‘Do I look like his fucking secretary, Nash? Go ask him yourself.’

Through the windscreen, the long bow of the Albany was groping through the mist. The sight reminded Nash of circling a foggy runway in a jet, and he appealed to Hartono.

‘You’re a pilot. Can’t you see this is nuts?’

‘We have radar.’ He insolently flicked the screen beside him. ‘This is what it’s for.’

Radar provided no protection in a river full of submerged hazards. Realising his warnings were futile, Nash took the stairs three at a time and found Kaboro slumped in the mess, before a coffee he did not appear to be drinking.

‘Sir Julius called last night,’ he explained woodenly. ‘I’ve been relieved of command.’

‘For God’s sake, why?’

‘Obstructing progress and exceeding my authority.’

‘That’s insane.’

Through the porthole, tendrils of mist were spiralling past. That the defence minister of a sovereign nation could place a foreign national in command of his own personnel was extraordinary. Equally horrifying was Kaboro’s passive acceptance of the situation. The man seemed to have given up.

‘You are responsible for our safety,’ Nash told him harshly. ‘Surely you can see the Indonesians are dangerously inept. You must take back control of the ship.’

Kaboro shook his head firmly. ‘As a military officer, I am obliged to obey orders. PNGDF personnel remain under my command, but Goki has the ship.’

Nash stabbed his finger at the porthole.

‘Take another look out there, Kaboro. How many men will you command if we hit a log and sink?’

Daniel Yanos stepped nimbly into his new canoe and let momentum glide them out into the mist. For the past month, he and his brothers had laboriously carved the dugout canoe from an eight-metre-long, dead-straight kwila log, purchased upriver where the great trees fought for the light. Towing it home, they’d hauled it out of the water and made a huge fire. The red-hot coals scorched the wood and aided the hollowing-out process, done by hand with sharp steel adzes.

Daniel took his first stroke with the long paddle. A fishing canoe is prone to capsize while hauling in loaded nets, thus symmetry was vital. The other essential was an even hull thickness to ensure no bias, which could prove disastrous in the squalls and waves encountered on the wide river. To achieve this, Daniel and his brothers had used notched strings stretched along each side of the canoe to mirror curvature and thickness. After several stokes, Daniel knew the canoe was perfectly balanced. He felt a glow of satisfaction and hope for the future. A well-made canoe would last half a lifetime and feed many children.