by Stacy Gregg
“Evie!” Mrs Mahuta is striding up the beach with a very concerned expression on her face. “What on earth are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Christchurch with your mum!”
I am stunned. Moana looks pleased with herself.
“I told you I would keep it secret,” she says smugly. “Everybody thought you went on the helicopter.”
“I never left,” I tell Mrs Mahuta. “I didn’t want to go without Gus.”
And now she’s looking at me with her eyes wide.
“You rode here?” She shakes her head in disbelief. “From Parnassus?”
She looks at Moana.
“Did you know about this, Missy?”
Moana looks terrified. “Yes, Mum.”
Mrs Mahuta glowers at her. “As soon as we have somewhere to ground you, you’re going to be grounded!”
According to Moana, her journey was just as bad as mine.
“It was really hideous,” she says. “The inland road is so long and we had to go all the way to Waiau and then wait there because they kept closing the roads to a single lane. We were in a convoy and it took ages for them to let us past Mount Lyford and all the time we were driving the only thing we had to listen to was one of Dad’s really awful CDs. Ugh! Then him and Mum kept fighting about the music because she wanted to hear the news on the radio instead. I was in the back with Arama and the dogs and they took up too much space and so I got really squashed and uncomfortable the whole time, and one night we even had to sleep in the car like that!”
She turns to me. “What happened on your trip?”
I smile and stroke Gus on his neck where the caked-on sweat has now dried off, creating sea swirls in his fur. “Nothing much,” I say. “Just the usual.”
“They’re taking down the names on a list and then they take people on the inflatables to the ship,” Moana says as we walk to join the crowds. “You’re only allowed to take one bag. Mayor Garry is trying to boss people around about what they can pack and everyone is getting really sick of him.”
I can hear Mayor Garry’s voice before I see him. He’s walking down the row of people queuing for the inflatables, still wearing his fluoro jacket, the one from the road patrol, and now he’s carrying a clipboard too. He keeps lifting up bags as if he’s checking how heavy they are, and I see him reach for Scary Mary’s bag and she just about karate-chops his arm off! It’s good to see that they’re not being nice to each other any more and everything is at least a bit more normal.
I search through the crowd, hoping that the one person I want right now will be here.
“Where’s Dave?” I ask Gemma.
“He’s down where they load the boats,” Gemma says.
I can see the vet now, or at least the back of his head. He’s busy sorting out a stack of cages with a woman in a grey boilersuit. I call out to him and he looks up and sees me. He stops what he’s doing and runs up the beach to greet us.
“Evie?” he says. “I thought you left with your mum?”
I don’t bother to go through the explanation again. Someone else can tell him.
“Jock’s hurt,” I say. “I need you to look at the wound for me. I think he’s gonna need stitches.”
Dave bends down and moves Jock’s fur to expose the wound.
“It’s a bad one,” he says. “I’ll get my bag.”
He runs back up the beach with his kit and sets about cleaning the wound, sluicing it out with saline fluid to get a clearer look at it because it is all crusted over now with sand and blood.
“What was it that did this to him?” he asks as he works. “Another dog?”
“A sea lion,” I say.
Dave stops dabbing at Jock’s shoulder.
“Seriously?”
I shrug.
“I’m not even going to ask,” Dave says, moving on to Jock’s flank.
“And did the sea lion do this too?”
“Nah,” I say, “a wild bull did that one.”
“So,” Dave says as he takes out his medical kit and starts to fill a syringe with local anaesthetic, “you’ve had an uneventful journey …”
It takes Dave ages to stitch the shoulder up. He does thirteen stitches and it isn’t easy because Jock is awake the whole time. Normally, Dave says, with an injury like this, it would be general surgery, but you can’t do that on the beach and so he has to do it all while Jock is awake with a local in the wound. My good dog growls a little bit but he doesn’t try to bite Dave or anything, even though I know it’s upsetting him like crazy.
“You’re lucky he’s alive,” Dave says as he sutures the shoulder. “A sea-lion attack? If it was a full-grown male then it had the strength to kill him.”
“He would have done,” I say, “except he didn’t get the chance because Moxy attacked him and drove him off.”
Moxy doesn’t have a scratch on her from the sea lion. She’s got that thin graze where the arrow nearly claimed her life, but Dave lets me treat that while he works on Jock because it doesn’t need anything more than a dab of antiseptic.
“Do you want me to give her a dose of tranquiliser for the journey?” Dave asks me. “It can get pretty choppy on the life boats and she’ll probably panic otherwise.”
I look down at Moxy’s wise Egyptian eyes.
“No way,” I say. “She’s brave.”
I’m not drugging her now. Moxy would never forgive me. She’s going to want to be wide awake to see everything when she gets on board.
“OK,” Dave says. “You see the boats coming back towards us now? They’re prioritising children and people with animals first for boarding, so you could probably get on one of them with Jock and Moxy if you want.”
He smiles conspiratorially at me. “That way you can nab a good cabin before Mayor Garry starts trying to allocate them.”
“What about Gus?”
“It’s OK,” Dave says. “I can sort him out if you want.”
I don’t understand what he’s saying. “Sort him out?”
“At the vet yards. There are facilities just over the road where you can leave him. The paddocks are well fenced. Good grass. There’s even a goat in there for company.”
Dave sees the look on my face.
“Hey, Evie, it’s OK. If you want to come with me and settle him in before you get on board, that’s fine …”
I shake my head in disbelief, totally stunned. “I didn’t come all this way with Gus to leave him here!”
Dave looks at me. “What did you think you were going to do, Evie?”
I jut my jaw. “I’m taking him aboard. There’s no way …”
The roar of outboard motors drowns my voice. The inflatables are back and pulling up to the shore beside us. In the two boats are two blue uniformed officers, an older man wearing white with gold epaulets and a woman in a grey boilersuit like the one who was helping Dave earlier with the cages. As the officers in the navy uniforms pull both boats up above the waterline, the man in the white uniform and the woman in the grey boilersuit walk towards us.
“Got a few more animals for transporting?” the woman says brightly. Up until that moment I had assumed she was part of the ship crew, but then I see the insignia on her suit: SPCA.
“Hey, Janna,” Dave says. “I want you to meet Evie Van Zwanenberg.”
“Janna Bateman.” The woman shakes my hand.
“Is this your pony? Isn’t he lovely?”
“This is Gus,” Dave says. And then, “Evie and I were just discussing her plans to bring him on board.”
I love Dave at that moment because he doesn’t say it in a mocking way. He says it dead serious and I know from the way he’s standing there, with his hand on Gus’s wither beside me, that he’s with us. He’s got my back.
“Very funny,” the man in the white uniform says.
“We’re not joking,” Dave replies. “Evie rode Gus all the way from Parnassus to get him on your ship. She wants to take him with her.”
“Evie …” Janna bends down to talk
to me as if I was a little kid, even though I’m almost as tall as her so it is stupid that she’s acting like this. “Be logical, honey, your pony’s not going to fit into the lifeboats.”
I glare at her. “I thought the SPCA were here to save animals?”
Janna takes a deep breath as if this whole earthquake has been sent to try her patience. “We can take your dog and your cat on board, sure. But a horse is just impossible, Evie. We can’t do it.”
“Don’t you have a bigger boat?” Dave asks. “Something we can load Gus on to, to transport him over to the ship? I could sedate him for the journey …”
“I’m afraid not,” Janna says. Except she says it so quick, like she doesn’t even care about pretending she’s tried to think about it and she sure doesn’t look at all sorry.
“Right,” she says to me, “let’s get your cat prepped to board. Dave will help you with the dog …”
And she actually reaches down to pick up Moxy! She must think she is sedated, or maybe she thinks Moxy will like her. Of course Moxy takes one look at Janna, hisses like a banshee, takes a swipe that draws blood and then ducks behind my legs!
I reach down and I pick her up and hold her tightly in my arms.
“Forget it,” I say.
Janna frowns. “You don’t want to take the dog and cat?”
I cast a look at Dave who gives me a look back, like we both know that this woman is just not getting it!
“They’re not going and neither am I,” I say. “If Gus can’t come on board then I’m staying with them here in Kaikoura.”
“You can’t do that!” Janna says.
Dave laughs. “You really haven’t met Evie before, have you?”
Janna looks really furious now. “This a civil emergency. We can force you to come on board if we need to.”
She turns to the man in the white uniform. “What do you want to do, Captain?”
So despite being bossy she’s not actually in charge!
The man in the white uniform has been with Gus all this time, stroking his muzzle.
“Handsome lad, isn’t he?” the captain says. “What breed is he, then?”
“He’s an Arab, sir,” I say. It feels right to say “sir” because of his uniform and stuff.
“Arab? They’re desert horses, aren’t they?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Well, Desert Horse,” the captain says to Gus. “I guess it’s up to you. So how about it … Can you swim?”
CHAPTER 15
Pegasus, Son of the Sea God
From the other side of the bay, when I looked out from the Pier Hotel, the sea was calm and the waves were dancing playfully, trimmed with little white caps. Now that we’re here on the beach right beside the water, it all feels different. The tide has turned. The waves have risen up, the white caps have become high, frothy peaks and they crash against the rocks in the bay and lash against the sides of the gigantic grey warship that sits waiting for us at the deepest point of the harbour.
“Can your horse swim?” The captain asks me this time. “Because if he can reach my ship, then we can get him on board …”
As if asserting its power at that moment, the sea smashes a gigantic wave on the beach and the roar of the surf nearly drowns out the captain’s words. Two crew members make a frantic lunge to grab the inflatables as they are almost ripped away by the retreating tide.
This is not a calm beach, not the sort of place you wade in for happy summer paddling. The bay of Kaikoura is wild water. The Southern Ocean, treacherous and deep.
So can he swim?
I stare at the crashing waves in front of us and then I turn to my horse. Poor Gus! He’s been so brave and so strong to make it this far. He’s given me everything to get us here, to our destination. How can I possibly ask more of him?
I lean in close to his neck and press my cheek up against his, jaw against jaw, my face tilted up so that I can whisper close in his ear.
“Pegasus,” I murmur softly so that only he can hear me, “this is the final task, I swear to you. And if you don’t want to do it, if you are too tired to swim to the ship, then that’s OK, it really is. You’re already my hero, you know that, don’t you? And if you don’t have the strength left inside you to go any further, then we’ll all stay. You and me and Jock and Moxy together. We won’t go without you. No matter what happens, I will never leave you, I promise.”
As I speak, I watch Gus’s ears swivel and turn, focusing back and forth, listening to my words. I have my arms round his neck, fingers tangled in the silver threads of his mane as I hold him close, and I know he understands me, because he does that thing where he gives me a shove with his muzzle as if to say, “I’m ready. Let’s get on with it.”
I hug him tightly one last time and then I let go and turn back to the captain.
“I need to take his gear off first. He can’t swim with a saddle on him.”
My life for the past week has been strapped on to Gus’s back. Now I unravel the tiny universe bound on with rope and dressing-gown cord. I lift down the weather-beaten tent and the crushed-up sleeping bag that have been cinched on since Parnassus. I undo the girth and slip the saddle off. Now Gus is unfettered and all that’s left holding me to him, all that remains, is his bridle.
I look into Gus’s eyes. Then I take a deep breath and I undo the throat lash and noseband, and then I slip the bridle off his head so he’s bare. There’s nothing to hold him any more.
“What are you doing?” Janna looks anxious. “You need to get a halter or something on to that horse now! How are you going to lead him into the sea without a bridle?”
“If I leave it on he’ll get his legs tangled in the reins when he swims,” I say. Anyway, I don’t need to lead Gus. Him and me, we’ve discussed this. I’ve told him what’s to come. He knows I’ll stay if that’s what he wants. Now Gus needs to make this decision for himself.
I walk to the inflatable where Dave is waiting for me with Moxy in his arms. He helps me to climb aboard and then he passes her to me.
“Jock!” My dog obeys immediately and makes a leap from the shore to the boat without getting his paws wet.
Dave gets on board with Janna and the captain, and then there’s the stutter of an engine as one of the crew begins to start the outboard motor.
“No!” I call to the captain. “Stop it! We can’t use the motor! It’s too loud, it’ll scare him.”
The captain signals for the crew member to cut the engine. “We’ll use the oars instead,” he orders. “Row us out and keep it steady, give the horse time to follow.”
The two crew members take up position in the middle of the inflatable, slip the oars into the water and start to row. The inflatable doesn’t move much with the first couple of strokes, but then with a sudden thrust the boat begins to propel itself rapidly out into the sea.
Gus, who’s been watching us all this time from the shore with his ears pricked, sees me and Moxy and Jock start moving away from him and gives a panic-stricken whinny.
“Gus!” I call back to him. “Come on, Gus! You’re coming too!”
Gus whinnies again and breaks into a canter, storming down the shoreline and then turning and cantering back again, his eyes always on me. He doesn’t know what to do. He raises his head and gives this shrill, high-pitched clarion call, as if he’s demanding that I come back to him.
“Gus!” I call again. “Come on, Gus! Come on, Gus! Come on!”
Gus plunges forward abruptly. His front hooves strike the water, but before he can go any deeper a big wave pushes on to the shore and swamps him so that all four of his legs are suddenly submerged in sea foam, and he jerks back in fright and continues pacing back and forth. His ears are flat against his head.
“This is ridiculous. He’s not going to come on his own.” Janna in the inflatable beside me looks furious.
“Gus!” I call again, and this time Moxy echoes my cry with a chorus of meows, as if she’s yowling for him to come to her! In the boat beside
me Jock, with his front paws up on the side of the inflatable, starts too, barking like crazy, and now all three of us are calling to the shore in unison.
“Come on, Gus! You can do it! Swim!”
Gus crab-steps back and forth on the shoreline. In a panic, he rears up and stands on his hind legs and whinnies once more.
He crashes back down on all fours, and then, with a defiant shake of his mane, he ploughs into the water!
He comes for us, cantering into the waves. I’m shouting my lungs out, urging him on, and Moxy and Jock are baying like mad for him as Gus’s legs disappear and the waves splash off his chest. Suddenly he submerges into the deep water and his rump drops and his head goes right up high, so all we can see are his head and neck. He’s snorting hard, nostrils flared, making laboured grunts as his legs pump like pistons beneath the murky blue seawater in his efforts to reach the inflatable.
“Go, Gus! Yes! Good boy!” There are cheers from the crowd on the shore, and on the boat beside me Moxy and Jock are going berserk!
“Slow your pace down!” The captain instructs the oarsmen. “He’s in the water! Give him time to catch us up!”
The rowers kill their stroke and as soon as they do it’s as if the inflatable is being swept violently sideways in the grip of the sea current. Out here beyond the rocks, out the back of the surf, the water changes colour from pale ice to dark indigo. It’s much deeper here, and the waves are so powerful against the side of our boat even Jock on his four legs is having trouble standing up.
I grip on to the side of the inflatable to stabilise myself, keeping my eyes on Gus. He’s gaining on us fast, powering through the churn and swell, the waves battering him as he fights to stay on course.
“Start rowing again!” The captain gives the order for his men to pick up their stroke. They dig in with the oars and we’re moving forward again, so that soon the shoreline seems a long way away. Up ahead the grey slab of the HMS Canterbury rears up out of the sea. It looks so big up close! The vertical walls of the ship are as tall as a skyscraper.
