Witi Ihimaera - The Whale Rider

The tide was still coming in. The Navy personnel arrived and members of Greenpeace, Project Jonah and Friends of the Earth also. Two helicopters whirred overhead, dropping wetsuited men into the sea.

A quick conference was called on the situation. The decision was made to try and tow the whales out to sea. Small runabouts were used, and while most of the whales resisted being towed by the tail, there were some successes. In that first attempt, a hundred and forty whales were refloated. There were many cheers along the beach. But the whales were like confused children, milling and jostling out in the deeper water, and they kept trying to return to those who were still stranded along the beach, darting back to those who were already dead. The cheers became ragged when all the whales returned to beach themselves again at low tide.

‘Okay, folks,’ Derek called. ‘We’re back at the beginning. Let’s keep them cool. And let’s keep our spirits up.’

The sea thundered through his words. The seagulls screamed overhead. The sun reached noon and began its low decline. I saw children coming from buses to help. Some schools had allowed senior students to aid the rescue. Many of the old folk were pleased to be relieved. Others, however, stayed on. For them, their whale had become a member of the family. ‘And I can’t leave Sophie now,’ an elderly lady said. The sun scattered its spokes across the sand.

The whales kept dying. As each death occurred the people who were looking after the whale would weep and clasp one another. They would try to force away the younger, healthier whales which had returned to keep company with their dying mates. When a large whale was turning on its side, several juveniles would try to assist it, rubbing their bodies against the dying whale’s head. All the time the animals were uttering cries of distress or alarm, like lost children.

Some old people refused to leave the beach. They began to sing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’. They continued to try to right the whales, rocking them back and forth to restore their balance, and encouraging them to swim in groups. It was soon obvious, however, that the whales did not wish to be separated. So the ranger decided that an effort should be made to herd the surviving whales as one large group out to sea. They seemed to sense that we were trying to help them and offered no resistance or harm. When we reached them, most were exhausted, but when they felt us lifting them up and pushing them out to sea they put their energy into swimming and blowing.

Somehow we managed to get the whales out again with the incoming tide. But all they did was to cry and grieve for their dead companions; after wallowing aimlessly, they would return to nuzzle their loved ones. The sea hissed and fell, surged and soughed upon the sand. The whales were singing a plaintive song, a fluting sound which began to recede away, away, away.

By evening, all the whales had died. Two hundred whales, lifeless on the beach and in the water. The boys and I waited during the death throes. Some of the people from the town had set up refreshments and were serving coffee. I saw the lady with the pink slippers sipping coffee and looking out to sea.

‘Remember me?’ I said. ‘My name’s Rawiri. I’m a goodie.’

There were tears in her eyes. She pressed my hand in companionship.

‘Even the goodies,’ she said, ‘can’t win all the time.’

When I returned to Whangara that night, Nanny Flowers said, ‘Kahu knows about the whales.’ I found Kahu way up on the bluff, calling out to sea. She was making that mewling sound and then cocking her head to listen for a reply. The sea was silent, eternal.

I comforted her. The moon was drenching the sky with loneliness. I heard an echo of Koro Apirana’s voice, ‘This is a sign to us. I don’t like it.’ Suddenly, with great clarity, I knew that our final challenge was almost upon us. I pressed Kahu close to me, to reassure her. I felt a sudden shiver as far out to sea, muted thunder boomed like a door opening far away.

Haumi e, hui e, taiki e .

Let it be done.

Yes, people in the district vividly remember the stranding of the whales because television and radio brought the event into our homes that evening. But there were no television cameras or radio newsmen to see what occurred in Whangara the following night. Perhaps it was just as well, because even now it all seems like a dream. Perhaps, also, the drama enacted that night was only meant to be seen by the tribe and nobody else. Whatever the case, the earlier stranding of whales was merely a prelude to the awesome event that followed, an event that had all the cataclysmic power and grandeur of a Second Coming.

The muted thunder and forked lightning the day before had advanced quickly across the sea like an illuminated cloud. We saw it as a great broiling rush of the elements; with it came the icy cold winds hurled from the Antarctic.

Nanny Flowers, Kahu and I were watching the weather anxiously. We were at the airport, waiting for the flight bringing Koro Apirana and Porourangi back to us. Suddenly there was the plane, bucking like an albatross, winging ahead of winds which heralded the arrival of the storm. It was as if Tawhirimatea was trying to smash the plane down to earth in anger.

Koro Apirana was pale and upset. He and Nanny Flowers were always arguing, but this time he was genuinely relieved to see her. ‘Oh, wife,’ he whispered as he held her tightly.

‘We had a hard time down South,’ Porourangi said, trying to explain Koro’s agitation. ‘The land dispute was a difficult one and I think that Koro is worried about the judge’s decision. Then when he heard about the whales, he grew very sombre.’

The wind began to whistle and shriek like wraiths.

‘Something’s going on,’ Koro Apirana whispered. ‘I don’t know what it is. But something —’

‘It’s all right,’ Kahu soothed. ‘It will be all right, Paka.’

We collected the suitcases and ran out to the station wagon. As we drove through the town the illuminated cloud seemed always to be in front of us, like a portent.

Even before we reached Wainui Beach we could smell and taste the Goddess of Death. The wind was still lashing like a whip at the landscape. The car was buffeted strongly, and Nanny Flowers was holding on to her seat belt nervously.

‘It’s all right,’ Kahu said. ‘There, there, Nanny.’

Suddenly, in front of the car, I could see a traffic officer waving his torch. He told us to drive carefully as earth-moving machinery was digging huge trenches in the sand for the dead whales. Then he recognised me as one of the people who had tried to help. His smile and salute were sad.

I drove carefully along the highway. On our right I could see the hulking shapes of the graders, silhouetted against the broiling sky. Further down the beach, at the ocean’s edge, were the whales, rocked by the surge and hiss of the sea. The whole scene was like a surreal painting, not nightmarish, but immensely tragic. What had possessed the herd to be so suicidal? The wind hurled sand and mud at the windscreen of the station wagon. We watched in silence.

Then, ‘Stop,’ Koro Apirana said.

I stopped the station wagon. Koro Apirana got out. He staggered against the onslaught of the wind.

‘Leave him,’ Nanny Flowers said. ‘Let him be with the whales by himself. He needs to mourn.’

But I was fearful of Koro’s distraught state. I got out of the car too. The wind was freezing. I walked over to him. His eyes were haunted. He looked at me, uncomprehending.