Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a bird? Or a wolf? Or perhaps, you feel that in some mysterious way, you share the characteristics of a particular animal? For my own part, even from childhood I found I was intrigued by tigers. Not simply interested but having a feeling of affinity. From time-to-time, they would appear in my dreams and without obsessing (I hasten to add), I knew that at some time I must travel to India to see a tiger in the wild – which I did, several times.
Palaeontologists sometimes consider that cave art depictions of animals by our distant predecessors, were about forming a spiritual connection with the animals they hunted. That may be so, but I had no interest at any time, in hunting a tiger!
In any event, I decided that I must tell a story about a New Zealand boy who believes that he may at some propitious time, assume the form of an albatross (the Toroa). In thinking about this story, I found I was developing a character who was gentle, but enormously musical. I decided that this boy would live on the Wairarapa coast, before the Second World War because this was an area for harvesting the red seaweeds that became agar.
How would it be, I wondered – to be such a person and then to be conscripted? This might engender a different kind of metamorphosis. Not from man to bird, but man to killer.
One of the challenges for this story, was achieving historical accuracy, both in terms of pre-war rural life and even more so, in depicting the New Zealand Second Division’s Italian Campaign.
‘Songs of the Other Man’ is a very New Zealand story – and was a great pleasure to write because I like the main character, Jem, very much, and because I admire enormously all New Zealand soldiers who fought in WWII.
In a Nutshell
In 1939, Jem Reedy is an itinerant farm worker in the hill country of New Zealand’s Wairarapa. He does not know his parents and believing that he has seen his own ‘beginning’ he looks forward to the time he will be transformed into a Toroa or albatross.
Following the untimely death of his protector Tom Brook, who was determined that this gentle and musical boy would not be conscripted, he encounters Mack Reedy who persuades him to become a gatherer of agar seaweed to support ‘the War Effort.’ Mack introduces the contrivance of ‘the other man,’ as a fictitious competitor to spur Jem’s efforts to gather as much agar as possible; and he also introduces his father Wiremu, who recognising Jem’s extraordinary musical ability, gives the boy his cherished Maori flute, the putorino.
Jem builds a hut on the coast and commences to gather agar for Mack and gradually develops a ‘relationship’ with the ‘Other Man.’ Mack also becomes his window to the events of a War he has great difficulty imagining; but which directly involves Mack’s beloved younger brother, Tamati.
Soon Jem encounters Lily Flack who lives with her aunt Miriam on the Brewster farm. Through their mutual love of music, Jem and Lily are instantly drawn to one another. Miriam perceives the boy to be an unsuitable friend for her niece but when her shepherd is injured and because her husband is serving overseas, she reluctantly employs Jem. Eventually, valuing his work and as she grows to like Jem, she teaches him to read and write.
In 1942 Jack Brewster and Peter Brough return on furlough. Jack takes an instant dislike to the ‘shirker’ and sacks him, while Peter Brough sets about courting Lily, with whom he has a child.
Meanwhile, Tamati is killed in Italy and Mack simply disappears. Distressed by the loss of Lily and Mack and with no job, Jem enlists – determined, without really understanding what this means, to avenge Tamati.
In the second part of the story, Jem arrives in the port of Bari, which was the main point of entry to Italy for the New Zealand 2nd Division, in time to witness the destruction of the port and town by a German air raid that is described as the ‘second Pearl Harbour.’
Subsequently, Jem is immersed in the bitter, hour by hour struggle for survival and the terrible intimacy of war as an infantryman first at Orsogna, and then in the even worse conflict of Cassino, where his growing hatred for the enemy and his aptitude as a sniper flourish; but where he is ultimately severely wounded and hospitalised. During his lengthy convalescence at Caserta, fellow patient, Harry McIntyre – a peace time music teacher, teaches him musical notation.
When Jem is returned to his battalion, his remarkable weapons accuracy and his frightening ruthlessness have caused him to be trained as a Bren gunner. With his friend ‘Bluey’ as his ‘number two’ they fight at Faenza, Senio and the Po River before finally coming to Trieste and the German surrender.
The fighting has stopped, but a tragic encounter in the streets of Trieste-
Good grief! I was about to disclose how Jem's story ends. Careless...