‘Didn’t know that,’ said Wilkes. ‘About you being a Yankee-dog.’
‘Yeah, well, Pop was stationed in Townsville for a while – met an Aussie. They shagged. Nine months later, my dad poked his head out.’
‘Go for it,’ said Wilkes, his camouflaged face cracking a grin. ‘You got ten.’
‘Thanks, boss.’ Littlemore ducked inside the hatch. Beck followed.
The people they’d been tailing for over two days were heading north, probably trying to link up with a river that would take them to the sea, no other way out that Wilkes could see. He shrugged, and followed Timbu and Muruk inside the wreck. There was time.
Even though it was well over fifty years old, the aircraft was in remarkably good condition. The waist machine guns still contained ammunition and many of the plane’s surfaces held their paint. The men quickly realised that they were inside a gravesite – there were several piles of bleached bones and rotten fabric.
‘Doesn’t look like this baby’s last moments were too pleasant,’ Littlemore whispered to Wilkes. He pointed to large sections of the fuselage blackened with soot. ‘Been a fire. Check this out.’ He toed a large pile of brass shell casings on the floor. They were several centimetres deep in places.
Aside from the fire damage, the fuselage was riddled with holes from cannon shell and shrapnel, punctured jagged alloy indicating the force of the incoming enemy fire. None of the men spoke inside the plane out of respect for its long-dead occupants. The jungles of PNG held many such downed aircraft, thought Wilkes, remembering the altimeter face jangling from the chief’s neck. He whispered to Beck to recover any dog tags he could find, and left the aircraft to get his camera. There were probably friends and relatives back home in the US who were still hoping that, one day, the fate of their loved ones missing in action would be known.
Sergeant Wilkes circled the plane, taking photos, especially of its identification markings. The plane still had all its engines, although the wing outboard of the starboard engine was missing. He considered marking the B-17’s position on his GPS but decided against it. Best to let the old girl remain hidden. Once wreck hunters knew of its whereabouts, it would be stripped for souvenirs.
A short while later, they were back on the trail. Beck had found four dog tags, which Sergeant Wilkes had placed in his pack. Littlemore told him the B-17 had a crew of nine. Perhaps the other five men had parachuted out of the plane before it crashed. It was a mystery Wilkes knew they’d never solve. If nothing else came of this little detour, he told himself, bringing these men home had made the trip worthwhile.
Muruk suggested that they climb again to get their bearings. They’d just passed another volcanic outcrop, so they backtracked. The view from its summit was panoramic and their hunch had proved right. The gunrunners had made for a river and a large, sprawling village, no doubt a trading hub for local commerce, that was hacked out of the jungle. Canoes of varying sizes plied the slow-moving black waters. The bad guys were making for the sea.
‘We’ll let them keep their head start,’ said Wilkes, peering through his binoculars. ‘We’ll bivouac here the night and keep watch. Two-hour shifts.’
‘Roger that, boss,’ said Ellis, observing the comings and goings along the river through his own pair of glasses. The gun traders would buy boats, if they didn’t have them set aside already, and float their cargo downriver. The village itself was still a primitive one. No electricity that he could make out, so no communications and no law enforcement. The Wild West. Still, it was unlikely that the gunrunners would just waltz into town toting a couple of dozen sacks bursting with ganja. That meant they also had to be camped somewhere in the bush, and close by. It would be a tense night.
But the night passed uneventfully. Sure enough, at dawn six long dugouts slipped from the river bank and slid down the inky waters, heading for the coast. The dope was piled up in the centre of the canoes, a man paddling fore and aft. Sergeant Wilkes didn’t say anything, didn’t need to. He and his men were packed and ready to move, and this time it was down the main trail, so at least the going was easier. They hadn’t gone far before they passed the warriors that the smugglers had used as porters, on their way back home. There was plenty of eye contact, but no recognition from the warriors. Wilkes noted the change in Muruk’s easy gate, his muscles flexed and ready to fight. These were the enemies of his people, men who had killed his brothers and sisters and cousins. It was all the lad could do to hold himself in check.
Muruk and Timbu bargained with traders in the village for craft to take them downriver. The price was remarkably good, something Timbu attributed to the fact that he was accompanied by men bristling with weapons they obviously knew how to use. ‘I should take you guys shopping more often,’ he said to Wilkes as they pushed the primitive boats off the mud and into the slow-moving water. Wilkes, Timbu and Muruk took one boat, Ellis, Littlemore and Beck the other.
According to conversations Timbu had had with locals, the coast was half a day’s paddle away through increasingly steep volcanic gorges and, sure enough, the low-lying jungle soon gave way to the rugged, towering cliffs they’d been told about.
‘Jesus,’ said Littlemore as they paddled through them, jagged black volcanic walls rising out of the river like enormous steak knives.
They weren’t alone on the river. Tributaries joined the main flow, bringing other natives paddling downstream. Sergeant Wilkes didn’t have a plan, and that was making him uncomfortable.
‘What are you thinking, boss?’ said Littlemore, his dirty red hair burning like copper in the tropical sun. He sensed Wilkes’s disquiet.
‘Not sure, to be honest,’ said Wilkes. ‘Our friends are heading somewhere. When we get there too, what do we do? Just paddle up and ask what they’re up to?’
‘Yeah, see what you mean,’ said Ellis, the canoes side by side.
‘We know we’ve got a half-day’s paddle ahead of us,’ Littlemore said. ‘Before we reach the sea, maybe we should ditch the boats and hoof it.’
‘That’s what I’m thinking,’ Wilkes said, looking up at those basalt steak knives. The thought of climbing them didn’t appeal at all. The river was far easier but potentially far more dangerous. He didn’t see that they had any alternative.
‘We should also hug those cliffs, I reckon,’ said Beck. ‘If we come round a bend and see something no one wants us to, we don’t want to be stuck in the middle, out here in the open.’
‘Yep,’ said Wilkes. He looked at his watch. ‘Okay, we’ll stay on the river a while longer, then go overland.’ The men nodded agreement. Wilkes dug the blade of his paddle deep in the oily water and made for the base of the cliffs.
The sun was directly overhead, beating down fiercely, when they beached their craft on a bank of silt. They were getting close to the sea – the waters had become tidal. They pulled the boats high into the mangroves, above the high-tide line. The men knew they’d had it easy till now and things were going to get tougher. The volcanic cliffs would be difficult and dangerous to climb without ropes. They also had to climb with full packs. Sergeant Wilkes felt sorry for Timbu and Muruk. They were not SAS and he was asking a lot of them.
An hour of hard climbing later, they reached the top of the cliff face. There were enough handholds and footholds to reduce the danger of the climb, but the volcanic rock was sharp and unforgiving. It was also bakingly hot. Wilkes and his men had shooter’s gloves to protect their hands. Timbu and Muruk had to wrap cloth around theirs, but only after their palms and fingertips had lacerated and blistered, especially Timbu’s, his hands gone soft from city living. At the cliff’s summit, they could see that there was too much traffic on the river, and on the tributaries flowing into it, to be an everyday occurrence. And all of it was heading in the one direction. Another hour’s climb and they knew exactly what was going on.
‘Shit,’ said Beck, ‘look at that.’
A deep green bay ringed by the volcanic cliffs spread out below them. And in the centre of the b
ay, an old white cargo ship with a hull bleeding rust swung slowly at anchor, rising and falling on a lubricious swell. A steady stream of native craft plied to and from the vessel.
‘Jesus, all that’s missing here is Greensleeves,’ said Ellis. ‘Mr Whippy’s in da house.’
‘You had a strange childhood, mate,’ said Beck, nose wrinkled under the binoculars as he squinted into them.
‘No, seriously. The Mr Whippy guy in my neighbourhood got busted for dealing pot. The parents became suspicious when the fifteen year olds got more excited than the six year olds every time he drove down the street.’
‘You’re full of crap sometimes, Gary,’ said Beck, snorting.
It was a truly astonishing sight. About thirty dugouts were clustered around the ship and bales of marijuana were being passed up into the hands of waiting crew, in return for which a rifle was handed down. The gunrunning/drug-smuggling operation going on here was far bigger than Wilkes had suspected. Papua New Guinea was a primitive land on the verge of anarchy with many parts of its society breaking down. What effect would a few thousand guns dumped in the place have? Wilkes had witnessed enough of the effects on Muruk’s people to have a point of view on that.
‘Can I look?’ Timbu asked.
Wilkes handed him the binoculars and took out his camera. More tourist photos for the people back home.
Timbu took a deep breath and exhaled. ‘This is very bad,’ he said.
Wilkes nodded. ‘Yes, it is.’
Muruk picked up the sound first and shook Wilkes. The sergeant stopped taking snaps and looked up. ‘Wasmara?’ he said. What’s the matter?
‘Balus,’ said Muruk. Aeroplane.
Wilkes couldn’t hear anything at first, and then he caught it – a distant buzzing. It got louder quickly. Whatever it was, it was approaching fast.
‘Is that a helo?’ asked Beck.
And then the chopper burst through the sea opening between the cliffs and banked hard to stay within them, scribing a tight circle around the ship: a BK-117 Eurocopter. Wilkes snatched his binoculars from Timbu, who was staring at the helo open-mouthed.
‘Now, that’s flying,’ said Littlemore.
Tape covered over the helo’s registration markings. Whoever it was didn’t want to be identified. A man hung in the open doorway facing the ship. ‘What the hell is that guy doing?’ Wilkes asked no one in particular. The helicopter swept around the bay, its jet turbines roaring, blades beating the air with a deafening clatter.
The helo’s sudden arrival had an immediate effect on the ship’s company. They started firing up at it with hand guns, rifles – whatever was available and loaded. Wilkes watched as a man sprinted to the forward deck and threw back a tarpaulin. A large calibre machine gun mounted on a pillar lay beneath it. It looked to Wilkes a lot like the US .50 calibre M2 heavy machine gun. If so, the chopper was in a lot of trouble, especially if the gun was loaded with SLAP rounds. Saboted light armour piercing ammo would turn a civilian chopper with no armour plating into confetti. The man cocked it, aimed and fired, and a new sound filled the bay. High velocity slugs spewed from the weapon peppered with red tracer rounds that reached up for the helo. The machine gun followed the chopper as it circled, a spray of bullets pulverising the rock barely metres below Wilkes and his men.
‘Jesus Christ!’ said Littlemore as he scrabbled for cover, his face cut in several places from flying stone chips.
The pilot jinked his aircraft around in an attempt to fool the ground fire. At first he succeeded, the tracer missing its mark. But soon the man behind the machine gun began to lead the target rather than follow it. The helo made three circles and was heading back for a fourth when its aluminium skin was punctured repeatedly by the deadly fusillade. A loud mechanical bang followed a screeching whine that filled the bay. Smoke poured from the helo’s jet exhausts and black transmission fluid fouled its flanks. One more blast from that machine gun and the 117 was fish food.
Wilkes cracked the launcher, punched in a flash-bang, aimed and fired. The trackless ordnance arced towards the ship below and exploded above its decks with a thunderous crash that echoed around the bay. Some of the men dropped their guns and took cover, thinking they’d come under attack from some massively powerful gun or mortar. The man firing the machine gun dropped to the deck, hunching his head into his arms.
As it scrabbled desperately for height, the thump of the helo’s rotor blades thrashing the air combined with the screeching howl of jet engines tearing themselves to pieces. The aircraft somehow managed to clear the lowest of the volcanic spurs ringing the bay and then disappeared from view behind it. Wilkes and the others held their breath, waiting for the explosion the helo would make when it hit the water.
And then…nothing. The deafening noise that had filled the bay only moments before evaporated with a few final small arms pot-shots in the helicopter’s general direction. The crew wandered about the ship, dazed, holding their ears. Wilkes trained his binoculars on the man who had fired the machine gun. He wasn’t Asian, and he wasn’t a local. A thick beard covered his face and a baseball cap kept his eyes hidden in shadow. ‘Who are you?’ Wilkes said quietly. Within half an hour, the commerce was underway again: bags of dope for a rifle. It was as if what had just happened, indeed, what was happening, was the most normal thing in the world.
The Persian Gulf
Commander Steve Drummond pulled the Panamanian registered tanker, Ocean Trader, into focus. ‘Has she decided to come clean, X?’
‘Negative, sir,’ said the executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Angus Briggs. ‘We’re getting the same crap about agricultural supplies.’
‘What’s she steering?’ asked Drummond.
Briggs leaned back and checked the figure on the screen. ‘No change, sir.’
Commander Drummond examined the vessel looming larger in the Zeiss lenses. HMAS Arunta’s high power cameras were trained on the tanker, presenting it clearly on the bridge’s colour monitors, but Drummond preferred to use the binoculars, a present from his wife when his command of the brand new Anzac-class frigate had been confirmed. Ocean Trader was an oil tanker, an old clunker long overdue for the boneyard. Who was its master kidding? thought Drummond. HMAS Arunta was making twenty-five knots to the tanker’s fifteen, running down the rust bucket like a young lion tackling an old wart-hog. The commander did the calculations in his head. It’d take thirty minutes to close the five nautical miles between the two ships.
Drummond touched the computer screen at his elbow, calling up the Gulf’s merchant schedule for the week. Yep, there it was, the Ocean Trader. It was indeed due in the Gulf waters at this time, but according to the schedule, it wasn’t a tanker. Yet here it was, an oiler and low in the water with its belly full of what was most likely crude stolen from Iraqi fields. And it was attempting to make a run for it, for Christ’s sake. How stupid was that?
‘What does Franklin D say?’ the captain asked. The American battle group to which the Arunta was attached, headed by the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D Roosevelt, was steaming in the opposite direction, keeping an eye on Iran and Syria.
‘Sir, they have no record of Ocean Trader being challenged. This one’s kept its nose clean.’
The captain continued to keep his eyes on the quarry. ‘Officer of the Watch, what other surface contacts do we have on radar?’
‘Sir, there’s nothing much in our immediate vicinity. Aside from the Ocean Trader, there’s a fishing boat in its lee, currently heading in the opposite direction.
‘What’s the separation between them?’ asked Drummond.
‘Three miles, sir, and it’s roughly on a parallel course.’
‘What are you silly buggers up to?’ Drummond said to himself. The tanker was still churning the water. ‘What do you think, X?’
Angus Briggs stood beside Drummond and glanced again at the monitor behind him. ‘Nothing makes a lot of sense here, sir. We’ve raised its master on the radio, but it doesn’t look like he’s got any inte
ntion of heaving to.’
‘Okay, enough already,’ said Drummond, his mind made up. ‘We’ll board her. And get that fishing boat on the line and tell him to get the hell out of there in the nicest possible way.’ Drummond turned back to their quarry and considered the closing angles of the two vessels. ‘Nav, bring us round on a parallel course.’
Briggs waited till the course changes had been completed and then said, ‘Quartermaster, get the gunner of the watch up here.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Teo, the only Australian of Asian origin in the ship’s complement of sixty, and nicknamed ‘China’ by the crew.
‘Who’s on today, China?’ Briggs asked.
‘Sean Matheson, sir,’ said Teo from memory.
Briggs then called up Leading Seaman Mark Wallage, a twenty-year-old electronics whiz-kid in the ship’s operations room. ‘Mark, get us a firing solution on our tub.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ he said. Wallage touched the computer screen on the steel bench in front of him, activating the weapons system. A small pair of crosshairs appeared on the screen and Wallage repositioned them amidships on the Ocean Trader’s waterline. It was as simple as that. The Arunta’s weapons systems could attack several ships at once, all while defending itself against hostile aircraft and their inbound missiles, track enemy submarines, and lay chaff and electronics countermeasures to confuse opposition attack systems. Dropping a couple of shells on this old girl’s hull was a doddle.
Moments later from up on the bridge, Briggs observed the barrel of the frigate’s foredeck-mounted 127mm Mark 45 Mod 2 gun swing forty degrees clockwise and drop almost level with the horizon.
‘Gunner of the Watch, Leading Seaman Matheson, sir,’ announced a tall nineteen year old appearing on the bridge.
‘How’s it going, Sean?’ asked Briggs.
Matheson relaxed slightly, the hint of a smile on his sunburned lips. ‘Good, sir.’
‘Glad to hear it. We need you to stitch the water ahead of our noncompliant friend over there.’
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