Blood Is a Stranger

by Roland Perry

A day’s toil for the residents of Buru was about to begin.

  The explosion shook the foundations of Burra’s home just after three am. He bounced out of bed, pulled on some clothes and loaded his shotgun. Elaine chased him to the door and tried to restrain him.

  ‘Phone Topfist and tell him to get the others!’ Burra said, shrugging her away. He jumped in the ute and headed for the mine. Half-way there his lights picked up an over-turned van in a ditch by the roadside. He realised it belonged to his son.

  Burra pulled over and dashed to the vehicle. Silas and another Aborigine were sitting near it looking dazed.

  ‘We’re all right,’ Silas said. He held his head while his father examined the cuts on them. ‘We challenged a van, bigger than ours, at the Crossing. It just kept on going. We chased it. They fired shots, we lost control and went arse over tit!’

  They were all startled by another series of explosions.

  Burra cursed and ran to his ute.

  ‘Dad!’ Silas called. ‘Take it easy!’

  Burra skidded back on to the road and pushed the ute until its panels began to rattle in protest.

  He reached the checkpoint to the mine and was surprised to see the barrier open. He slowed down, expecting to see guards appear. But the hut and surrounding area were ominously still. Wary of an ambush, Burra stopped the vehicle well short of the barrier, switched off the lights and eased out, clutching his shot-gun. He came within ten metres of the guards’ hut. Its door swung lazily in a light breeze. It was empty. Burra took a few steps closer and then froze. Three bodies had been dragged into the bush and camouflaged. He pulled away branches and examined the bodies. Two had been garrotted and one knifed in the spine.

  Burra could hear a vehicle speeding in his direction. It was driven by Topfist. Burra flagged him down and was about to show him the bodies, when their attention was diverted by a roar of plane engines from the mine area. They spotted the consistent flash of a plane’s lights as it climbed above the escarpment and was soon lost among the stars.

  ‘Was that Richardson’s Hercules?’ Burra asked. He hopped into the front of Topfist’s Ford.

  ‘Reckon,’ Topfist said, as he drove on to the bitumen area leading to the tarmac. ‘It was supposed to be bringing in non-drilling equipment this week.’

  ‘O’Laughlin inspected it and gave it the all clear,’ Burra said. He checked his weapon. ‘So what’s it doing taking off in the middle of the night?’

  The sky was lit up as they approached the airfield. The control tower was on fire. Men were battling to put out fires near the yellowcake building. Grenades had hit a vehicle and a forklift truck. The area close to the building was strewn with bodies and upturned drums, two of which had spilt their precious golden contents. Topfist pulled the Ford up at the base of the control tower. Its top half was hanging at a precarious angle, and it was in danger of being engulfed by fire. People trapped inside it were screaming. A forklift’s bucket was swung close to the top of the tower. It smashed a hole in its window. Four figures scrambled onto the bucket. They were lowered to the ground not far from the Ford. Burra and Topfist jumped out and helped the people climb down. Among them was a bloodied and burnt Bull Richardson.

  Over the next few days the restrictions on Perdonny increased. His phone was cut off, his mail censored, and he was asked to check with local police twice a day. He was still allowed to move around the island, but whenever he went more than ten kilometres he had to be accompanied by a policeman. Even his legitimate oil business was curtailed to the point where he was obliged to apply to fly over the area to inspect Ausminex’s exploration wells.

  Perdonny was still able to operate but with some difficulty. His isolation began to lessen his effectiveness, and he soon came to a decision to flee Indonesia. His main problem was with his wife. He could not risk her escaping with him, so he asked that she be allowed to travel to their other home on Bali. If that was allowed, Perdonny expected her to be able to catch a commercial airliner out.

  His exit was going to be much tougher, and he had to rely on help from Webb, who had been given permission to fly to Darwin on normal Ausminex business, and back to Ambon.

  With the inevitable tag looking on, they met at night at Cafe Bali Bali, one of the town’s best restaurants.

  ‘There was another airlift of yellowcake from the Ginga mine,’ Webb told Perdonny.

  ‘Utun’s forces again?’

  ‘No. This was a genuine hijack. Darwin airport was crawling with military aircraft and bigwigs. It has been kept from the press, but it will probably leak out. Apparently Richardson was caught in the attack. A light plane brought the hijackers in west of Darwin at one of the old coastal airstrips used by drug smugglers. They took a van to the mine area and, just as a Hercules was being loaded with yellowcake, they struck. Killed fifteen men, mostly Richardson’s people, and took off with the Hercules.’

  ‘Where?’ Perdonny asked, fascinated. ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Nobody really knows, but no one seems to think they were Indonesians. The only clue is that the attackers wore black uniforms.’

  ‘The special force Chan had been training at Ujung Pandang?’

  Webb shrugged. ‘They paid cash for the van in Darwin and the used-car guy who sold it to them swore they weren’t Indonesians, and he should know. He’s Chinese. He swears they were Khmers.’

  Perdonny pushed his meal aside and sipped the local Ambonese tea.

  ‘What makes you think it wasn’t Chan’s terrorists working for Utun?’

  ‘They may have been Chan’s squad,’ Webb said. An Ambonese family sat down at the next sidewalk table. ‘But they didn’t have Utun’s authority. He and Richardson had obviously done some deal on the last airlift. But not this time. Apart from the men killed, Bull himself got injured in the attack. He was in the control tower when the van arrived and blew the place up. He got multiple burns and a broken arm. Utun wouldn’t have done that.’ Webb leaned forward. ‘We heard a reliable rumour that Utun rang Bull as soon as he heard about it to say it wasn’t him. Anyway, Bull has told the Australian military not to start sparring with the Indonesians. He’s certain it wasn’t them.’

  ‘A good thing for Australian-Indonesian relations,’ Perdonny said.

  ‘A bloody good thing! If it had been Jakarta-inspired we would now be at war, for sure!’

  ‘My wife will be able to leave Ambon soon,’ Perdonny said. ‘I’m wanting to go myself.’

  ‘When?’ Webb asked uneasily.

  ‘Next available flight.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten about heroics over Cardinal?’ Webb asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you heard anything?’

  ‘He was tortured badly by Chan.’

  ‘That was five days ago. Is he alive?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Webb shook his head. ‘Silly bastard. He got what he deserved.’

  ‘We’ve got to worry about us now,’ Perdonny said. His tone was maudlin.

  ‘I’m supposed to check our wells around Buru tomorrow,’ Webb said. ‘It’s already been cleared. If you can be ready in the morning, we may be able to get you out.’

  Day by long arduous day, Cardinal’s condition had improved. Each night after joining the contingent of fifty men working in the jungle he was treated for his burns and cuts, and by the sixth day since the torture he felt recovered enough to contemplate escape.

  He had been given a light detail of piling up and burning off the growth cut away by the others. While the hours in the sun stretched, he knew he was getting a reasonable deal from the commandant. Even his meals improved and were supplemented by fresh fruit and the occasional vegetable, and an ample supply of water. Each morning before parade, the commandant would check on his condition with the nurse who had been able to give him limited but adequate treatment. Cardinal always asked when he would be released. The commandant shrugged and said nothing.

  ‘You should be pleased that maniac has not returned,’ he said on
the sixth morning before Cardinal trooped off to the clearing three kilometres from the compound. ‘He won’t bother you again.’

  On the other side of the island, Webb flew his Beachcraft over ghostly ‘donkey’ rigs just offshore. They could be seen doing their silent exploration as they nodded rhythmically, unimpeded by the surf crashing over them. Perdonny sat behind him. He reached into his suitcase and pulled out a Magnum hand-gun. He leaned over to Webb.

  ‘Land it,’ he said.

  ‘You crazy bastard!’ Webb said. ‘What are you doing!? There’s no strip!’

  ‘Either you do it,’ Perdonny said, ‘or I will.’

  Webb circled a field dotted with a solitary hut. He cursed and protested that it was impossible to land.

  ‘Use the rigs as markers,’ Perdonny said, ‘and come in flat. Exaggerate it as much as you can. You’ve done it in choppers, you can do it in this!’

  Webb came in as instructed but was worried by the gale-force winds whipping the plane about. He pulled out before his descent got under way. On the second attempt he almost touched down but overshot the field and had to pull up over the jungle.

  ‘Skim those trees!’ Perdonny yelled, waving the Magnum.

  Webb wobbled the plane in, and it thudded into the soft, brown earth, which cushioned the Beachcraft in more comfortably than expected.

  Perdonny pointed to a deflated rubber boat which all their planes carried. ‘Take the Zodiac down to the river and assemble it. I’ll carry the motor.’

  A figure waved to them from the tin hut set near the edge of the jungle, and called out as they struggled out with the equipment.

  ‘It’s only old Charlie,’ Perdonny said. ‘He’s been here forty years.’

  ‘You sound like you know him,’ Webb said. ‘I’ve never spotted him before.’

  ‘That’s because he’s scared of Europeans. He always comes to the chopper when we check the rigs,’ Perdonny replied, ‘and he has taken me to the prison on three occasions.’

  ‘What the hell for?’

  ‘I was delegated to check the treatment of political prisoners.’

  ‘He’ll let someone know.’

  ‘Who? There is no one from here to prison.’

  The wizened man in his eighties shook hands with both of them. Charlie was short and wiry, with tufts of thinning white hair. He was wary of the Magnum as he helped them carry the Zodiac and the motor to the river some metres from his hut, which was the general store for the prison settlement. It carried everything from chocolate to malaria pills. Webb bought repellant to combat the island’s nagging insect plagues. Even inside the hut each man wore a halo of bugs.

  The Chinese smiled at Webb. ‘You Australian, yes?’ he chortled. ‘In war, first Japanese come in planes, then Aussies run away.’ He bowed and pointed out to sea. ‘Then Aussies come back, and Japanese run away! That war!’ He giggled. ‘Now you come in plane. When do Japanese come again?’

  ‘When do you go to the settlement with supplies?’ Perdonny asked.

  ‘Once a week. Tomorrow is next time.’

  ‘Could you go today?’

  Charlie considered the Magnum. ‘What you want?’

  ‘Do the prisoners still work in the field?’

  ‘Every day. Sun up. Sun down.’

  ‘Has anyone escaped?’

  Charlie smiled.’They run away sometime,’ Charlie said. ‘It is easy. Guards always sleep in afternoon.’

  ‘But they can’t get off the island.’

  ‘Impossible. Too many snake in jungle.’ He giggled again. ‘Too many shark in water.’

  ‘The guards round them up?’

  ‘Sometime, yes. Sometime they come here, and guard chase them. Prisoners know Charlie has food.’ He pulled his hair back from his forehead to show an ugly scar. ‘Once I hit,’ he said, glancing at the Magnum. His eyes met Perdonny’s. ‘You take what you want, Mr Robert. What you want? You like Coke? Everybody want Coca Cola.’

  Perdonny pulled some paper from a pocket and drew a map of the island and the prison. He and Charlie discussed the best route to the field.

  ‘Why you go there?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘To bring a friend out.’

  ‘I know who,’ Charlie said. ‘The big American.’

  ‘Are you coming with us?’ Perdonny asked Webb.

  ‘I don’t seem to have much choice,’ Webb said.

  ‘Yes you do. I can disengage the plane and you can wait here . . .’

  ‘You’ll get us all killed!’

  ‘No. The prison has always been slack. The guards have a lazy life because they know no one can escape. The prisoners will be guarded by maybe four guards. They’ll be isolated from the compound.’

  ‘It’s all right for you,’ Webb said, ‘you’re a bloody Ambonese, but I’m going to stand out like dogs’ balls!’

  Perdonny eyed Webb. ‘I might need your support, but you have the choice.’

  ‘I must take my rifle,’ Webb said.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Perdonny said, ‘and it will stay with me . . .’

  The prisoners arrived at their haven in the jungle and stood around for the first hour like a bunch of stranded airline passengers. When the guards arrived, they split the fifty prisoners into groups and marked out work areas on the edge o{ the jungle, which was all the instruction they would be given for the day.

  The guards relaxed in the shadiest spot they could find with hardly a glance at their charges, who toiled in the relentless heat. It seemed to intensify with the increasing hum of cicadas. Cardinal found it less a trial than being cooped up in the fetid cell. At least he did not feel claustrophobic, and he was among other human beings. Among the Buru crowd were poets, writers, communists, generals, actors and judges, all of whom had incurred the political wrath of regimes stretching back to before Sukarno. If they had not been executed, they had been banished to Buru.

  Cardinal survived by copying other prisoners, for there was little effort to communicate with him, except in broken English. He soon saw that survival revolved around conserving water rations. There was a fine balance between desire and dehydration.

  A kilometre from the prison settlement landing, Perdonny took the Zodiac close to the shore and told Webb to wade in through the shallows.

  ‘Stay close to the shoreline,’ Perdonny told him, ‘and wait about fifty metres in from the landing.’

  ‘What if I can’t find the track?’ Webb complained, ‘and what about at least giving me the bloody Magnum?’

  ‘Later,’ Perdonny said, ‘if we get Cardinal.’

  ‘You bastard!’ Webb hissed. ‘If I can’t find the track, I’m waiting right here till you come back, if you bloody come back!’

  Webb disappeared into the thick jungle of vines. The Ambonese let Charlie take the wheel and hid his weapons under the stores they were delivering. The boat roared up to a broken-down pier. A guard lying on the ground reached for his rifle. He had been used to the Chinese arriving in a clapped-out junk with an engine that made an unthreatening, sluggish noise, when it was working.

  ‘You’re early this week,’ he commented. Charlie moored the boat and began unloading the supplies. Perdonny helped and kept his back to the guard as much as possible.

  ‘Bit fancy isn’t it?’ the guard said. ‘How could you afford to get that, old man?’

  ‘The army let me borrow it,’ Charlie said and went on unloading. ‘There are extra provisions this week.’

  ‘Bit generous for them.’ The guard began watching Perdonny.

  ‘He gave them lots of Coke,’ he said with an iron grin.

  ‘Any for me?’ the guard asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Charlie said, lifting the lid of a crate, ‘but it will be warm.’

  The guard snatched a can from him and zipped it open. The liquid frothed out, and he guzzled it down as he returned to his spot under a tree.

  Perdonny and Charlie struggled with some of the supplies a little way into the jungle. When well out of sight of the guard, Perdonny
dropped the crate he was carrying.

  ‘Make your deliveries, Charlie,’ he said, ‘and then bring the boat back to the point where you dropped off the Australian. Clear?’

  Charlie hesitated.

  ‘You won’t let me down?’ Perdonny said.

  ‘No, Mr Robert. I help you,’ Charlie replied.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Perdonny said. ‘All you have to say later is that I held you at gunpoint.’

  Charlie began to deliver the crates.

  Perdonny swung around. Webb was close behind him. ‘I don’t blame the old bastard,’ Webb said. ‘This is crazy!’

  ‘You can still wait here,’ Perdonny said. ‘I can manage alone.’

  ‘I can’t be sure,’ Webb said, ‘and if you do bugger it up, I’m stuffed too.’ He looked savage. ‘I’ll have to help you!’ he said.

  Cardinal sat alone under a tree. The sun blazed so fiercely that all work had been suspended for an hour. It was half-past three, and almost all the guards and prisoners were dozing or asleep.

  He took a sip of water and sucked on an orange, making it last as long as possible. Cardinal flexed his legs and, although he still felt weak, was pleased that he had managed to walk the distance from the prison without aid for the first time.

  He was stung by a stone that hit him in the shoulder. He swung around and noticed movement in the jungle thirty metres behind him. Cardinal glanced at the guards and a dozen prisoners close by. None stirred. The air was dominated by the steady drone of insects. A light breeze rustled trees. Cardinal crawled around so that he was facing the jungle.

  He saw Webb standing on the trail to the prison. Cardinal’s heart skipped a beat. He saw Perdonny, a rifle in one hand. They beckoned to him. Cardinal willed his battered body to move. He lay prone and slid on his stomach until he was out of sight of everyone. Then he got to his feet and, for a few fearful moments, felt vulnerable to a bullet in the back as he walked to the trail.

  Perdonny and Webb helped him hobble down the track. They were forced to cut through the jungle to avoid other sentry patrols on the trails to the prison and landing. Perdonny had to use a knife several times to hack a path for them. It took twice as long, but no one seemed to have followed them. Charlie was waiting with the Zodiac. They all climbed in. Perdonny took the wheel and handed the rifle to Webb.