******
Next day we were running down the river when we spotted Johnny Blackman’s straying houseboat, the one that Barney had seen going out into Broken Bay. It was coming back upstream, safe and sound after all. Half an hour later, we saw the same houseboat stuck fast in the middle of one of Bill Evans’ oyster beds. Oyster beds have white marker posts around the outsides, but the dickheads steering the boat had gone on the wrong side of the posts, straight into the oyster bed, making a bloody great hole in the wire netting and a real mess of the oyster trays. They were trying to back out, but they had absolutely no idea what they were doing. Dad took Annabelle over to have a look. There was a crowd of Asian-looking guys on board, all waving their arms and jabbering away in some foreign language. Dad called across to them “Need help?” One of them pointed over towards the harbour. “Take us there, please.” Dad maneuvered Annabelle as close as he could get and we tied up to a marker pole.
We launched the life raft, and me and Tim paddled through the hole in the netting. Ten Asians climbed into the raft carrying heaps of suitcases and bundles tied up in cloth, and there were more trying to climb in after them. “No more” I said, holding up a hand, “we’ll come back again”. The geezer who spoke English and seemed to be the boss said something to the others, and they all calmed down. Me and Tim made three trips backwards and forwards, and transferred twenty-six all told onto Annabelle. They were mostly men, but there were some women, and two kids. I noticed the women had to wait till last. Seeing them up close they looked like Afghans or Pakistanis or something, and they all smelt bloody strange. I’ve heard that comes from eating curry all the time. We headed back to the harbour. “How much do I charge ‘em dad?’" Dad smiled. “Well they’ve had half a ferry trip, so I reckon five dollars each is fair.” As we tied up I ran out the gangplank and said to the man who spoke English “Five dollars each please, that’s a hundred and forty dollars all together, near enough.” One of the men tried to push past me, but I barred the way. I saw a glint of steel, but then the leader said something, and gave me three fifty-dollar bills and I gave him ten bucks change.
“How we go Sydney?” asked the leader. “You want to go to Sydney? Take the bloody train. There’s the station, over there.” I pointed the way. Dad said “What about your houseboat?” They pretended they didn’t understand and hurried off towards the station, loaded up with their baggage; or at least the women seemed to be carrying most of it. I dropped a hundred and thirty dollars fare into the cash box and put the ten dollars excess into my pocket. Well they say opportunity never knocks twice. Tim said “What the hell were all those people doing on one house boat? That size boat is only supposed to carry six.” “Search me.” “There’s something very strange about that lot” I said to dad. “You can say that again. Might be an idea to let the cops know.” “Yeh. I’ll do that.” I went into the office and dialed the emergency number. “… and when I asked for the fare one of them started to pull a knife,” I said into the phone. “Yes, right, we’ll come now,” said the cops. Yes, right, we used to have our own police station here in town but in one of those government ‘better efficiency’ drives our station got closed down. Now the nearest cops are stationed miles away, and it takes ‘em at least half an hour to get here, so I knew by the time they arrived the Asians would be long gone.
Next I phoned Johnny Blackman who owned the houseboat. “Hi Johnny, mate, I’ve got good news and bad news for you. You know that houseboat you leased to the Asians? Well the good news is it didn’t sink out in Broken Bay after all, it came back up the river this morning. The bad news is it’s now stuck in the middle of one of Bill Evan’s oyster beds, and the Pakis’ have all ‘opped it.” Some rude words came out of the phone. “Well never mind Johnny, your boat didn’t look too bad, but the paintwork’ll need a bit of touching up. All you have to do now is haul it out of the oyster bed. Why d’you allow so many people aboard?” “What do you mean?” “Well there were twenty six on board. That size houseboat is only supposed to carry six ain’t it?” “Twenty-six? There were only two of the bastards when they left here!”
I kept my greatest pleasure till last. Bill Evans the oyster farmer is a real pig-headed, bad tempered old bastard, and I don’t just dislike him, I hate him. I gave him a call. “Bill my friend, this is Jack Farley here, nice to talk to you again! Listen, I’ve got wonderful news for you, one of Johnny Blackman’s houseboats is sitting smack in the middle of your oyster bed downstream from the railway bridge. It’s made a nice old mess of the netting, and your trays are all bashed up. Better get out there quick before the fish get in and start eating all your bloody oysters.” Some extremely vulgar words came out of the phone, one or two I’d never heard before, and he was still swearing when he shot past us along the wharf. He jumped into his workboat, and roared off down the harbour. Even dad was smiling.
In good time two coppers drove up in a white police car. The senior police constable didn’t look much older than me, and his uniform looked brand new. He had a little woman constable with him that looked like she couldn’t fight her way out of a paper bag yet alone arrest a violent criminal. The senior constable asked us all about the houseboat and the people on board. “I don’t understand it” I said, “two Asians went out in the houseboat and twenty six came back.” “Yeh?" "I bet they’re illegal immigrants being smuggled into Australia. I bet the houseboat picked up all the others from a ship out in Broken Bay, and if they hadn’t got stuck in the oyster bed they’d have been dropped off here and caught the train into Sydney, and you guys wouldn’t have been any the wiser.” He looked at me a bit irritated. “How long is it since they left here?” I looked at my watch. “Well they caught the train forty minutes ago, so they’ll get to Central Station in about half an hour.” “If we’re quick we can round them up when they get off the train. I’ll call in straight away.”
They hurried round to their car, and had a long conversation on the radio. I strolled over there to hear what happened. “Any good?” I asked “Nah, seems it’s a job for the Department of Immigration, They’ll look into it maybe tomorrow. They say they’ve got no manpower available right now, lousy federal public servants.” I went back to Annabelle. “What happened?” Tim asked. “Seems like they’re going to get clean away, and we bloody well helped ‘em.”