by Peter Tonkin
‘Look,’ said Nic over a late lunch after the Jakarta contingent had left, but before the people from Tokyo arrived, a good few hours after the time Richard reckoned Tai Fun would have docked in Pelni Harbour, debouching her passengers via the immigration offices on Jalan Nusantara into Makassar itself, ‘we might as well level with you guys.’ He took a deep breath and sat back, eyes narrow as he looked at Richard and Robin through the fragrant steam of the after-lunch coffee. ‘This place isn’t anywhere near the Eden it should be, you know? There have been concerns about what’s been going on out here for years. As far back as 2000 the Environmental Investigation Agency were publishing reports about this problem. Then there was the stuff from Greenpeace and all the rest. And, most importantly for us I guess, the article by some of the experts who set this park up alerting us to how much it was still at risk. We really had to do something, you know? Tai Fun’s cruise route was a perfect cover. It was taking us to every protected location Luzon Logging were supposed to be pillaging. Getting Gabriella aboard as entertainments officer was easy enough, because she’s actually very well qualified indeed, and she’s done really outstanding work on the last few circuits of the track. Then when I arrived with full briefing from the guys at 760 United Nations Plaza, we were able to make contact and proceed. They have a case against Luzon Logging coming together, but these guys play dirty. They have illegal contacts with every shady business that has power or influence anywhere in Indonesia. Or all points east right around the world, from what I can gather. There’s as much illegal logging in the Amazon as there is here, and cocaine fields planted where the forest used to be. Profit from both ends and pretty good contacts with the drug-lords bleeding poison in through Florida. They even support one or two terrorist militias so they have people who will literally stop at nothing. There are witnesses out here who have vanished before they even agreed to talk, with their families; and in at least one case, their whole damn village. I’m not holding myself up as anything special but I’m in a protected position in all sorts of ways. Also, I’ve put a helluva lot of time, effort and cold hard cash into the preservation and reconstruction of eco-systems and traditional social systems and micro-economies in this part of the world. And I’m one guy that’ll stand up in any goddamn court in the world and testify against these scum whose one function in life seems to be to rip the heart out of all of it. And now, thanks to a lot of hard work by people like Gabriella here, it looks like I got something to say, even if it’s only that I know who killed poor old Pongo the orang-utan. Stealing wood to make pool cues’!
‘You’ll have more than that, I promise you,’ said Gabriella earnestly. ‘I have a guy on Pulau Baya who’s just solid gold from our point of view. And we’re due to see him within three days at most.’
The Tokyo contingent arrived in the early afternoon with the welcome news that the guys from UN Headquarters were going to stay home at 760 UN Plaza on the comer of First Avenue and 46th Street, an address that, for one reason or another, Richard and Robin knew well. Their conference went on late into the night. Richard and Robin took the opportunity of one last trek through the moon-bright landscape in spite of a peal of thunder that seemed to come out of a clear blue sky near sunset, then retired. They were woken before dawn, not with the screams of the monkeys but by a courteous park ranger informing them that their flight to Makassar would leave from Lapandong Udara Airport within the hour. They joined Nic and Gabriella in a Land Rover and then a speedboat. Then another Land Rover. The plane took off at dawn and arrived in Makassar while it was still quite early in the morning. They were bundled straight into an air-conditioned car and driven straight to Pelni Harbour. All of their lively and intense conversation focused on the UNESCO mission, how Gabriella and Nic planned to push it forward decisively in Pulau Baya, and what Richard and Robin could do to help and support them.
At no time did any of them sense the impending crisis towards which they were whirling so rapidly. And at no time did any of the men and women moving them through airport, air or city see fit to update them, even by putting the news on to radio or TV screen.
So they arrived at Tai Fun a little before lunchtime, still almost magically ignorant.
Tai Fun was riding at anchor, seemingly almost deserted. As soon as he stepped aboard, Richard realized something was wrong. Inge stood at the top of the gangway and so he asked her first. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
‘It’s the passengers,’ she explained as the other three climbed aboard and clustered round her. ‘Almost all of them have gone down with food poisoning. Well over one hundred and counting. There was a reception at the Makassar Surabaya Imperial Hotel and they all went to it. The first ones fell ill almost immediately and all the rest went down like nine-pins, while they were still there. The hotel was fantastic. It’s blessedly close to the hospital on Jalan Penghibur, overlooking the bay there, and they’re all tucked up in hotel accommodation but with medical attention from the Stella Maris.’
‘Bloody lucky for us,’ announced Larsen, suddenly appearing in the foyer beside the lifts, ‘or there’d be no point in us setting sail at all. The captain wants to see you and the owner’s with him. They’re in the bridge and I’ll take you up. Miss Nordberg, the sails are set. We’re ready to go as soon as this final conference is completed. Make sure everything down here is shipshape as far as you can. Are the extra supplies stowed, do you know?’
The five of them squashed side by side into the lift. ‘I’m confused,’ said Nic. ‘Most of your passengers are sick in bed ashore and that’s a good thing? Your reaction to this crisis is to up anchor, set sail and leave?’
‘There’s something else going on,’ said Richard. ‘Something we don’t know about. What is it, Larsen? What’s happened?’
‘It’s Pulau Baya, Captain Mariner. Worldwide emergency called. Ten thousand trapped, in Baya City alone. They’ve had landslides, tremors, God knows what else, apparently, and now this. Guanung Surat. Anyone who can get there must get there to take them off as best we can.’
‘Guanung Surat?’ asked Robin, dazed by the speed at which things appeared to be happening all of a sudden. ‘What on earth is Guanung Surat?’
The lift hissed to a stop. The doors opened. Larsen hurried them out towards the bridge where the captain and the owner awaited them.
‘Guanung Surat,’ said Larsen, as though simply unable to believe that they hadn’t heard and didn’t know. ‘It’s the main mountain in Pulau Baya and at sunset last night the whole top of the thing blew off. The bang was heard from Nome to Calcutta, Hobart to Colombo. It looks like they’ve a full-scale volcanic eruption on their hands.’
Chapter 21: Volcano
None of the villagers following Sailendra were people of the book. So it was only Parang who was able to see his prince as a young Moses, leading the children, the bedraggled, the halt and the lame towards the promised land of Baya City, guided by a column of smoke by day and by a column of fire by night.
Sailendra himself was far less heroic than the figure he painted in his secretary’s eyes. He could hardly credit what was happening. He had trusted only two things in his life since his parents died. He had trusted his friend and he had trusted his island. Now neither, it seemed, was what he had believed them to be. Each, in their own way, had chosen to betray him. How foolish did this make him? The only, petty, consolation was that Parang’s betrayal of Sailendra’s hopes and dreams into the grasping claws of Kerian had been more than cancelled out by the greater betrayal of the very land he loved into the enormity of this eruption. Kerian was welcome to whatever smouldering wreckage was left after both of these betrayals ran their course. And whatever plot or power Parang had sold his soul for he was also welcome to, for it would be nothing more than dust and ashes now. But, petty though these first reactions were, Sailendra did have some greatness of spirit. Both as a prince and as a man he saw his duty clear enough. He must get these people Fate had cast into his control safely into Baya City. Then he must g
et whoever was left on his island safely to some kind of refuge the best way that he could. Or die in the attempt.
The column of smoke was the plaything of the winds. At first, the heat of whatever had caused the explosion was enough to force it almost straight up into the sky. But then it seemed that what held it erect was the airy confluence of the southern monsoon and the north wind. It was not until the column reached the cold, still troposphere that it began to spread out slowly, then it started blowing westwards, with the jet stream.
Much later, volcanologists such as Dr Hirai aboard Tai Fun would discuss how much force and matter were expelled during those first hours, and why the column remained almost entirely of smoke and fine ash, illuminated and occasionally infested from below by great eruptions of gaseous flame. The effect on the inhabitants of the island, for the time being at least, was that they were able to breathe and move without undue effort. The air at ground - and sea - level remained clear after an initial rain of hot pebbles, all that remained of the mountain’s peak. And that when ash did begin to fall, it came in the form of a cool grey dust like dirty talcum powder which settled like a mist and not, as yet, hails of red-hot pumice or bombardments of blazing magma.
So, as darkness all too swiftly changed the great grey trunk of smoke in the sky ahead into a column of restless fire, and the death of the blood-red sun gave birth to a great blue-green moon, Sailendra guided the straggling villagers up over the pass in the mountains. The lonely, embittered prince led them over the pass and down on to the road behind Bandar Laut Bay. Bambang ran between the village elders and the lone figure striding at the head of the column, demanding that the pace be slackened, that refreshment stops be taken, that the younger and fitter be allowed to raid the coconut groves for food and drink. That they be allowed to drive back the darkness with makeshift torches made of blazing banana leaves and the burning branches of trees. Sailendra answered the boy with gruff monosyllables, which Bambang indefatigably translated into whatever instructions he thought the elders wanted to hear. And so the villagers moved onwards through the night - for it was clear to the least among them that with the island on fire, stopping to rest was likely to result in a much longer sleep than they planned. And besides, even the most recalcitrant amongst them could hardly fail to be inspired by the solid, steady leadership of the man who was their true-born prince and sovereign.
The road before them was empty, even when they reached the prawn fisheries, for they were a good three hours behind everyone else. It remained empty as they passed the spur on their left that led up to the foothills where Sailendra and Kerian had their homes, a spur that the prince strode steadily past as though there was nothing up there as important to him as the helpless people at his back. But after the spur, the deserted roadway became increasingly littered with discarded possessions, particularly when they reached the outskirts of the city, where people had set out for the docks carrying impractically heavy treasures. Still Sailendra led the villagers, a silent and bitter figure, perhaps, but a charismatic one if for no other reason than that he was a familiar face moving with clear purpose. And that so many had chosen to follow him; their numbers flattered in the darkness, perhaps, by the brightness of the flaming torches so many carried, as though this were some kind of religious parade or festival. So that, first in very occasional ones, but then in twos and threes, those who had stayed behind began to join the crowd at his back, able to see the straggling parade from far away because of its river of brightness. The terrified, lost and confused found light, companions, a leader. Waifs and strays found other waifs to join with. The elderly and recalcitrant saw others just like them moving forward, and they began to move forward along with them.
Sailendra arrived at the high point of the road just as the dawn broke. He paused on the ridge, looking down into the bowl that contained his city and saw only the wildest of confusion in the shadows. Ten thousand people, maybe more, had gathered around the docks, but the first great beams of eastern light showed the waters of Baya Bay and the harbour to be utterly empty of shipping. Not even the praus of Councillor Kerian’s Bugis fleet remained. In the instant before the sun itself framed his figure like a halo, the men, women and children who had followed him gathered at their prince’s back so that to those in the city below it seemed that the ridge was suddenly on fire. A wave of panic ran through the crowd down by the docks. Every eye turned eastwards to look at the new threat. But then Sailendra himself stepped forward. The sunlight framed him, making the solid silhouette of his body seem even larger than it was. His shadow seemed to reach across the still dawn air. And he seemed like a saviour to the terrified crowd, even before the first amongst them recognized who the man on the horizon actually was.
And so Sailendra’s arrival in Baya City, an event that was to attain almost legendary status, was enhanced by two more elements that happened at the same time as the sunrise. The strange physics that held the column above Guanung Surat in a kind of stasis was upset by those massive sunbeams. The first great bolt of lightning leaped down the writhing column from the very roof of the heavens, the crackling of its thunderous brightness lost in the still gathering roar of the intensifying eruption. And at that moment also, those westward-racing beams spread out across the whole of the Java Sea, to reveal a flotilla of rescue ships sailing over the northern horizon at flank speed.
The ragged cheer that ran through the exhausted and terrified crowd was accompanied by a push towards the promise of safety. From the hilltop, Sailendra could see the danger of the unregulated crowd pushing one way and another, quite apart from the probability of chaos and panic when the ships did arrive and started trying to get people aboard. He turned to look at the expectant faces behind him. ‘Help is coming,’ he said just loudly enough for everyone to hear him. ‘But we must help the people who are trying to help us. I must go down and try to organize the people by the dockside. You must follow quietly, without excitement, and set a good example by waiting your turn. Some of you will find friends and family members down there. Tell them I ask that they do the same. It is our best hope.’ He turned to the two who had walked closest to him so far. ‘Barnbang, what did your father plan?’
‘To help with the landslide. He has a good team of men.’
‘Could you find him?’
‘I can find the cannery trucks. There are no others like them. They will be near the bridge across the river. He will be near them, I am certain.’
‘Good. Try to find your father. Take your mother too so that she can tell him you are a prince’s messenger. Tell him this. I will be on Pier One. I will be trying to control the way the ships are loading and I will need the help of him and his men. If he can get to me I will be grateful. If he cannot then I need him to try and use his men to keep order and calm amongst the crowd. Is that clear?’ Bambang and his mother nodded. ‘Off you go then, and good luck.’ Bambang turned away, then turned back. He held the largest of the flaming torches and was clearly at a loss as to what to do with it. On an impulse he was to bless for the rest of his life, Sailendra simply took it. Then he turned at last to Parang. All the things he wished to say were overpowered by what he had to say. ‘I must go to the pier, as I said to Bambang. We must have order down there. I need you to go to the council. See who is there. Enlist the help even of Councillor Kerian. Tell them what I plan to do. Then find the head of the emergency services and tell him. We need leadership here, or I fear we may be lost even at the moment of rescue.’
Parang nodded once, turned and ran down the hillside into the shadows of the city’s valley. Sailendra held Bambang’s torch high as a signal to those behind him, and strode off down the road. It was another half an hour before the sun rose high enough above the ridge for its rays to reach right down to the dockside. But during that half-hour, Sailendra, with his flaming torch held high and his followers like a religious procession behind him, moved through the thinning shadows bringing leadership, light and calm. The crowds ahead of him parted to allow the procession
through. To begin with, those who could joined on to the end of the procession. But down in the city centre by the docks, the bodies were already so tight-packed that all they could do was to ease back and let the men and women with their blazing torches through. So at last Sailendra came to the water front. But no sooner did he do so than the next set of problems became clear.
The pier head was packed with expectant people, looking hopefully northward. Behind their left shoulders the mountain stood seemingly joined to the heavens by the thick black trunk of smoke. Lightning was lancing down it almost constantly now, and the steady rumbling of the gathering eruption was like the approach of the largest imaginable express train. But from down here, the ships out on the horizon seemed to have made no progress at all. It was clearly going to be a long wait. Without food, water, latrines. With tens of thousands of people pressing forward towards the water away from the terrifying mountain. The first ships to dock would be simply swamped unless he could think of something. And the agonizing slowness of their approach was likely to be further complicated by one more fact. Baya Port was tidal, even under the new conditions dictated by the landslide partially blocking the Sungai Baya River. The ships might all arrive, he realized, going cold, only to find they had to wait for anything up to eight hours before they could actually get their gangways on to the pier. He needed to find the harbour master. But even as the thought occurred to the beleaguered prince, so the almost magical effect of the torch-lit procession took effect. The harbour master found him.
‘Prince Sailendra? Your Highness!’ Of all places, the voice seemed to be coming from behind and below where Sailendra was standing. He turned. There was nothing there but the edge of the pier with the curving top of a metal ladder rising to waist height before it plunged down over the side. Then the harbour mouth, the sea and the ship-crowded horizon. The ladder, he thought and stepped across to it. In the face of the crowds on his piers and his foreshore, the harbour master, naturally, was using his harbour to move about. There was a four-oared pilot boat sitting at the ladder’s foot held in place by the firm hand of a rower while the harbour master swarmed up the ladder to the pier.