My Game of two Halves Ch. 02

Robert and I drove into the back country in Mary's Outlander Hybrid SUV on the Friday night so we could be on the river at dawn. Mary stayed behind with the girls. I was really excited about it. It really was the most pleasurable thing I had done apart from my architecture for a year. I realized then how confined and isolated I had become.

Robert appeared unusually tense and obviously had something on his mind. He did warn me that he may be on call but did not expect something to happen. Whatever that was, I knew him as a military man had a mysterious world of his own. We talked a lot about Robert's experiences on the river and the area. He had done a lot of hunting in the past as well as fishing.

We got in late but I was woken early in the morning with the smell of bacon and it wasn't long before we were on the river. We took a packed lunch and just worked our way along the river. It was more an exploratory trip so there wasn't a lot of fishing but we checked out the status of the river and likely pools. There was nobody there that day so we had the river to ourselves. We sat down to lunch by the river on a grassy bank under a couple of large black beech trees. We made the sandwiches up on the spot; they weren't elegant but we stuffed as much ham and salad into them as we could. We accompanied them with a thermos of tea.

It was an ideal spot, a warm day with dappled sunshine shining through the distinctive sparkles of the small beech leaves and the river gurgling past to provide an aural accompaniment. We were both utterly relaxed. Robert chose that time to talk about what Mary had done in South Sudan. Mary was a loggie. She commanded the transport of personnel and materials and was doing that there for the UN. There had been an upsurge of unrest with the pandemic entering the country. She had been organizing a large group of refugees that had fled an infected camp. They had to be guided some 100km to the safety of a UN compound close to where a new isolation refugee camp was to be set up.

They were approaching the compound when they were ambushed. Mary got separated from the convoy trying to corral some women who had panicked and fled. She was captured and held with some of the women for 24 hours. Mary would not tell Robert what happened in that 24 hours and he did not really want to know. She was inexplicably let go. The attackers were not well organized and there was a brief fire fight with government forces, which enabled her and the other women to rejoin the convoy. From there they were harassed all the way to the UN compound but before entering came under intense machine gun and mortar fire. Mary risked her life under fire shepherding screaming women and children from trucks.

Two of the trucks had been hit and were ablaze. They got the group into a large open sewer and by using some scrub at the side of the road managed to get enough cover to get the refugees to some houses close to the compound. Running back and forth she shepherded the refugees in groups across open ground to the doors of the compound all under incoming mortar fire. Some were hit along the way but nearly all managed to get to safety.

Shortly after they closed the gates they came under rocket fire but this was short lived when government forces helicopters arrived. Unfortunately one of the structures, a hall in the compound took a direct hit and was set on fire. Some women and children were killed or maimed. Mary was in the hall at the time and had to help the injured out. She herself suffered burns with some minor injury and was left temporarily deaf.

I was dumbfounded when I heard all this. I could not equate the woman, oh so feminine even in her camouflage uniform and the toughness she had. The thing that irked me was that this might get an inch in the press when she got her medal. These theatres of war are so remote from New Zealand that they hardly rate a mention and yet here there were New Zealand military personnel putting themselves at extreme risk.

The press is not interested in what good individual service men and women are doing but only in what the military might have done wrong or over spent their budget or other meaningless controversy. Suddenly Mary was a dramatically different person to me. I thought of Annie and Elsie and what they might think of their Wonder Woman Mum. You know the one at the Kindy on the PTA or shopping for the family at the supermarket.

The next day we had a couple of likely fishing spots staked out; both of us a discrete distance apart. We worked our respective spots casting back and forth, looping our lines. On that day Robert caught two reasonably sized trout. I had a few strikes but could not seem to embed that hook. I was using the same fly as Robert, same technique... shit; maybe the damn things just did not seem to like me.

Robert was acting a bit strangely around me. It was like there was something he wanted to say but just did not seem to be able to get it out. A couple of times when we were making dinner he touched me lightly on the upper arm. It probably was not much but it did seem to be unnecessary.

It was the final night he came in to my room and we both sat on the bed next to each other. It was a strange conversation. He talked a bit about his life and his relationship with his father. His father was a conservative military man through and through. He had been a Brigadier. He could have been a general but his ambition was thwarted in some way. Robert suffered under high expectations.

He talked about Mary and asked me what I thought of her. I expressed my admiration especially that she was such a good Mother but there was this other side to her that took her halfway across the globe to put herself at service to others who could not protect themselves.

He was immensely proud of her and praised her as a Mother. He said he felt inadequate beside her. I suspected Robert was fishing for a response to me on that. I really did not know what Robert had done. It was only later that I found out he had been in the SAS and had served in Afghanistan.

I said what I knew and I flattered him as the leader he was. Robert was an utter gentleman with impeccable manners. He had the ability to put people at ease but he had a subtle force of personality that meant you did not take him for granted and I told him that.

He said the army had taught him that. He was a proud Kiwi soldier, tough and with some of the best leadership training you could get anywhere. Did I note a touch of insecurity in his having to say this? ...Perhaps. He did touch me once again as we sat there after I said my piece. It was fleeting and he seemed to be waiting for some response from me. When there was nothing forth coming he abruptly stood harrumphed and garruffed something about hitting the sack and left as mysteriously as he had arrived.

He did say one thing the following morning, quite out of left field. He said that being in the military has it dangers and there is always the possibility of something happening as it might well have happened to Mary. If something happened to him he wondered if I could look after Mary and make sure she was all right. He said to do everything I could to get that house finished.

Then he sprang one on me. He asked me if I would be a god parent for Annie and Elsie. I was taken aback. I really had not known them for that long, I thought. I didn't even know they were religious. As it turned out Mary was not. She was a lapsed catholic. Nor was Robert really but he was nominally Anglican by virtue of his strict parents who were high Anglican. He said that he was not totally approved of by his father but if I did that it would go some way toward squaring things with them. I did not really understand all this and he could not really explain it. I took the order from the colonel and agreed.

In typical Robert fashion the christening had to be done in a week and it was.

Robert and Mary wanted it to be formal. It was to be a small christening with Robert's parents, Mary's Mother, the other god parent, Helen, and the vicar. With the speed of the decision Mary's father could not make it as he was overseas on a conference. Mary and Robert would be in in their ceremonial service dress so unwilling to let the side down I went out and bought a new suit. I have always been a bit of a fashionista so I opted for a three piece with a contrasting brown waistcoat. Being an architect I opted for bow tie. It was a bit of a risk and I was worried that Robert's father might not approve.

Approaching the chapel I spotted Helen on the street corner. I had never met her before. She had a small daughter and when I arrived her little daughter was holding onto a tiny scooter. She was dressed in a flouncy and very feminine dress with a mass of blonde curls cascading around her little face and over her shoulders. In contrast Helen was crouching trying to take a photo with her phone. Helen was a major and was dressed in her khaki service uniform complete with Sam Browne shoulder strap and brown gloves. On her head was a lemon squeezer complete with red puggaree band. She glanced up at me and gave me a radiant smile. She too was blonde with her blonde hair pulled back under lemon squeezer. Despite being blonde, curiously she did not look like her daughter, she was paler, unlike her tanned daughter, her hair white and her eyes were a startling blue rather than her daughters brown. They were both small in stature however and I wondered of her toughness.

Helen introduced me to her little Sarah then escorted me into the chapel and must say I felt quite proud to be with her. Her smallness made me feel quite protective of her but I was well aware that she had probably been deployed to some nasty places and I incongruently wondered if she felt protective of me.

Robert and Mary were already there with the parents and were dressed in their uniforms. Robert looked me up and down and gave me the thumbs up which relaxed me somewhat. There was a small function after the christening ceremony in the lobby of the church which included two or three of the parishioners. As it was the first time I had met Helen we had a long chat. She expressed as much surprise as me at the speed of the events but she did say that with military deployments events like this were often forced.

At one point I was alone with Robert, teacup in hand awkwardly drinking while juggling a sausage roll. He said a very curious thing. "If it comes to it and something does happen to me, you will, like we discussed, look after Mary and the kids won't you. I know Mary likes you and likes you a lot. I am now going under the command of Brigadier Whitmore. If something happens to me you will most certainly come in contact with him. Be very wary of him."

I could tell by the way Robert talked about this Whitmore that he was not someone Robert liked. I pressed him on the subject, but he refused to elaborate. Robert was always very discrete about military matters and personalities. Why everything in the military had to be so secret squirrel, I don't know, but the manner of his comment left me hanging and with a strong visceral sense of foreboding.

Mary did not help. She took me aside and said that I should get to know Helen. She is one tough cookie and if I needed any help she would be invaluable. This did not sound like she had things like baby sitting in mind. You must understand that at this time the world order was under stress and I was well aware that all sorts of things were going down, threatening New Zealand which the military were already engaged with.

I had a good talk with Robert's parents, although it was very formal and polite. Unfortunately Mary's Mum was taken up with herding two little energetic toddlers so we only had a very brief amicable discussion. She acknowledged that I was an architect and joked that I should meet with her husband some time but preferably without her; she would leave us to it, "...Knowing what you architects are like, once you get together." I thought the joke a little off colour but I didn't think she meant to insult me.

The following week I found out why the christening was conducted with such haste.

I arrived for our regular dinner when I found that Robert had gone, apparently deployed somewhere. I was met as usual by Annie and Elsie hopping up and down but this time chorusing Daddy has gone away so you have to be our daddy until he gets back. I looked questioningly back at Mary standing back in her camouflage uniform arms folded. Mary played it down. "Oh, he has just been deployed operationally. He will be back with his own unit in a short time."

Mary mentioned she had invited Helen but she had been deployed as well. I suspected Mary was match making a little. I took the opportunity to ask a little about Helen. She was apparently separated from her husband. She had the child but it was not to him. It was a little awkward but I guessed the child was the reason for the separation. Mary would not say what Helen did in the military but she did say not to underestimate her physical capabilities. Her diminutive femininity masked a very athletic woman. She had grown up as an Army brat and had a long military heritage going back to the New Zealand wars and beyond.

Two weeks later the same entrance but a different reception. Mary answered the door crying, Annie and Elsie clinging to her.

"What happened?"

"Robert's been killed in an action."

"What action? Where?"

I can't say anything the Defence Force will make a statement tomorrow morning.

It was a sombre night. I spent a lot of it on the couch with my arm around Mary. It felt strange sitting like that with someone in a combat uniform, especially someone who had so distinguished herself.

The thought that I was hugging a Major bizarrely kept running through my mind. It felt paradoxically good to comfort her. I was thinking to myself, was it compassion or what was it? I had only had brief welcome hugs with Mary in the past, now I had my arm tightly around her with Annie and Elsie snuggling in. To my selfish shame, despite the tragedy I wanted to stay like this was forever. My mind was in turmoil, I had never felt emotion like this.

Dinner had not been made, so I elected that I would ring in pizzas. In the meantime, out came the gin bottle and some tonic. I mentioned to Mary about the God Parent thing. "Did he know then that something dangerous was coming up?" Mary replied in the affirmative and that they had talked about it a lot.

Mary and I sat in silence. I suggested that I call their parents. Mary said we probably should but they need to be discrete until the public announcement was made. Mary asked me to stay the night but it was to be on the couch. Annie and Elsie brightened with the idea. That was something that I was to regret early the next morning when two very young and noisy girls woke me by climbing all over me. The children remain upbeat as though they really did not know the implications that their father would not be coming home.

Mary's parents had a way to come. Her father had just arrived back from his conference and arrived later the following morning. It was the first time I had met him and I instantly connected with her Father. "Hollis! He began Frank Hollis, and you need no introduction, I certainly know your work well." I immediately felt some embarrassment. I had really not discussed her father with Mary. I did not even know her maiden name. This guy was a Fellow of the Architectural institute and a past president as well. We fell into an intense discussion only to be dragged apart by an annoyed Mary exclaiming "Other people in the room, guys!"

Even later in the day when I met Robert's parents again it went well. I don't know why. Even though I had already met them I expected with some trepidation, that my presence would be disapproved of now that Robert was dead. But no, Robert's father immediately lurched into expressing his appreciation for my becoming a godfather to his children. His own father had been killed in the Vietnam War and that had left some scars on his family.

There was not a lot publically stated in the news that morning. It was expressed as breaking news and inferred that the action might not be over. Over time something of the full story came out; not all, as there was much that would stay classified. Historically the action became known as the first skirmish in the climate wars. Following the pandemic depression there had been a period of unrest within many countries that had suffered badly economically. Fortunately New Zealand remained largely immune from this but the world order was unstable.

Many talked of global warfare as tensions remained between certain countries. Exacerbating this was global warming and the collapse of international controls on resources. Especially where weak governments could not control powerful private international corporations, who became pan-territorial governments in their own right

The global security context of this first skirmish was sparked by the collapse of the northern fishing grounds. Some northern nations had been abusing the southern fisheries for some time. Things between nations became tense as they called in alliances. Southern nations started to take a tougher line. In the Pacific there were a number of small island nations that had little resources to protect themselves and they looked to Australian and New Zealand for the power to help protect their economic zones. They also looked to the remote nations they had fishing agreements to assist them as well. This is where the global politics kicked in.

The global fishing industry was particularly affected by the phenomena of the power of private international corporations over governments. Large fishing fleets had been running in unrestrained competition plundering fishing grounds where they could.

In this particular case, super factory ships owned by renegade corporate entities accompanied small fleets of purse seiners to sweep through the southern fishing grounds. The ships were unregistered. Those behind them were not necessarily backed by any one nation and they were sheltered by third world nations effectively bought by their power.

After one particular ship did a sweep, the environmental damage was huge. An international message was sent out by Australia and New Zealand effectively drawing a line in the sand. But one corporate warlords assumed they were only blustering and they would back down to a serious challenge.

But they did not.

The ship was tracked with its attendant fleet as it moved arrogantly through several economic zones commencing with New Zealand. New Zealand and Australian P8 surveillance aircraft monitored the progress. Unlike normal surveillance, this time the P8s were armed.

New Zealand shadowed with patrol vessels along the Lau Island group in a hot pursuit. It was not known how protected these ships were so the surveillance was cautious. It came to a head in a military style sting operation. A Fijian Patrol vessel cut across the front of the moving fleet and called for the factory vessel to halt. The factory vessel complied; and a RHIB was sent with a party to board the ship.

The first indication the accompanying Seiners were actually armed when one of them raked the RHIB with machine gun fire and it immediately sank. The Fijian Patrol vessel immediately responded by firing a 40mm Canon at the Seiner involved. The full extent of the arming of these vessels was then demonstrated by a small ship to ship missile being fired which blew the Fijian patrol vessel out of the water.

While this was happening two armed Seasprite helicopters and two NH90's were on their way. The navy was tracking the ship and based on the last incursion they had a pretty good idea of the route the ships were taking. The helicopters had been landed on strategically located small islands in the Lau group off Fiji.