been ecstatic earlier when Jonah spotted a whale blowing, west of Dagg Sound. Everyone crowded onto the windward quarter and Carlos said it must be a southern right or a humpback. Libby smiled and told him it wasn’t a southern right because it had a dorsal fin, but it wasn’t a humpback either. She took a pair of binoculars from John-Cody and immediately recognized it as a minke. John-Cody looked himself and was impressed. It was a minke all right, and a big one at that.

  ‘You know your stuff,’ he told her.

  ‘I ought to. I’ve been studying cetaceans for the better part of my life.’

  They steamed due south now, out of the worst of the sea and sheltered by the heights of Resolution Island on the windward beam. They were running the Acheron Passage with the light gradually fading and Libby and Bree were on deck, watching the mountains that formed the eastern wall pass at seven and
a half knots. The judder of the engine sent shivers through the deck, and the jib, which John-Cody had hoisted at sea, was now furled again on the forestay. Jonah was cooking and the smells that drifted from the galley made Libby’s mouth water. All they had eaten since breakfast were the sandwiches.

  John-Cody came up from astern with another bottle of rainwater. There was plenty of fresh water in the tanks, but for cold drinks there was nothing like the rain gathered in the barrel lashed against the stern rail. He diluted some juice and passed a glass to Bree. He told Libby that often the dolphins could be found at the entrance to Wet Jacket Arm, which they were passing now on the leeward side. Together they crossed the deck and leaned on the rail and Libby took a cigarette from her pocket. John-Cody lit it for her and they scanned the darkened waters of the fiord for signs of dolphins blowing. They saw nothing though and Jonah called them in for dinner. John-Cody had the pilot on and had slowed the revs to a crawl as he ate his meal, glancing at the green outline on the radar screen every now and again.

  ‘Man, it’s good to be back on the boat,’ Jonah said, as he sat down with his plate of food. ‘It’s been too long, Gib. Far too long.’

  John-Cody was smiling, looking more at ease than at any time Libby had seen him.

  ‘You’re right, it’s good and I’m not as rusty as I thought I’d be.’

  ‘It all comes back to you, eh? Like you’d never been away.’

  John-Cody sipped water and winked at Bree, who was stuffing food into her mouth and gabbling away to her mother at the same time. Libby just sat and listened and relaxed.

  They anchored much later in Cascade Cove at the south-western end of Dusky Sound. It was fully dark now and John-Cody had navigated with the radar and the shadows of the mountains that rose up on all sides. They’d felt the breath of the storm as they steamed up the Bowen Channel, waves licking the bows as they had done at sea. They had listened to opinions on the weather criss-crossing the airwaves between various fishing boats on the VHF. During the day it was scanning channels all the time, but now John-Cody switched to channel 11 for the night. Bree stood at the wheel and listened to the gossip between various friendly skippers and laughed to herself at some of the jokes.

  Later, though, as the storm reached its zenith the tone became more serious: one of the vessels was having some engine trouble and John-Cody silenced everyone while he listened. For an hour he sat there, half expecting to answer a Mayday call, but the skipper got her running smoothly enough to seek shelter and he relaxed.

  ‘The angry sea, eh?’ Carlos ventured.

  John-Cody looked round at him. ‘The sea isn’t angry, Carlos. Or cruel or any other adjective people like to attach to it. The sea doesn’t give a damn. It just responds to the wind.’

  Entering Cascade Cove, Bree was already in bed and Libby was sitting opposite her on the library bunk. ‘This is so cool,’ Bree said, sitting up and peering again through the porthole. ‘I love this bunk: it’s so cosy and I can see out and hear the water against the side and everything.’

  Libby smiled. ‘It is kind of neat, isn’t it? Last week we were in France and here we are on a boat at the bottom of the world.’

  ‘And it’s such a great boat.’ Bree looked at her then. ‘I’m glad you brought me, Mum.’

  Libby got up and went over to her. ‘Are you? Really? You’re not fed up about yet more change in your life?’

  Bree made a face. ‘I’m not looking forward to school, but I understand now. I’m glad you told me.’

  ‘What, you mean about the money and everything?’

  Bree nodded. ‘It’ll be all right here, though. I mean we’ll have enough to pay John-Cody the rent and everything, won’t we?’

  Libby smoothed her daughter’s brow. ‘Yes. We’ll have enough. Don’t worry, darling, everything will be just fine, I promise you.’

  The sound of the anchor chain running out rattled through the hull and speech was suddenly impossible. It went on for some time and Libby and Bree looked at each other, Bree with her hands to her ears and her nose wrinkled. Then they felt the slight movement as John-Cody let the boat go astern then swing till they were at the widest point in the cove. There were twenty-seven metres of water under them and the anchor bit and dragged a little. John-Cody told Jonah to put the claw on the chain. It would chatter and wake him if they dragged too far in the night.

  Cascade Cove was out of the main channel, around the point from Pickersgill Harbour where Captain Cook had moored the Resolution and set up his observation post. John-Cody told them how Cook had made spruce beer from the rimu tree and tea from the manuka while he refitted his ship. The first European house ever built in New Zealand had stood in Luncheon Cove, and later a sealing gang led by William Leith had built a ship there. John-Cody told them that after a visit to Pickersgill Harbour in the morning, he would show them inner Luncheon Cove and if they were lucky they could snorkel with seals.

  Bree drifted towards sleep, wrapped in her duvet and watching the bright light of a star way up in the sky. John-Cody came down to get some of the now dry wet gear from the engine room and saw her gazing through the porthole. The sky was clear now, the wind having died and the clouds thinned to a milky mist, like curtains of lace on the stars. ‘Is that Venus up there?’ Bree asked him.

  ‘No, it’s Sirius. The brightest star in the sky.’ He rested his elbows on the edge of her bunk. ‘Mahina called it Takura, the winter star. Takura is a woman who brings the winter. On cold nights she shines extra brightly to warn of coming frosts.’

  Bree looked at him and frowned. ‘But I thought it’s supposed to be summer.’

  ‘It is. She just likes to remind us she’s there and that one day she’ll be back.’ He patted her hand where it lay outside the covers. ‘Did you have a good day today?’

  ‘The best.’

  ‘Good on you.’ He winked at her and switched out the engine-room light.

  Later Libby lay in her bunk feeling the slight swell and listening to the water slapping the hull with a sound like a half-empty barrel. It sloshed and rolled and she was rocked gently to sleep. Before she dropped off, John-Cody made a final check of the boat, in darkness. She had left the door to her cabin open to avoid condensation and she saw him in silhouette as he climbed the steps, his head framed against the pale sky through the for’ard windows. He rummaged quietly around — everyone else had turned in — then he slid down the steps again and she heard him settle in his bunk. His light was out and his breathing came evenly through the space between their cabins. The bunk was comfortable and warm and Libby could smell the smells of the boat, hear the little metallic creaks from the hull and the wind now and again in the spreaders: she sank deeper into the mattress and sleep came very quickly.

  The following morning they weighed anchor and John-Cody flaked the chain, hoisting it into loops with a boat-hook as it rolled back into the locker so that it didn’t get tangled up and jam when they tried to let it out again.

  They steamed to Pickersgill Harbour and Captain Cook’s astronomy point and Jonah and John-Cody let the dinghy down from the transom. Everyone but Jonah climbed into the dinghy and John-Cody steered it across to the wooden walkway that marked the landing point. Libby and Bree wore waterproofs and gumboots. John-Cody told them that gumboots or bare feet were a prerequisite in the bush. It rained most days of the year, no matter that the sun could be shining and the sky clear when they transferred from boat to shore.

  The forest was a tangle of beech trees, scrub and rata, with supplejack and hard and soft tree ferns climbing everywhere, particularly where the deer had not been in any numbers. John-Cody held the boat steady while they landed, then tied off to a branch and clambered ashore. Libby stood and watched while he made his way over the slippery patches of rock, being careful not to step on the ridges but only the valleys between: that way his footing was sure and he didn’t end up floating in the fiord.

  Bree ran her hand over the bark of one tree that was so thick with lichen it felt l
ike damp fur. The forest was dim and it dripped water. Fallen leaves underfoot were moist and mushy and everywhere you looked the woodland was tangled and primeval. John-Cody crouched next to a supplejack vine and bent it right over.

  ‘Bree,’ he said, ‘this is supplejack. See how bendy it is? The Maori used it for basket making.’ He spoke to the others then. ‘Somebody once told me that this place with its hardwood forests and tangle of secondary growth was the last garden of Tane, god of the forest and the birds. If Tane’s garden isn’t looked after properly, then the forest will wither and the world will be plunged back into the darkness before Rangi and Papa were separated.’ He explained the creation myth to them and told them about the forest and the wildlife that lived there. Bree watched him, drinking in his words. He spoke in a low voice with hints of his Louisiana birth still rubbing the edges of his accent.

  ‘There are other great gardens in Aotearoa,’ John-Cody went on, as they made their way through the tangled bush towards Lake Forster, ‘but I think this is the most special, the most unspoilt.’ He led them along a barely discernible path with crown fern growing either side of it and twisted tree roots lifting from the rotting vegetation.

  ‘The secondary growth trees grow on the lower levels between the hardwoods,’ he said. ‘Kamahi, fuchsia, wineberry. Most of the hardwood is silver beech and every few years the trees cast their seeds to ensure continued growth.’ He half-smiled. ‘The mice and rats have a field day.’ He stopped again and gathered up a crown fern in his hand, squeezing the body of the plant and letting go. ‘We need to ensure we look after the forest, to be certain the regeneration goes on, and that we don’t interfere so much that we destroy what’s here. So far we’ve managed to avoid that, but the introduction of deer and possum has done a hell of a lot of damage. Neither of them are native and they eat secondary growth trees.’

  Back at the dinghy he told them how the land lived and died and lived again. He pointed across the bay to Long Island where a great bare patch of rock was exposed like a livid scar on the mountain.