Cull. Stafford Ray
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He yelled into the hatchway, “Come out with hands up and lie on deck!”
Children began crying openly, picking up the fear of the parents.
Loi moved to the ladder but did not climb out.
“Sergeant Loi here, Twenty-third battalion infantry. Any of you from the twenty-third?”
“Who cares, Grandad,” the soldier laughed, waving the barrel of his pistol. “Come out or we shoot now!”
As Loi’s head reached deck level, his attention was drawn to movement at the wheelhouse.
“Want a bottle of Johnny Walker?”
The liquor was in the captain’s hand as he walked into the arc of torchlight aimed at the hatchway. All torches were turned on him and the bottle.
Snatching it from him, the officer waved the pistol in his face and laughed. “Only one bottle?” he yelled. “You expect me to ignore this for one bottle?”
He walked towards the wheelhouse, two soldiers following. “Let’s see if there’s more where that came from!”
Loi climbed back down the ladder and gathered his little family in his arms Lin Poi’s sobs subsided as he held her. The children were silent but shaking. Lin Poi held them close while Loi’s hands stroked their faces as he whispered, “It’s OK. It’s OK.”
Yelling from above kept all eyes on the hatchway as light played over it from movement in the wheelhouse. They heard a thump and a cry of pain.
“Where’s the money?” Another thump. “Where’s the money?”
The captain’s voice was a whimper. “We spent the money.” A clattering of cans and sacks being thrown aside went on, then another thump.
“All we have is fuel and food,” he objected. “There’s nothing here.”
A scuffle followed. “What you say I shoot this boy?”
“Captain’s son,” whispered Loi. “I have to go up.”
Lin Poi held him close. “No! They’ll shoot you too.”
Suddenly the noise stopped and a soldier laughed. “Look at this!” he yelled. “A case.”
“What else is hidden here?” the officer demanded. Before the captain could answer, a new sound filtered through the heavy air. A marine diesel. Another fishing boat was passing on the other side.
Sudden silence on deck was followed by a shouted order, “Back on board!”
“Here, take your bottle and we keep the case!” The officer laughed. “Good luck. Hope you make it.”
Running feet tap danced to the gunwale and over the side.
“Di! đi! Go! Go! Go!” was the last shout they heard as the outboard screamed to life and powered away, its decrescendo soon drowned out by their own big diesel accelerating.
The captain was giving it full power. Its bow was smashing through small waves that splintered and lifted on the rising wind, raining spray into the hatchway. They were at sea.
Loi climbed out and reached down for the children. Lin Poi joined him on deck as other pale faces appeared over the rim of the hatchway and the fish hold slowly gave up its terrified cargo. He shivered and pulled Lin Poi close as they watched the red and green channel markers slip astern. Even in tropical Vietnam, wind on wet clothing chills the hungry.
Long low swells of the South China Sea gently lifted and dropped them as they dragged a blanket from their pack, gathered the children close under cover and stared ahead at the long grey horizon of uncertainty.
12. CANBERA
Mulaney ceased pacing when the doorway was filled by the huge bulk of his defence minister. “Morning, Prime Minister!” Woolley boomed. “What’s on your mind?”
“Morning Brett,” he replied. “I was wondering what’s on yours?”
“Give me men around me who are fat,” he whispered, smiling, as he waved Woolley to the chair facing his desk.
Woolley beamed as he eased his bulk into the chair – it was safer to boom and beam – but then he realised Mulaney was expecting a response and the beam faded.
“Pardon?”
“I asked if there was anything on yours.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Your mind.”
“Oh, I see,” Woolley laughed. “Yes, well, we have Jakarta on heat over East Timor again, and with oil topping three hundred and rising, I guess they’re wondering if they should have another grab for The Gap! They didn’t like losing that little puddle of wealth when ET went.”
“That’s not what I wanted to see you about, but now that you mention it, what’s your assessment? Will they have a go?”
“Well, they’ve never been backward in grabbing what they want before. Their press is playing the North-South Wealth Divide game again. They usually do that before invading…”
“Yes, yes!” interrupted Mulaney. “I know all that. We’ve got the new facilities in place now, and we’re sending up Hornets and FA18s within the week. I let that out in half a dozen press releases. They couldn’t miss that in Jakarta. I mean, I can’t see them having a go just yet. Can you?”
“No, not yet,” he allowed. “But I’m not sure that will hold them for long. There are other problems building; like Malaysia is pissed off because we won’t take more refugees and there are hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Arabs still clogging up their camps. With them we’re more than usually on the nose but they aren’t flash points yet, so it’s OK for now.”
The PM appeared to change the subject. “What’s the latest on those aircraft orders?”
“Well, there’ve been a few hiccoughs with delivery.” He noted the PM’s frown. “I was intending to bring that to the attention of cabinet at the next meeting.”
“Tell me now,” he demanded.
“OK, they don’t come up to performance specs, but the Yanks are pushing us to take them anyway.”
“Should we?”
“Not unless we’re desperate; we still have a hundred operational Strike Fighters. That should be enough to make Jakarta think twice.”
“So we’re basically fully committed at the moment. We have no capacity to meet a major flare-up.”
“That’s right, but Defense Dynamics say they can fix the performance problem in six months or so.”
“That’s OK, but will they still have the range?
“Well, it’s a trade-off. Specs speed but shorter range. We need range, so I say we tell them to shove it. No specs, no deal. Look,” he reasoned, “the new Euro Consortium plane will be available in just over a year and it suits us better. Then again, DD needs the cash, so if we hold out, they may drop the price and they’re still a damn good plane. We can afford to wait. It’d be different if we faced an immediate threat.”
Th e PM stared at him for a moment, then picked up a document from his desk and held it in his hand while he again contemplated Woolley’s porcine face.
“OK, let’s talk about that.” He indicated the document. “We do have a threat. Illegals.”
“Illegals?” Woolley knew more asylum seekers had been arriving of late, but that was not his portfolio. He waited.
“We have every facility chock-a-block,” Mulaney said, opening the document. “And every day we seem to be finding another ten boat loads. Even off shore processing and settlement in Papua New Guinea seems to have lost its bite. They’re coming anyway and we just can’t process that many people. They’re breaking us.”
“Well,