The next day, which was the day before our arrival in Wellington, I sorted through my sea bag. From it I took a hibiscus shirt and a woven hat which, on our outward journey, I’d bought as gifts to take home. They were the type of clothes passengers liked to wear when disembarking. These I put in a grass basket, adding a towel and soap, a comb, a razor, and Chappy’s own cotton trousers which I had washed and laid along hot pipes to dry.

If my plan was to work he would need to gain strength, which meant food and drink. I smuggled what I could to him over the next hours and it did revive him. He stood upright, only stooping again and again to give me his thanks. His fingertips were ashcoloured holding a boiled egg, fingernails bleached the colour of pipeclay, but two red dots appeared high on his cheekbones with the drinking of tea.

Before daylight I took the basket to him, showing him each item and whispering to him in my own language. Though he couldn’t understand a word of it, what a relief it was to be speaking my own tongue. There were many things I missed as I journeyed to the various countries of the world – my family, our customs, our food, our singing, the land. But most of all I missed my language. I missed conversation, tricks and jokes, gossip and laughing. I missed listening to grandparents and others whom I considered were speakers and storytellers of great knowledge and skill.

By the time I left, I was confident that Chappy knew what I was asking him to do. On a piece of paper I had drawn a picture of the wharf gates and the road outside, and marked the way to the war memorial where I had drawn a cross to show where he should wait for me. All I could do now was hope for the best and see how events panned out. Perhaps I would never know.

Living up here in Aotearoa, far distant from other countries, and having listened to tales from the likes of dukes and earls and other hobos, you could think of the rest of the world as a wild place and all its oceans as treacherous. There are such places, there are such dangerous seas of course, especially if you’re in the wrong kind of tub. Anyway, until you have experienced it for yourself, you wouldn’t expect that the rockiest part of a journey, after crossing the marvellous Pacific or the wild Tasman oceans, would be the entrance to the harbour of home, where a fine ship may be biffed from all angles as if in a giant boxing ring. This madcap channel is enough to send passengers who are out on deck and eager to witness the breakthrough to the harbour teetering back to their cabins.