by Nicky Webber
‘Yup,’ said Suzie. ‘Something to do with the ocean currents and New Zealand’s narrow landmass.’
Sacha smiled at her younger sister. ‘Well, you are up to speed. Been visiting cyberspace, eh?’
The two sisters continued to walk between the two men, with Hawke at the back. He and Sacha happily chatted when they weren’t struggling to keep up with Bruno’s pace and catching their breath. Hawke monitored the tall, broad frame of Bruno up ahead and made sure he wouldn’t notice Hawke’s overtures towards Sacha. There were steep inclines, twisting and turning, snaking around the rocky outcrops surrounding the dark green water below as it meandered and fell over rock ledges, flowing towards the waterfalls and onto the coastline some distance away. The earthy smell of the vegetation uplifted his spirits. The fresh air so fresh filled his lungs and, with each footfall, he felt connected to the earth and the forest itself.
Like a soft sponge, Hawke soaked up the calm and peace of the magnificent trees as they swayed gently in the early morning air. Thin tendrils of mist curled up from the thick undergrowth, where a carpet of ferns and tall, majestic, prehistoric-looking Ponga tree-ferns stood like sentries guarding the narrow dirt path.
The two men carried heavier backpacks with extra coffee and snacks, matches, and a compass they were unlikely to use.
But the day was perfect, almost silent, only interrupted by the song of native birds, the crystal chords of Tui and Fantails as the group stopped for a snack break.
An hour later, they arrived at a swimming hole and made the most of the hike. Swimming in their underwear, the foursome splashed and laughed, Bruno showing off his prowess by diving from an overhanging branch of an old Pohutukawa tree.
Sacha and Hawke lay on the bank as the other two swam and giggled in the calm, dark water.
‘There’s genuine desperation about him,’ Hawke said, observing the pair.
Sacha turned towards Hawke. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s always grandstanding, showing off. Look at him now.’
Sacha turned back and watched Suzie climb on top of Bruno’s shoulders before jumping off into the murky water.
‘Yeah, I guess,’ Sacha said. ‘It’s probably part of the reason he wants to be a cop.’
‘Ummm,’ murmured Hawke, unconvinced. ‘At least his arrogance is a little more under control now he’s older.’
Sacha chuckled. ‘Oh, you noticed!’ They both laughed out loud, and the others stopped and turned to glance at them seated together on the grassy edge of the swimming hole.
The rest of the hike was uneventful, and they all arrived back home utterly exhausted. Within an hour of their return, all four crashed into a deep sleep. There was barely a murmur as the tourists slept off their hike after consuming the leftovers from the previous night’s delicious barbeque.
CHAPTER 6
Missing in Action
During the following day, after a lazy start, they drove to nearby Tairua with its picture-perfect village. Breath-taking views of the Pacific Ocean where the shore met the river inlet and formed the harbor estuary greeted them as they drove down the hill. The road wound around tall, volcanic looking Mt Paku, dotted with baches and retirement homes amongst the thick bush-covered terrain. The small salubrious village of Pauanui, opposite, was popular with well-heeled holidaymakers who invaded the shoreline via helicopters and luxury air-conditioned vehicles.
Hawke and Bruno hired kayaks to explore the inlets and took fishing gear to catch a tasty Kahawai fish. They left the sisters suntanning on the white, sandy beach.
‘We’ll be bringing big, fat fish home for the BBQ tonight,’ they boasted.
‘Just make sure it’s not the one that gets away!’ Suzie laughed.
‘Yeah right,’ said cynical Suzie. ‘This I have to see. I don’t think Bruno’s even been in a kayak in his life.’
‘I have so!’ Bruno immediately replied.
‘Don’t worry, I used to ocean kayak back home,’ said Hawke, watching Sacha’s face. He hoped to impress her, but it was hard to tell. ‘You’ll get the hang of it in five minutes. It’s easy.’
Bruno lifted his chin, mildly annoyed at the feeling he was being set up.
After a couple of false starts, Hawke and Bruno, wobbling behind, took off together, paddling close to the shoreline. The two sisters stood and watched their brightly colored kayaks disappear around the point, and exchanged a knowing look.
‘I hope they’ll be okay,’ Suzie said.
‘Of course. The guys will be fine,’ Sacha assured her, feeling uneasy.
When Hawke and Bruno hadn't returned to shore after nearly three hours, the girls worried. They had moved out of the harsh mid-day sun and sat in the shade of a massive, sprawling old Pohutukawa tree. They had already exceeded one of their self-inflicted deadlines to call for help after deciding to wait another thirty minutes.
‘If one of them has drowned…’ started Sacha.
‘Don’t say that. The boys are both pretty strong, and it’s hard sometimes to row against the outgoing tide. You can see it’s turned and going out now, so they will take twice as long to get back,’ Suzie said.
Both anxious women sat on their damp towels in silence, their eyes scanning the horizon and the thin point of land in the distance where they expected to see the men return.
In the distance, they could hear a helicopter, its rotors roaring closer as it swooped overhead and flew out to sea. They looked at one another and said nothing. Both were trying to control an increasing sense of alarm.
Ten minutes later, they were standing at the small local community police station in Tairua.
Constable Nick King, a tall, handsome, silver-fox, smiled broadly from behind the countertop as the two blonde tourists walked through the double glass doors.
‘Afternoon, girls.’ he beamed at the tanned bikini-clad blondes. ‘How can I help?’ he stood up straighter, his navy uniform fitted smoothly across his broad shoulders.
‘We’ve got a problem,’ Sacha started.
‘It’s our friends, Hawke and Bruno,’ Suzie continued. ‘They haven’t come back.’
The police officer frowned. ‘Are you all American?’
‘Yeah,’ they said in unison.
‘Where did they go?’ He asked, taking out a clipboard with a form for them to complete, and pressed a key on the PC in front of him.
The two girls explained, and as they talked, they both became tearful and upset.
‘Hold on,’ he said, passing a box of tissues across the counter. He walked to a wooden desk in the back of the small, cluttered office and lifted the telephone receiver. He gave details of the two missing tourist kayakers and confirmed times and names before ending the call.
‘What’s happening?’ Suzie asked.
‘The rescue helicopter's returning after another call-out. They'll fly past, up the river estuary, and check if anything's going on.’ Constable King was all business with his matter-of-fact tone and clear, clipped directives. ‘They’ll also call the Coast Guard. Good, that you had some idea of the direction they had headed off in.’
‘Will they be okay?’ Sacha asked in a trembling voice, knowing it was an impossible question, but with the police officer’s officious response, her sense of alarm had reached fever pitch.
‘We didn’t want to bother the Police…’ Suzie said anxiously.
‘No bother,’ he said, looking concerned. ‘You did the right thing. I’ve got your cell phone numbers, so I think the best thing you can do is go home and I’ll call you as soon as we hear anything.’
The color drained from both girls’ faces. It all sounded so grim. But how could it be? They thanked the Officer and walked outside, holding onto one another’s forearms. Out on the narrow concrete pavement, they both cried. Sacha hugged her sister and reassured her.
‘No one knows anything yet. They could be perfectly fine,’ she soothed. ‘You know what Hawke’s like. They get so involved they just forget about the time.’
&n
bsp; Suzie nodded, dabbing her eyes with the end of her beach towel, trying to pull herself together. They had the keys to the car in with their backpack but were anxious about driving back and not being on the beach if the boys rowed back to the beach.
‘Okay, let’s wait for a bit,’ Sacha said and suggested they go for a coffee at a nearby café.
It was after 5 pm when they walked back to the Police Station. Constable King had sent a text asking them to meet him at his office. He drew himself up straight, as the two pale, silent young women held their breath, staring at him with fear and anxiety imprinted on their faces.
‘The helicopter found the kayaks about two kilometers offshore,’ he started.
A single tear ran down Suzie’s cheek. Neither of them said a word. ‘It means they’ve probably swum ashore. The sun only goes down at around 9 pm, and the Coast Guard will carry on searching along the shoreline. Don’t worry too much. We’ll find them by nightfall.’ He peered at one anxious face and then the other. ‘If not, I’ll call out a full search tomorrow morning. We’ve got a full volunteer search party that will track across the shore and up into the surrounding forest reserve. It’s too dark to continue at night, of course. They’re already briefed and will be up at first light.’
Both girls, with tears brimming in their eyes, could not speak. How could this be happening? Sacha thought. She remained silent, too fearful of saying a word, too frightened to look directly at her sister. Suzie stood silently weeping, wiping tears from her face with the back of her hands. Sacha had to say something. Where to start? She was in a panic and gulped for air.
‘We’ll probably call the search off when we find them tonight,’ he attempted to reassure them. ‘So, it’s a bit of a waiting game for now.’
‘Can we help with the search? Is there nothing we can do during the last hours of light?’ Sacha suddenly interrupted. ‘I mean, what are their chances?’
Suzie gasped and whimpered with fear.
‘It means, at least, we know the vicinity where the men were last active when they went missing. That’s a big step forward. It’s a specific area of coast and offshore ocean,’ the police officer offered, trying to calm the stressed females. He’d seen women go from zero to fully hysterical in five seconds and he didn’t want that.
‘Do you think they’re alive?’ asked Sacha, desperate for something concrete to anchor her emotional turmoil. A tangible life raft in a sea of terror and distress. Already they had discussed if they should call their parents and drew a blank. The only solution was to wait, but now waiting was not such a good idea.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘We just don’t know. They’re two grown men and strong enough to swim to shore. There’s every reason to believe they are waiting in the bush along the beach somewhere.’
‘Okay,’ said Sacha. ‘Can you please show us on a map, Sir?’
He opened the office door at the side of the counter and ushered the two sisters into the back room, where a large area map stretched firmly across the back wall had red markers showing the likely position of the men.
‘Is this where you expect them to be washed ashore?’ Sacha asked.
This was more like it, Nick thought. He can deal with a good pragmatic conversation. Any more tears and he’ll have to send them home. There was not much else he could tell them until tomorrow.
Constable King handed tissues to them both and picked up a wooden ruler and pointed out the area the search would cover tomorrow, across both land and sea. He assured them the helicopter spotter was very experienced and would work a well-defined grid throughout the area to locate the men. He reiterated that their description of the men’s clothing would be an enormous help in finding them amongst the dark colors of the trees and ocean.
He turned to face them. ‘What do you think they did when the kayaks flipped over?’
‘What?’ Both girls responded in alarm.
‘Have the boats flipped over?’ Sacha asked, feeling sick with worry.
They both spoke at once, and he understood. ‘Okay. Okay. The chopper has already seen the kayaks offshore, and inside the zone you showed.’
He coughed, mildly embarrassed that he hadn’t told them this update when they walked into the station. ‘They know what they’re doing and would’ve waited for the kayaks. The chopper crew said there was no one with the boats. They were closer to the shore, and the tide has dragged the empty boats further out. That matches what I’ve just explained about the offshore current. The most likely scenario is that they got flipped by a freak wave close to shore and swam for it. So that’s why we’ll start with the coastline at first light.’
‘They’re only wearing a thin sweater,’ said Suzie, feeling a little more composed.
He smiled at them for the first time. ‘That’s great, and more than most tourists take with them around here. Remember, it’s summer and temperatures are still hovering around twenty celsius overnight. They’ll be fine.’ The tone of his voice told the sisters that the conversation was over.
The sisters understood there was no escape. They had to make that dreaded phone call home.
CHAPTER 7
Kiwi Adventure
Maddy sobbed into her gray knitted sweater she had been holding when the girls phoned. They had talked for an hour, asking more questions than the pair could answer. After the upsetting phone call, all three parents sat dumbfounded in the living room and stared at one another.
‘We need to fly there,’ said Maddy, wiping her tear-stained face. Galvanized into action, she could now do something constructive.
‘No,’ said Fred. ‘Let’s wait until they call us tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, Maddy,’ responded Logan. ‘Fred’s right. By the time you get there, they'll be laughing it all off over a couple of beers.’
‘Especially those two guys,’ said Fred, concentrating on controlling his voice and sounding positive in the face of abject fear. His drowned son could be lying on the bottom of the ocean thousands of miles away. He pushed these distressing thoughts aside. ‘Hawke is a powerful swimmer. He’s surfed most of his life and Bruno is the same. They’ll be spending an uncomfortable night in the bush or sleeping on a remote beach feeling very sorry for themselves.’
‘We better phone Bruno’s family,’ said Logan weakly, not wanting to take on the task himself.
Maddy watched the two men. ‘So we agree to wait until we hear how the initial search and rescue goes and if nothing’s happened we’ll catch a flight tomorrow night?’
She looked from one stricken man to the next. ‘Well?’
‘We don’t all have to go,’ said Fred. ‘Just one of us is probably wise.’
They silently looked at one another. ‘Which one?’
Then a significant conversation ensued over who would be the best to fly to Auckland and assist with the search. Logan reminded them that both his daughters were extremely distressed, and he felt he needed to be there with them, too.
Maddy cried. This time, both men grabbed her and all three huddled together. The only voice that made any logical sense was Fred’s.
‘Let’s not decide now. Wait and see, and we can organize ourselves depending on the situation. Ten to one, the boys will be back home by the time we go to bed tomorrow night.’
The other looked down, despondent. But none of them could think of anything else during the daytime hours. They shared a quiet dinner that night, pale and stony-faced with worry, before suffering a brutal night’s sleep. Maddy got up at 4.23am after long hours of tossing and turning, crying and clock watching. She quietly padded around the kitchen in her slippers, repeatedly checking her cell phone for any more updates from the girls.
There was nothing.
The blank cell phone screen was all it took to push Maddy's thoughts into the worst-case scenario. Visualizing the drowned bodies of the two men in coffins flown home brought her to tears in the darkness. She sat with a box of tissues on her lap and wept on and off, playing out every miserable detail about Hawke’s funera
l.
She jumped as her cell phone buzzed. But it was only a text from Bruno’s father asking for an update. Their household, too, would struggle with the misery of what the next few days could hold.
Back in New Zealand Suzie and Sacha didn’t sleep either and wondered if they should drive to the beach surrounding the bay where the recovered kayaks lay.
‘Let’s go to the Police Station first,’ suggested Sacha. ‘In that way, we get to hear a full update from both search parties.’
‘True,’ responded Suzie, pulling on shorts and a striped t-shirt.
‘Want something to eat?’ said Sacha.
‘No, let’s just go. What time is it?’
Sacha snorted. ‘Only 6 am. King won’t even have his feet on the floor yet.’
‘Eat here then.’ Sacha put the kettle on for coffee and slammed two pieces of bread into the toaster. Neither of them felt like eating and knew it was going to be a long day.
It was after several hours of waiting at the Police Station before they gave a lift to the girls with one of the Rescue Co-ordinators to the beach, where the men were likely to have slept the night. They joined the rescue team, calling and beating the bush back into the forest-lined hills surrounding the soft sandy shore.
The native bush was dense, dank with damp undergrowth in the early morning air. Sacha smelled rotting undergrowth, as if the layers of her happy life were being sliced away and buried in the forest's unforgiving darkness. Everywhere she looked felt menacing and dark with an imagined secret, underlying threats. Sacha blamed herself for being so naïve and stupid, feeling safe while in her ignorance, only seeing the beauty and the adventure of the place. Closed off to the risks, she had never thought about the ominous flip-side that could snuff life out with one wrong step, one wrong decision out here in the wild, an isolated place in the world. The full weight of Sacha's isolation brought sorrow gnawing at her heart. Fear snatching away the light and the love she had only just grasped with Hawke. The cruelty. A sharp gasp escaped her lips, and one of the rescue workers looked over at her.
