Whina was waiting for me by Dad’s Bridge. (Remind me to tell you why it’s called that.) We talked about school and some of the boys who go there — nice ones and annoying ones — as we crossed. The big wire ropes that hold up the bridge curved above us; the deck creaked and swayed slightly.

The morning was already hot. A single hawk hung above the swamp. As we neared the far end of the bridge, a shiver seemed to run through the wooden boards beneath our feet. A gust of wind? No, the day was totally still.

The swamp has been there forever. Whina says there are stories about treasure hidden somewhere in it. I told her we should go and search, but we never have. It feels sort of spooky. Grandad Sheffield wanted to buy it once and turn it into farmland, but he gave up that sort of thing after Grandma Sheffield died during the big ’flu epidemic.

The ’flu must have been terrible. It was the end of 1918, and soldiers were starting to come home from the Great War, looking forward to seeing their families again. Some of them, or maybe people on other ships, had the germs, and once they got ashore, it spread through the whole country.

Over 8000 people died from it in New Zealand. Lots of Maori, especially: Whina’s Grandad Haare was one of them. It wasn’t like ordinary ’flu; it blocked people’s lungs, attacked their whole body. If you got it really badly, you could be well on Monday morning, sick by Wednesday morning, and dead on Saturday morning.

Mum told me how a man they knew from up the valley — Arthur Smale — came back from the war without a scratch. Mr and Mrs Smale’s other son had been killed just before peace came. Then Arthur caught the ’flu and died inside a week. His parents sold their farm and moved away. ‘It broke their hearts,’ Mum said. He’s buried up in our cemetery, not far from Grandad John and Great-uncle Niall and the others.

The ’flu nearly killed Mum, too. She and Auntie Jess were nursing sick people in the valley — this was before she and Dad got married — even though they knew how dangerous it was. She woke up one morning, burning with fever and coughing up black phlegm. When Nana Hahona heard, she and Great-aunt Ngaio came with special medicines. Nana Hahona put the little carved greenstone bat from around her neck under Mum’s pillow. She slowly got better. Then a month later, Nana Sheffield became sick, and died after just four days. Mum says Grandad Sheffield nearly went mad with grief.