Pescador's Wake (2 page)

With the wind chill, it's minus seventeen degrees Celsius
outside, and ice has formed on the rails. Carlos drives forward the engine control, while half his crew, fifteen men, clean off the decks and stow the gear. The boat surges faster now, heading south towards high seas and the front. The remaining crew has already moved to the factory deck to process and freeze the catch.

The VHF radio crackles and a voice floods the wheelhouse. ‘
Pescador, Pescador, Pescador,
this is the Australian civil patrol vessel
Australis, Australis.
Do you copy?'

Carlos doesn't reply. If need be, he can claim that communications were down. He strikes the instrument table with his fist. They were so close to getting away with this. So close to heading home. He maintains his southerly course and sees Eduardo making his way back up to the wheelhouse.

The first mate heaves open the door and feeds himself inside. He tears off dripping gloves and unzips his wet-weather jacket exposing a face turned stiff from the cold and the effort of concealing his fear.

The radio starts up again. ‘
Pescador, Pescador,
this is the
Australis.
You're fishing in Australian territorial waters without authority and we order you to proceed to Fremantle, Western Australia. I repeat, your operations are illegal; proceed to Fremantle.'

‘They know our vessel,' Eduardo says, visibly surprised. ‘They're too far away to see the name.'

Carlos nods. ‘That fishing boat we saw yesterday must have told them we were here.
¡Maldito!
'

‘We should have covered our name.'

‘And admit guilt?'

‘Guilt's only a problem if we're caught.' Eduardo looks away, squinting in the direction of the patrol boat just visible off to port. ‘And they'd still have to prove it's their fish we have on board.' He pauses, his expression hardening. ‘How far will we take this?'

Carlos lifts the binoculars to his face. There's a line of unlit water only a nautical mile ahead—the front. Dark clouds are amassing above them. Soon the sea will be the same deep metallic colour as the skin of the oily fish being processed below. In minutes they'll be caught between the upward thrust of angry waves and the downward force of a sky unleashing its frozen rain.

‘We'll run south until we're free of the government boat,' Carlos says, studying the chart and avoiding Eduardo's eyes, trying to suppress the surge of panic rising in his chest and into his throat. His mouth is acid dry. After a decade of fishing, this is his first trip south and his first time breaking the law. Migiliaro had made it clear that if they were spotted fishing illegally, they must ignore all calls to stop. They must flee, into the ice if necessary. Under maritime law, any high-seas chase must be continuous for a vessel to be successfully prosecuted. Above all, the owner had said, he must not be
contacted. If the
Pescador
escapes, Carlos was promised he would be handsomely rewarded. If not, he, alone, would sink – one way or another. ‘They won't follow us in this weather and, once the chase is broken, we can't be charged.' He knows they have no choice. If they go to Australia as instructed, they'll be made an example of. They'll lose the catch and the boat, and be fined the value of every fish they have ever caught in their lives. ‘Julia's having the baby in a few months,' he continues quietly, almost to himself. ‘We have to go home.' He grips the wheel hard, trying to keep his emotions from clouding his judgment as he reads an updated electronic weather chart. The isobars are piling up behind the front.

The Australian master speaks again. ‘
Pescador, Pescador, Pescador,
you have breached Australia's Fisheries Act and the United Nation's International Law of the Sea by fishing without permission in these waters. We will pursue you. Do you understand?'

‘They won't, Look at those clouds. They wouldn't dare,' Carlos says, finally looking his first mate and best friend in the eye. ‘
¡Vete al infierno!
' he shouts at the vessel on the horizon and hammers the
Pescador
towards the storm.

‘Stupid bloody selfish bastard.' The Australian master spits more saliva than words. Dave Bates doesn't usually wear his heart on his sleeve, but he is angry. The illegal vessel is forcing a chase and threatening his crew. Still, he observes his orders to follow the boat—for now.

The
Pescador,
waving a Uruguayan flag from the stern, is ploughing through the large seas, heading due south. Every now and then, she disappears like a toy behind a wave.

It's September, the maximum extent of pack ice, and while most icebergs will be frozen into the pack, Dave knows he can't rely on it. He keeps his eyes on the radar, and on the seas in front of him. From the number of birds feasting in the
Pescador
's wake, it's clear the illegals have discarded fish scraps – valuable evidence—from the processing. But he hasn't got time to trawl for that now. Soon it will be dark for twelve hours. He uses the arm of his fleece to wipe a film of nervous sweat from his forehead and upper lip. Harry Perdman, his first mate, hands him a covered mug of coffee, and Dave takes a sip, burning his lips.

‘Sorry, mate. Should've warned you,' Harry apologises, behind a careworn smile.

‘Least of my worries, Harry.'

Dave's thick, freckled fingers, tug at the red-grey beard forming on his chin. He thinks of Margie, his wife, teasing him every time he returns home from sea: ‘If you'd just shave off that atrocious beard, you'd look a decade younger.' But he knows that if she were here now she wouldn't be joking. She'd be spitting chips.

He broke his promise to her the moment he embarked on this chase. The ‘hot pursuit', as it's legally known, is his first and, with any luck, will be his last. Since throwing in the towel on his own fishing career, he's been skippering the
Australis
for six months each year on behalf of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. His main job has been to ensure that vessels don't pose a pollution threat to Australian waters, with the occasional search-and-rescue mission just to keep him on his toes. The last few weeks, however, had been a whole new ball game. The
Australis
had been chartered by Customs and the Australian Fisheries Management Authority to act as a deterrent to illegal fishers. He was to report sightings of suspected illegal fishing activities around Heard and McDonald Islands, three thousand nautical miles southwest of his home in Tasmania. The only contact with foreign boats, he'd been assured, would be a radio call, informing them of their crime. He'd promised Margie he'd stick to his brief. ‘Don't go playing cowboys,' she had said. ‘You're not the bloody navy.' But what was he supposed to do when the
Fisheries Minister moved the goalposts on him? The naval frigate that was on standby to help out had been called to Timor, leaving just him and the illegal boat and the water between them.

Harry answers a call from the Maritime Operations branch of the Australian Customs Service and hands the phone to Dave.

‘It's Roger Wentworth,' Harry says.

Dave silently swears. ‘Dave Bates here, Roger.'

‘G'day David. I take it our illegals haven't responded.'

‘Did you really expect they would?' Dave asks, studying the radar and the illegal boat's plotted course. He continues before Wentworth can answer. ‘It looks like they're heading southwest. Further into the weather. We've just crossed a front into a low-pressure system and, to give you an idea, I reckon the seas are building to fifteen metres.'

‘That's big then?'

Dave shakes his head in dismay. He imagines Wentworth phoning from a comfortable Canberra office, perhaps doodling a picture on an otherwise blank notepad. Busy work. ‘What level of that government office block are you on there, Roger?'

‘The fifth…'

‘Well imagine being on the street below and having a wave as high as your office hurtling towards you like there's no tomorrow. And then throw in eighty-knot winds!' A large wave strikes the boat side on. ‘Shit!'

Dave drops the phone's receiver and switches off the autopilot to use the wheel, the manual helm. He heads the boat directly into the weather.

‘Jesus! Harry, take the wheel, mate.' Dave hands over control of the boat and hauls the phone back up by its cord. ‘Okay, Roger. I'm back. Bit hard to chat and steer in these conditions.'

‘Okay, okay…' Wentworth placates.

‘It's not bloody okay. You clearly have no frigging idea.' Dave reads the instruments and watches the boat's speed slow momentarily on the ascent of a wave. He swears again as the
Australis
accelerates off the back of the wall of water. ‘Look, in many ways this is a typical Southern Ocean storm. What's not typical, though, is that we're less than twenty-four hours from the pack ice, which I can tell you right now I'm keeping the hell away from.' Dave's words are forced out as the boat hits the bottom of a trough. ‘And I'm not keen to rub shoulders with an iceberg down here, either, if it's all the same to you.'

‘You're into icebergs already?'

‘Anytime now.'

‘Well, mate, just keep on top of the illegals for as long as you can.'

Dave cringes at Wentworth's attempt at sounding blokey and familiar. Who does he think he's fooling? But Wentworth perseveres, oblivious. ‘They can't keep going south forever. By the way, I've done a search on the boat.
Pescador
means
fishermen. No surprises there. Still can't track down the owner though—'

‘No surprises there, either.'

‘No, well, I'd bet my bottom dollar he's not from Uruguay. But he can't hide behind the bloody flag state forever. Uruguay might be happy to register foreign vessels and then turn a blind eye to their illegal activities, but it doesn't mean we have to let them get away with poaching in our waters. We'll flush them out. And your boat's got a clear advantage. It turns out that while the
Pescador
was built in Vigo, just like ours,
she
's not ice-strengthened.'

‘And that's supposed to make me feel better?'

Roger is silent for a moment. ‘I'm under instructions from the Customs Minister to not let this one go. And I gather the Fisheries Minister is pretty adamant too.

‘Apparently.' He recalls his conversation—just hours ago—with a staffer at the fisheries management authority. Dave had made the call as soon as he sighted the
Pescador
moving slowly, as if bringing in a longline, within Australian waters. The staffer had phoned back with the Minister's answer inside ten minutes: ‘Chase them. Don't let them out of your sights.' The Australian master feels the breath of both politicians—two departments—down his neck.

‘Well, I know I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but it's vital under the International Law of the
Sea that the chase is “hot and continuous”, to use the lingo. If you break it, we'll have Buckley's of prosecuting this boat. That means keeping the
Pescador
in your sights, or at the very least on your radar. You need to be in constant contact with those bastards. We're setting a precedent here. You could be making history. We need to send a message to all the other illegals out there once and for all.'

‘We'll do what we can, but I'm not going to endanger my crew. If things begin to get dicey, I'll have to pull out, or just shadow the buggers from further north. End of story. It's on my head if something goes wrong down here, not yours or either of the flaming Minister's. If they were here right now, I reckon they'd be wishing they were in brown trousers. And it's not exactly blowing my frock up, either!'

Dave hangs up the phone and inspects the weather chart. The centre of the intense low is spiralling just south of them. ‘This is madness,' he mutters to Harry. In another month he'll be handing over the reins of the
Australis
to the alternate master and crew and can get back to renovating the latest investment property that he and Margie have bought. Right now he knows what he'd rather be doing.

‘Yep, those government types'd be the first to duck for cover in a storm half this size,' Harry says, as he concentrates hard on the seas. At fifty, Harry is as good a seaman as they come. ‘The only storms they know about are the storms in their teacups the politicians blow up for them.'

Jack Everett—who they all call Cactus in honour of his prickly personality—enters the wheelhouse and Harry briefs him on Wentworth's satellite call. ‘If we know where they're headed, why don't we just arrange for an armed ship to board 'em there?' Cactus asks. ‘Why the hell do we have to chase 'em?'

‘Once they're in another country's waters, they're off the hook,' Dave says, registering Harry's smirk at the pun. ‘It's Law of the Sea stuff, Cactus. You know the deal.' But Dave suspects Cactus has kept his knowledge of international law to a bare minimum. He's a seaman, not a bureaucrat.

‘Christ knows what we're s'posed to do when we catch up with the bastards.
We
can't bloody board! What sort of mugs does Canberra think we are? The illegals'll 'ave guns. You can count on it.'

It's the sort of rise Dave has come to expect from Cactus, but the lack of a plan for apprehending the
Pescador
is on the master's mind, too. ‘We'll just have to hope for armed assistance if it comes to that.'

‘What a bloody joke! We could chase 'em from 'ere to kingdom come, and still not nab 'em. And there'll be another ten boats fishin' out there right now, changin' their fuckin' flag state whenever the hell it suits 'em.' Cactus flattens the palm of his hand across his eyes and presses his fingers and thumb into his temples. ‘I've 'ad enough of this bullshit. I'm grabbing some shut-eye,
if
I can manage to stay in me bunk. No doubt you'll want me at the helm later tonight.'

Dave nods and Cactus leaves with an exasperated flick of his hand.

‘I'll sit this one out with you,' Harry says. ‘Till she blows over a bit.'

Dave gives an appreciative nod and the men fall into a companionable silence. Dave finds himself thinking of Roger Wentworth, who he met briefly last year at a border protection workshop in Hobart. He pictures him regarding the world through his fashionable square-rimmed glasses from the fifth floor of the Australian Customs building. He knows the pen-pusher won't be able to fathom a wave that high. He imagines Wentworth sitting down in a rush of vertigo and taking a sip of herbal tea. But then how could he expect this man to understand what it is like to both love and fear something in the same instant? Wentworth has probably never even been to sea. At sea. No doubt he has only ever seen fishing vessels in port, where they loom like monsters, forty metres long and ten metres high above the water. Out here, it's a different matter. They're almost invisible.

Dave loses the
Pescador
behind a wave. It's uncanny, he thinks, that the two boats—the
Australis
and the
Pescador
– are, in effect, siblings, born of the same Spanish port. Fate has reunited the vessels, both painted red and white, for their toughest journey yet. The
Australis,
he knows, while slow for her size, is at least up to the conditions. The
Pescador,
according to Wentworth, was not built for this.

Dave pictures the chase from the air, and sees the boats as small bath toys knocking about in a foaming tub. He imagines a giant child, like a dispassionate god, creating enormous waves with clumsy hands. The child laughs as the twin boats pitch and roll, silent against the force of the sea, leading each other deeper into trouble.