A Grace Darling of New Zealand

By … Rosaline Redwood

Alice Gomez dug her brown toes into the warm sand, and dreamily watched a small speck bobbing up and down on the crests of greeny, grey waves, fully a mile from the shore. The rich green of Bravo Island, creeping right up to the rock boulders that lined the shore, rose in luxuriant, colourful glory, behind her. She was alone on the island for the day, that is, alone save for the presence of her dog, but he could hardly be termed poor company, for he was an exceptionally intelligent creature and Alice adored him.

She glanced down at her well-worn frock, cut from plain uninteresting material—from the roll that had been used to make all the dresses and suits for her numerous brothers and sisters. Hopefully she prayed that her father might bring a prettier roll this time. Again she glanced across the water—the bobbing speck was getting slowly nearer, and she knew now without a doubt, that it was her father returning in his dingy. There would be fresh stores from Oban, the new material—she decided to wait on the beach and help him carry them up to the house.

It was typical of the girl's gentle, loving nature, to want to help. Indeed all the Gomez children had been taught to work from the time they could walk. One would not imagine there was so much to do on an island where game could be shot from the back door, and where fish was ridiculously abundant, but in all, the Gomez children numbered twenty-one, and as they were mostly self-supporting, rearing their own pigs and fowls, and growing their own vegetables and fruit, they were kept going from early till late.

Had Samual Gomez been less a hard worker himself, he may have expected less from his children. Possibly it was his own early training that made him a hard, if just, father. Alice knew all about his younger days—she knew and understood. Had he not belonged to the Portuguese Navy, where discipline was hard and cruel? Where men were stretched across the yardarm and flogged unmercifully for very small offences! Possibly that accounted for his treating his family as if he were the skipper and they the working crew. To escape a flogging on his ship, he had eventually deserted and sailed for New Zealand, where he met and married one of the beautiful half-caste Maori maidens. Her mother was a daughter of a Kaiapoi chief, who, when the siege of Kaiapoi took place, had managed to smuggle his womenfolk out from Canterbury, to the safety of Ruapuke Island. Samual Gomez had rowed his bride across the three mile stretch of water to the island which he named Bravo, and which he and a fellow deserter claimed for themselves and their future families.

Alice was idly running handsful of tiny smooth stones through her fingers, when the dog's sudden, sharp barking aroused her from her reverie. She looked up quickly, and instinctively her eyes swept the water in front. She saw the small boat—and then she understood!

Her father, now only two hundred yards from the shore, had suddenly pitched forward in the boat, and his hands had fallen lifelessly from the oars. She knew, just as surely as if she had been able to see his face, that he had taken a stroke. He had taken one before. She knew, too, that it would only be a short time before the strong current would carry the tiny craft far out towards the open sea.

Even while terror gripped her heart, she decided on instant action. Without hesitating to consider her own danger, she plunged into the surf, not even taking time to remove some of her clothes. At an early age she had been taught to swim and handle a boat, and that knowledge was going to be the means of saving her father's life. Despite the heavy weight of her page 42 page 43

(Rly. Publicity photo.) The Wellington-Johnsonville electric multiple units at Wellington station.

dragging clothes, she swam strongly. The current was helping her—but it was also carrying the boat with its helpless victim rapidly away from her.

She was gaining at last—the boat was getting nearer, but her breath was coming in quick, painful gasps. It felt like an eternity before her fingers clawed thankfully for a hold on the side of the boat. She worked her way round to the end, and even in her fatigued state remembered to exercise the utmost care in pulling herself on board. If she upset the boat, that would be the end for them both.

Only for a minute did she allow her eyes to dwell on the still, drawn face of her father, as he lay sprawled across the seat where he had fallen. She was terrified that he might be dead—but resolutely gripping the oars she tried to make herself believe that he would soon come round. Her arms were aching with the long swim, but in her anxiety to get the boat to land she did not feel the tired pains. The boat had drifted farther than she had imagined, and the pull to the shore seemed a long one. Her clothes clung drippingly around her slender figure, and her glorious hair hung limply about her face and shoulders, but she was completely oblivious of any personal discomfort—her thoughts and anxieties were solely for the still white form lying in the bottom of the boat.

The dingy grounded at last on the strip of yellow sand, but the biggest task was yet to come, the task of getting her father up to the house. It was not an easy matter for a young girl to drag a heavy man of Samual Gomez's type out of the boat and up the stretch of beach. Afterwards she could not understand how she had managed it—no one could—but somehow, inch by inch, she worked her way towards the house. She even got him into bed.

He had not stirred, and the deepening grey of his face had turned her steps frantically back to the beach again, to row to the Neck for help. She did not change her soaking clothes, and the Neck was three miles across the water.

In the evening she was back again, but this time there were others with her, to share the burden. She was shivering convulsively from the long exposure—she had caught a terrible chill on her lungs. When Samual Gomez had long recovered, Alice still retained a persistant cough that she could not shake off. Uncomplainingly she did her share of the work on the little island, until finally she was forced to leave for the mainland for medical treatment. Bravo Island was not to see her again, for she died at the early age of twenty-two. She died as a heroine, for the story had become news, and her photograph had been eagerly sought by the papers. They called her “The Grace Darling of New Zealand,” and she was most assuredly worthy of the title.

* * *

Bravo Island is deserted and lonely now. Only sea birds call and scream, where once children laughed and played. Gone is all evidence of the once fruitful orchard and fertile garden, swallowed up in the rank green bush. A few fallen bricks and a lone hearth stone, mark the place where huge fires once crackled and blazed on cold winter nights. Bravo has gone back to its wild state again—but, because of the lovely, courageous girl who once graced its shores, Bravo Island shall never be forgotten.

(Rly. Publicity photo.) Maori Bank—a picturesque picnic resort on the upper reaches of the Hutt River, Wellington.

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