Wreck

The Rev. Canon Dr. James M. McPherson

Wreck

medically he knew how this would end
and as they saw it through together, he
had promised her he’d travel to that little
island on the west side of The Ditch, remembering
that when she learned she had been posted
to the mighty ship her Scottish grandfather
helped fit out a dozen years before, that
she had written to him – bursting with delight
and pride to nurse on “his” Maheno – a few
months later, of her handsome doctor; then
1917, of wedding hopes once “this beastly war”
was done; and so it came to pass, but lasted only
fifteen years before her diagnosis launched them
all into her final ocean voyage and her wreck

*****

he found the wreck and made his bivouac;
then carrying her treasured Sister’s veil,
he fought himself aboard and made it fast
as best he could – aft, to starb’d, facing
east to home – but had no further heart
to wander through the frame now so
bereft of all her sometime elegance and
off-duty time together; then he jumped
into the pounding surf; and back at camp
joined the Fraser Island dingoes’ eerie howl

©the Revd Jim McPherson
Mount Coolum, Queensland, Australia
28 February 2015

The Maheno  was a 5000 ton steel-hulled ship, built in Dumbarton, Scotland and launched 1905. She entered service that same year, connecting New Zealand ports across “the Ditch” (the Tasman Sea) to Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart. She also made regular voyages between Sydney and Vancouver.

She was converted into a hospital ship and fitted with eight wards, two operating theatres and was staffed with doctors, nurses, orderlies etc.. She arrived at the naval base of the Gallipoli Campaign in August 1915. During her war service in the Mediterranean and the English Channel she carried more than 25,000 sick and wounded soldiers.

She returned to commercial service when hostilities ended.

On 3 July 1935 she left Sydney under tow, destined for an Osaka shipbreaker. Four days later, in cyclonic weather, the towline snapped and the Maheno drifted helplessly, eventually beaching near Happy Valley on Queensland’s Fraser Island. The ship was finally found by aircraft search on 10 July 1935.

Image The New Zealand Hospital Ship Maheno, 2007, Wikipedia

In accordance with Article 5 of the Hague Convention (1899), she was painted white all over, with a broad green strip along her sides and large red crosses on her sides and funnels.