Show Me a Huia!

by Chris Barfoot

  David marvelled at the speed with which the pilot moved both feet and both hands, all on different controls, at split second intervals. They climbed, veered, looped, wove miraculously through the fusillade of shots that sprayed from the men standing on the meadow. Soon a windbreak of poplars rose comfortingly to break the line of fire.

  “Congratulations!” said David. “You handled that lot pretty well.”

  “You’re not my hunters,” said the pilot. “My boss can’t afford to break a contract.”

  “I wouldn’t go back if I were you,” said Kate. “Those types we met are not very friendly.”

  “I don’t suppose you happen to know the Waitoa?” asked David, speaking as if to a taxi driver.

  “But that’s the huia sanctuary!”

  “That’s where we’re going.”

  The pilot had heard the latest news bulletin and realised who his passengers were. Looking at the revolver in David’s hands, he knew that he was wasting his breath. He hoped his boss was insured against hijackers and decided to play dumb and wait for an opportunity.

  Not long afterwards, the frustrated watchers saw, two thousand feet above the valley, a tiny speck pause alongside a great bushed arm of the Raukumara. Then it vanished into the anonymity of the mountains.

  CHAPTER 36

  Dick Burton was a ranger of the old school.

  He had not been to University or taken a degree in psychology or education or business management. When he had left school, on gaining School Certificate, he had joined the Wildlife Service as a trainee. He had worked at cutting tracks, making ponds, constructing boardwalks, netting and ringing birds. They had given him oilskin and boots, a slasher, a hammer and a spade, and he had worked outdoors in all weathers, in the wind and the rain and the burning sun. He loved the feel of the roots of a plant as he gently bedded it into the welcoming soil, the damp fresh smell of the forest floor after rain, the sound of the children as they romped through the forest on one of his newly constructed boardwalks. So deeply did he feel these things that he even wrote poetry about them, a pastime unusual for one of rugged weather-beaten appearance and sometimes uncouth language.

  Ginger was his hair, gingery and stubborn his nature. What he believed in, he believed in strongly and simply, and he was not easily turned aside. Fiercely loyal, he would battle for the trees or the birds under his care with an intensity that some people would see as abrasive or one-eyed.

  Those who did not know him well might dismiss him as a simple man who wore his heart on his sleeve. But you could not be a ranger for thirty years without knowing something of the worse side of human nature. Slow he might be, but he was also wary. Years of dealing with certain members of the public such as wildlife poachers had developed a healthy sense of suspicion.

  The appointment to the Waitoa Sanctuary was the high point of his life. The only disadvantage was the advice that he would be working outside the sanctuary and that permission to enter rested entirely with the Director-General of Forestry.

  Dick Burton was not a desk man.

  After alighting from the stolen Mercedes he strode off in the sulphur-laden Rotorua night making for the police station. But on the way he decided to call in to the Wildlife office in Pukaki Street. “I’ll scotch those bloody kidnappers’ stories.”

  At 3 a.m. on Monday the light in his office still burned as he read and reread the huia file.

  Bloody kidnappers! Mental geologists! What a cheek they had had, first turning a gun on him, then telling him that cock and bull story about a uranium discovery in his sanctuary!

  He looked at the file again. He examined the photograph, which looked pretty genuine as far as he was concerned. He’d never read Buller’s Birds, though he had heard people talk about it. But Kevin’s report was said to be faultless. He was regarded as the Ornithological Society’s expert on rare birds. That was why it had not been considered necessary to get the Ornithological Society regional recorder to sign it off.

  The second witness was a man from Auckland who said he was an ornithologist but did not belong to the Ornithological Society. His name was Harry Wilson. Wilson’s description had also been faultless, the report said. The interviews and the authentication had been carried out personally by Dr Holcroft, who had made a special flight to Rotorua because of the importance of the discovery.

  Yet there was something about the report which was unusual. The independence of the second witness was vital in the sighting of rare birds. Harry Wilson? It was not a name known to him. He apparently had no New Zealand ornithological credentials, or the report did not mention them.

  Had Kevin organised his attendance as a fellow consultant specially for the wildlife expedition to the Waitoa, or had he been a member of the party which had been staying at the Upper Waiwawa Hut? This party was said to be a group of adventure tourists from overseas. It was the same party which Forestry had asked to advise others that the Waitoa was closed. But none of this party had seen the huia.

  He would talk to this bloke himself in the morning, just to assure himself that everything was all right. There was a phone number in the file. Perhaps his credentials were from overseas. Or should he ask Kevin Carr first? Then he remembered Kevin had gone on holiday. Why not go to the top and ask Gerald Holcroft? Damn Wellington! He would do it himself. In any case, it might only be his own half-baked idea.

  He didn’t want any damn rumours about his sanctuary.

  It was not till four o’clock on Monday morning when he was leaving the office that he remembered to call into the police station and to tell them about the doctor and his orderly tied up in Dick’s Land Rover on the Mamaku Hill.

  ***

  “May I speak to Harry Wilson, please?”

  A surprisingly efficient female voice answered. “May I ask who is calling, please?”

  “Burton is the name, wildlife ranger at Rotorua.”

  “May I ask in what connection, please?”

  “It’s about the Waitoa Sanctuary. He was one of the people who discovered the huia, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she said, but the voice gave no trace of any emotion.

  “Well, I just wanted to discuss something with him.”

  “Just a moment, please.” There were sounds of a muffled conversation and the sound of a photo copier in the background. Was it an office or a home? “I’m sorry, Mr Burton, but Mr Wilson has strict instructions not to talk to anyone about the discovery.”

  “Yes, I imagine the media have been a nuisance. Can you tell him that I’m the officer in charge of the sanctuary?”

  “Our instructions are from Dr Gerald Holcroft, the Director-General of Forestry, whom I presume you know.”

  There was a nasty twist in the last phrase. It deliberately ended a very unsatisfactory conversation.

  ***

  “Dr Holcroft is not available. May he call you back?”

  Gerald Holcroft was a bossy little man who had been a professor of some kind before he got the Forestry job. Dick thought at first that because he had never worked his way up through the Department, he wouldn’t really understand the people in the field.

  The huia sanctuary appointment had changed all this, and there was now a cordial relationship between the two men.

  Dr Holcroft was on the line. “Good morning, Dick, sorry to hear that you had a brush with the kidnappers. Is the vehicle all right?”

  “Yes, being recovered this morning, sir.”

  “It is believed that they are heading for the Waitoa sanctuary. Any idea why?”

  “The kidnappers said the mental patient bloke discovered uranium.”

  “It must be part of his sickness. Obviously they’re after the huia, just like those trampers who disappeared.”

  “Do you think so, sir? As a matter of fact I’ve been doing a bit of paper work and I had a query about the second witness, Harry Wilson.”

  The voice stiffened. “What about him?”

  “Are his credentials from overseas?”

  �
�Dick, I’m surprised at your question. Has someone put you up to this?”

  The stubborn, suspicious streak was roused. “No, but I couldn’t find much information on the file. So I rang him up, but was told that you wouldn’t allow anyone to talk to him. The only thing I can do is ask you. Can you tell me whether he was a consultant invited by Kevin or a member of the overseas adventure tourist party at the Waiwawa Hut? If he was a member of the party, would you give me the name of the leader of this group from the hut book so I can follow it up?”

  “Dick, I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Why do you want this information?”

  “I want to make my own enquiries.”

  “I understand you’ve been talking to the kidnappers. Are you questioning my integrity in accepting this witness?” The voice was icy.

  His boss should have known that Dick Burton was not a man to be put down. “Sir, is it that you don’t have this information or is it that you’re refusing to give it to me?”

  His chief ignored the question. “Listen to me, Burton. I am not continuing this conversation any further. I am putting you on notice that I am holding you personally responsible for allowing the kidnappers to go free knowing that they intended to enter the huia sanctuary. Moreover, if you continue to act outside my instructions as you did when you rang Harry Wilson I have no alternative but to dismiss you.”

  “The little blokes’s off his rocker!” said Dick as his chief slammed down the phone on him.

  ***

  Professor Gerald Holcroft’s appointment to the position of Director-General two months previously had created some ripples in the Department. Though at the time of his appointment he had held the chair in zoology at Victoria University and was a noted ornithologist, he had no Forestry background. Yet of his environmental interest there had been no doubt. While at Victoria he had been the driving force in establishing sanctuaries for various endangered birds such as kakapo, brown kiwi and black petrel. Moreover, he had shown himself adept in obtaining public and commercial backing for these initiatives.

  In recent years Forestry policy makers had struggled over a mandate which included both protection of New Zealand’s unique biodiversity and a commitment to fostering recreation and allowing for tourism. Conservation management strategies sought to give guidance on the balance between the two aims. Dr Holcroft had made no secret of the fact that he was seeking greater protection for biodiversity, especially where rare and endangered birds were concerned. He saw that the demand for public access was sometimes incompatible with this protection.

  “Look at Great Barrier Island,” he had said. “We know that the prime nesting place for the black petrel is on Mt. Hobson, so we build board walks everywhere to protect the burrows . Then the public use increases tenfold as a result. What happens to the black petrel?”

  His detractors said that he was intent on locking up mountains and remote bush valleys for rare and endangered birds. He replied that if these birds became extinct, some of New Zealand’s most notable treasures would be lost forever.

  The huia sanctuary was the jewel in his crown. In no other sanctuary was he more zealous for exclusion. As soon as the search party had set foot in the watershed of the Waitoa, he had strongly objected, and it was his influence which led to the eventual cancellation of the search.

  This exclusion even included wildlife officers. His own ranger, Dick Burton, had no authority to enter except with his personal permission, and the National Recovery Plan was to include the same condition.

  The appointment of such a well-known university and public figure as Director-General was seen as a coup for the Government. For this reason Sir Robert Roydhouse, Minister of Forestry, had not bothered to delve too deeply into his background. If he had, he might have read an article written by Dr Holcroft a few years previously in The New Zealand Herald which strongly contested any claim to Maori customary shooting or fishing rights in Forest and National Parks.

  He might then have had suspicions that the proposed Director-General’s bicultural sensitivity was not up to the standard required for such a controversial position.

  Unlike the kakapo, the brown kiwi and the black petrel in the other sanctuaries Dr Holcroft had set up, the huia in its sanctuary was to survive without human assistance.

  CHAPTER 37

  Kate felt that she was flying like a bird.

  As each great mist-topped range surged up in their path then fell away again into the anonymity of its restless green ocean, she felt the exhilaration that a bird must feel. She had the freedom to rise as the ranges rose, and the freedom to soar above them. She was part of the mountains of Papa as they rolled like great waves across the land, and part of the winds and the clouds which flowed and raced across Rangi’s measureless blue canopy.

  As she looked down at that green expanse which stretched as far as the eye could see, she envisaged the sheltered fern and moss coverts, the berry-laden boughs, the fertile rotting logs and the nectar-laden kamahi and rata flowers, the remote valleys where introduced predators might never have penetrated.

  Here was an avian sanctuary, a last retreat for birdlife. Might not a bird find shelter here – a bird which had been hunted and driven from every other North Island mountain range?

  Instead of all the terrible rumours, dear God, could it really be there?

  Show me a huia!

  The helicopter was now following a big white-flecked river running in a north easterly direction, which kept on disappearing where thousand-foot bluffs almost closed in above it.

  “That’s the Motu, best wild water in New Zealand!” called out Tane.

  As they rose up into the heart of the mountains, the country changed. Instead of high, bushed ranges, bare pinnacles of rock thrust up, jagged and menacing. Tane pointed to a great horned peak rearing up by itself right in the path of their flight.

  “That’s Devil’s Peak. We’ve got to get over that to get into the Waitoa.”

  His voice was drowned by the whining of the wind around the cockpit of the helicopter. Rain appeared on the window, then hail ricocheted off.

  “Where did that come from?” said the pilot, peering white-faced through the cockpit window which was rapidly icing up. The helicopter lurched and swayed. The mountains had disappeared. There was nothing to see outside but swirling mist and hail.

  “Go up!” yelled Tane. “You’re going to hit that mountain!”

  The pilot tried to climb, but the power did not seem to be sufficient to overcome the down-draught. Then the mists tore apart and they saw ahead a great black mass. Out of the mists it emerged like a ferocious guard dog suddenly unleashed. Beads of sweat stood out on the pilot’s face as he strove to keep control of his machine. Then the storm enveloped them.

  “Where the hell are we?” he yelled.

  “Just go back!” shouted Tane.

  The pilot was struggling to keep control, but without bearings or sight they seemed to be borne along by the wind in a sea of whirling mist. They prayed that the wind was taking them away from those towering castles of rock.

  Fifteen minutes later they saw a gap in the mist. Far below they glimpsed a patch of green.

  “Thank God!” said the pilot.

  They descended towards the green, and pierced through the mist. The green turned out to be a valley, with a ribbon of sparkling water running through it.

  “Not the Waitoa,” said Tane, checking his compass. “It flows east. It’s the Raukawa, and if I’m right we’re somewhere near the falls. He scanned the valley. “Yes, I think I can see where they are – about a thousand yards downstream.”

  “Wasn’t that part of the route that Stan and Bill chose?” said David.

  “And one of the search parties investigated the falls as a likely place for an accident,” said Kate. “The storm must have blown us right off course.”

  “Can you get down there?” Tane pointed out the grassy flat to the pilot. Down they came, and landed.

  David got out. It was 9 o’cl
ock on Monday morning. They were not in the Waitoa, but it was terra firma and it was not swaying. The grass was like a soft carpet under his feet. The sun was bathing the flat with its first warm rays. Blue mountain duck rose from the stream, honking round them in astonishment. The edges of the bush were alive with tui, robins and fantails. The cicadas were into their full morning song, and he could hear the river burbling over its stones.

  “It’s just like the Garden of Eden,” said Kate stretching out her arms in the warm sunlight.

  David looked at the helicopter anxiously. “I think we should hide it,” he said to the pilot.

  The pilot had gone very quiet. “Why?” he asked sullenly.

  At length he grudgingly brought out an old army camouflage net.

  “Is that what you use for deer carcasses and possum tails?”

  None of them wanted to go anywhere. With no sleep the night before and with all the strain of the last thirty-six hours they were physically and mentally exhausted. David, feeling a stab of conscience for the pilot, offered his tent and sleeping bag to him, but was too sleepy to realise that the pilot wasn’t interested. When he went to lie down on his spare clothes with a spare tent fly to cover him, he saw that the Kate and Tane had already disappeared into their own tents under the trees.

  Just as David was falling asleep, he was jolted into consciousness by a harsh noise.

  The helicopter!

  The traitor! He leapt up, seized the revolver from his pack and raced over to the now uncovered machine.

  “Stop!” he gesticulated.

  The pilot continued to warm up the motor.

  David realised that at any moment the rotors would begin spinning. He pointed the revolver at them.

  The pilot shouted belligerently. “You jokers are crims! The sooner you’re behind bars the better!”

  David shouted back. “There’s another side of the story! Do you want to hear it?”

  The pilot, seeing that his helicopter was in danger, turned the motor off. But he stayed in his cockpit with his hand on the controls.