How I Became the Mr. Big of People Smuggling

by Martin Chambers

  ‘Me neither. But I agree with this now. Like when we first started. That other way wasn’t good.’

  He seemed about to say more but stopped. It was after five and the chopper would have to leave soon to allow them to get back to the coast before dark. I walked with him to the pad. He didn’t seem to be caught up in all of this as Spanner and Cookie and all of us were. It felt that while all of us had become slowly enmeshed in Palmenter’s web, Newman stayed because he wanted to. It suddenly occurred to me that Newman might in fact have been in charge all along. Perhaps Palmenter had been working for Newman and, when he asked me to ‘take care of that double-crossing cunt Newman’, he had been attempting to take over the whole operation. Why else was Newman now paying us? It made more sense. A station near the coast struggling to pay its bills was hardly likely to instigate people smuggling but when offered some good money for simply hiding and transferring a few people there was no reason to refuse.

  ‘Why do you do it?’ I asked. I had nothing to lose. One last import, then Lucy’s family, and then I was out of there with over a million bucks cash.

  He thought for a while.

  ‘Starting out I worked for GAP Oil, driving the service tugs for the rigs in the Timor Sea. We used to go back and forth all the time, between Timor and Darwin and all the rigs, it was no problem to drop a few of them on the way. Money for jam.’

  ‘So it’s just for the money?’

  ‘Oh, no. Started out, sometimes we found bodies, stuff, bits of wreckage. This once we pulled a bunch of them from the water barely alive. Fishermen had sold them an old leaky boat, they had no chance and it was lucky that we came along. We took them back to the south coast of Timor but they kept asking us to take them to Australia. Offered us money, jewellery. We said no at first but hell, why not? If we were caught we’d just say we found them floating. Which was true. Then, on weeks off we used to go surfing up off the south coast of Roti and they’d paddle out to us. So that’s how we started.’

  ‘Who is we?’

  ‘My people.’ He looked at me hard. ‘Was only meant to be once. Then another. And so on. You hear their stories and it seems so selfish to be up there surfing and earning enough each week between times to buy entire villages, shunting drillers and stuff for the rig when here are these people just over the horizon, starving and homeless. Then you find that you are being ripped off, that some of them have money and gold and just want a backdoor entry and that you are just a little fish in a very big sea. Or that they are paying money onshore to others just for the chance to come on our boat. Our boat. Other people are selling trips onto our boat without us knowing about it. And then along comes Palmenter. Solves a few problems until he is the problem.’ He shrugged. ‘Where is Palmenter?’

  It was a direct question and he looked straight at me.

  ‘Gone.’

  He shrugged again. ‘Good riddance.’

  Rob was waiting by the chopper. He signalled impatiently then climbed up and started the engine. We could not talk against the roar, but Newman mouthed to me and held up his fingers.

  ‘See you in ten days.’

  I remember when Lucy’s family arrived it was the same as any other import. I was standing on the verandah as I usually did when the chopper came in. It takes about an hour to fly from the coast and then an hour back, so every two hours on import day I would find myself standing at the back near my old office. I did this even later, years later, but Lucy’s family was soon after we were running it without Palmenter so I hadn’t seen so many. I never tired of watching the arrivals.

  All day the chopper would be coming and going. It was not until later, after we had the fishing camps and could store them safely at the coast, that we could spread the imports out over several days and restrict the chopper to a few flights a day. That was when we could bring in bigger boats too. Using the choppers was a big bottleneck in the whole operation because choppers can’t fly at night. They are expensive too and I wish I could have worked out some other way.

  Newman would help them down off the chopper and point them towards the dongas where Simms was waiting to show them to their room. They would climb down and despite his urging to move away, to move quickly over to Simms, they invariably stood like six lost sheep with Newman behind them and Simms near the buildings waving his arms, gesticulating and urging them to move.

  What they would see was a collection of eight low buildings around the compound and behind them a horizon full of sky and sun, a few spare trees and spinifex scrub. This, after how long fleeing their homeland? Travelling by whatever means across Asia, past rice fields and fish farms and through village after village and over mountains or through tropical jungles. Then crowded onto a small boat with strangers, with little or no food for days, because this was before we began running the boats ourselves and making sure there was food for everyone for the trip, after the noise and rush of the ground below, the chopper ride where they would see how big and barren and impossible this country was, after all this it would take more than Newman or Simms waving and yelling to hurry them.

  As they stood looking at our oasis I remembered when I first arrived. How my first impression of a wide land of nothing had slowly opened to reveal hidden wonders. Secret waterholes, creekbeds, rocky breakaways and escarpments with ochre paintings of giant lizards, kangaroos, snakes, crocodiles, animals that still wandered here and gave the impression it was they who posed for their portrait tens of thousands of years ago. The silence. The noise. Flocks of birds, rain in the wet, thunder and lightning. And insects. Thousands and thousands of insects. More insects than there were stars at night. This was not a dead and barren land, this was a land made alive by the oppressive heat, the wet season rain, the floods and winds and insects and the space.

  But it took me years to find that out. What they would have seen was no paddy fields, no food crops, no village, just a lace of roads and a stationhouse compound. I wondered whether they saw safety here, salvation or hidden threats. If they were farmers did they look and see untamed pasture, a place they could work into productive land away from the tyranny of war or the vagaries of climate? Did they wonder why no one was already here or did they know, unlike our forebears, that this was a harsh land and worthless for farming, either too dry or too wet and in any case certainly too far from markets?

  The confused and bewildered look on their faces told of hope but not realisation that the journey was over. The way they trooped dejected and defeated to the dongas spoke more of retreat. What small rising of hope they might have felt must have been lost when they saw this tiny outpost from the air. They had come all the way from Indonesia or Timor with little idea of exactly where they were going, and it would take someone to tell them when they finally arrived because there would be no welcome mat. No friendly greeting. If they made it, it was another place to hide. No wonder Palmenter could abuse and confuse and enslave until he had taken all they had.

  But Australia was a land of new hope, of new opportunity, a land they had been told about that they could hope to live a life free from persecution, where food was guaranteed, where there was no war, so after a good look round they would shuffle over to Simms who would lead them into a donga that would be theirs for a few nights. What they knew was little. What they expected, less. It was a better place than where they had come from but what they knew of Australia was not seen on television or in a documentary, it was not from glossy brochures and it was not returning holidaymakers or businessmen who told of a great land over the sea. It was word of mouth, rumour, of someone who knew or heard of someone else who had made it, made a new life.

  They had handed over whatever they had – money, gold, precious stones, anything easy to carry that was of value would buy them a trip on one of our boats. Others were less honest than we were. I made sure prices were fixed, a standard price for a standard of trip that included food and water. Some other operators would take as much as people had and then demand that they find their own food and water for the t
rip.

  We also standardised the exchange rate for gold and jewellery. Sure, we took a bit extra for the commission but it was the same rate for everyone. The funny thing is, in business, if you standardise and charge everyone the same, then if you do a good job, that is, deliver what you promise and just a tiny bit more, people are so appreciative. I don’t care if it is a refugee on a crowded boat or someone buying high street fashion. Give a little bit extra. Gift-wrapping. Bottled water on the boat. Cost us next to nothing but our people appreciated it so much.

  And when customers appreciate they will often tip. Americans tip money. Refugees tip what they have, which was usually gold or jewellery that they had managed to hide. We made a lot extra like that, because the wealthy, those who were not really refugees, they had been prepared to pay a lot more than we charged.

  I didn’t recognise them at first, Lucy’s family. They looked like any other refugee family and they didn’t look, to me at least, like Lucy. Mum, grandma and an aged uncle. A typical family. The remains of a family, the bits left over after famine or war, attrition by disasters both human and natural until they could take no more. Grandma, a tough shrunken case who shuffled rather than walked. Mum, dare-I-hope eyes, weary of charity, watchful for opportunity. Uncle, the leftovers of another family, as if he was not supposed to be there at all and looking confused, as if all the recent months have been too much.

  The message had gone back up the line to find them, bring them to Palmenter Station, letting them know that they could pay later. Better to say that than to complicate things by saying I wanted to give them a free trip to reunite them with Lucy. I didn’t want anyone to know why. I didn’t want anyone to think I was a softie.

  My idea was they could have a free trip but charity like that is hard to give. The more desperate they are, the less people seem to be willing to take. They seem compelled to give something back in exchange.

  I had wanted to remain anonymous, to watch them quietly disembark and see them okay to their new van, wave goodbye as they headed off armed with Lucy’s address and a tourist map of Australia. But someone must have said something. Lucy’s mum led the way over to me.

  She nodded, a sort of half bow of respect and thanks like to a priest or to the Queen.

  ‘You must take this.’

  She took both my hands in hers and slipped into my grasp a small brass object. It was cold to the touch but I didn’t look immediately at it as she was looking into my eyes, a look that reminded me of Lucy, a look full of inner strength and thanks and pity. It was the look Lucy had given me at Maribyrnong when I left, after I had said I had been trapped on the station and Palmenter had abused me. A whole world of emotions were in her look but mostly it was pride, a pride that she knew who she was and that I had no idea what being trapped meant.

  Lucy’s mother let go of my hand and I looked down for a moment to see what she had given me. The object was a cast statuette of Buddha, small enough to wrap my hand around and beautifully pleasing to hold. It was plain enough but it exuded calm. I looked up to thank her but she was leading them away. Lucy’s mother, the shuffling grandmother and the stooped uncle. The Buddha was solid gold, not brass, but I knew its value was far more than anything it was made of, and the thought came into my head that we can all be far more than what we are made of. We can all be worth more than our weight.

  15

  I never planned to be the Mr Big of people smuggling. That’s what they call me. The Mr Big of People Smuggling. Trafficker in human misery. Well, my father always told me if you are going to do something, do it well. No point going at something half-arsed.

  After Newman dropped off Lucy’s family and gave us another bag of cash with over a hundred grand in it, he told us he had two more boats of twenty-five coming in. We could hardly say no and not arouse suspicion. Let them turn up and not find us. Spanner would go find his fishing camp and I was going to drive Lucy’s family to Melbourne and then, well, who knows. It would all be over. The best-laid plans and all that.

  We had money coming out of our ears. There was our original million plus all the foreign notes, and now over three hundred thousand Newman had given us. I said goodbye to Spanner and took my share and set off to drive Lucy’s family to Melbourne. It was a quiet trip, mostly because they didn’t speak much English. Along the way I realised how hard it was going to be for them because, although there are plenty of non–English speaking people in Australia legitimately, if you were illegal and didn’t speak the language what could you do? What work can you do? Where do you stay? How do you avoid attracting attention?

  I tried to give them some words as we drove along – car, tree, road, sky, clouds – but these are disjointed and make no sense, are no use when you are trying to understand what is going on in the city, when you are looking for a job or wondering if the policeman on the corner is about to arrest you. The uncle, whose name was Kayeb or Kaheb, was pretty sharp and would nod and repeat what I said, then translate to the others, but when we tried to play I Spy I realised how hopeless it was. I thought I Spy was a universal game. Kids everywhere must play it. But just getting the idea across was impossible.

  I’m not a teacher either. Teachers learn ways to say things, how to graduate the learning and build on what is already there. We’d be barrelling along the highway and I’d see something, something we hadn’t seen before.

  ‘Kangaroo.’

  ‘Ah. Kagarro.’

  ‘No, Kang-gar-roo.’

  ‘Ah, yes. No kagarro.’ And a chorus of nokagarros would echo around the van.

  Or a cow. At least they would be familiar with a cow.

  ‘Cow.’

  ‘Ah. Cow. No kagarro. Cow.’

  ‘Yes, good. It’s not a kangaroo but a cow. And those are cattle. All of them together are called cattle.’

  ‘Ah, cow cattle no kagarro.’

  I held up one finger ‘cow’ and five fingers ‘cattle’. I think he understood. He babbled to the others and they spoke back to him but I didn’t hear the word cow or cattle or anything recognisable. And what use is the word cow in the city? Perhaps beef. Or beefburger.

  At the roadhouses I bought takeaway food after I stood at the counter with Kayeb pointing to the pictures, saying the words. ‘Hamburger.’ ‘Chicken.’ ‘Coke.’ How do you explain the relationship between a cow and cattle and then beef and hamburger, and why is there no ham in a hamburger? I saw why English was so confusing to them. I wanted to sit at a table in the dining area and practise words with them but I thought we might attract too much attention. Perhaps it would be all right on a busier road during tourist season but we were usually the only customers, so we’d sit back in the van and say ‘chicken’ or ‘hamburger’ to each other as we ate. At least in the city they’d be able to buy chicken and Coke.

  Once we arrived in the city, I didn’t want to go anywhere near a migrant detention centre with them in the van so I took them to a park in Fitzroy where they could wait until I returned. That was pretty scary because they thought I was dumping them and there was a bit of a scene and people were looking and I was tempted to leave them and drive off. I tried to say to them to wait, I would be back, but they looked terrified and confused and they wanted to take their bags from the van. They must have thought I was trying to steal the bags or something. Lucy’s mother thrust some more money into my hands and grabbed her bag, talking continuously at me, not yelling, but not friendly. Angry. You can sort of tell.

  I gave up and bundled them back into the van. They could stay in the van at Maribyrnong while I went to see Lucy and after that I didn’t know. I’d have to find somewhere for them to stay so I could tell Lucy where they were. It was fate then that on the way to Maribyrnong I saw a sign in a window House for rent, enquiries next door. It was handwritten, not from an agent or anything, and the area was mostly migrant families so I figured they’d blend in pretty well. On the spur of the moment I parked and went in. I took it for three months and I paid the cash the mother had given me as re
nt and bond and indicated to Kayeb they would have to pay the rent themselves after that.

  At Maribyrnong I discovered Lucy had been accepted as a refugee and had been released. As she was now an Australian resident she could go wherever she wanted, and it was the law that they were not allowed to keep track of her. They said it like that, not that they didn’t keep track of her but that they were not allowed to and I got the impression they knew exactly where she was. Anyway, they wouldn’t tell me. I got a leaflet with the phone numbers of some migrant centres but no one I talked to had ever heard of a Lucy. I began to realise how easy it was to disappear in the city.

  My dream of reuniting Lucy and her family was looking impossible. I’d had visions of them coming together at last, rushing in with hugs and tears, and the flow of their garbled words like water over dry rocks at the start of the wet. Them speaking all at once. And then their thanks to me: finally the family would realise what I had done for them and her mother would forgive me. They would thank me and hug me and then we’d all sit down together to a decent meal, with Lucy interpreting and all of us getting along, so much to discuss. No more pointing at cow and chicken and kagarro, but at last a chance to understand where they had come from, what they had been through, and by that, perhaps, a chance to understand Lucy.

  I drove back to the house and showed the landlady the picture of Lucy from Palmenter’s file. She shook her head but pointed across the street to another house and at that house they must have trusted me because they led me through the dark front rooms to a large skylit back room where ten or so women sat at sewing machines. A few men too, who came and went with piles of cloth cut into shape, or carried out bundles of the finished shirts. Two young girls – they couldn’t have been older than ten – were running the shirts through a machine that ironed and then wrapped them. An even younger girl was stacking them into boxes that, when full, one of the men would carry to a stack out the back. Despite the hectic pace of the place it had a friendly atmosphere and they all stopped when I entered.