Pescador's Wake (20 page)

Julia peers into the humidicrib at her tiny baby, and sees nothing of herself or Carlos in his miniature features. She puts her face closer to the Perspex to study the baby which, she realises, would fit along Carlos's outstretched hand. His small red form appears barely human. Tubes in his nose provide oxygen from a ventilator and his chest, frail as a bird's, rises and falls with each mechanical expansion and contraction. Thin aluminium bars secure narrow plastic tubes to the veins of his arms. Every so often the young doctor comes and takes blood from the lines for testing, and then gives a transfusion to replace the blood that has been taken. A small clasp is attached to her son's foot to measure the levels of oxygen in his blood.

The incessant beeping of the monitors drills holes into Julia's skull. She extends her hand shakily through the porthole in the side of the humidicrib to touch her child, to stroke his downy body and hold his fragile hand. A nurse tells her it will help. And indeed when she holds his hand, the neon numbers on the machines—his oxygen levels, and heart and respiration rates—all respond positively. Does he really know it's her?

Love and hope rise up in her like giant waves, spilling over into tears. But coming at her from the opposite direction are equally large waves of fear and despair. Fear that if her baby survives, his quality of life could be so impaired that death may have been preferable. Despair that if her baby dies she'll never know true happiness again, that she won't even know how to put one foot in front of the other. How would she even draw breath? She strokes her child's forehead—already wrinkled like a worried old man's—and tries to straighten out his crumpled paper-thin ear, but it bends forward again. The doctor says his body is still developing and that she should be patient.

But he has also made it clear that they need to get the baby off the ventilator as soon as possible. It is keeping him alive, but at a cost. Each forced inhalation puts enormous strain on his tiny lungs, which, from time to time, are displayed as an X-ray on the light box in the nursery for all to see. And there is another problem, the doctor said. Just as too little oxygen is a bad thing, so is too much. ‘We hope it's not the case, but oxygen toxicity could send your baby blind.' Julia knows that the paediatrician was just trying to prepare her, but part of her hates him for it. She doesn't have space in her head for anything other than the here and now. Will her baby survive the next hour? She urges her son on. Tells him she needs him to live.

‘Have you named him yet?' a nurse asks as she rushes past to the neighbouring humidicrib where an alarm is sounding.

Julia feels herself panic. To give her baby a name would make losing him even more painful. And what will she call him? Carlos had favoured naming a son after his best friend, and had suggested, before he left, also making Eduardo the baby's godfather. But she's not sure if she can go through with that. Maybe it's tempting fate to honour a man she has always secretly loved. In her irrational state, she still wonders if the premature birth is her punishment for the affair.

‘Not yet,' Julia answers.

No wonder we have had to travel so far to find fish. I read today, in one of the science magazines I have on board, that ninety per cent of the populations of large fish have vanished from the world's oceans since high-seas commercial fishing began, and that it takes just fifteen years to catch eighty per cent or more of any one species. Yet here we are…

Is it any wonder I lie awake?

Carlos hardly slept overnight and struggles to keep his mind on the job at hand. The sea chase and the fate of the fish are unimportant now compared with his son's battle to survive. Still, he keeps his head, for the sake of his crew.

Through binoculars he sees the rope ladder strike the midship rails at the same place where the longlines are normally brought in over the side. Within minutes he sees the first of the South Africans, dressed in full riot gear, haul himself on board. One after the other the men climb on deck, clutching machine guns. It's as though the fish that were landed one after the other in exactly this spot are finally fighting back—escaping their hooks and seeking revenge.

Memories of the military dictatorship that stained his youth until the age of ten come flooding back. Carlos relives his fear when friends' parents were imprisoned, some even tortured or killed, for their political views. He later learned that Uruguay, in the mid-1970s, had more political prisoners per capita than any other nation in the world. He remembers what it felt like to be a young boy afraid that his own parents could be taken away. To be powerless.

He watches as four of the South Africans make their way to the stern of the boat where his crew are waiting, lined up and silent, like obedient children. The remaining three naval men make their way towards him.

He thinks again of Julia and the baby, and powerlessness takes on a new dimension. He pushes the thought away, but, like a searchlight, it seeks him out, until he is caught in its glare, stunned and shaking. He pulls the photographs of Julia and María off the wheelhouse wall and puts them into his pocket. If he thinks any more about his family now, he'll be no good to anyone. He owes it to his crew to have his wits about him. As the South Africans reach the top of the wheelhouse stairs they raise their weapons and Carlos knows they will be quick to use them, given half a chance. If lives are lost, no one will ask if his crew deserved it. There is no such thing as a good pirate.

Manuel is standing on the bridge deck, and as the first South African approaches, Carlos sees the Spaniard hold out a conciliatory hand. The naval officer returns the handshake and sights the Uruguayan master through the wheelhouse windows. Carlos holds both his hands in the air to show that he is unarmed. The South African, instantly at ease, drops the weapon to his side. The men behind him follow suit with the precision of a school of fish changing direction. Carlos hears a booming Afrikaans accent and then a good-natured burst of laughter as the first man enters the wheelhouse, Manuel close
behind. Manuel must have told a joke outside and delivered the punch line just before he opened the door, Carlos thinks, marvelling at the Spaniard's cool-headedness.

Three fair-haired and ruddy-skinned naval men, who could be front-rowers in a rugby team, fill the room. Carlos eyes their bulletproof vests and helmets and wonders if he is a disappointment to them—not quite the villain they were expecting. He sees the men registering Manuel's bandaged head and the bruise that's forming around his eye.

‘I suppose this is checkmate,' Carlos ventures in reasonable English.

One of the men in the boarding party steps forward. He removes a large black glove and extends his hand to meet Carlos's. ‘Lieutenant Commander Jan de Ridder, Executive Officer.' His eyes are the blue of warmer seas, Carlos notices, as he introduces himself. ‘So you speak English.'

‘Yes, but not as good as Manuel. I am
Capitán
Carlos Sánchez,' Carlos announces as their hands meet. ‘Sorry to take you away from your regular…' Carlos hesitates as he searches for the word, ‘duties. Or were you in the area?' he says, continuing Manuel's efforts to lighten the mood. To thaw the ice in the air.

‘It has been a relatively minor diversion,' de Ridder answers with half a smile. ‘You certainly gave the Australians a run for their money.'

‘We had much to lose.'

‘
Ja
,' de Ridder agrees. ‘You still do.'

Manuel steps forward, confident in his English after a lifetime of driving taxis for tourists in Spain when not out fishing. ‘That is what you get for being stupid, stubborn, Spanish-blooded fools!' His comment gets another laugh from the South Africans. He seems to know what to say. ‘We crossed through the Australian Fishing Zone, and stopped to fix some engine trouble. All the fish on board were caught in international waters. Not there. Not in the Australian sea. It was a stupid—we can see now—but perfectly legal shortcut for us.'

Carlos is caught off-guard by Manuel's fabrication and glares briefly in his direction. But the Spaniard continues talking, steering them deeper into trouble, magnifying their crime. Carlos wants to tell him to stop. One lie breeds another; everyone knows that.

But Manuel has taken the situation into his own hands, and Carlos hasn't got the energy to argue. ‘When the Australians saw us in their sea, we knew it did not look good. In fact, it looked very bad,' the Spaniard adds, a flicker in his eye.

The South Africans exchange good-humoured glances.

‘Who would believe our story?' Manuel continues. ‘We have families back home, children. We could not afford to be wrongfully accused of illegal fishing. We do not have the money to pay the large fines. Have you any idea how poorly
we are paid? We did what any self-respecting fisherman would do. We took a gamble and ran.'

Carlos tries to conceal his annoyance. Why is Manuel doing this? Is he trying to protect himself, fearing the consequences of being the
Pescador
's new first mate? At any other time, Carlos would have corrected him, but he lets it go. Lets that single moment decide his future. Perhaps Manuel knows what he is doing. Perhaps this is the only way to get back to Julia. Right now, nothing else seems important.

‘The decision was not without its price though, let me tell you. We have lost three men,' Manuel says gravely.

‘
Ja,
we heard. Our condolences,' de Ridder replies, his face dropping with genuine feeling.

Carlos is momentarily confused by the South African knowing this, but then remembers the satellite call that he made to Uruguayan Fisheries just yesterday. It must have been intercepted, or the news relayed. ‘Well then, you will also know about our Russian crew member, Dmitri Ivanov. Our engineer,' he says. ‘He took control of our vessel and cut our communications. We did not know the Australians were still pursuing us until two days ago.'

‘And where is this Russian now?' the South African asks.

‘I shot him with his own weapon,' Manuel says, regarding Carlos out of the corner of his eye. ‘We have him, I think you would say, “on ice”.'

One of the younger South Africans sniggers, but de Ridder glowers at him.

‘And you didn't recover the other bodies?' de Ridder looks searchingly at Carlos.

‘No. What do you want us to do now?' Carlos can hear his own voice, but feels strangely removed from it. It's as though he is watching the whole scene on television. Detached. Paralysed.

‘Just continue on your current course,' de Ridder answers. ‘The Australian fisheries officer will be boarding later today to officially apprehend your vessel. An Australian master and crew, plus three of our men, will accompany you to Fremantle, Australia. The
Australis
will be the escort ship. Our vessel will resume former duties. Presumably you need more fuel to get you back to Australia?'

‘Yes,' Carlos answers.

‘There is something else,' Manuel says, holding out a hand in Carlos's direction. ‘Our fishing master here has just had very bad news from home. His wife has delivered their baby early and the child is very ill.'

Carlos feels weak at the mention of his son. A dizzying surge of panic rises inside him.

‘Is there any way he could be escorted back to land on your ship?' Manuel beseeches. ‘He could then get a flight home and answer any charges from there. It might be the only chance he has to see his little boy.'

‘Our sincerest condolences, Captain Sánchez,' de Ridder says with what seems like true compassion. ‘But our boat won't be in port for another month now. In any case, decisions like that rest with the Australians.'

Carlos feels his future slipping away from him. As if he is Eduardo overboard, unable to reach the life ring.

‘None of us will be the same after this trip,' Manuel offers, patting the master's back.

The South African addresses Carlos. ‘Would you be able to show us over the rest of the vessel now, Captain Sánchez?'

Carlos starts to walk to the wheelhouse door but Manuel stops him with a hand on his chest.

‘You stay here,
Capitán,'
Manuel says. ‘I will go. But first I would like to tell the crew, in Spanish, what is happening. Unless any of your men speak Spanish?'

‘No, I don't expect so. Go ahead,' de Ridder answers, tipping his naval cap briefly at Carlos before signalling to the door and following Manuel on to the deck. One of the South Africans remains in the wheelhouse, his gun by his side.

Carlos watches the men leave and wonders how his crew will react to the revised plan and Manuel's fabricated version of the truth. A light rain begins to fall from an almost cloudless sky, and several of the crew instinctively flick their wet-weather hoods over their dark hair as if expecting worse weather.

Through binoculars, Carlos sees Manuel addressing the crew. He also says something to the South Africans, one of
whom—a brutish youngster—throws his head back in a guffaw. It's the same man who sniggered so inappropriately in the wheelhouse moments earlier. One of the Peruvians appears to spit at his feet. Manuel steps forward and says something that seems to bring the discussion to a close. The crew are taken back inside and Manuel appears to be given permission to return to the wheelhouse.

‘What did you tell them there at the end?' Carlos asks as the Spaniard enters the room.

‘That it's not only guilty people who flee. Sometimes they run because they are being chased and have no other choice.'

Dave Bates brings his boat alongside the
Pescador
in the startled light of a new day at sea. It's three weeks since he spotted the
Pescador
off Heard Island. He radios de Ridder who is in the apprehended vessel's wheelhouse. Another of the South Africans has taken the helm.

‘The
Pescador
's officers are denying they were fishing illegally,' de Ridder informs the Australian master. ‘They say they caught the fish in international waters and were simply sheltering at Heard to attend to their engines. Over.'

‘And pigs have wings,' Dave quips. ‘Of course they'll deny it. If they're prepared to risk their lives in pack ice, they're not going to give in now. Anyway, that's not our problem.' He wonders how the case will play out in the courts; if all of this will be worth it. He watches a fine curtain of rain fall on an ocean that appears to be made of countless silver coins angled to catch the first rays of light. ‘Have you told them about the fellow we have on ice? Over.'

‘No. Thought we'd leave that to you.'

If he had said no to the chase, Dave thinks, the three dead men might still be alive. He steers his concentration back to the job at hand. ‘Anyway, we're just about ready to send over
Harry Perdman for a reconnoitre before he skippers the boat home tomorrow. Our fisheries officer's pretty keen to check out the catch, too. Label and catalogue the evidence—all that jazz.'

‘No problem. We'll send over our launch, seeing it's already in the water. No point getting yours wet,' the South African says with a jocular air.

‘Much appreciated. Over and out.'

Dave ends the radio call as Cactus enters the wheelhouse.

‘Need another man to go aboard, Davo? I'm happy to put me hand up if necessary.'

Dave tries not to laugh at Cactus's efforts to sound only moderately interested. ‘She'll be right, mate. We'll need you here to help Harry and the others into the launch. I've got to have at least one experienced seaman on deck.' He hopes the last comment will stroke Cactus's ego enough to stop him from becoming a nuisance. He uses the intercom to let Harry know the plan and follows the approaching launch with binoculars until it's beneath them. The door shuts noisily and Dave realises that Cactus has left to join the others on deck. The rain has stopped and he watches Harry ordering the deck crane operator into position.

In under ten minutes, the launch is back in the water with Harry and the fisheries officer on board. It travels the short distance to the
Pescador
and lines up with a rope ladder that has been dropped from the midship rails and descends all the way
to the sea. Harry begins to climb and Dave wonders how it must feel to finally be in physical contact with the boat they have chased almost to Africa. The ladder swings out from the side of the ship and Harry collides with the hull, swinging like a fish on a line. Dave hears the wheelhouse door open and shut again and assumes that it's Cactus.

‘He'll be shitting himself, I reckon.' It's William's voice beside him in the wheelhouse, watching through his own set of binoculars.

Dave laughs but doesn't take his eyes off Harry until two South Africans hook the Australian first mate under the arms and drag him on board, landing him like a great big trophy of a fish. Dave scans the deck and finds himself looking, for the first time, into the dark, glaring faces of several of the
Pescador
's crew.

Harry and Dougal McAllister, the fisheries officer, arrive back on board the
Australis
just before nightfall. ‘It's a bloody dog's breakfast over there,' Harry tells Dave in the wheelhouse. ‘Can't believe they've made it as far as they have.'

‘'Specially given the weight of toothfish they've got on board,' Dougal adds.

‘So they haven't ditched the evidence then?' Dave looks at the two boats—the
Pescador
and the
Bremner
—lit up
like floating oil rigs. If he didn't know better, he'd say the
Pescador
even appeared welcoming. The lights flicker on the darkening blanket of sea, which is calmer than Dave has seen it for the duration of the chase. It's as if even the ocean is appreciative of the chance to bed down and ready itself for a rest.

‘Nope, got enough evidence to sink a ship,' the fisheries officer answers, pleased with his accidental play on words. ‘I've started labelling it, and grabbed a few samples and measurements as an insurance policy. There was one fish, two metres long, that they'd had on ice to be made into a wall trophy. What a beauty. Should have seen the size of those child-bearing lips! I kept thinking of her cruising around down there in the pitch black just a few weeks ago—'

‘Anyway, mate,' Harry says, ‘you go and make a start on cataloguing those samples. I'll be down in a minute to lend a hand.'

‘I reckon he'd talk at fifty fathoms with a mouth full of marbles,' Dave jokes as soon as the young man is out of the room.

Harry snorts derisively.

‘Tell me about this Carlos Sánchez character. Is he what you expected?'

‘Not at all. Spent most of the time in his bed, such as it is. The Springboks have booted him out of his cabin, so he's sleeping in the crew's quarters. You've got to feel sorry for the
lot of them, really. They're just a downtrodden bunch of blokes trying to scratch out a living.'

‘You going soft on us, Harry? They're scratching a living out of
our
fish. Our livelihood. This fishery will be buggered in under a decade if the illegals don't back off.' Dave bites at the ragged corner of his thumbnail, and tears a piece off. ‘I know what you're saying, but
they
chose to be here, and
they
started the chase. If they'd just accepted their fate earlier, three people might still be alive. We're just lucky our lot made it through okay.'

‘I told them about the body we recovered,' Harry tells Dave as if seeking his permission retrospectively. ‘I said it looked like he'd been shot and they gave me the whole sorry story. It turns out the Russian bloke—the mutineer—smuggled the gun onboard. The deceased fellow we have down below – Roberto Cruz was his name—was killed in front of his son. Poor kid.'

Dave goes quiet again. He knows it could have been worse. In those seas, with a madman in charge, it's a wonder the
Pescador
hasn't made a grave on the bottom of the ocean for the lot of them.

‘A Spanish guy called Manuel was at pains to let us know how much it meant to have the old man's body recovered. He told us a story—I'll never forget it actually—about a fishing boat that went down off Spain. His brother and father were among the missing. Anyway, when none of the bodies washed
up on shore, a team of divers went searching for them. Found them lying together on the seafloor like they were just asleep, as if the ocean had “sung them a lullaby”, in Manuel's words.'

‘An eddy must have kept them together.'

Harry nods. ‘The divers strung all the bodies along a rope, like a bunch of fish on a line, and towed them back to shore. As the divers swam and dragged the load, the bodies all rose to their feet and bloody walked along the seafloor behind them. Or, so it seemed. I can't get that image out of my head. Can you imagine?'

‘I'd rather not.'

‘No, sorry. But the point this Manuel fellow was making was that if the divers hadn't gone to such lengths, those men would never have been returned home to their families. It was his way of saying thanks, I s'pose, for recovering his friend.'

Dave shakes his head and thinks of the other body still out at sea. The South Africans told him it was the
Pescador
's first mate. He thinks of the first mate's family, and how they will always be left wondering what became of him. His bones and skin and hair. At least he knows where his son's remains are. At least he gave Sam a proper burial. Dave can hardly believe it's almost two years since he died. It still feels like yesterday.

‘Not a bad yarn, is it? Not one for the grandkids, though.' Harry goes quiet as if hearing his words too late. He scratches his head, and Dave can tell he's preparing to change tack. ‘It's interesting, the science stuff,' Harry announces quickly,
latching onto his new subject. ‘I hadn't really known what young Dougal gets up to until now.'

‘The genetics and so on?' Dave asks.

‘Yeah, and the way they can tell the age of a fish by counting the growth rings in its earbones, of all things.' Harry chuckles. ‘Bit like counting the rings in a tree trunk, apparently. And get this: really old fish still contain radioactive markers in the growth rings corresponding to the years of atomic testing. So the scientists can check their methods because they know the dates of the blasts.'

‘Well I'll be blowed.'

‘To be honest, I hadn't realised just how little we know about species like the toothfish. The boffins still haven't got the foggiest idea how often they reproduce or how many eggs they make. We'll be playing Russian-bloody-roulette if we give out too many licences or set the quotas too high around Heard and McDonald. Especially with the illegals getting their paws in. Boats like the
Pescador
are only getting stuck into Australian waters because they've buggered up the subantarctic stocks further west. It's no wonder the French and British and South Africans have naval boats regularly patrolling their territories. Dougal reckons toothfish numbers around Prince Edward are just ten per cent of what they used to be, and around Crozet it's only about twenty-five or thirty per cent.'

‘You saying this chase hasn't all been a waste of time then?'

‘Not if they get convicted.' Harry shrugs, as if to say that they have no control over that part of the equation. ‘Not sure I go along with all the genetics stuff, though. Seems like a lot of fuss just to prove the fish they've got on board came from our waters. I mean, to state the bleeding obvious, an Aussie trawler saw them there, for Christ's sake.'

‘Yeah, but they didn't actually film them fishing. Wentworth said the angle of the boat was wrong. To anyone watching the footage, the boat could just have been doing some routine maintenance in our waters like they're claiming.'

‘Whatever happened to common sense? Honestly, the world's gone mad.' Harry scrubs at his short blond beard. ‘Anyway, like I said, I'd better go and help the young lad out. A promise is a promise.'

As Harry leaves the wheelhouse, Dave notices, for the first time since they left port, how tired the first mate is looking. Dave knows that Harry is the sort of man who would give his right arm to save a friend. He is dependable and loyal and as honest as the day is long. If Harry was asked to take the helm for twenty-four hours straight, Dave has no doubt he would do it, no questions asked. It's a steadfastness that Dave hopes he hasn't abused by asking too much of him—this man he would be proud to have as a brother.

The
Pescador
has drifted so that it is side-on to the
Australis
and Dave ponders on the future that awaits the men bunkering down inside its metal walls. The ship's owner, he
suspects, will get away scot-free. Dave supposes it's the same in the drug trade. The small-time pushers get caught, while the drug lords run amok. As he watches, a light in one of the cabins goes out and he imagines it's Carlos Sánchez finally surrendering to his fate.