Codes of Survival - a series of combination Photographs/photograms on the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand - 1993 - © Lloyd Godman

Codes of Survival -Scripts - a series of short factionalized stories based on historical events in the Subantarctic Islands written by Lloyd Godman to accompany the exhibition and installation - 1993 - © Lloyd Godman

Codes of Survival - Scripts

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1796 - A SECRET BURIAL              

These islands had never seen creatures the like of this before!

They did not come here by the purity of a swim in the ocean or graceful wing glide on the wind flows as did the familiar life forms that make a home of this land. This was something new.  These creatures had not evolved from the genetic bank of the islands life over the eons of time, as  much that lived here had. They had not arrived here by the chance of nature, a fluke or a roll of the cosmic dice.

No, they had arrived in curious floating vessels of wood as large as a whale, with flapping canvas sails to drive them along and a tiller to steer by.  Bolt up right these beasts stood and moved about  in a finesse of balance that could only be compared to the penguins. They made  strange sounds on the air; not a roar nor shrill bird like whistle or a squawk, with a series of yells and a laugh they converse. They knew the ways of fire and the forge of steel, the use of the saw and the function of deception, though they needed a strange form of wrapping  around their bodies to keep them warm.  But little they knew of the bountiful food  source of the island preferring to bring most of theirs with them inside the vessel.

These were men, human, human beings, homo sapiens and theirs was a grisly task, a secret task, a task of  chicanery that no one back in their home port should ever know the truth of. They brought a colder air of evil to this place that no wind cold blow, and one no creature here could contrive or aspire to understand.

There had been a fight, not like the sparring for food that some of them knew, no this was a hell of a  bloody  scrap and now a man was dead. It seems, the dead man had hidden a fortune on board amongst  his things unbeknown to another soul. Deep in his chest was the unmistakable heavy weight of gold and an ample amount at that.  By the hand of fate he had been found out by a drunken scoundrel that had shared his space, then after much contention the tiff had erupted with a rage and furry that ended in the mortal fight. Before this skirmish of fists and cursing was  noticed and stopped, the violence had left the man dead with a split in his skull as the fatal blow.

Nevertheless, the cuts and abrasions over his face looked much more injurious suggesting his being had escaped into the ether with the thick red blood that had oozed across his rough skin. Initially, the captain was going to exact a justice on the villain for the price of this life; that was, until the  extent of the poor mans wealth was evident. Surprised, it was obvious that there was enough here for all aboard to have more than their desire if they were to conspire against the truth. Within no time,  all the slain man's gold and worldly  possessions had been split amongst the disloyal captain and the treacherous crew in  an evil pact that left them all with an  even share, but the captain with double.

All his wealth, except the small band on  his finger, the labyrinthine ring of woven gold that once had been the envy of all aboard,  but was now trifling, forgotten in the excitement  of the fight and the thrill of all the dead mans wealth as their own.

It was an inevitable fact they would have to  dispose of the body and it seemed that over the ships side into the ocean was the only option, for a man can disappear with ease and the sorrowful fable of a storm at sea to his friends  back home is an authentic sounding tale to even the most suspicious of friends. The  ocean can swallow a man and the truth in the  sound of a splash. Gone to the deep, body  and soul.

Land ho! Land ho!
Was a cry from the fore deck as then they all left the body and the wealth in a mad scramble to  reach a vantage point to view the territory ahead. In this excited time of distraction, all had forgotten the sea and the remote prospect of land. It was  land alright, across the pitching expanse clearly visible ahead off their starboard beam on the horizon. The ship was in a vast area sailed by few and this island was on no chart any man aboard  had seen or could recall. Even the old timers that could reminisce about the old dieppe maps of an age before  could not remember a land in this part of the world for their chart had no mention to this region of the globe. With out a further thought, they would call and harbour at this new found place the captain ordered. A stop over  would be good for all aboard and the discovery  of a new land was a prospect not to be passed  up by any ship at sea.

But after the initial digression of this new excitement of land ahead, died from their conversation there was still the question of a body growing cold and stiff, forgotten in the cabin below their feet, that sat warmed by the pulse of blood in their boots on the wooden decks above the deceased.  There was still the quick solution of the ocean in the minds of many, but now that there was this land approaching ever larger, perhaps they owed him the decency of a proper burial on real soil.

But if they were all conspirators in the spoils of his fortune and the cause of his death, did it matter at all where the body was cast?  In the ocean or in the soil, with solicitude or rashness, once he was gone it mattered not at all. Discussions, heated and quarrelsome continued for  hours or longer while all the time this island ahead projected larger in their vision as they advanced, for the ship was on a clip across the waves with the stiff breeze that thrust them along from behind.  Till all at once the boat was embraced by a wooded land amid a selection of bays and small islets and there remained only a safe anchor to be found and established. In time this was found in a sheltered cove in the lee of  the prevailing weather where a gentle stream ran from the uplifted high lands through the forest that gathered itself in a cloak about the coast and under the steep hills that rose up from the ocean. But the argument aboard continued unabated, and there the body lay, still and  colder on the deck beneath them all.

At last the Captain took some control, for he had lost his command  among these profane men  with the deed he was partizan to and this greed that had reduced them all to squabbling equals. 'The man would be buried in the turf of this unknown land' this was the order. 'With a  proper religious ceremony they would all  partake and bear witness as a pact to their  silence of the truth upon their return to port', the captain had spoken. 

But, lost at sea; though killed in a fight and buried in an unknown land the truth would always be.

Around a deep wet hole in the peaty soil they stood with the pretence of decency amid a sinful act. The sharp steel of axe and spade had cut through turf and roots while their sweat dripped into the cavity where the body would lay, ignored eternally. There, a pile of turf and brown  muddied boot marks about the waiting open hole that filled with his corpse as the ropes were lowered hand over hand. Around them the  twisted trunks, the crooked branches , the thin twigs and every fine fibre of every leaf could  tell the truth, to any who asked, for they heard every word and every breath, they knew the  looks and every emotion of every man among the living on the day of that secret burial on that isolated island in the south.