A Better PlaceA Better Place

People in the district would often say Roy Mitchell was not quite the same after he come back from the war. There was a twin brother, Tony. Killed on Crete in 1941. The hut he built when he returned was on a bit of flat ground above the Mangawhero Creek. He called it his whare. Corrugated-iron chimney on the south wall. Black maire firewood cut and stacked on the veranda. The kennels were north-facing with dry folded sacks for the dogs to sleep on. In 1942, Roy had driven seventy-five miles through the North African desert to see a litter of ten pups. Just to see them. Someone from the 5th Field Artillery had told him about them. Drove back to the New Zealand lines after that.