Clarrie’s old friend Dakota 2373/45B
The short trip in the Dakota wasn’t too bad. The plane itself seemed familiar. Clarrie kept saying so. We had quite a time lifting him. The dialysis, still with “ A GIFT FROM THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT TO THE REPUBLIC OF EAST TIMOR 1975′, as a talisman of a high point of Australian diplomacy stencilled on the side, and the iron lung machine on board. The heavy set and muscular Border Force staff were unable to help us. As they said, (rather apologetically), their job description involved tasering, spraying mace, truncheoning, identifying lefty trouble makers and handcuffing malcontents and law breaking illegal immigrants, but nothing to do with iron lungs or dialysis machines. They were afraid if they helped us and did their backs in they’d be ineligible for the NDIS. We had to agree that they had a point. If they got it for just helping people they’d be technically (and you don’t have to be a lawyer at Slater and Gordon to understand it), fucked.
Getting Clarrie on board. A HELL of a business
Still, Clarrie ,recognised it. It was the tappet knockng in the fifth cylinder on the port engine. It was the same plane that had taken his platoon out of Finschafen in 45 after the Japs had surrendered. He said this was an omen, who were we not to believe him that we were gonna come out allright. We HAD to believe him. ‘Funny’ he said, ‘in the olden days Dakota serial number 2373/45 B was just a biscuit bomber, and now, thanks to Australian government funding was a frontline component of the PNG defense force’. Clarrie beamed, Wish I’d bought my decorations, Cec, waggishly quipped, ‘what the eff! are we opening a fish and chip shop or is it a fucken cake shop’!
WE pissed ourselves laughing. After Tuvalu, Ces had picked up a few pointers on diplomacy from Scomo, and could speak “Strong man”. It would hold us in good stead. They respect Strong Men in PNG.
We landed that evening at Port Moresby,
Waldo, (our typesetter) adjusting the Dialysis intake panel en-route
As promised we were dropped in the main street. No sooner than the iron lung and the dialysis machine had been offloaded we were held at knife point by rascols and they flogged the lot. If we didn’t get help soon Clarrie woud be dead . If we dont get help we’ll all be fucked said Clarrie. You can say that again Cec replied grimly, “ allright beamed Clarrie, ‘if we don’t get help we’ll all be fucked’.
“Shove a sock in it, you’re sounding like Jacinta Hardon the Kiwi PM”,Ces replied, Clarrie laughed so loud he ruptured his spleen, the only organ he hadn’t selflessly donated to the Chinese. Still as an Anzac of old, he just took an extra long draw on his ciggie and smiled grimly, You’ve gotta hand it to him I said, “ indestructable”! In Short we were buggered. Stuck in Port Moresby penniless, and not even a Maserati or Lamborghini to get around in.
But then something extraordinary happened. Outta the blue!!! Just like that! The kind Chinese surgeon who’d taken Clarries organs to pay for our Catalina out of Tuvalu just wandered by. I tell you, it’s a million to one. But there he was.
Manaus is paradise compared to Moresby
Clarrie who’d picked up a bit of Mandarin, quipped, “ I’ll be a deceased pangolins testicles” and cogniscent of how these things are prized as an aphrodisoac by Chinese businessmen or senior party leaders, the surgeon turned round, and beamed, ‘You Boys come back’? And we all gathered doing Hi-five’s all round. As Ces proclaimed; “I dunno, Doc having you about is like falling into the shithouse cess pit and coming up like roses”. WE heartilly agreed.
Turns out he was in PNG as part of a trade delegation. Australia had gone tight arse on the PNG, and they‘d turned to China for help. And to their credit, China, came to the party. China has selflessly offered to build em an international airport, a twelve lane freeway, and a ‘worlds best practice’ Space Port right here in Port Moresby. But they were having problems with the locals. You see the locals wanted something special, and with our Tuvalu experience, we were just the people who might be able to help em out.
As Clarrie croaked, (he was dead crook now);’ if we can do it for Sky and Crown we can do it for our little fuzzy wuzzy angels’ . He had a point, it was time to dig deep and hope that this time, once again, our mates from China would help us out.
Only problem being Clarrie. He’d run outta organs. We had to find someone real quick. A man of action , who could talk bilaterally, who could cross the cultural divide between clean living Aussies, primitive tribesmen of New Guinea, and the insidious reach of the Asiatic Horde. A leader, who wasn’t the proverbial chop stick short of the missionary.
Didn’t look too bad on the outside. Another example of Australian nation building know how!
But who could that person be? Clarrie was dying, like the Murray Darling. And if we didn’t come up with an answer soon, we’d all be gone to Murray Cod…
And so ends another thriling installment,
What will happen next? Wlll our boys get out?
Will they keep their testimonials intact?
Or is it as Confucius famously said, “man who put tool in box not neccesarily carpenter”.
Stay tuned for our next thrilling installment,
‘The day of reckoning’, or: “A Mahjong short of the Kuomintang”,
We hoped to be staying here. But it’s GORNE!
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