XVI. We Have No SIS
We’re in for a long night,
A strong night…
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Christchurch, Canterbury
April 12, 1984
The Prime Minister had been bundled rather unceremoniously into a waiting car on the tarmac the moment his plane back from Melbourne had landed, a Skoda which had been furnished by some councillor or another (who was probably all too pleased to have a Communist car taken off his hands) and now roared through the darkened streets of Christchurch towards the Civic, the grand old building which now did duty as Government House.
The car pulled up on Cathedral Square, and Palmer was rushed somewhat wheezily up the stairs to the main door, taking a moment inside to use the conveniences and (more importantly) catch his breath before heading up to a conference room on the first floor where Cabinet now sat.
“Hello, good evening, hi,” he said to nobody in particular as he swept through the fine oak doors, into the snowdrifts of paperwork and general fug of bodies too busy to be washed regularly, to take the seat left vacant at the head of the table. As sweat filtered through the pores he’d given a quick sluicing-down only a few moments earlier and he tried to cover it up by affecting a casual sweep of his hand through his hair, Palmer looked at his colleagues for the first time.
“Well…what did we think of the speech?”
Nobody said anything for a few long moments, instead looking at the Prime Minister as if he’d just arrived from Mars. When a response did come, it was a question from Lange.
“It was…it did the job. Was it…all, ah,
entirely within the lines of truth?”
“Well, now, that depends on what you mean, David,” said the PM as his composure flooded back. “If you’re asking about whether it’s all what Hawke and I were told by the Brits who came back on the
Perth and was corroborated by many of their crewmates, then yes, it was true. I’d also add,” a meaningful look “that it’s precisely the truth which will be disseminated now and, should frail academics like myself prove more resilient than the cockroaches, when the history books come to be written. But if you’re asking within our happy little family here in your capacity as Party Leader and Minister of Foreign Affairs”
God, you can hear
Cooper glaring “then I’d say that none of it is strictly false, provided you’ve got a generous definition of the truth.”
“Ah-ye-es,” said Venn Young from elsewhere in the room “I thought there was some creative editing between the lines. So how much is true, then? Reckon the crew of the Perth weren’t exactly lining up to stay, were they?”
“From what I gathered from Bob” (the use of the casual first-name basis exacting a cocked eyebrow from Lange) “he was displeased enough at the news from the captain of the ship that he toyed with not sending anything back at all.”
“You’re joking!” blurted the Minister of Energy, sparking a brief argument before Palmer raised a palm.
“I understand, Bill, that Mister Hawke is under a more…stressful set of circumstances than ourselves. The Hobart is missing, presumed sunk somewhere en route to Britain soon after the war started, and they had to resort to bombing parts of Sydney to keep the bikies from overrunning evacuation centres. In these circumstances, it’s not altogether unreasonable that he took the news of half the Perth’s crew being taken hostage – kept as some sort of deposit –poorly. As I expect anyone reasonable would,” he added with a sharp glance.
“What about England – well, the UK?” pressed Justice. “You were pretty bloody cagey about things outside’a Portsmouth – is there anything left outside’a Portsmouth?”
Palmer blew air through his teeth and clicked his pen as he drew up the shortlist (
a very short list, and no kidding yourself there) in his mind.
“Oxford, surprisingly enough. Also Swansea, as well as Aberdeen – which is where the refineries are, even though the Russians hit the wells themselves fairly hard. Um…the important bits of Newcastle are still there; a near miss or something, I believe…ah…Brighton, down in the south, Lancaster, Ipswich, Norwich, uh…” His brow furrowed as he struggled to think of anywhere else, the tension in the air almost palpable as the two dozen men and women around the room tried to play a backwards game of fill-in-the-blanks. “Ah!” said the Prime Minister with a start, rifling through his briefcase as a thought occurred to him. Finding an old envelope, he began to read aloud from it. “Yes, yes…Ipswich…Inverness, and…” The brow creased again, the eyes scanning the piece of paper on which his counterpart across the ditch had written the information passed on to him by the Australian Navy captain, the mind not quite believing the absences on there as he read. Eventually, Palmer looked up guiltily at the Cabinet.
“And that,” he said with an air of finality “is about that.”
Two dozen pairs of eyes stared at him in astonishment. A stammered question came on casualties. Palmer’s mouth set itself into a tight line and he stared emptily as he answered.
“Millions. Tens of millions. There are maybe, we think, twenty million left alive. The population before the bombs fell was roughly fifty-five millions.”
The silence that followed was rent only by the Minister of Employment’s slow “Fuck me!” and the Minister of Trade suggesting that perhaps the country really could afford to send an aid shipment or two to Blighty, but even these remarks paled in comparison to the sudden frantic knocking at the door which, when Koro Wetere opened it, turned out to be from a runner who’d come from the communications room that had been set up in one of the smaller storerooms. Wading his way through the room to the Prime Minister, the worn-looking young man (who Palmer thought he recognised, might’ve been called Something-Or-Other Keyes) gave a curt “Message from Melbourne” and handed over a piece of paper. Palmer scanned it, giving a double-take when his eyes hit what Hawke (for it was he) was driving at in the communique.
…INS Godavari
en route to Port Hedland…escorting two freighters, carries diplomatic personnel. Arranging meeting w/them there, going with PM and Foreign Minister hats on to oversee proceedings…info about situation in subcontinent; find enclosed below…
“Oh…Jesus me,” breathed the Prime Minister, briefly forgetting that there were other people in the room. He blinked and clicked his pen as he mused on what to tell them.
“Does…anyone know about the status of the Indian High Commission staff? I believe we’re going to need to see them…oh, David? You may want to pack an overnight bag.”
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You! Look what you’ve done to me!
You lit me, you bit me, I’m rapt…
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From
Hot Spots: Readings in Indo-Australasian International Relations (Dunedin: University of Otago Press (National Centre for International Relations), 2014).
…contingent aboard included no less than the Minister of External Affairs, P.V. Narasimha Rao, who divulged to Hawke exactly what had transpired in India as the lamps went out across Europe.
The Soviets had spared plenty of megatonnage for the subcontinent, even considering their thoroughness in dealing with NATO. Pakistan had been hit by tactical weapons based somewhere in Central Asia, and the theory that this was in retaliation for that country’s ongoing support of freedom fighters in Afghanistan was reinforced by the use of a strategic-yield weapon on Peshawar, at the foot of Khyber Pass – one of the primary routes, incidentally, to the Afghans – and Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and the Kojak [sic] Pass would follow in short order…
…military government pulled itself together in surviving locales such as Rawalpindi, Multan, and Faisalabad, albeit bereft of a not inconsiderable number of senior officers. That these centres of emergency government were at first unaware of and then briefly in competition with one another contributed significantly to the next week of hostilities…
…uncertain whether it was the Soviets or the Chinese who attacked India; while the warmer relationship with the USSR and history of hostility with China implied the latter, it was equally plausible that the Soviets had extended their policy of attacking even non-aligned states to limit the number of potential allies who might help their enemies rebuild. Given the role India would play in Operation Transit-Of-Venus and the Reconstruction, this was not perhaps completely inadvisable on their part under strategic logic (though it remains of course as inexcusable a war crime as any of the other nuclear attacks on neutral…
…spite of the destruction of much of China’s second-strike capacity, it seems probable from the geographical spread of targets that it was a missile regiment in Tibet (or, on an outside chance, some of their Soviet counterparts in Outer Mongolia) which launched the initial salvo…
…any case, New Delhi and much of the surrounding metropolis was gone. Even though it was a comparatively small nuclear detonation which hit the city – by the standards of the Exchange, at least – having been estimated as no more powerful than five hundred kilotons, the airburst sufficed to annihilate an area between Palam Airport and the River Yamuna, injuring two million or so people and killing a million more outright. Chief amongst these was Indira Gandhi, the long-serving and often polemical Prime Minister of India…her son, Rajiv, would soon find himself propelled into power even more reluctantly than when he entered government at his mother’s behest…
…rest of the situation only became apparent to the younger Gandhi over the next couple of weeks as the government attempted to replace the uncountable government ministers and bureaucrats immolated in Delhi…
…Calcutta received a similar airburst as the capital, and Old Bombay was not to escape unscathed either…others included Poona, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Jaipur, Ludhiana and Bhopal, where the damage suffered at a large chemical plant would lead to a major chemical leak making the chaos even worse than…
…Pakistani contingent in Kashmir, upon losing communications with Islamabad, launched its own small punitive action against their counterparts on the other side of the ceasefire line. Unfortunately for them, the Indians were better-prepared, and so a week of confused fighting erupted along the front until the Faisalabad clique, emerging victorious in the brief but vicious internal government struggle (in a conflict perhaps even dirtier than that unfolding on the Punjab frontier), called for an end to the informal state of hostilities…
…the fact that this occurred only a couple of days after the rapid escalation of hostilities between the two neighbours is no coincidence, particularly in the wake of the decision taken by an Army division to deploy the rudimentary nuclear devices which were the sum total of Pakistan’s atomic bomb project. The first blow happened in the wee small hours of February 28th, as an Indian armoured formation forced their retreat across the Jhelum River, causing vast military casualties from both the actual blast and the large amount of fallout it generated; the second took place only a couple of minutes later, vaporising the division staging out of Ferozepore…tactical retaliatory strikes on Pakistani units – and more to the point, upon the nuclear research site at Kahuta – forced Pakistan’s hand and led to a white peace as both countries woke up to and focused on their own immense domestic challenges…
…Indian delegation brought more than just news of the situation; they also brought a willingness to cooperate with Australia and New Zealand on “matters of regional significance.” Subsequently, David Lange summarised the situation thus: “They were happy to play ball with us, on the understanding they were granted a piece of the pie.” And a piece of the pie they would get when…
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Asian cigarettes
A long talk, a few cans
If you can…
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Port Hedland, Western Australia
April 17, 1984
Autumn out West was always a bit of a sick joke to a man like Bob Hawke, accustomed as he was to the soothing rather than searing heat of the season.
To David Lange, who’d grown up with Auckland’s humidity, it was as near an approximation of Hell as he’d ever come across. He sat in the dignified silence of diplomacy, percolating in the lightest suit he’d been able to get his hands on and which even now felt like he was buried to his neck in a wool bale.
Outside, the port sat under the oppressive heat pressing down on them like God’s iron, the town wound up into a frenzy of activity since the Indian frigate turned up in the harbour with a brace of freighters in tow. Inside, the trans-Tasman delegations sat across from their Indian counterpart, Mister Rao, a Telugu with dark eyes and a hairline beating a hasty retreat down the sides of his head.
As my predecessor might have said, the inscrutable Oriental, thought Lange, as Rao began speaking in that croaking, measured, and noticeably accented drawl.
“Mister Prime Minister, and Minister, I thank you for meeting me at such short notice in such an…inconwenient location.”
“No trouble at all, Minister,” responded Hawke, taking priority over Lange in both diplomatic rank and (alas) nationality. “Yes, to meet a representative of one of our Commonwealth partners and friendly if, ah, somewhat distant neighbours, particularly given the circumstances; well, I’m sure you’ve come further to be here than we have.”
“Yes,” chimed in David, “I’m sure it was a long voyage from…sorry, I assumed Madras or somewhere along the eastern coast, but I confess that we haven’t had much information on your situation, at least” the briefest cool glance at the Australian “not on my side of the ditch.”
“You are both right; I have come from Madras with part of our Eastern Command’s naval force. We were escorted in by the
Stuart, one of your own western-based ships, though I understand that Perth did not surwive the war.”
“That’s…accurate, Mister Rao; Fleet Base West was, we believe, targeted directly by one of the three Russian attacks along the coast there.” Rao’s eyebrows hopped quarter of an inch. Presumably that qualified for excitement in the world of diplomacy.
“Sorry, Bob – Mister Prime Minister – but I wondered, Mister Rao, if you were interested in an exchange of what we know of the wider situation. Honesty mightn’t be the most natural stance to take in meetings such as this, but,” Lange spread his wide, sweating palms “we live in interesting times.”
Rao gave a small smile. “It is nice to see the Antipodean directness in action; you understand that my usual environment is werry much more stratified than yours, so forgive my reticence. Well, if we were to begin by perhaps getting an understanding on what cities were hit, we could move on to say what has happened in our regions over the last two months. They have been…eventful…in India, I assure you.”
Lange and Hawke were unsurprised at news of the annihilation of Delhi, Bombay (which the External Minister insisted on pronouncing “Mwumbai”), and Calcutta; nor was Rao surprised at the losses of Canberra, Sydney, Perth, and Darwin. Eyebrows were raised over the survival of Melbourne and the corresponding destruction of Auckland and Wellington, though not nearly as much as those of the Australasians upon hearing of the barney that had broken out in Pakistan.
“Is there any idea at the moment,” asked Lange upon getting the synopsis from the Indian, “of the make-up or stability of whoever’s running things in Faisalabad?”
“The new administration has expressed little interest in communicating with our own Extraordinary Government in Agra,” Rao said, adding with what verged on disinterest “an attitude undoubtedly arising due to the recent misfortune to befall both our nations and the regrettable actions taken by both sides.”
In other words, thought Lange,
fuck the Pakis: they made their bed and we damn well obliged them to lay in it. A briefly-shared glance with Hawke indicated that Australia and New Zealand were in agreement in that analysis.
“And the domestic situation in India itself?” pressed the Australian. “I mean, as well as all of those millions dead, what challenges d’you face which might be…problematic for our interactions?”
“Rebels and bandits in the hills are being dealt with where they still persist, if that is what you are referring to,” replied the Indian offhandedly, “but beside that, the primary concerns of continuity of government and supply of essential goods is being restored, although not painlessly. Our three nations share oil deficits, I understand.”
It wasn’t a question, and struck the Australian rather bluntly - early estimates figured that there we're maybe nine months of lubricants at hand; maybe a year’s worth if the rationing system became tighter yet. And pending the resumption of a steady, reliable supply from the refineries of Victoria and Adelaide, Australia’s industry was in very real danger of grinding quite literally to a halt.
“Yes. We’ve been able to manage some exchange between our two countries, but between us there’s scarcely enough fuel oil to supply the convoy being planned for Britain.”
“Here at least, Your Excellency, I believe my nation may be able to offer assistance.” The supreme confidence in that statement took Lange and Hawke aback. “The Prime Minister and his adwisers have deemed it whytal to India’s international position to quickly restore relations with the surwiving Western powers, and so the Navy has been preparing their own sizable contingent to send abroad. Primarily non-perishable items, of course; large amount of American ration packs from several years ago, tinned foods, et cetera – enough to feed some thousands for weeks.”
“We’ve got a similar layout,” disclosed Lange. “Cabinet has authorised several RNZN ships and a number of refrigerated ships have been, uh, requisitioned.”
Hawke said much the same, before fixing the Indian with a far sharper glance. “So, how does this square up for you lot? Casting the “dear mother Britannia” nonsense aside, that is; the Poms gave you far less reason to be nostalgic for ‘em.”
Rao gave a cryptic smile. “Now, I think that is an unfair type of question, Excellency. Britain is, as we have discussed, crippled, and unlikely to rise again for some time. Still, as foreign powers have discovered to their disadwantage, their military remains a force to be reckoned with.”
“You know about Argentina, then,” responded the Australian tersely.
“Communications aren’t rapid at present, but Agra is neither deaf nor blind. Is it not therefore desirable, Prime Minister, that we act as necessary to ensure the stability of Britain’s government? Preserving the Old World trappings of democracy, in a state which is in threat of regression to a style of international relations more in line with the feudal era, is not simply…not just a humanitarian mission, but a security-focussed one. As the citizens of Buenos Aires discovered, colder heads are not prevailing in Portsmouth at the moment.”
“Not to mention,” interjected Lange, “that by shipping several thousand tonnes of food to the other side of the world, you get to hint that India’s in better shape than it – than it might otherwise be imagined to be.”
Rao gazed at Lange for a good long few seconds, the ticking of the clock the only sound in the rest of the world of heat and light and shadow before he responded with the barest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
“How fortunate we are, Mister Lange, that there are such selfless powers as Australia and New Zealand to offer aid without entertaining the prospect of such Machiawellian schemes.”
“I reckon,” said David after a few more long, silent moments “that our three countries may be able to do more than any of us had thought. Prime Minister?”
“Looks like it, Mister Lange. Naturally, we encourage cooperation with the British, but as we realise we’re more capable than other powers, we are prepared to maintain the rule of law in our backyard. Solely to lighten the load on others, of course.”
Rao and Lange glanced at one another and smiled.
“Yes, Prime Minister.”
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Another smoke, another can
Another conversation, maybe…
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Civil Defence Processing Centre AKL-04 [Mangere]
April 19, 1984
“Line up in single file!” bawled the Territorial herding the crowd towards the admin hut they’d set up a few days back, breaking off to point a finger at one man and snap “single file, you daft bastard, or I’ll kick your arse so far to the back you’ll walk from fuckin’ Pukekohe!” before continuing his chant: “Line up, single fi-le, fer identification cards!”
Grace shuffled forwards with Alex, the two making the same small talk as everyone else was on what they thought would come of this latest development. Nothing good, was the consensus. Still, ‘not good’ didn’t necessarily mean ‘bad’. And even ‘bad’ was an improvement on living in a tent and sponging yourself down with a damp rag every two days in lieu of bathing.
The Mangere camp was, although nobody inside had any way of confirming their suspicions, one of the more disorderly refugee facilities in the country. The area had been struggling along even before the bomb hit Auckland; understandably, it was felt among the locals that their needs took priority over the folks from up the road who hadn’t been smart enough to get out while there was time. That wasn’t to say that there wasn’t sympathy – how couldn’t there be, when by now everyone in the country knew at least half a dozen people who’d died here – but when the shops were being gradually closed up or co-opted into the government’s wider rationing programme and the cars weren’t driving and one person of every two hadn’t been called in to work for two months, the spirit of hospitality began finding itself increasingly scarce.
Once she got inside the admin hut, Grace was given a rough square of card with the details she gave to a soldier who grilled her briefly before being directed to a room (with four walls and everything!) with a note outside reading IDENT. H-L and a harried man in a wrinkled shirt with several boxes stacked around him.
“Enter,” he murmured without looking up from the form he was filling out, holding out a hand and barking out an almost-angry “Card.” Grace obeyed, and he started copying down her details onto the form.
“Usual residence: Panmure?” he asked, and before waiting for confirmation added “Long way from home, girlie. Relative status deceased-slash-unknown…” his voice descended back into a murmur as he continued filling out the form and briefly conferred with a large volume sitting next to him as Grace looked around the room.
Boxes lined every wall, or at least every one not covered in file cabinets, with surnames and places roughly stencilled or scrawled onto each. The open box had a similar legend to that on the door:
E.CENT: F-Mo., with a squint at the book the man was looking through showing what seemed to be a more comprehensive type of phonebook. Suddenly, the fellow spun the book to face her and jabbed a finger at her last name.
“Any of these one of your parents?” he asked, drumming the fingers of his left hand impatiently while those on his right twirled a pen idly. After a while she came across the details of one SANDRA ELIZABETH and nodded, indicating it to the man sitting across the desk. With a flourish he inscribed her mother’s details and signed off at the bottom, handing the form across to her as he signed next to the name in the electoral roll and gave a similarly-irritable “Sign where it says.” Grace complied meekly and he took the form back, scanning it quickly and nodding briskly, tearing off and handing her a sheet of carbon paper underneath.
“Take-to-Processing-and-follow-their-instructions; follow-the-red-line,” he said like he was reading from (
probably is reading from) a script, before responding to her question of what and why with nothing but a terse “It’ll be explained to you when you get there.” Suitably dehumanised, dazed, and confused, she left and navigated the corridors.
When she left the hut a while – an hour, ten minutes, twenty? – later, Grace was holding what she was reliably informed was to be her ration card and identity from now on, to be reported if lost or stolen under penalty of the EPA, whatever that meant. Back at the tent – to which she walked alone for the first time in several weeks – everyone else had one too. By the end of the next day, everyone in line for dinner (now the third of three daily meals) had one, and they were naturally a hot topic. Among other things.
So it was that Grace and her tentmates learned of the transportations.
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I knew you – not long
I knew you – you’re so strong
So strong…
