Mia helped to pin his arms. ‘Listen to me, Frank. I haven’t got the equipment to perform an extraction and there’s no pain relief. Do you understand me?’

Douglas hissed in frustration. ‘Jesus, what difference will it make now? Don’t let me die with this mongrel thing inside me. It feels like a fucking hot coal. Get it out, or I’ll do it by my-bloody-self.’

‘Kaboro, are you still there? Can you hear me?’ Sir Julius Michaels’ voice matched his personality – high-pitched and histrionic; his sentences came in rapid-fire bursts.

‘Yes, sir.’

In the wide shade of a mighty fig, the tender rocked gently on wavelets stirred up by the northerly wind. Clutching his phone, Kaboro smelled smoke and death in his clothes, and his mouth was stubbornly dry despite the canteen of water he had drunk.

‘You say three of our men are dead. Is Miss Suyanto all right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Kaboro visualised the minister’s plush office in Moresby, the framed photographs of armaments his dysfunctional defence force did not possess.

‘Well, thank the dear Lord for that.’

‘Mr Douglas is seriously injured, sir. Also, Mr Goki was evacuated by Shangri-La’s helicopter yesterday, but I have grave concerns for his safety.’

There was a small pause in which Kaboro thought the minister would enquire as to what these concerns were, but instead his voice became cold.

‘How could you have let this disaster happen, Lieutenant?’

Again, Kaboro reported the facts of the collision and subsequent grounding.

‘Yes, yes, I know all that, but why weren’t you on the bridge?’

‘You relieved me, sir.’

‘Go on, go on.’

‘We were in the process of freeing the ship, when we were attacked by a large party of local men. It was a payback reprisal, sir.’

‘That’s illegal.’

‘Yes, sir. Mr Boerman then deployed a heavy machine gun which he had smuggled on board. He killed all of them, sir. A total of nineteen men and boys.’

‘But you were under fire at the time?’

Kaboro fought to stay calm. ‘The villagers never had a chance to surrender. I have arrested Mr Boerman and the pilot, along with Miss Suyanto.’

‘Arrested Miss Suyanto?’ Michaels’ voice rose to a shriek. ‘Are you insane?’

Hurriedly, Kaboro reported their findings in the hold.

‘Sir, I suspect this is a criminal group who have entered our country under false pretences. I have secured the crime scene and await further instructions.’

‘For God’s sake, man! Have you no shame? You should be thanking these men, not persecuting them for doing your job.’

Kaboro squeezed the phone so hard he thought it might shatter.

‘Sir, with all due respect, I do not think the deaths of our citizens can be so easily dismissed.’

There was an ominous silence on the phone before Michaels spoke again.