Sole Survivor

by Derek Hansen

  CONTENTS

  Book I Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Book II Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Book III Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Book IV Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Postscript

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Derek Hansen

  Copyright

  BOOK

  I

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  Red O’Hara woke at first light convinced that he should be dead and ashamed that he wasn’t. There was nothing unusual about this. Every day began the same way. He pushed aside his mosquito net and glanced quickly around the bare wooden slat walls of his bedroom. He needed to confirm that he was safe in his bedroom and not back in hell. He rose and walked to the window to begin another day of discipline and routine, and realise the objective the doctors had insisted he set himself.

  ‘Progress will only come through setting objectives and achieving them,’ they’d said smugly, and also cleverly transferred the blame for their own lack of progress onto him. One day Red had surprised them by obliging. He wrote a single word in large childish letters and taped the sheet of paper to the wall above his bed.

  ‘Survive,’ was all it said.

  His doctors had encouraged him to write more, but in the end had to make do with what they had. They didn’t think survival was much of an objective, but to Red it had seemed like an insurmountable mountain. They thought survival was the means to an end. Red thought it was the means of avoiding one.

  The window had no curtains. The bush and isolation guaranteed Red’s privacy. Barely two hundred people lived on the whole of Great Barrier Island, and only three were sufficiently antisocial to live on the northern end in the wilds around Wreck Bay. Both his neighbours kept their distance.

  The sun was still well short of the horizon as Red slipped into his routine. Exercise, breakfast, housework, shower. Only then could he face up to the other duties his survival demanded. He allowed himself a few moments of deep breathing to calm his mind before easing slowly into his stretches. Anyone watching would have been thoroughly perplexed. His movements were fluid and graceful, but almost impossibly slow and stylised. The early light revealed a body without an ounce of fat on it. But if his ribs were clearly defined so were his muscles, and what they lacked in mass they more than made up for in tone. Red lived a hard, spartan life and it showed.

  He finished his exercises yet still made no move to dress. His skin was tanned, leathery and desensitised from years of exposure to sun and elements. Red was forty-four years old with the body of a younger man and the skin of one years older. The sun had bleached his Celtic red hair and beard so they had turned gingery at the tips. He wore both long but never untidily. Regulations had been unequivocal about that. His eyes were his most remarkable feature, and not just because they were unnaturally bright. The whites dazzled like re-touched teeth on toothpaste posters and the pupils had the green hue of a troubled sea. They were the eyes of a great seducer, though Red showed not the slightest inclination to use them that way. Only rarely did anyone feel their intensity.

  Breakfast was fish rice and that hardly varied either. Red’s kitchen typified the man. Everything was in its place and spotless. His pots and pans hung on meat hooks from a rail above his old, cast-iron, wood fuel stove. The old Shacklock wetback had been freshly scrubbed, and the green and cream enamel gleamed. He used it nine months of the year to cook his meals, heat his water and warm his home which was little bigger than a holiday bach. He never used it in summer when it sat cold and idle. Instead, he lit both rings on his camping gas stove, put on the kettle for a cup of tea and a pot for his rice. He opened the fridge door, grabbed a jug of powdered milk, a bowl of fish stock in which to boil his rice, and a small steamed snapper. He closed the door quickly to keep in the cold. Once the rice was on, he broke the steamed snapper into small pieces, laid it in a bamboo steamer and placed it over the simmering rice to warm through. Archie sat on his rug beside the cold stove and whined in anticipation. There was a strong chance that no one else in the whole of New Zealand sat down to a breakfast remotely like it.

  While the rice cooked, Red had another ritual to perform. He opened his screen door and walked along the veranda to the end railing where the hill sloped abruptly away to the sea, and not even his grandfather kauri tree came between him and the rising sun. Sunrise still disturbed him even though he knew he had nothing to fear. Not any more. No Kimigayo anthem, no standing on parade, no forced labour, no beatings. Once the sun burst free from the sea he returned to the kitchen. Another day, another challenge had begun.

  He divided the rice meticulously between two bowls, shared the flesh of the snapper equally, but laid the fish head and frame on Archie’s bowl. Red liked sucking out the eyes and the cheeks but so did Archie, and it was the border collie’s turn. Red was never anything but scrupulously fair.

  ‘Good to the grain,’ his mates in the camp used to say, even though the grain they shared was often green or rotting. They liked it when Red served, and there were never any arguments or fights when he did. Red and Archie always had breakfast on the veranda except when rain or high winds made it too uncomfortable. Red ate at a table he’d fashioned from timbers salvaged from the old mine battery at Oreville, while Archie had his bowl on a square of linoleum. Fish was a delicacy neither of them tired of, though the over-riding sentiment that governed Red’s appreciation was gratitude. He was grateful that there was something filling and life-sustaining to put in his bowl. Anyone who’d ever been forced to go without would understand.

  After breakfast came the clean up. The dishes had to be scrubbed immediately, along with pots, pans, benches, sink and the little square of linoleum. Cleanliness meant hygiene, and hygiene was another key to survival. After the dishes, Red stripped his bed and folded the blankets and sheets according to regulations, and sat them in a neat stack at the foot. He completed the housekeeping by chasing a broom around the floors and then a mop around the kitchen area. He did this every day.

  His shower followed. In summer he used a watering can suspended from a beam which ran between his shack and the laundry, and was fed from a hose that ran from his water tank. The water was cold and bracing even in mid-summer. Red wasted neither time nor water in washing his body and hair. He scrubbed himself vigorously with Sunlight soap which the makers had intended for laundry use. It was cheap, lasted, and did the job.

  Once he’d showered he let his five hens and rooster out of the chook house, threw them rice
and scraps he’d deliberately saved from dinner and breakfast, and gathered their eggs in exchange. He checked his vegetable garden next. There were no locks on his doors or windows yet his garden was securely fenced in with heavy chain mesh, which was also sunk into the ground so that no animal could burrow beneath it. A heavy bolt held the gate closed and an equally heavy lock held the bolt. Pieces of cloth and aluminium from toothpaste tubes fluttered from strings which cross-hatched the plot to keep birds away. Red opened the gate and worked his way between the lines of vegetables searching for weeds and snails. Neither stood a chance of escaping detection.

  His final task was to attend to his wall calendar. Keeping track of the days was important because it had always been important. It was important in Burma where they’d made their own calendars, each a log of survival, charting the time between home and family and promising one day a reunion. Keeping a calendar up to date was proof of survival and a declaration of defiance. The twenty-fifth day of February 1966 was consigned to history with the stroke of a pencil. Through rigid routine, discipline and the sameness of his days, Red achieved his objective. He survived. He believed he had defied the predictions of his doctors and had his life back under control. Red lived a simple life of self-delusion.

  Red had risen from his bed knowing he had two jobs to do that day. He kicked away the wedge that held the laundry door slightly ajar so that a breeze could flow through, and entered the cool, dark room. He had a favour to ask and he hated asking for favours. He also had a sick man to see, something else that impinged on his day. But he’d learned about obligations in Burma, and obligations to the sick were sacrosanct. Two bush safes, light timber frames encased with fine mesh, hung from a rafter. In one were eight smoked snapper all around six or seven pounds. In the other were row upon row of sprats and piper, split up the middle, salted and sun dried. The fish weren’t only for himself but to give away. Years on the railway had taught him the value of the gift. You could never doubt the stamp of a man who willingly gave his food to others. Red helped himself to two smoked snapper and set off along the pathway to the Scotsman’s bach, Archie trotting along at his heel. It was barely seven-thirty but he knew Angus McLeod would be up and about. He also knew he wouldn’t be welcome and neither would Archie.

  Two hundred yards down the trail Red left the path and threaded his way through the ferns, tea-tree and pungas to the big old grandfather kauri. He just liked to touch the giant trunk, to feel its age and let it know that it was safe. No one would ever take this tree, survivor of centuries and of ruthless logging. Archie waited and watched. There was nothing odd about what his master and mate was doing. It was something else he did every day.

  Red made his way further and further down the slope before branching off to the right where the trail forked. Up in the canopy he could hear fantails and tiny goldfinches, and occasionally catch glimpses of them. The pathway turned crimson as it wound around a clump of pohutukawas which had found shelter and shed their blossoms beneath the ridge of Bernie’s Head. They’d been doing this for six or seven hundred years before Bernie had thought to share his name. Red walked on uphill until he came to the clearing and paused. The old Scot was cantankerous at best and loathed visitors.

  ‘Hello, Angus!’ Red called and waited, keeping the Scot’s vegetable garden between himself and the house. He looked along the lines of vegetables and had to fight back the urge to pluck out the young weeds he saw growing there. There shouldn’t be weeds. And there should be a proper fence, not just a sagging run of chicken wire. Red had tried to fix both one morning when he’d called by to drop off some fresh snapper, and had copped an earful for his trouble. Still, it wasn’t right and it troubled him. He’d seen men beaten senseless for less.

  ‘It’s you. What is it you want this time?’

  ‘I’m going round to Fitzroy.’

  ‘I see. Wait there. I’ll get my list.’

  As the old Scot turned back into his shack, a bundle of fur barrelled down the steps and bounded over towards Red. Archie whined with excitement.

  ‘Stay, Archie,’ said Red. ‘Hello, Bonnie. Say hello to Archie.’ Bonnie purred like an outboard motor and rubbed herself up against Red’s legs. What cat wouldn’t love a man with such a fishy air about him? Bonnie purred and rolled and also rubbed up against Archie, who bent his nose down to greet the cat Maori-fashion. Both cat and dog were black and white as if neither owner could afford colour. Bonnie responded without fear. They’d met before and Archie had a fishy aura about him as well.

  ‘I don’t encourage that. I’ll not have Bonnie bringing in fleas.’

  Red glanced up into the humourless face on the veranda above.

  ‘All we’re bringing is smoked snapper.’

  ‘Don’t you be smart now! If you’re intending one of those fish for me then I thank you for it.’ The Scot stepped down from the veranda and skirted around the vegetable plot. ‘Here is my shopping list.’

  ‘Here’s your fish.’ Red took a deep breath. This was the part he hated. ‘I need to borrow some diesel.’

  The old Scot glowered but had little option. Besides, the madman was saving him a trip. Even so, Red had to learn not to use him as a convenience. ‘This is not the first time. Can you not monitor your levels more closely?’

  ‘I had to rescue birds.’

  ‘Aye, well.’ Angus had also rescued birds from Japanese longlines and moderated his tone. ‘Mind you replace it, now.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘In full, mind.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘See you do. And for God’s sake, man . . .’

  ‘. . . make yourself decent.’ Red finished the sentence for him. ‘Heel.’

  Red turned and Archie followed so abruptly that Bonnie, who had been rubbing herself against the dog’s front legs at an angle of roughly thirty-five degrees, toppled onto her side and rolled down the slope after them. Bonnie was like a football covered in fur, kept fat by the old Scot not so much from affection but to deter her from catching the native birds. Bonnie, birds and children in general – though rarely in the specific – were the only creatures on earth the old Scot cared a damn about.

  Red retraced his steps by the pohutukawas and their carpet of decaying red needles, and began to climb back up the trail to where it split below the grandfather kauri and the grey soil gave way to yellowish clay. He’d made the trip up to Bernie’s every day for the past month and sometimes twice a day. The old man needed help. He always brought Bernie food, cleaned and cooked. Lately he’d had to bed-wash him, but Red was no stranger to that. Bernie was always affable and grateful, but he was just filling in time before he died. Red had seen that happen before in Burma.

  He walked up to the shack’s front door and shooed the chooks off the veranda. He knocked loudly on the frame. The groan from within noted his arrival. An empty sherry flagon lay on its side on the kitchen bench, keeping company with the previous night’s soiled dishes. Red opened the door of the old kerosene fridge. The shelves were spotless because Red had cleaned them the day before, and empty except for a quarter-pound of Anchor butter, a jar of homemade plum jam and a jug of milk. Red took out the milk and butter and set them on the kitchen table alongside the smoked fish. He wandered into the bedroom. The room stank, bitter and vinegary. He opened the window.

  ‘You okay?’

  Bernie groaned and tried to sit up. He wheezed as he tried to draw breath. Phlegm caught in his throat and he doubled over the side of the bed, head down, helpless in a fit of coughing. Red held him and beat firmly on the back of his ribs until Bernie finally coughed up a dense gob of mucus onto the floor. Bernie’s face had turned crimson and his forehead was bathed in sweat. He shivered. There were pinkish bubbles in among the mucus. Red pulled the blankets back over the old man and laid his head back on the pillow.

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry mate.’

  There was a roll of toilet paper by the bed which Bernie tore up and used to spit into during the night wh
en the coughing took hold. Red took some to clean up Bernie’s latest contribution. He went out to the back door where he’d left the mop and pail the day before, half filled the bucket with water and disinfectant and returned. He collected the sodden lumps of toilet paper, took them out and threw them into the kitchen waste bin, knowing he’d have to put a match to them later. Then he mopped down the bedroom floor. He couldn’t help himself. Infections bred and spread in filth and he couldn’t allow it. The Aussies had known that and wasted no time getting organised, but the British soldiers had learned the hard way. Maybe it was the heat that got to them or maybe they just hadn’t understood. They’d died of dysentery, diphtheria, cholera, malaria, typhoid, gangrene and septicaemia, but Red suspected they’d died as much from ignorance. They’d died where the Aussies had survived, died in greater numbers at any rate.

  ‘How about a cuppa?’ Bernie had propped himself up on his elbows and was shuffling his pillows around behind him as a back rest. ‘Man could die of thirst around here.’

  Red nodded. He never knew with Bernie how much was real and how much was put on for his benefit. He knew that Bernie had lived for years on a disability pension because of a back injury suffered on a building site in Auckland which prevented him from engaging in any further manual labour, the only type of work he was qualified to do. But when Red had first come to the Barrier, he’d seen the old reprobate haul his timber half-cabin up onto the beach single-handed, and chop through manuka scrub as well as any Maori work gang. He’d also put in a vegetable plot, carted buckets of topsoil over the hills from the flood plains, planted rose bushes and fruit trees. Rumour had it that there was nothing wrong with his back either when he’d gone down to Thames to visit one of his old girlfriends. But, in truth, Bernie looked as bad as Red had ever seen him and possibly even worse. The pink bubbles were not a good sign.

  ‘Want some poached smoked snapper?’

  ‘Nuh.’

  ‘You’re going to eat it anyway.’ This was a conversation they had every day and it always ended the same way. Red took the mop and pail and put it outside the back door. He scrubbed his hands as thoroughly as any surgeon before lighting both rings of Bernie’s cooker, and made a mental note to check his gas cylinder.