On the Java Ridge

by Jock Serong

  He lifted the device gently out of his son’s fingers and studied the screen. Rory had been watching the PM’s presser. You’re nine years old, he wanted to tell him. You won’t find the truth watching this old crook spinning his lies. He tapped back one screen, then another. Rory’s original search was Cassius Calvert.

  He transferred the boy carefully to his bed in the spare room, legs and doona trailing like a fire rescue, and shuffled into his own room, where neither tenderness nor deceit could find him.

  It struck him deep in the night, as the claws woke him, tearing at the inside of his head.

  The other thing.

  His second query about the satellite photo. A red shape, vaguely triangular, on the beach directly opposite the boat at anchor. It had bothered him during the phone call, with its familiar but maddeningly elusive outline. He knew what it was now. It was an inflatable boat, a Zodiac.

  And no asylum seeker boat he’d ever heard of carried a Zodiac.

  NIGHTFALL, TUESDAY

  Pulau Dana

  There was a tacit acknowledgment that they were stuck for the time being.

  The survivors sent an emissary to say they wanted to bury the bodies. Custom, said the man. He placed his hand on his heart and bowed slightly. Carl watched him from the shadows. The surfers looked to Isi to make a decision: she hesitated, thinking that anyone rescuing them might need to see the dead. The crabs and gulls were already growing bolder: they’d take care of them as surely above the sand as under it.

  But on the first day at least, no one could summon the strength to dig such a hole; nor did anyone know what tools to dig it with. So the issue remained unresolved as night fell, and the two Indonesian crew brought food from the Java Ridge and prepared it on the beach.

  When they’d all eaten, Isi called her group together. The clusters of people from the wreck sat away from them, around a fire that Sanusi had made them. Their voices were low and could easily be taken as secretive. But there was something else about them, something Isi had to turn over in her mind before she could make sense of it. There was a calm in their eyes, of resignation or weary scepticism. They’d seen suffering before: not a shipwreck, but certainly the violent sundering of lives. A rocket, perhaps, lobbed into a market out of a clear blue sky. Not something you’d accept, but something you’d wrap your existence around and through. Life’s grim forward motion.

  For the Australians, every one of them, the last two days had been the most harrowing of their lives. Whatever resilience might be built by random tragedy, they had none of it.

  Isi couldn’t take her eyes off Roya. She’d watched her through the afternoon, bringing water to the adults, rubbing her mother’s bare feet, shaking sand and grass out of the towel they’d been given to lie on. The presence of her, the quiet composure.

  ‘All right,’ she began. ‘I want to work out what we do next. I think I’d said earlier, this island is called Dana. It belongs to Indonesia, it’s uninhabited and the locals don’t come here because there are, um, cultural beliefs about it. Now the people we’ve…these people. Does anyone know who they are?’

  ‘They’re asylum seekers,’ Leah said. ‘From what I can work out they left from Makassar—on Sulawesi—and they came south past Sumba heading for Ashmore Reef. All sorts of people—Iranians, Afghans, Iraqis and Pakistanis, but obviously some of them…’ her voice trailed off as she inclined her head towards the bodies. ‘Lots of them are deceased.’

  Isi had done a head count and discovered that there were twenty-nine survivors, not the thirty-three she’d hoped for. Either Roya had counted wrong in the first place—which she doubted—or there were four still missing.

  ‘So we’re dealing with twenty-nine people,’ said Isi. ‘The Java Ridge will accommodate them no worries—we’re carrying enough food and water. I’ve tried to radio for help but heard nothing back so far. We’re in a bad spot for that. Fraggle and I went up to the top of the rock this afternoon and Fraggle got a little bit of signal on his phone, so we’ve posted a photo that shows the bodies and the wreck on the reef.’

  ‘It’s gone now,’ said Carl from the back.

  ‘I saw.’ Isi knew her voice was terse and she didn’t care to hide it. ‘There’s villagers on the island called Raijua to our east, only about two hours’ sail away. At the moment we’re Indonesia’s problem, and Australia stays out of the way up here. But they’d be talking to each other, I guess. South of us is Ashmore Reef but it’s more like thirteen hours at full speed. So we need to work out when to leave and where to go.’

  Leah spoke up again. ‘The when’s up to the doc over here, isn’t it?’ She nodded towards Finley. ‘But the where—I mean, wouldn’t you go straight to the nearest point? Like, straight to Raijua?’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ Isi replied. ‘We might go over there and find there’s no facilities and everyone’s scratching their heads. They might be able to call in a plane to do an evacuation, but they might not. And how much time do we lose getting in there through the reef and finding someone to talk to, compared to getting ourselves into Australian waters and linking up to an evacuation from Ashmore?’

  ‘But if you take them to Ashmore,’ Carl nodded towards the survivors, who were watching the discussion in silence, ‘then they’ve got what they wanted, haven’t they.’

  Nobody responded. Isi pressed on.

  ‘I think Tim’s welfare is probably paramount here isn’t it? Tim and the pregnant woman? Neil?’

  He must be exhausted by now, she thought. But there was no outward sign of it. He sat tall on a deckchair someone had brought him, shoulders back and chin up. A faint silver stubble was appearing over his jaw.

  ‘Well, Tim’s got a compound fracture of his ankle and a crush injury to the foot from where the boat shifted onto it. Nasty injuries. In a proper clinical setting we’d open it all up and debride it, do some grafts, but we’re limited here. I’ve stopped the blood loss by closing the main vessel that was affected, and I’ve tried to clean up the big fracture site. But there are lots of small fractures in his foot that I can’t possibly fix here, and I can’t set the big fracture without knocking him out. I’m reluctant to do that until there’s a plan about where we’re going. So at the moment I’m relying on sterile dressings from the medical tub. But those won’t last indefinitely. Oh, and I’ve found a pulse in the foot which means we have circulation, so that’s a positive.’

  He took out a scrunched piece of paper where he’d been making notes.

  ‘Who else have I got notes on…a nine-year-old girl and her mother. The girl’s Raja…?’

  ‘Roya,’ Isi corrected.

  ‘Roya. Speaks some English, which is a help. Her mother’s pregnant, about thirty-two, thirty-three weeks as far as I can tell; it’s not my area. I don’t see any symptoms that she’s about to go into labour anyway. Then there’s an Iraqi male, about thirty, with minor lacerations that I’ve sutured. He might be your skipper, by the way. Won’t give his name, bit aggressive. There’s two older men: maybe forty, they don’t know—both got dysentery. They’re Iranians. They should both be all right if I can keep fluids up to them.

  ‘The boy who came in on the Zodiac unconscious, er…Hamid. He’s a bit of a worry. Probably twelve…he’s had a big whack over the temple.’ He pointed to his own head with a long bony finger. ‘I can’t get any English out of him, but I want to watch him closely in case his conscious state changes. So he’s lying down, and if anybody wants to take a shift keeping an eye on him, that’d be great.’

  Finley’s voice remained as flat and calm as the lagoon. It could have been a ward round.

  ‘If you find any injuries or illnesses among the others, please let me know. The upshot of it all is, Tim’s the main concern and I’m not that confident about moving him yet. He’s in a lot of pain, a lot. I’ve put him on codeine, and if that runs out there are other options. But I…’

  He appeared to change his mind about saying something.

  ‘Neil? What else
?’ Isi wanted it out, whatever it was.

  Finley continued reluctantly. ‘The limiting factor in all of this is drugs. We have a woman who could go into labour. We have a foot injury that might deteriorate because the thread I’ve used on that vessel is crappy silk stuff from the tub. And we have a head injury that may or may not be stable. It’s a bit of a juggle, and I’m working with the codeine, but the only serious agent in that tub is one vial of ketamine.’

  ‘What’s that do?’ asked Isi.

  ‘It’s good for a situation like this because it’s a painkiller and an anaesthetic in one. Kind of an all-purpose third-world trauma drug. I think I can keep Tim stable like he is, but I’ll review whether we can move him in the morning.’

  ‘All right,’ said Isi. ‘Everyone comfortable with that?’ No one responded. ‘We’ll bury the dead in the morning, and at this stage I’m saying we’ll head for Ashmore. If you disagree you can come and see me.’

  The listeners stood and moved away, including a handful of the rescued. As Isi watched them disperse into the night, she became aware of one man in particular: a man with a wide thin moustache and glossy black hair that sprung out slightly from his crown and behind his ears. He had medical dressings on his hands. Finley’s Iraqi, she thought. The skipper.

  The man was watching her, his mouth set in a firm line. The look suggested disapproval to her, but she couldn’t read it clearly on a foreign face. He kept his eyes on her as he slowly turned his body away, then he was gone.

  Sanusi was beside her. He’d seen.

  ‘Not Indonesian?’ she asked him in Bahasa.

  ‘No, Iraqi. He looks angry.’

  ‘Maybe you should have a talk to him. Ask Roya to translate. See what’s going on.’

  Sanusi lit a cigarette, held it in his wounded fist and squinted as he drew back the smoke. ‘Okay boss.’

  His was a smile that could mean anything from happy assent to deep gloom. Isi had a fair idea he was worried.

  She found Carl sitting alone on the beach. He had his feet in the water, his knees drawn up to his chest and headphones on. Sitting down beside him would look empathetic, so she remained standing.

  He either hadn’t noticed her or had chosen to ignore her. She pulled the cup off one of his ears. ‘What the fuck were you doing?’

  ‘You sure you can talk to your clients that way?’ he smirked.

  ‘Don’t fuck with me Carl. How the hell do you think it’s appropriate to go surfing when this is going on?’

  ‘What’s going on?’ She had his attention now. ‘We got everybody out of the water. Doctor’s fixing the sick people. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘See that’s the thing, isn’t it—you didn’t ask anyone what you could do. You just went.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever.’

  She found she’d put her hands on her hips. Her disbelief was showing. ‘Seriously, how do you do that? Go surfing when there are dead and injured people everywhere? What kind of person does that?’

  ‘You judging me? They probably put a hole in it deliberately. They do shit like that.’

  ‘What do you mean they?’

  Carl shrugged, momentarily off guard. ‘I dunno. Muzzies. Foreigners.’

  Isi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Foreigners? We’re the fucking foreigners out here.’

  ‘Whatever you reckon. Our boat still floats and theirs doesn’t.’

  ‘That’s appalling. I swam under their fucking boat. There were no holes. The engine had come off its—’ She felt her own doubt creeping in. How the hell had it done that? ‘It’d broken loose. They didn’t have a chance.’

  ‘Bullshit. They’re using us.’ Carl was pointing his finger at her now. She could see the speech forming across his face. ‘They’re using us and making us feel guilty. Those people paid some guy to take ’em in a shitty boat. They made that choice, and you live with your choices.’

  She was shaking her head in disbelief, but Carl was now venting something that had been welling up for a long time.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Isi. We’re this massive empty continent, all fucken sunny and bright, just sitting there. Hardly any of us and let’s face it, we’re half asleep. Time goes on, more and more of these cunts are gonna want to get in. They don’t turn up in warships these days, they don’t parachute out of the sky—but there’s a shitload of brown people to the north of us, and they don’t have enough food and they’re ruled by arseholes and their drinking water’s fucken filthy. There’s disease and typhoons and beggars and three-legged dogs. You’d have to be a fucking idiot not to realise they’re coming over the hill sooner or later. These people aren’t refugees—they’re migrants to a better place. And what about the others, huh? The poor silly fuckers waiting their turn in camps in Some-fuckistan. We help these people make it to the front of the queue, and what we’re doing is encouraging the next lot to try it.’

  He stood and turned to walk away, but changed his mind.

  ‘You want to fucken—you want to be Mother Teresa and rescue the reffoes that’s your business. Might be your politics or Tim’s politics or whatsisname—Finley’s job, but it’s got nothin to do with me. I paid good money to be here. Good money. I dug fucken ditches for months thinking about this trip so I could give you my money and you’d get me barrelled. An’ if you can’t manage that yourself I’ll be fucked if I’ll sit by and cop it.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘Yeah, fuck you Isi. We were supposed to have Joel to start with. Just my fucking luck I get a woman in a man’s job.’

  He turned resolutely this time and marched off towards camp. She watched his retreating back, the muscles taut with anger. Surfing all the time created a certain shape in some people. She knew it well, the flared lats and sprung triceps. You could call it conditioning. You could even say it was evidence of physical discipline.

  But she’d never met a bloke on whom it wasn’t evidence of selfishness.

  WEDNESDAY MORNING

  Canberra

  It was rare that Cassius slept badly. His self-assurance, his desire to squeeze the most out of life, meant that no matter how the day had gone he could expect a good night’s sleep, untroubled by any needling from his subconscious.

  Tonight was different. He woke from sleep agitated by a late vigil on the email and the phone, and interrupted by invasive questions. The photograph, the shot from ground level. It reappeared in cinematic detail, even as he padded into the kitchen and he realised what was bothering him. The image was composed, not snapped: as much the sum of shadows and light as it was of the elements. Someone had thought to offset the rows of wrapped bodies, to place the lagoon in the centre of the frame and the dappled foliage of a tropical beach in the foreground. Its brutal harmonies reminded him of a news photo from ages ago, one of the few times that journalism had ever moved him. A dead boy on a beach, the tragedy of the small sneakers a parent had laced carefully before hell opened.

  Cassius didn’t do doubt: accordingly, he wasn’t practised at it. Someone wanted to affect him this way, him and everyone else who saw the image. It was persuasion, not mere reportage.

  His head was starting up again. He flipped the kettle on, checked email on the phone with his free hand. Scrolled and scrolled and scrolled: the darting of his eyeballs adding to the pain. Nothing from Monica. She cleared emails obsessively; there was no way she hadn’t seen his. What was she playing at?

  He wandered into the bathroom to take a piss and nearly stepped on the chicken. Rory had filled the shower recess with more torn newspapers, and overnight a slow drip from the fitting had turned the papers into a sodden mess. The chicken looked as disgusted as he was: once it recovered from the fright of the descending foot it stared at him coldly.

  ‘Fuck you,’ he slurred. ‘Take it up with Rory.’ Then he saw it had left him an egg, so he scooped it carefully from the newspaper shreds and carried it into the kitchen. Rory wandered in, wearing the Green Edge road racing pyjamas that Cassius had bought him for his bi
rthday. It didn’t occur to him—although it would later—that Rory had packed them himself, for this visit.

  ‘Rorkers.’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Macca left an egg. You want me to fry it?’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Sleep all right?’

  ‘Hmm. Yep.’ Rory yawned and then exploded into a wet sneeze that made Cassius cringe. He took a paper towel and wiped the bench where most of the fallout had landed, then cracked the egg into a pan. Rory was pawing through the food cupboard looking for cereal.

  ‘Sea Eagles are playing Friday night mate, up here.’

  The kid woke up, lit up, spontaneously. ‘We should go!’ Then his face fell. ‘Ah but Mum…’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m working on that. And I’m getting us some tickets.’

  The boy clenched his whole body with unrestrained pleasure, fists squeezed into small blocks and elbows tucked into his sides. ‘Yess!’

  ‘We’ll get a pie, hot chips. You bring your scarf with you?’

  Another wave of disappointment. ‘No I…I didn’t know we’d be going.’

  ‘Fear not, my boy. I’ll cover it. Go and get dressed.’

  He dialled the Comcar.

  They walked into the sports store at the Canberra Centre as it opened for the day: Cassius in his suit, black business shoes squeaking over the polished lino, the boy springing excitedly ahead in sneakers.

  The phone kept ringing and Cassius kept dropping a few paces behind his son to answer. It was mostly Stella, mostly deflecting awkward press. One from Waldron, drier than a desert burial, telling him he needn’t bother answering the emails from the ABC. Halfway through the last week of the campaign it had boiled down to a presidential contest between the two leaders. All that was expected of Cassius was that he stay out of the way and prevent anything going arse-up. That meant the bulk of the media knew to leave him alone now. A few of them had follow-up questions after the PM’s performance about the photos, but he was able to dead-bat them. The prime minister has explained all that. We won’t be adding to the speculation. And occasionally, for variety, I’m not going to respond to hypotheticals.