Glacier Man Read online

  glacier Man

  Also by Anthony David

  H2O

  Pay Up

  Anthony David

  glacier Man

  Vanguard Press

  VANGUARD E-BOOK

  © Copyright 2018

  Anthony David

  The right of Anthony David to be identified as author of

  this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All Rights Reserved

  No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication

  may be made without written permission.

  No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,

  copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions

  of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to

  this publication may be liable to criminal

  prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is

  available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 784654 97 9 (paperback)

  Vanguard Press is an imprint of

  Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie Publishers Ltd.

  www.pegasuspublishers.com

  First Published in 2018

  Vanguard Press

  Sheraton House Castle Park

  Cambridge England

  This is dedicated to all those who unflinchingly seek the truth

  Joshua long ago abandoned his faith in humanity. By sheer chance he undergoes an experience which helps him, and those around him, to find it again in this retelling of one the great stories in history.

  Sometimes on the way to a dream you get lost and find a better one.

  Attr. Lisa Hammond

  Prologue

  The big bird lifted its head. There was a sound. Despite it being just over 3.6 metres tall (12ft) and around 230kg, it was still wary of the eagle. It turned its head to hear better as the setting sun over the mountains was reflected in its large brown eyes. Based on size alone, the Moa should have been at the top of the food chain.

  This was ancient New Zealand. A land that had broken away from Gondwanaland almost sixty-five million years ago. As such, it was a land of mountains and forest, with no land-based mammals at all. There were dolphins and whales in abundance in the bountiful oceans surrounding this true Garden of Eden.

  It was untouched by humans. They would not arrive for possibly another one thousand two hundred years. While the giant Moa was grazing on shoots and leaves, on the other side of the world the Romans were putting a thirty-three-year-old Jew to death on a cross, Emperor Tiberius ruled in Rome and the Han dynasty’s iron hand held sway in China.

  Because New Zealand broke away before the rise of the mammals, which was the result of the demise of the dinosaurs, it was a bird paradise. Many of the birds native to New Zealand were not only large, but flightless. There was no need to fly, as there were no land-based predators. So the Kiwi, Kakapo, along with the Moa, among others, gave up the pointless practice of flying.

  There was one superior hunter from the air, however. One that even the Moa, despite its huge size, along with all other birds feared. It became known as the Haast Eagle. This was a fearsome bird with a wingspan of up to three metres and weighing nearly 20kg. Claws and beak were perfectly adapted for lunging, ripping and tearing the flesh of its prey. It would drop out of the sky from the treetops at speed, and a bird of that size could knock and stun the Moa, rendering it helpless as it tore at the flesh of the hapless prey.

  The Moa’s coarse brown feathers, which were for warmth and not flying, ruffled in the gentle breeze. The face of the glacier rose above the small brown lake. The tree-line ran right to the edge with a dense, temperate Rain Forest unique to this land. Instinctively, the Moa knew that it was almost too late for the Eagle to attack. Under the protection of darkness, the terrifying bird would retire to its lair in the upper branches of the large trees.

  The sun was almost completely gone, with only shards of gold on the highest peaks. There was that noise again. Moa was getting nervous now as it turned its head again towards the source. A sound it had never heard before. It was a noise that it was not familiar with. Then there was a bright light above the glacier. That was finally enough for Moa. Eagle or not, it decided to disappear into the lush undergrowth.

  Moa would never hear or see that sound again.

  Chapter 1

  Glacier

  The water was a mirror which reflected large lumps of ice that floated on its surface. Some of the lumps were large enough to be given the “berg” status. The rubber inflatable, with its noisy outboard and almost as noisy group of tourists, skirted around the largest of the bergs, which seemed to tower metres above them.

  The guide was a “mountain man” in his mid-thirties. He had a large beard and long scruffy hair under his cap, which announced his company as Tasman Lake Tours. To be honest, he didn’t know how much longer he could stand this business. He had been doing it for six years, and it wasn’t the landscape that was getting to him but the tourists, with their inane and never-ending questions.

  It didn’t matter how often he went out (usually it was about twice a day), there was always at least one of his “guests” who wouldn’t do as instructed, one who would ask dumb questions and one who was too precious to get wet or look bad by putting on the mandatory lifejacket. His boat held up to twelve people, including himself. He would like, just once, to be able to leave the idiots on a floe of ice to freeze so they got a dose of reality.

  “Why can’t we get any closer?”

  He sighed. This was the same question he was asked on every trip. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of becoming a commercial fisherman on the rugged west coast of the South Island.

  Pasting the fake smile on his face, he replied, “Because if a large block of ice breaks away from the face of the glacier, it will send out a tidal wave. At 1.5km, at least we can ride it out or outrun it. Believe me, you don’t want to end up in the water.” He should pre-record these answers, so he could just press a button. This was the most common question. The Australian who had asked the question, while looking disappointed, accepted the answer. The guide added, “The face of the glacier is fifty metres above water level, so there is real potential to sink a boat.”

  “Have you ever seen one break away?”

  “Quite often. The last big one was last summer. Put out a wave of about three metres. We managed to outrun it.”

  And, as if someone was queuing the questions for him, “How big is the lake?”

  “It is up to 7km long by about 2km wide. Up until the seventies, and for thousands of years, it had only been a series of large ponds. This lake has only formed in the last forty to fifty years.”

  “How cold is the water?”

  “Put your hand in and feel it.”

  The American tentatively put his hand over the side, almost like he was expecting a “loch monster” to jump up and grab his hand. He withdrew his hand from the water quickly and let out a Yank curse, “Goddam, that is cold!”

  Matthew (or Matt, as he was known by everyone) chuckled under his beard. Shit! How he would like to dunk the more annoying ones in that water.

  “You would only last about nine minutes in that water, so you’d better follow my safety instructions.”

  A note of apprehension came over the passengers as they looked for the nearest land. They were all wearing their Mistral lifejackets, but they now realised that they would only keep them afloat so they could remain conscious while they froze to death.

  “Don’t worry, I haven’t lost anyone yet,” he grinned; “well, at least not this year!” He hadn’t lost anyone, but he added the coda comment just to wind them up a bit.

  Matt slowed the boat as they looked across at the glacier face, cameras and phones shuttering. He wondered what ever happened to the millions of photos that were taken. That’s what digital photography had done: killed photographic discernment. In the days of film, people would pick and choose their photos because each photo was money. No one ever got rid of the unwanted photos; they just sat there on some memory stick or hard drive until whenever.

  He looked across at the glacier face. It still awed him, the forces of nature. The movement was imperceptible at first. He saw it before the sound reached them. This was huge, probably the largest ice-calving he had ever seen, and he had seen a few. The sound reached them like a clap of thunder that rolled on. They all started to point and the alarm in their voices was palpable. The huge new berg fell into the water of the lake in a shower of spray.

  “Did you see that?” they cried out, as they looked nervously at Matt. Matt had already reacted, as he gunned the outboard. They picked up speed rapidly as he turned to starboard. He could see the genesis of what was going to be a large wave. His mind had changed gear. While they drove him nuts, these people were his responsibility, and he was not intending on losing any of them.

  “All right, I want you to hold on tight.” He had done the mental calculation. They had enough of a head start that they would be able to reach safety at the launch point down the western side of the lake. You never know how big the wave is going to be or how quickly it will dissipate. He knew of one of these events causing a wave that was more than twenty metres high at the face of a Peruvian glacier. It went on to wipe out a village and kill over two hundred people.

  He sped up.
Just then, he noticed that one of the Australians was almost standing up, trying to get a photo, looking back over Matt’s head. WTF!

  “Sit down!” he yelled, his booming baritone leaving no one in any doubt. In that split second of distraction, it happened. He didn’t see the lump of ice that was sitting at water level. While the inflatable took the smooth rounded surface in its stride, it caused a bulge in the floor which travelled rapidly along the length of the boat.

  For those that were hanging on with both hands, it was a bit of a thrill; but for Aussie Man it was like a catapult as he popped out like a pip being squeezed from a lemon. He screamed as he realised he was due for a swim. Matt cut the motor and pulled the boat around (his many years doing IRB training with the Piha Surf Rescue meant that this manoeuvre was automatic).

  The Aussie had surfaced and was crying out in desperation. Matt was in charge now. This had the potential to be serious. While he was sick of the business, it paid the mortgage and he wasn’t ready to do anything else.

  “Raise your hand,” he yelled, as the boat glided towards the frantic passenger. “Raise your bloody hand!” The idiot wasn’t helping. To be fair, he would be in shock, Matt thought. It wouldn’t be long before hypothermia would start to kick in.

  The man raised his hand in response to Matt’s urgent command. The outboard was idling and out of gear. Matt reached down and with one practiced swing hauled the wet and by now frozen Aussie into the bottom of the boat.

  “Stay there and wrap this around you.” Matt threw one of the many thermal foil reflector blankets at him. The man was shivering. Others were trying to help.

  Matt brought himself back into the moment. There was a large wave bearing down on them. Now considerably closer. Could he outrun it? In a thought process that took less than a second, he envisioned racing the wave to the shore. Then he was going to have to get them out of the boat, as the wave would expend its energy on the shore. It could turn very ugly. A breaking wave would be very difficult to deal with. There could be injuries.

  Only one option: to turn back into the wave and meet it head on. He had done this a couple of times, but they were way smaller waves. He might be able to make it before the face steepened.

  “All right, listen up.” He was beyond niceties; this was time to take command. “Everyone get down onto the floor of the boat and hold tight. We are going for a ride.”

  There was a murmur of anxiety as the passengers got onto the floor of the boat. Matt gunned the outboard to shorten the arrival time. He calculated maybe ten seconds. The wave was enormous as he looked for the optimal wave point.

  “Hold on!” Matt yelled. “Here we go!”

  “Oh, Jesus!” someone called out, as they crossed themselves. The inflatable’s nose rose with the wave. It was a good three metres. At one point, almost the whole boat was pointing to the clouds. There was fear etched on all the faces as they gripped the nearest thing as tightly as they could.

  It was over as quickly as it had started, and there were whoops and fist pumps. There was a second smaller wave coming, but it was far less intimidating. Matt picked up his radio.

  “Jimbo, come in.”

  After a suitable pause, the response came back, “Yo.” Matt had tried to teach him radio etiquette, but had given up.

  “We’ve caught a fish.” They used a code to talk so they didn’t alarm the passengers.

  “Oy vay!” James responded, in his best fake-Yiddish accent.

  “Yep. Organise an ambo. We’ll be fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay, will do. See you soon.”

  “Over and out.” Now he used etiquette! Matt sighed and checked on his shivering passenger.

  Sixteen minutes later, Matt brought the IRB onto the beach they had left almost two hours ago. People jumped off the boat, talking and laughing loudly. Matt’s shore crew, Jimbo, came over to where the boat had landed, as they loaded the frozen Aussie into the back of the ambulance.

  Chapter 2

  The Club

  The Club, as it was known, was one street back from the main street of Glorit. To be fair, there were only three streets in the small village, so it was as central as you could get. The building itself had been a woolshed in its past and had been re-purposed by the local community when it was no longer practical to use it for its intended purpose. The exterior was the ubiquitous corrugated iron, which protected so many of the utility buildings in the area. It was cheap, easy to maintain and easy to repair, so perfect for a farm building.

  About fifteen years ago, after the shed had been sitting unused and unloved for about twenty years, a group of locals decided they needed somewhere to meet. Matt had been one of the main instigators. They had set up the citizens club with a constitution, a committee and membership. It cost the princely sum of $35 a year to be a member. This had only been increased in the previous year, much to the consternation of some of the members. Although, despite their complaining, everyone paid the new fee.

  The inside of the shed was made of solid timber and it only required some imagination to see the new club take shape. There were already the makings of a kitchen at one end. Toilets were added, and steps installed to take foot traffic from the base level to and from the raised level, which was now set aside for dining tables and a bar. There was a mid-sized pool table, where many a bet had been lost. The walls were covered up to the three-metre mark with wood panelling. The roof was bare (apart from the light fittings, with large A-frames which supported the roof every three metres. The cross-members on the bottom of the As had had lighting fitted.

  This had become a venue that towns four times the size would have been proud to own. Enhancements and changes had been easy, as most of the people involved were also on the local government council, which meant that planning consents were a formality.

  Matt held a beer in his hand as he retold the story of the frozen Australian to the three others at the bar and the barman, who was, in fact, Gloria, a barmaid you didn’t trifle with. There were no full-time staff, but they had come up with a roster that designated who was on the bar and responsible for the money they took in. Since smoking had been banned indoors by law, on hot days you could still smell the reek of sheep shit which permeated the building.

  The other four listened with intrigue as Matt embellished the story, as you should in this situation.

  “I told the idiot to sit down; he wouldn’t listen. As we went over the lump of ice, he went flying. It was like he had been shot out of a cannon.”

  There was gentle laughter and genuine delight at the story. While Australians were very close in terms of culture and they supposedly shared the ANZAC spirit (dating from New Zealand and Australia’s shared experience fighting in World War One), there was always good-natured delight at the other’s misfortune.

  “How long was he in the water for?” asked Gloria.

  “Probably less than a minute,” Matt finished the story. As they all started talking, a stranger entered the bar.

  They looked at one another as if this was an unusual experience.

  Matt took the lead. “Can I help you, mate?” – trying to not be threatening with his question.

  The guy looked around. He was a tall, blond and solidly built guy in his late fifties.

  “Is this the Glorit Club?”

  “It is.”

  “Oh, okay. I am one of the Gee Bees. We have a gig here tonight.”

  “Oh, yeah. How are you, mate? I’m Matt, the club treasurer.”

  “How are you, Matt? I’m Steve,” he said, as he shook Matt’s hand. Matt introduced him to the others.

  “Where is the rest of your group?”

  “They will be along soon; they have the gear trailer.”

  “Excellent. We are sold out tonight.” This had been planned as the big fund-raising event of the year. The Gee Bees were a Bee Gees tribute band from Waihopai, which was several hours’ drive north of Glorit. The club secretary had been to a gig of theirs and decided they needed to come to Glorit and spread their magic.