by Derek Hansen
‘I’m surprised you’re so tolerant.’
‘People eat crays at Christmas, Rosie.’
‘Okay, so we’ll go penguin spotting tonight. Listen! Hear that?’ They’d almost reached the bottom of the track where it broadened out. They stood silently listening to a blue penguin calling for its mate out in the choppy waters of the bay. ‘Isn’t it great?’
‘It’s all great, Rosie. Now come on.’
Red walked straight down the beach and swam out to his boat to check the mooring lines, which were always secure, and his storm covers, which were always properly fastened and had only once lifted in a blow. He dived under looking for barnacles and weed, but he scrubbed the hull too often for any organisms to settle. He checked the chain and swivel attached to the concrete mooring and confirmed what he already knew. Both would need replacing before winter. It was important not to let equipment go and he kept a constant eye on it. What use was a dixie allowed to rust or a cup with holes? By the time he’d finished his inspection, Rosie had already stripped off and swum past the main beach to the bay’s third little stretch of sand. He set off after her, careful not to over-reach and aggravate his ribs. Archie paddled between them, unwilling to leave his master but anxious not to abandon Rosie either. It was a predicament that guaranteed Archie more exercise than Red and Rosie combined.
Red was first to spot Angus’ boat, out deep giving Bernie’s Head and the pinnacles a wide berth. He called to Rosie, who was ploughing the water ahead of him on their return leg. He thought she’d want to put her shorts and singlet back on before the old Scot had a chance to remonstrate. She stopped swimming and began to wade ashore.
‘You might have to help him onto the beach, Red,’ she said. ‘The widow’s had him for five days.’
Red followed her up the beach and dried off while they waited for Angus to come in. ‘He’s in a bit of a hurry.’
‘Probably forgot to go to the boy’s room before he left.’
Red took no notice of Rosie. He couldn’t remember when he’d last seen Angus cranking so many revs out of his old diesel, and the conditions were hardly ideal. He watched the red and white half-cabin as it lined up for the beach with the wind and waves dead astern. Saw it catch a swell, ride with it before slewing to the left and falling off its back. Odd, he thought, not like Angus at all. ‘I think he’s in some kind of trouble, Rosie.’
Rosie squinted at the boat heading towards them, suddenly serious. She expected him to throttle back so that he could glide up to his mooring, but it soon became obvious that he had other intentions. Red started running down the beach, Rosie and Archie hard on his heels.
‘He’s going to beach her! Stand clear.’
Angus cut the motor, judging the moment to perfection so that he set the bows firmly into the sand with no more of a jolt than necessary.
‘What’s the problem?’ Red was at the side of the half-cabin in seconds.
‘I’ve picked up a hitchhiker. More drowned than alive. He’d tied himself to a buoy.’
‘I’ll help you get him out.’
‘Before you do, Red, there’s something you should know. He’s Japanese.’ He looked Red straight in the eye to gauge his reaction. ‘A Japanese fisherman.’
Red’s eyes narrowed. ‘You rescued a Jap fisherman?’
‘Aye, that’s what I’ve done.’
‘How is he?’
‘Not the best. Not good at all.’
‘Then we’d better get him out of there!’
‘It doesn’t worry you, him being Japanese?’
‘I don’t know!’ Red leaped over the transom and opened the cabin door. An unearthly wailing came from within. ‘Christ! Is that him?’
‘Away with you! That’s Bonnie.’
Red stuck his head into the cabin and fought hard to ignore the stench saturating the enclosed space. He saw the figure bound up in Angus’ oilskins, head down, feet up. All he saw was a boy, a hurt boy who needed help. ‘Konnichi-wa,’ said Red. ‘Daijobu, daijobu anzen desu. Everything is okay, okay. You’re safe.’ Angus and Red picked up the crumpled form, lifted him and carried him onto the beach.
The boy struggled back into consciousness, aware of voices and people and being carried. His mind was filled with fragmentary recollections of vile odours and the tortured screams of the spirits of the dead. He forced his eyes open just as Red laid his head gently down on the sand. He saw the flaming red hair and flaming beard and recoiled. He heard a stifled scream, his own, but failed to recognise the source.
‘Daijobu, daijobu . . .’ Red said soothingly. ‘Everything is all right, everything is okay.’ He put his hand on the boy’s forehead and stroked it, just as he’d stroked the heads of his mates in the death houses at Thanbyuzayat and Aungganaung. ‘Zenzen daijobu-ne? Everything okay, understand?’
‘Let me look at him, Red.’
‘It wasn’t his fault, Rosie.’
‘What?’
‘It wasn’t his fault.’
‘Of course it wasn’t. Now, out of my way.’
‘He’s too young, you see?’ Red moved aside so that she could examine the boy. He turned to go and checked himself. There was another patient to attend. ‘Angus, you’d better get Bonnie out of the cabin. Smells like she’s puked all the way from Awana.’
‘She has, Red, take my word for it. From both ends.’
Red volunteered to piggy-back the sick boy up to Rosie’s bach. She made up a bed in her spare room, covered it with every blanket she had, filled a hot water bottle for good measure and left him to sleep. When she rejoined Red he’d begun making a fish soup for the boy to eat when he woke up. A pot of tea and two cups waited for her on the dining table. She slumped onto a chair.
‘You know, Red, I’ve practised more medicine here in the past eight months than I did in the previous eight years.’
‘How is he?’
‘He’ll live. Give Angus a lot of credit for that. Did you see how chafed the poor bugger is? Rubbed raw in places. Fortunately there doesn’t appear to be much water in his lungs. Angus had laid him down so that his head was lower than his feet once the boat was under way. Whether he intended it or not, that probably helped drain salt water from his lungs.’
Red sat down opposite Rosie and poured the tea. ‘When do you think I’ll be able to talk to him?’
‘What’s your hurry?’
‘It’s time, Rosie, don’t you see?’
‘Don’t play games with me, Red! See what?’
‘A Japanese fisherman picked up half a mile from shore,’ Red said patiently. ‘How do you think he got there?’
‘Oh shit –’
‘I’ve got to talk to him, Rosie, the sooner the better.’
‘I understand, Red, but I’m not going to wake him for you. Why don’t you take the radio and alert Mickey?’
‘What will I tell him? We don’t know if we’re looking for a longliner or a trawler.’
‘You could see if he has a patrol boat available.’
‘No!’ Red said vehemently. ‘First we find out who we’re dealing with.’
Rosie took no notice of his sudden explosion of temper. She put it down as another symptom of his inability to cope. ‘What difference does that make? You should still alert Mickey. If he has a boat he’ll send it.’
Red shifted uncomfortably on his seat. ‘You don’t understand, Rosie.’
‘I understand perfectly, Red O’Hara. You’re just looking for an excuse to use your bombs. You’re hoping it’s the Shoto Maru and you don’t want the Navy getting in the way! That’s right, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Red?’
‘Angus has the radio.’ Red wouldn’t meet her eyes.
‘Well, go and get it from him!’
‘All right!’ Red stood angrily. ‘But if anyone’s going to send a message to Mickey it’ll have to be Angus. I’m coming back in case the boy wakes up. And let me tell you something, Rosie. Angus will also want to know what boat the boy’s from for two reasons. So that he can tell Mickey w
hen he asks so that he doesn’t look stupid. And . . .’ Red’s eyes clouded for an instant and she could almost see his mind flick back to Burma. His voice turned bitter. ‘And two, because they – whoever they are – owe him sixpence!’
When Red called in on Angus he found the old Scot unusually subdued, gazing around emptily like a vacating householder taking a final look at what had been his home.
‘What is it you want now?’ The Scot’s voice was flat, detached, disinterested.
‘Rosie wants you to contact Mickey and tell him about the Jap.’
‘Aye, it’s my duty, I suppose.’
Red was caught by surprise. He’d expected an argument or to be told to go and call Mickey up himself. But the Scot just acquiesced with a sigh. ‘How’s your shoulder?’
‘I’ll survive.’
‘Anything I can do?’
‘Nothing! I don’t need you or anyone! I’m not senile, you know.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Ah . . . away with you. It’s me who should be sorry. It’s just that I don’t like all these changes that are happening. Nothing’s the same any more.’
Red shuffled with embarrassment. ‘I know what you mean, but things’ll get back to normal.’
‘I wish I had your faith. Soon we’ll have the wee bairn and . . .’ He hesitated as he contemplated a life shared with the widow and sighed heavily. ‘And God only knows what then!’ He noticed Red looking at him strangely. ‘Ah . . . enough of this mawkishness! You go about your business and I’ll go about mine.’
‘Ask Mickey if he knows where the Shoto Maru is.’
‘The Shoto Maru?’ Angus stiffened, and his interest quickened. ‘Do you think the lad’s from the Shoto Maru?’
‘It’s a possibility, and if he is we have to know.’
‘Dear God! Don’t you go doing anything foolish, now!’
‘Find out if Mickey has a patrol boat on stand-by.’
‘Aye, I’ll do that. I hope for your sake that he has.’
‘How’s Bonnie?’
‘Fine. I gave her some food and she’s sleeping. How’s the boy?’
‘Asleep. And doing well, thanks to you. I’ll ask him a few questions when he wakes up.’
‘Aye, and let’s hope the Shoto Maru isn’t one of the answers. I’ll drop by Rosie’s on the way back. Don’t you go involving her in your madness!’
Red turned away without bothering to reply and set off for the beach. He didn’t believe in patrol boats on stand-by any more than he believed in fairies at the bottom of the garden. The wind had strengthened and pushed the white-capped waves hard in on the beach, where they backed up and crashed. Wreck Bay had little protection when the nor’-easters blew. He watched Rosie’s and Angus’ boats dancing wildly on their moorings and thought momentarily of winching them up onto the sand. But he had another job to do first, a more important job, one that he couldn’t put off. He swam out to his boat, stripped off the storm covers, fired up the diesel and manoeuvred the boat over to the jetty. The tide was high, almost full, which gave him some satisfaction. He topped up the fuel tanks and walked purposefully over to the bunker he’d made. Rather than fight the tarpaulin, he took it off altogether and folded it up, using stones to stop it blowing away. Then he turned his mind to the serious business of transferring his homemade bombs to his boat. He’d intended to make racks for them so they wouldn’t bump against each other, or anything else for that matter. He knew how easily the vase-like casings could break or crack, but time had beaten him. His eyes wandered to the stands of flax and toi-toi and saw a solution beckoning. For the next hour and a half he sat and wove individual baskets for his bombs and packed them out with handfuls of grass. Then he attached three large glass floats to each bomb, enough to keep them on or close to the surface. When he’d finished, he tied lengths of rope between the gunwales and suspended the bombs far enough apart so that they wouldn’t bang against each other as the boat pounded through the waves. He took a step back to admire his handiwork. Four rows of five bombs suspended in a cat’s cradle of rope and fishing line. Though not a perfect system, and one that would force him to crawl between bow and stern when he cast off, it was good enough to enable him to control the boat and deploy his bombs single-handed.
When Signals rang and said Angus was on the radio and needed to talk to him personally, Mickey immediately feared the worse. He assumed Rosie had received his letter and confessed to the truth. He expected to hear a gloating Scot publicly proclaiming his imminent parenthood.
‘Hello, Angus,’ he began tentatively, regretting the fact that he hadn’t thought to order his faithful assistant elsewhere. Gloria looked on expectantly. The Scot’s first words brought a surge of relief, but his pleasure was fleeting as he digested the significance. He instructed Angus to come back on air in the evening for an update and raced back to his office.
‘Coffee!’ he bellowed. ‘And bring me the movements and last known position of every foreign vessel within one hundred miles north and south of Great Barrier.’
He slumped down in his chair, certain that it was Shimojo up to his old tricks, and equally certain that Red would not sit idly by. The problem was, they’d lost contact with Shimojo once he’d moved out wide. The Airforce had lost interest and found other things to occupy their Orions. No domestic pilots had reported sightings, but that was only to be expected. There was a limit to how far they could safely stray from their flight paths. He’d ordered the Cormorant up from its patrol around Hawkes Bay, but it had only reported a blip on its radar wide of the Mercury Islands and had been unable to identify its source. They’d had reports of phantom trawlers from positions a thousand miles apart and had been unable to find a pattern in the sightings. The reports had become too widespread and unreliable to even interest the newspapers.
In the meantime, longliner dories were wreaking havoc along the north-west beaches. Mickey cursed under his breath. There were too many games being played and too few resources at his disposal. In a sense he felt relieved at finally discovering Shimojo’s whereabouts, but it was only the relief of a cancer victim receiving confirmation of the disease. Waiting could be worse than actually knowing, but knowing was hardly something to shout about either.
He was concerned at how earnestly Angus had pleaded for naval intervention and he’d pressed the old Scot for details of ‘the dire consequence’ he’d alluded to. But Angus hadn’t been forthcoming. What on earth was Red O’Hara up to, he wondered?
‘Gloria!’
Mickey looked up as she appeared at his door. ‘What have you got for me?’
‘Not much, sir. The demersal longliners on the east coast are still working further south between the Bay of Plenty and Great Barrier.’
‘Get on with it.’
‘The Russian and Taiwanese trawlers are still working the same grounds well wide of the twelve mile. Last we heard, the two tuna longliners had moved further out to sea and we’ve no reason to think they’ve moved back in close, though the Egret did report large schools of tuna in the Gulf. We’ve had no reports at all of the Shoto Maru other than sightings of an unnamed trawler working wide between the Bay of Plenty and the Mercuries. In all probability it’s the Shoto Maru, but we can’t assume it. Nor can we assume that the sailor Angus rescued was from the Shoto Maru, or even from a fishing boat.’
Mickey winced. She was right, of course. Apart from her, they’d all been guilty of assuming that the sailor was a fisherman. He tried to recover lost ground. ‘I’m aware that assumptions are being made here, Gloria. However, no Japanese vessels have left port in the last forty-eight hours and only one has arrived. The arrival, a cargo ship, came from the north.’ The New Zealand Herald always reported arrivals and departures and Mickey had been reading the paper when Angus’ call had come through. For once he was ahead of her, but only just.
‘Do you think Angus could tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese or Korean characters?’
‘Ah.’ She had him again.
; ‘A boat from Hong Kong arrived this morning.’
‘Thank you, Wainscott,’ Mickey said frostily. ‘I’m pleased to know you also read the paper. But let’s just assume for a moment that our man is a Japanese fisherman. If you had to wager your future career on the identity of the vessel he fell from, what would be your guess?
‘The Shoto Maru.’
‘Thank you. Now, can we get on with the job?’ Mickey knew he was being unreasonable. All Gloria had forced him to do was consider other possibilities. Normally he’d have complimented her, but he didn’t normally get other women pregnant nor live with the threat of exposure. He felt he’d earned the right to be irritable. ‘What do we have available?’
‘The Kotaku, sir. Yesterday I overheard Lieutenant Commander Scriven discussing the possibility of having the Kotaku permanently attached to the squadron.’
‘Did you? Who with?’
‘Don’t know, sir. The Lieutenant Commander was on the phone.’ Gloria looked fixedly at a spot above Mickey’s head but her cheeks were slightly flushed.
‘Gloria . . . ?’
‘His assistant had a dental appointment, sir. You may recall he asked me to stand in.’
‘But did he ask you to listen in? Never mind. Get onto it, Gloria! Let’s hope the crew haven’t been sent home for Christmas. Ask its commanding officer to stand by. Tell him what’s up and that we might need him to cast off as soon as possible, tonight at the very latest.’
‘Sir!’
‘And Gloria . . . well done!’ He smiled ingratiatingly but she was already out the door and out of sight.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
‘Dozo tabete kudasai,’ Red urged gently. ‘Eat, eat.’ At Rosie’s request he’d put on some old grey boxer shorts and a red and green tartan flannel shirt with buttons that shared neither colour nor size with one another.
The boy sat propped up in bed and allowed the woman and the strange red man who spoke snippets of his language to feed him. The soup was good and the pieces of fish floating in it delicious. He’d been overjoyed to discover that he was alive but he still had no idea what to make of the unearthly, high-pitched keening that had chilled him more than the long hours in the water.