Smith looked out over the clear passage of Franklin sound, the sea undisturbed except for the ripples of small fish and seabirds breaching the surface of the salty water. He could see the outer islands, Cape Barren, Little Dog, Big Dog, and behind it, his destination, Vansittart Island, where he would go to catch muttonbirds. Vansittart was privately owned, so he would be trespassing, and it wasn’t legal for him to catch the birds unlicensed, no one could ever find out. He revved the motor of his boat and set off on his journey. The scent of the sea and glare of sun rendered him to a cathartic state as his dingy flew between the tussock covered islands. He calmly watched pelicans with beaks the colour of cherry blossoms, sea eagles with sickle-like talons enclosed around silver fish, and ravens with sky-blue eyes tearing into a sheep’s carcass the colour of the geranium flowers in his garden. 

After nearly half an hour of travelling over the azure water, Smith finally reached the breathtaking scenery of the glorious Vansittart Island. He stepped out of his boat and into the water as he began to walk onto the sandy shore of the island. Now, the wind had picked up chilling him to the point that the tips of his fingers had began to turn white. Tiger snakes disappeared into the vegetation around him as he trekked through the golden knolls and small hills of tussocks stinging his bare legs like needles, until he eventually came upon the muttonbird rookery. He sat down on the dry grass and darted his hand into one of the holes, but found it empty. As he reached down the second, he could immediately tell the burrow was inhabited from how warm it was, so it was no surprise to him when he felt the oily but soft and downy feathers of a muttonbird. With a death grip on the creature’s neck, he jerked his hand out of the hole and in a swift motion he snapped the bird’s neck with a flick of his wrist. 

It was as he was about to reach his hand down the third hole that it occurred to him that he had made the grave mistake of forgetting to anchor his boat. He climbed higher up the hill and he saw that the tide had come in, sending his boat and his only way off Vansittart adrift on the sapphire waves. Smith was panicking. The phone service was terrible, but even if he found a spot where he could call for help, he would have to admit that he had illegally come to the island, and there was overwhelming evidence that he had. He was standing on the hill, when he suddenly heard the flutter of wings and a sharp pain in his back, and in his mind for a brief moment he saw an image of an Aboriginal man standing near to where he was now. He was astounded as he saw a muttonbird fly off into the distance, realising the muttonbird had bitten him. 

Smith reached his hand to his back and felt the crimson trickle of warm blood slowly soaking into his shirt. Then, a second muttonbird flew past him shredding the top of his ear with its beak, as he yelped in pain, the image of an Aboriginal woman threading a mariner shell necklace on the beach jumped into his mind, but then it was gone as quickly as it had come. The third muttonbird appeared at the same time as the fourth, grazing a long wound from Smith’s forehead to his cheek, the fourth flew at him from the front and mutilated his right eyebrow, and again images of Aboriginal people sparked into his mind’s eye. 

As blood flowed into his eyes, Smith stumbled down the hill, his sight was so poor that he didn’t see the group of four birds flying towards him. One tore flesh from the back of his knee, another ripping its sharp beak into the back of his head, the other two worked together and grievously injured his left elbow, transforming it into an agonising tear of skin. Driving him to the ground as the pictures of Vansittart’s first people wormed into his brain. He crawled, or rather pulled himself across the tussocks until he felt as though he could stand, but almost instantly after he stood up a muttonbird flew at him from behind, piercing the skin on the back of his neck and then flew away. In his mind he saw a clearly sick man slumped against a fence at what he thought must have been the settlement established in the 1830s. 

It was in this moment that Smith realised he would never leave the island. His final thought was a poem that he remembered from when he was younger: 

The moonbirds are our ancestors, 

The spirits of ancient protectors, 

After death we don’t part, 

Contained in the moonbird’s heart. 

In the night the moonbirds are our guides, 

Through the inky night a moonbird still glides, 

Guardians of the land and sky, 

Forever will the moonbird fly. 

By Magnus Young

Competition: Winner of the Peter Sharp Memorial Award. Previously published in the Young Tasmania section of Forty South Tasmania. www.fortysouth.com.au