Sole Survivor. Derek Hansen

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СКАЧАТЬ 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, СКАЧАТЬ