‘Come on, the express train’s crashed at Tangiwai, it’s in the river,’ he told us. ‘We’ve got to help.’
We were pretty shocked and jumped on the back of the truck and headed over. We drove like hell to get there. The road bridge was down too and there were quite a lot of people already there. Someone had gone to the forestry camp nearby and set off the fire alarm.
It was dark and at first we couldn’t see much. A few minutes after we arrived, some army people turned up and erected some strong floodlights that pointed out over the river.
My God, what an awesome sight! It was catastrophic. The carriages were everywhere, ripped to bits. I could smell all this sulphur. And I could see people swimming, hanging on to one of the carriages and others climbing out of the water. We waded out into the water. It was still moving fast. But almost immediately we could tell the depth was dropping.
There were still passengers trying to get off the train. The poor things were so confused. Many of them had no idea of what had happened and they were crying out for their friends and relations. The carriages were broken up really badly and full of mud with luggage everywhere. One of the army men told us to spread out down the riverbanks as lots of people had been swept away.
About a hundred yards down I saw this man so heavily covered in oil from the train’s fuel tender and silt from the river he couldn’t speak or see. He was just sitting there on the bank like a zombie. By now there were some ambulances around and some army trucks. I helped people onto them to be taken to the hospital at the Waiouru Army Camp 10 miles away. There had been lots of Christmas parties in the district that night so there were more people around than usual.
I helped bring in lots of bodies to the camp. We laid them in rows on the dance floor of the army hall. Lots of them had no clothes on. It was pretty hard for us to deal with that. There was one man—all he was wearing was this bright striped tie, the only thing that wasn’t ripped off him. We were told to look out for anything that might help identify people. We had to look for wallets, jewellery, watches, clothing and papers, anything to help with the job.
There were lots of children killed too and we put them in a room where there had been a Christmas party. I’ll never forget it. There was a screen there and behind it where the band used to play were piles of sodden clothing and kids’ toys, a yellow rubber ball, some rag dolls and so on.
But there was worse to come. My friends and I were there for days after. Most of the passengers died in the torrent and were washed miles away. Next day we found the steel underframe of Car A one and a half miles downstream from the railway bridge. We had to search the riverbanks and the farms, digging around in the sand. We found things, things I don’t want to see again. Pieces of bodies, some had lost heads, arms, legs. We had to take everything back in bags to the trucks. They were trying to match them up to the bodies in the morgue. And the worst thing of all…
It was on the third day and I had been combing up and down a bend on the river about half a mile downstream. By that time we were getting used to noticing the smallest things. I saw something unusual, something sticking out of a sandbank a few feet back from the water. There were little fingers. I dug around and knew it was a child. I kept digging and uncovered a little girl’s body.
Trevor Atley, 18, a rescuer at Tangiwai
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Frances feels the same sense of dread when she pulls into the car park near the Tangiwai bridge. Following in his red utility truck, Trevor parks alongside her. The smell of sulphur is much stronger this time and a gusty wind blows it into her face. Boosted by autumn and winter rains, the river is flowing more strongly too. The greyness of the day oppresses her spirit as they walk towards the memorial.
‘You might think it’s odd, but I haven’t been to this spot before,’ Trevor says as he scans the words on the stone as if looking for a solution to some lifelong puzzle. ‘I was working on the other side of the river after the train crash.’
His mobile phone rings and she hears him giving some instructions on how to operate a generator.
‘I’ve just hired a young fellow at my farm,’ he explains. ‘I need more help these days. But he’s having trouble working out how everything works.’
The rushing water draws them over to the river and they gaze into the foaming current. The bridge rises up in front of them.
‘Over there.’ Trevor points downstream to a large tree on top of the riverbank. ‘That’s where we found one man. He was only young and when we saw him draped over the top branches we thought he was dead. But he was knocked unconscious and apart from a few scratches, he was unharmed. Nearly everyone else in his carriage died, all washed away.’
They linger for a while, then carefully pick their way through loose dirt and grass, down the bank to the water’s edge.
‘Can you remember who you found? Cedric may have told you: my parents were on the train with my baby sister. She was drowned. Do you remember a child?’
Trevor stops and his eyes meet hers. He looks as though his past has rushed forward to collide with the present.
She sees his recognition and although she feels very afraid, she is desperate for him to talk to her.
‘No…no, he didn’t say anything about a child,’ he says at last. ‘But I do remember. That is, I did find a little girl.’
Until now, she has barely heard the noise of the flowing river. Now it is deafening her, as if it is crashing over her bones, flooding her being.
‘When I found her, I had to stop searching for others after that. It was too much. I couldn’t go on.’
She watches a tear course its way down his weathered face, until he raises his arm and wipes it quickly away with his shirt sleeve.
Questions burst into her mind but she pushes them aside, knowing she must wait for him to talk in his own time.
‘Walk with me,’ he says eventually, gesturing a way they can navigate downstream, walking beside the river, tip-toeing around large cold iron-grey rocks. ‘You might get your feet wet, though.’
They walk for several hundred metres until they reach a point where they can go no further. There is no room between the river and the bank and they leap onto large rocks protruding from the water. Frances slips on the green slime of a half-submerged rock, her shoe fills with icy water and the cold travels through her body like a frozen spear. Trevor reaches out to steady her. Although he is around 70, a lifetime of farm work has given him the fitness and agility of someone decades younger.
The river narrows and they make their way back to where the bank is wide enough again to walk comfortably. A few minutes on and Trevor stops and sits on a rocky ledge.
‘Just here,’ he says. ‘It’s a long time ago but I’m pretty sure it’s here.’
Rising out of the middle of the river is a small island of sand and rocks, studded here and there with willow trees.
Frances sits beside him and calls on all her strength to wait just a little longer for a truth she has been searching for all her life.
‘It’s still as bleak as ever,’ he offers, seeing the questions in her eyes. ‘It had been raining all day and late in the afternoon I was looking around this area. The water had dropped right back and I waded over to the island. That’s when I saw it.’ He stops as though trying to remember some forgotten detail. ‘It was a tiny hand. I knew straightaway I had found a child.’
He is finding it hard to speak the unspeakable, fumbling with words, fighting back tears that he has always suppressed.
‘I dug around until I had uncovered the body. It was a little girl. All her clothes had been washed away and she was covered in silt. But she was still holding a teddy bear. While she was in the river she must have used all her might to hang on to it. And she wore a bracelet. It was covered with black silt but it had stayed on.’
Frances reaches into the pocket of her jeans and pulls out the bracelet she took with her everywhere.
‘You found my sister.’
Lying in the palm
of her hand, its dull golden links and tiny heart give off a subdued glow, like a long-lost treasure unearthed in an archaeological dig. She presses it into Trevor’s thick, lined hand.
He turns it over, examines the locket and sees engraved on it the faded initials ‘VN’. He traces a finger over the letters, then encloses the chain in his fist.
Frances reaches out to him and they embrace, neither now trying to stop their tears. They stay like that for a long time.
The insistent call of a native hawk hovering overhead brings them back. Frances knows the time has come. She quickly removes her shoes, one already soaked through, and rolls her jeans up to her knees.
Carefully, she wades across the river, the water chilling her and the hard stones piercing the soles of her feet. She steps onto the islet, wet black sand creeping between her toes. She feels she has been here before. Slowly she walks to the highest point, sinks to her knees and stays perfectly still, just listening. A sudden warmth spreads through her body and she knows that Valerie’s spirit is here, in this desolate place. As a light rain starts to fall, she bows her head and silently prays for her sister and her parents. The drops of rain running down her face, she picks up some of the damp sand and sifts it through her fingers. Then, taking a handful, she stands and gently throws it bit by bit into the part of the river where the water is flowing swiftest.
‘Thank you,’ she calls over to Trevor, who has not moved. She picks her way back across and returns to him, taking his hands in hers. ‘No one in my family has ever had the chance to say thank you. Without you we may never have known what happened to Valerie. It was devastating for my parents but at least they saw her and had some certainty. Thank you.’
Trevor grips her hands, his face close to hers. ‘I’m so sorry. Sorry for your family. I’ve never talked about this before. I’ve kept it to myself until today. I’m so glad you came.’
‘I went back to the river to help again. It was three days after the crash when I found her…when I found your sister. I dug her out and carried her back, pretty much the way we came here today. I don’t know how I did it. But I guess we all find the strength when it’s needed.’
He is silent now, his sorrow spent. They sit there together as the water rushes on past them. Trevor suddenly shivers and pulls himself up, then bends down and helps Frances to her feet.
‘Here, you’d better hang on to this. It belongs to you,’ he says, handing her back the golden chain.
The hawk still hovers above, quiet and watchful. Then, on a sudden gust of wind, it banks steeply like an old biplane and disappears.
The Forensic Pathologist
I examined the first forty bodies that arrived in Wellington from the Tangiwai Railway accident on 28 December 1953, and then another seven that arrived over the next couple of days. Of the forty-seven bodies, twenty-five were female and twenty-two male.
Many of them had been exposed to the elements and submerged in water so there was some urgency to complete the examinations to help with identification as soon as possible. I wasn’t able to do full postmortem examinations but from the external appearances, which were carefully noted, certain conclusions could be drawn.
In many of the bodies there were advanced postmortem changes which rendered recognition of features virtually impossible and, in some, injuries to the face and skull added to this difficulty. Despite the use of a refrigerated room to store the bodies, postmortem changes progressed with some rapidity.
In most cases there was evidence of injuries before death from fractures of the jaw and bony injuries of the face and skull indicated the deceased had been thrown violently forward at the moment of the accident. This was supported by the presence of severe fractures of the forearm in several people. It was clear a few had been killed instantaneously while others had received fatal injuries including loss of limbs.
In many cases external appearances suggested death by drowning; there was pallor of the trunk and limbs and suffusion of the eyeballs.
I was very struck by the extent to which silt had penetrated the soft tissues of the bodies, even underlying areas where the skin was quite intact. This was particularly noticeable in the tissues of the face and head where collections of this material could be found in the depths of the scalp between the muscle and the bone of the skull.
This phenomenon occurs in bodies in contact with sand over a period, but its occurrence to such a marked degree in the present instance could be accounted for only by the bodies being exposed to a current of water containing a great amount of solid material in a finely suspended state. I believe the pressure from the silt was why so many of the bodies had been stripped of their clothing. I am satisfied from what I saw that some of the victims were killed by the force of the crash and that those who escaped injuries of this sort were killed by asphyxia from silt or by drowning.
With the help of relations, twenty-six bodies were identified beyond doubt. We were able to confirm the identities of a number of people from other countries with no next of kin but with some identification still on them. For instance, there was a woman from Grafton in New South Wales in Australia. I cabled her dental records to a pathologist there and we confirmed her identity. There was also a couple from Holland and we were able to confirm their identity through fingerprints.
There were twenty-one bodies remaining in the mortuary. I have carefully documented all distinguishing features, including tattoos on a couple of the younger men, and have removed some pieces of jewellery so that identification may be possible in the future. On the morning of Thursday, 31 December 1953, the bodies were removed to the Karori Cemetery for burial. The coffins were placed side by side in an 18-metre grave.
Footnote: The following April, the bodies were exhumed and my colleagues and I were able to identify the bodies following descriptions of missing persons and their personal effects.
Dr Gordon Douglas, 51, forensic pathologist
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The land folds into itself as Frances approaches Taumarunui in search of Beverley. Steep green hills engraved with the circles from endlessly marching sheep crowd each side of the winding highway. The road straightens and she flashes past small farming settlements, following a wild river edged with limestone cliffs and on into a valley towards the town.
Wide tree-lined streets intersect each other on the flat floor of the valley. Fresh from dropping its load of fertiliser on a distant farm, a top-dressing plane buzzes out of the hills that rise up and surround the town. On one side of Hakiaha Street, the thoroughfare into town, a small triangular red and white carved Maori ceremonial building stands defiantly in the shadow of a large new police station. The one long main street is lined with shops on one side and the railway line and station on the other.
Frances, stopping to buy some flowers for Beverley, is struck by the number of utilities and trucks parked along the street and people chatting on the pavement.
‘It’s farmers’ day,’ a dark-eyed young woman with curly black hair and three studs in her ear tells Frances as she wraps a bunch of crimson carnations with a delicate white plant she says is baby’s breath. ‘I’ve been flat out. They’re all stocking up and lots of the women come in same day each week to buy a bunch of flowers. Even a few of the men make it in here sometimes.’
Outside small groups of teenagers loll about the shops, buying takeaway food, playing pinball and video games, on the lookout for some excitement to break the monotony of small-town life. Three young Maori boys wearing beanies hover together outside a DVD hire shop, laughing and ribbing each other.
Within minutes Frances is pulling up outside a neat white-painted weatherboard house with a small veranda and a closely clipped lawn, similar to many others in the tidy street. Rose bushes still in hibernation and lavender plants line the tiled path to the house. She rings the bell which tolls like a miniature Big Ben. Seconds later the door opens.
‘Hello, you must be Frances. I’m Beverley.’ She has the softest voice Frances has ever heard.
‘Thank you so much,’ she says as she takes the flowers. ‘Do come in.’
Inside the house nothing is out of place. A newspaper has been folded evenly into quarters and tucked neatly on a shelf beneath a glass coffee table. An elaborate glass clock sits dead centre on a wooden mantelpiece above a scrupulously scrubbed fireplace in which an electric heater is throwing out a volley of warm air. On either side of the clock sit two elegant white porcelain cats on hand-crocheted doilies, eternally keeping an eye on the time.
An immaculate floral-patterned wool carpet covers the floors and a well-upholstered cream lounge suite with tapestry-covered cushions looks barely used, except for one worn spot in the middle of the sofa. Frances starts as a large orange cat springs from nowhere and sits right there.
Beverley squeezes next to her pet, which meows in protest. Frances sits in one of the two armchairs and the women regard each other for the first time. Frances notices how unlined Beverley is for a woman of her age, her pale face and hazel eyes framed by perfectly groomed silver hair tinted a slight mauve.
‘Tea?’ Beverley breaks the silence. ‘Best to start with a hot cup of tea, don’t you think? And I’ll find a vase for the beautiful carnations.’
‘That’s kind of you, thank you.’
Frances searches the room for clues about her host but is disappointed. There are no photographs and nothing that would betray much at all about Beverley Corbett, except for the small electric organ on one side of the room, its lid closed. Frances walks over to look at a small pile of sheet music on top. It is nearly all church music and some Bach and Beethoven. The exception is a small songbook called ‘Greatest Love Songs Ever Written’.
Beverley rattles in with a tray holding a teapot, crockery and a plate of fresh jam tarts.
‘Hope you’re hungry,’ she says as she carefully sets the tray down. ‘I just made these. I bought the raspberry jam from the church fête last week.’ She returns with a tall crystal vase full of the flowers and places them next to the clock.
Weeping Waters Page 18
