Blood Bond (19 page)

All thoughts of England were forgotten in the excitement and dread of the moment. Steven could see
Raconteur
had come to rest high above the beach, jammed up against a bach on the hillside. The distinctive arch at the rear of the cockpit, though badly damaged, caught the light and made her unmistakable. There was very little other wreckage on the beach.

Steven anchored
Archangel
close to the beach and Penny and Lee helped him launch the dinghy. Together, they rowed ashore and hurried up the beach towards
Raconteur
.

She was a sorry sight. Wedged between the deck supports of the old bach, she had lost her mast, her keel had been snapped off, the stanchions were bent and the arch was badly damaged. It was clear from the vessel's condition that no one was living aboard her, though there were footprints in the dry sand above the high-tide mark. Looking closely, Steven saw that while the imprint of one foot was distinct, the other was scuffed, as though the leg had been dragged.

‘Look!' Penny said, pointing towards a heap of earth on the lawn a few metres from the yacht's stern. The fact there was a grave there was not unusual — in the wake of the pandemic, graves were dug wherever they were needed. But this grave looked fresh, and the spade that had been used to dig it lay nearby.

‘It has to have been dug within the last two or three weeks. Someone has survived,' Steven confirmed, examining the grave, repressing his grief at now knowing that one of his cousins was dead. He looked up towards the houses lining the crest of the hillside, cupped his hands around his mouth and called ‘Hello' at the top of his voice. Lee and Penny joined in. After thirty seconds' yelling they stood and listened, but their cries were answered only by the squawking of seagulls as they picked their way along the high-tide mark.

‘Shall I row back to
Archangel
and fire a shot?' Penny suggested.

Steven nodded. ‘Just one. We're running short of ammo.' He wondered if whoever had survived had any ammunition left to reply, or had it been used up on marauding dogs or hunting for food? The farm animals may have all been eaten during the pandemic — on an island, food stocks would have been exhausted pretty quickly — but you could shoot seabirds if you had bullets. Fish and plants would also provide sustenance, so perhaps that's what the survivor was doing now, scouting the island for vegetables and fruit. The tsunami would have ruined any gardens in the immediate area — anything that hadn't been uprooted had wilted from being drowned by salt water. They would have to go up the ridges for any hope of fresh produce.

Penny had hurried down the beach and was launching the dinghy while Steven and Lee clambered aboard the wreck to check for any clues to where Sarah or Katie might have gone. The scene of devastation was sickening. Steven had loved his father's yacht; now she was a total write-off. Sand, water and rotting fish filled the bilges, her bulkheads had been smashed and much of her equipment and fittings had been swept away. It was clear from the damage that the boat had either been rolled or pitchpoled, possibly both. His cousins would have been lucky to survive that. Given the grave, one presumably hadn't. To Lee the hulk was an exciting cave; to Steven
it was a forlorn sight. Inside the hull was a smearing of dried blood running from behind the table support, marking, he supposed, where one of the women had died.

A rifle shot from
Archangel
dispersed Steven's sombre thoughts. He led Lee from the wreck and they stood on the lawn together, listening for a response. Surely if anyone heard the gunshot they would yell out or make some other noise to confirm their presence? Or perhaps they would spot
Archangel
anchored in the bay and hurry to the beach?

Lee and Steven wandered down the slope to help Penny drag up the dinghy. They continued to listen and glance over their shoulders, hoping to see signs of life. Had Katie or Sarah stared across the water back to Gulf Harbour, Steven wondered, worrying whether their children had survived? How powerless and devastated they would have felt, being unable to help them escape the tidal wave. They'd have had no idea the children were safe. Not knowing their fate would have been unbearable.

‘Have you heard anything?' Penny asked.

Steven shook his head.

‘I had a good look with the binoculars before I rowed back,' Penny continued. ‘I couldn't see any smoke anywhere or anything.'

‘We'll check out the houses near the wreck,' Steven said. ‘Whoever survived probably stayed there for a few days at least, and we might find a clue as to what happened or where they might have gone.'

The trio walked back up the hill. The first two places they went into stank of rotting seaweed and damp carpets. They were empty, though the gaping cupboard doors and open kitchen drawers suggested someone had been searching for food. It was difficult to tell how recent the search was, however. Next they entered the house beside which
Raconteur
had come to rest. The dwelling was an original family bach, built of a weird assortment of salvaged materials. The tsunami had hurtled through the concrete block basement, ripping away the patio doors of the downstairs bedroom and emptying the room of most of its furnishings. Steven led the way up the internal staircase to the lounge above, more convinced by the minute that to survive on this island the survivor would have to have moved inland,
away from the devastation wrought by the sea.

The pictures on the wall chronicled the history of the family who had once holidayed there — of grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren enjoying the bach's simple pleasures: swimming and fishing from the beach, barbecues and games on the lawn. Older, sepia-toned photos showed how remote and unspoilt the settlement of Oneroa had once been before Waiheke had come under the grasp of developers and property speculators.

While Steven gazed at the photographs, Penny and Lee continued to explore the house.

‘Someone's been here recently,' Penny called excitedly from the kitchen. ‘There are bird bones on the bench from a meal not long ago.' Steven hurried through to join her, but before he reached her they heard Lee calling for his mother from one of the back bedrooms.

Penny and Steven ran towards the distraught child and found him looking down at a figure lying on a bed. Penny grabbed Lee's arm and hurried him away.

Steven stared in disbelief at the body of his cousin Katie, a pistol gripped in her hand and a pool of blood soaking into the pillow beneath her head. She was dead. Then he realised the blood was glistening in the sunlight streaming through the window — it was still wet. Gingerly he touched Katie's arm. It was slightly warm. They must have missed her by only a few hours. Why didn't she hold on?

Steven felt as if his chest was being ripped apart. Poor Katie — Sarah must have been killed in the tsunami or died shortly afterwards, and Katie must have been left alone since then, despairing of ever being rescued. She'd been the least practical of any of them, the least able to fend for herself. That was one reason Steven had first been drawn to her — he'd wanted to protect her.

He could see that her leg was injured, maybe broken, which would have made it hard for her to move about and collect food. She must have been in terrible pain, not to mention hungry and weak from lack of food. It looked as though killing that bird had used up one of her final bullets — the only other one in evidence was lodged in her skull. Grieving for her sister, she might have also believed her children had been killed, her father, everyone at Gulf Harbour. She wouldn't have
known that
Archangel
had returned. Maybe she thought it never would — after all, it was well over a year since they'd left. No wonder she had given in to the despair.

‘If only we had got away a day earlier,' Steven muttered, tears welling up in his eyes. He knew he should have listened to his father and started the search earlier. And he also knew that if they had sailed directly across to Waiheke from Woody Bay, rather than circumnavigating Rakino, they might have arrived at Oneroa in time to prevent Katie's death.

 

Steven left Penny and Lee at the bach and made his way back to
Raconteur
, where he picked up the spade lying beside what he now assumed was Sarah's grave. Once he had dug another alongside it, he asked Penny to take Lee for a walk on the beach, then he wrapped Katie's body in a bedspread and carried it down the slope to the waiting grave. He sobbed uncontrollably as he recalled the time he had had with Katie before he and his father had sailed to England.

He was still leaning on the shovel, staring down at the mound of fresh earth, when Penny and Lee returned. Penny noticed the redness of his eyes.

‘Were you very fond of her?' she asked, squeezing his hand.

‘Yes, once…' His voice trailed off.

‘I know. You were more than just fond of her, weren't you?'

Steven continued to stare down at the grave. ‘How did you guess?'

‘I saw the look on your face when you discovered her body.'

‘It was all over long before my father and I sailed to England.'

‘Did you love her?'

‘Yes, once I did. We … we had a baby together. It was badly deformed and died soon after birth.' Steven began to cry again. Lee looked on, bewildered — he had never seen the man he now called ‘Dad' cry before.

Penny took Steven in her arms and waited until his sobs subsided. ‘I know this must be very hard for you, but you're going to be a father again,' she said softly. He took her by the shoulders and held her away from him, looking enquiringly into her eyes. ‘I'm pregnant,' she confirmed.

‘How long? When? I…' Penny smiled. She could hear the excitement in his voice. Then she noticed a look of concern spread across his face. ‘Are you feeling all right?' he asked.

‘Of course. Don't worry, I've had a baby before.'

But it wasn't just her health he was worried about. Immediately his mind rushed to thinking: what if this baby was deformed too?

‘I'm not the only one pregnant,' Penny continued. ‘Jessica's pregnant as well. We're both three months gone. I think you and Fergus hit the jackpot just about on our first night aboard
Archangel
.'

Steven smiled, happy thoughts chasing away his fears. ‘Well, Fergus has certainly had enough practice.'

‘You didn't do so badly yourself.' Penny smiled up at him.

‘It's about time we had a proper honeymoon,' Steven announced suddenly. ‘There's no rush to get back to Gulf Harbour — the news about Sarah and Katie will keep, and it'll be a couple of weeks yet before my father's absorbed the other adults and Tommy into the base group.'

‘Assuming Zoë hasn't fallen ill.'

Steven sighed. ‘Here's hoping. I don't know what my father will do if we can't integrate the whole family.'

‘If he can't integrate the groups, some of us might want to sail back to England,' Penny said quietly.

‘You don't really want to go back to England, surely?' Steven asked, suddenly recalling their conversation immediately before he had sighted the wreck of
Raconteur
.

‘Steven, my mother and sister are there. Apart from anything else, I'm about to have your baby. Do you think I wouldn't want to show off our child to my mother?'

Steven said nothing. He couldn't understand why anyone would want to leave New Zealand — particularly when returning to Haver entailed the risk of enslavement by Nigel and his sons.

‘A honeymoon's a lovely idea,' Penny said, realising it was time to change the subject. ‘But what about your search for Jane?'

‘I'm sure she's dead,' Steven said sombrely. Again he began blaming himself. ‘I should have insisted we sail through the Suez Canal and not stop at Brisbane. If I'd stuck to my guns we might have arrived
before the tsunami struck.'

‘And if we had, we might also be dead.'

Steven looked at Lee, who had been following the conversation without fully understanding. He ruffled the little boy's hair. ‘You're right,' he agreed. ‘Let's have this honeymoon, eh? I want to show you the Hauraki Gulf before you get too big and fat to enjoy it.'

Steven, Penny and Lee spent the next three weeks exploring. They sailed
Archangel
across to Te Kouma on the Coromandel Peninsula and out to Great Barrier Island. In Fitzroy Harbour, they anchored off Smokehouse Bay and found the smokehouse, washing tubs, clotheslines and bath house, so long appreciated by Auckland's boaties, had all been swept away. Despite the beauty of the spot, Steven made sure they stayed only one night. On that night his nightmares returned. He heard again the crackling of flames engulfing
The White Witch
and the terrified screams of the man who had raped his sister Jane, calling for his help.

They returned to the inner gulf and anchored off the northern coast of Waiheke and rowed into the tiny, almost land-locked, pohutukawa-lined bay of Garden Cove — a magical, peaceful place with a lone rock standing sentinel at the bay's narrow entrance. They fished off Gannet Rock and walked through the eerily deserted settlement of Onetangi. The waterside properties that had once stood along the long sandy beach had been destroyed by the tsunami. They quickly
searched a few houses on the higher slopes, but the total absence of food and the presence of skeletons sent them scurrying away. Then they sailed to Chamberlains Bay on the northern tip of Ponui Island. The farmhouses and barns which had previously stood near the beach had been swept away, handing it back to nature.

 

Although they had enjoyed their tour, Steven and Penny were glad to get back to Gulf Harbour. With
Archangel
anchored in Hobbs Bay, Steven rowed Penny and Lee ashore and they made straight for the three houses on Marina Hill. As they approached, the children in the quarantine house called excitedly across the tape to Lee, who began boasting about his adventures.

‘Did you find my mummy?' Holly asked.

Lee looked up at his mother, not sure how to answer the question.

‘What about my mummy?' Gina called.

‘Your mothers have gone to heaven,' Penny said gently.

Holly and Gina ran into the house crying, followed by Zach, Audrey and Nicole. Penny lifted the quarantine tape and hurried after them.

‘Don't!' yelled Mark. He was standing at the door of the base house, holding Zoë in his arms. The little girl had also heard the news and had started to cry. Steven rushed forward and pulled Penny back under the tape.

‘I've just told the poor little souls they've lost their mothers,' Penny sobbed. ‘They need someone to comfort them.'

‘We can't afford to breach the quarantine, for the children's own sake,' Mark reminded her, hearing the reproach in her voice.

‘Is Zoë OK?' Steven asked.

‘Yes … thankfully. I take it you found
Raconteur
?'

Steven nodded. ‘She was caught off Oneroa and wrecked.'

‘And you found Sarah and Katie?'

Steven nodded again. Mark, cradling Zoë in his arms, knew that now was not the time for his son to elaborate.

‘How are things going here?' Steven asked.

‘With the exception of you three, we've now processed everyone
through the first phase of the quarantine process. Fergus was the last to join us — four days ago. We're ready for one of you three now. Who's coming over first?'

Steven looked at Penny.

‘Lee,' she said. ‘Then me.'

Steven and Penny both hugged the little boy and then watched as he ducked under the tape and walked across to join Mark and Zoë.

‘Where's everyone else?' Steven asked.

‘They're out at the farm, rounding up the livestock.'

‘So you've had more trouble from the dogs?'

‘Sure have. We shot a couple last night, but it's a big pack. We're getting dangerously low on ammunition.'

‘Seeing as Penny and I need to remain isolated from the rest of the community, shall we try to find some more?'

‘It's worth a try, but I doubt you'll find any. We've searched before, remember. You could try to locate some poison though — I think that's going to be the simplest solution.'

 

‘Wake up, wake up.' Penny was shaking Steven. ‘I can hear your father calling.'

They had overslept, exhausted by a hard three days locating cans of poison and lugging them back to Marina Hill.

Steven's eyes blinked open. He could hear the agitated shouting too. They both hurriedly dressed and rushed outside, where they were confronted by Mark, Allison, Fergus, Jessica, Tommy and Lee, staring at them from across the quarantine tape. Zach and the other children clustered together in the garden of their own house.

‘What's the problem?' Steven asked his father.

‘It's Zoë, she's ill. She was fine yesterday. Lee must be the carrier.'

Penny started to cry.

‘How bad is Zoë?' Steven asked.

‘Not as bad as Sophia and Lily yet, but she's got the same symptoms. I want you to take Allison up to Dr Whittaker's surgery at Manly. Don't make contact with her, just show her the way and keep your distance.'

‘But there are no drugs at the surgery. We checked when we were looking for Christopher's Thyroxine tablets before we went to England. Every surgery had been looted.'

‘There could still be medical books,' Allison explained. ‘I might find useful information in them.'

‘What about Lee?' Penny asked Mark.

Mark shrugged. ‘He may as well come back over to you, seeing as you have had the disease and no one seems to get it twice. But he must be kept isolated from the other children, as must you and Steven.'

‘What's the point of keeping Penny and me isolated?' Steven challenged. ‘We know who the carrier is now.'

‘We know that Lee is a carrier, but it's possible that you and Penny are too. I think it's unlikely that you are, but Penny could be — she is Lee's mother, after all.'

‘Let's get to the surgery,' Allison urged as Lee scampered under the tape to join his mother.

Spurred on by the urgency in Allison's voice, Steven led them up Hobbs Road towards Manly village.

‘What's going to happen if Zoë dies?' whispered Penny as she, Steven and Lee hurried along a few metres ahead of Allison.

‘I don't know,' Steven said. He was worried. The situation was critical. He doubted his father would risk another child's life.

 

Several times a day over the next week, Mark emerged from the house and talked to Penny and Steven across the barrier. The news wasn't good. Towards the end of the second week, Allison announced that, as with Lily and Sophia, septicaemia and peritonitis had set in.

Early one morning, the sounds of sobbing spread through all three houses. A broken-hearted Holly was restrained from rushing to her dead sister by Zach and Nicole.

An hour later, Mark dug a tiny grave in the lawn outside the central house, and with Allison leading the service and the other two groups looking on from a safe distance, Zoë was laid to rest.

‘What now?' Penny called out to Mark once he had finished filling in the grave. Mark looked at her wearily.

Steven, realising his father was too distraught to confront the issue, took the initiative. ‘Let's have a discussion after breakfast tomorrow.'

Mark nodded, then turned and walked dejectedly back towards the central house. His shoulders were hunched, as if he was carrying the weight of the world.

 

Like everyone at Gulf Harbour, Mark had had a restless night. Despite the lack of sleep and the setback of the previous day, dawn found him ready to face the challenges that confronted the community once again.

Barbecue tables were dragged across the lawns of Mark and Steven's houses, and placed a few metres back from the tape. Zach laid a blanket on the grass on his side of the perimeter and was sitting with Nicole, Audrey, Holly and Gina. Jessica and Fergus distributed food to everyone and then sat down at the barbecue table with Mark, Allison and Tommy. They ate in silence. No one wanted to broach the subject uppermost in their minds.

‘Was it typhoid?' Steven finally asked Allison.

‘Having read the medical books, I'm sure it was. Sophia, Lily and Zoë's symptoms were a lot more severe, but in essence they had the same disease as the rest of us. We had no medicine to fight it, but the rest of us managed to survive it somehow. For some reason Sophia, Lily and Zoë just couldn't.'

‘What about the other children? Do you think they'll they be able to fight it off?'

Allison shrugged. ‘Who knows? Lee and Tommy survived.'

‘So what happens now?' Penny asked, repeating her question that had gone unanswered the previous day.

‘Well, clearly Lee has to remain isolated from the other children at least,' Allison said.

‘For how long?' Penny asked, looking squarely at Mark.

Mark did not answer and Allison's voice was breaking as she replied. She was clearly distressed by her failure to save Zoë. ‘The human race is worse off now than in centuries past. We've become so reliant on antibiotics that we've lost much of our natural resistance
to disease. I think there's a chance that some people — like Sophia, Lily and Zoë — simply don't have resistance to whatever disease Lee is carrying. If there were still antibiotics available it might not be an issue. But without them it is.'

‘Which means Lee will remain a risk to the other children,' Mark said.

‘So what are you planning to do now?'

‘I want to wait a couple of weeks and then introduce another one of the children to the base group. Assuming that's successful, I want you to come across yourself.'

‘And if I'm a carrier?'

‘I don't think you will be.'

Steven repeated the question. ‘And if I am?'

His father did not answer, so Steven asked another. ‘And if I'm not a carrier, what about Penny? Are you going to introduce her to the group?'

Mark stayed silent.

‘I thought not. Well, I can tell you now that I'm not coming into the base group without Penny and Lee.'

‘You need to think seriously about the implications of that.'

‘There's nothing to think about. Lee and Penny are my future now.'

‘We all need a rethink,' Allison said, turning to Mark. ‘It seems to me that our gene pool is now even more precarious than ever. When we sailed to New Zealand we were expecting to be able to build a sustainable community. Since then we've lost Adam, Robert, Luke, Christopher, Sarah, Katie, Zoë and Jane.'

‘Jane may still be alive,' Mark said quickly, but even he knew he was clutching at straws.

Allison ignored him. ‘And to compound the problem, now you've potentially cut off Steven, Penny and Lee. The rest of us would be better off going back to England.'

‘Seems to me that the first thing we need to do is to get the Dalton boys back,' Fergus said.

‘We should never have deserted them in the first place,' Allison said, looking accusingly at Mark.

‘We had no option,' Mark rounded on her angrily.

Steven intervened. ‘It was the right decision at the time. But it should be safe to go back to Brisbane now — providing we land somewhere out of sight of Corky's settlement. If Penny, Lee and I need to remain in isolation, we might as well be aboard
Archangel
. We'll sail to Brisbane and get the Dalton boys back.'

‘I'll come with you,' Fergus volunteered.

‘I need you here,' Mark snapped. ‘We need to get this place established properly.'

‘Penny and I can manage
Archangel
by ourselves,' Steven said. ‘We proved that while we were away cruising.'

Mark was clearly unhappy. ‘There's a lot of difference between sailing around Waiheke and sailing to Brisbane and back.'

Steven stood up. Penny and Lee followed his cue. ‘We'll manage. While we're away you can work on the second stage of your quarantine plan, and move the Gulf Harbour children into the base group one at a time. During the voyage, Penny and I will decide our own future.'

He took Penny and Lee by the hand and led them into the house.