Cold Gold Ii

By Dennis J. McTaggart

In his latest novel, Cold Gold II, Dennis goes on to enlighten the reader with more adventures of Teddy and his crew of abalone poachers as they battle with Fisheries Inspector, Wallace (Piggy) Trotter. They run foul of Detective Jack Andrews and his partner Detective Karl.
They help a stricken whale and look for a Japanese submarine.
Teddys old mate Bass Strait Barry convinces them to have a dive on the New Zealand Star Bank.
They tangle with Muddy and his Bikie mates, assist Teddys mate Henry when his family is threatened and in general do what they do best, poach abalone.
This book is not for the faint hearted, its full of rip roaring yarns, written with an Australian twang.
Hold on as you venture side by side with Teddy and his team as they face death and disaster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: May 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499001969

Dennis J. McTaggart

Dennis J. McTaggart started life on a farm in the Gippsland Lakes area. He left school at 16 and moved to Traralgon where he worked in electrical retail. His thirst for adventure saw him join the local “skin diving club” where he was offered a job working on an abalone boat out of Mallacoota. Dennis soon took advantage of the affordable abalone licenses in New South Wales and started diving out of Eden. Dennis spent the next years working in under water construction and on building sites all over Australia, eventually ending up in Tasmania diving for abalone. He suffered nitrogen narcosis (the bends) which partly paralysed him. It was during his recovery that Dennis started to recount his adventures. Born in 1950, Dennis has seen it all. In his short stories COLD GOLD, he shares with us intrigue and wonder which formed part of his life. Get an inside into Dennis’ amazing life when you follow Teddy and his gang of abalone poachers on their wild ride. See what happens when good, honest blokes stray into the murky dark side of life. Dennis is a modern, medical miracle. His recovery defied the odds and medical prognosis. He now leads a relatively normal life for a sexagenarian, holed up in the fabled high country in Victoria, Australia. Welcome aboard!

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Dennis J. McTaggart.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2014908140

ISBN:      Hardcover   978-1-4990-0194-5

                Softcover      978-1-4990-0195-2

                eBook           978-1-4990-0196-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/07/2014

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Contents

Teddy, from Then to When?

Whale of a Tale

Teddy and the Japanese Mini Submarine

The Chase

New Zealand Star Bank

Two Toms

Muddy Hits a Snag

Henry and the Silver Eagle

Karl and His Missing Mate

Epilogue

Teddy, from Then to When?

Edward Dennis McSweeny was born and raised in the western suburbs of Melbourne at a time when men were proud to work hard, using their hands. He lived with his two brothers: one older by three years and the other younger by three years.

Even as a child, he stood out as a larrikin. He had a happy and carefree air about him and had a wonderful childhood surrounded by love from his siblings and parents.

He was known as a Happy Little Vegemite. (Vegemite is a famous Australian spread. An advertising campaign started in 1954 used groups of attractive healthy children smiling and singing a catchy jingle, ‘We’re happy little Vegemites’, to promote the spread.)

He went to school with all the new Australians and found them to be the same as everyone else was—a lot of good kids and a few dodgy ones, just like the Aussies.

There was food on the table every night, and each Friday night, even though they weren’t Catholic, they had fish and chips for tea. One of the boys would run down to the Greek fish and chip bloke and buy them wrapped up in newspaper, run back, and open them up, and everyone would get into eating them.

His dad would have a bottle of beer and they and their mum would have a glass of lemonade. On special occasions, such as birthdays, one of the boys would take a couple of pots from the kitchen, go to the local chows (Chinese) takeaway, and bring back a pot of sweet and sour pork and fried rice. That was a rare treat as it was a more expensive meal than fish and chips.

Teddy often thought back to his happy childhood. Although the families in the street weren’t rich, everyone was the same; all their fathers were blue-collar workers and honesty was a valued trait. You could leave your doors unlocked and the keys under the mat in your car, and nobody would steal anything.

On the few occasions when there was a blue between men, it was strictly one-on-one, and, at the end of the fight, the two men would shake hands and go and have a beer together. Teddy’s father wasn’t a heavy drinker, and Teddy had never seen him drunk or so drunk that he needed assistance. He was a happy man and had a happy family.

Before Teddy’s father married the love of his life, he spent six years in the Australian Army in New Guinea, holding back the Japanese invaders who threatened the country he loved. His father never spoke of the atrocities that he and his mates witnessed.

Teddy wasn’t much interested in school work. He was a bit of a dreamer, always looking out the window at the trees to see which way the wind was blowing. He could tell you, if you wanted to know, which would be the safest boat ramp to put your boat into the water and which way to go when you went fishing so as to get the smoothest ride home.

When Teddy was twelve, his dad bought a small, open wooden fishing boat that had a Seagull outboard motor on it.

The Seagull outboard, or more correctly known as the British Seagull, was an outboard motor that was manufactured between 1930s and 1990s. They were reliable two-stroke engines that were very simple to operate, and as long as you got the fuel mixture right, they would go forever. They weren’t the fastest of motors and went out of production when the more modern outboard motors came into fashion. They didn’t have a reverse gear. If you wanted the boat to go backwards, all you did was spin the motor 180 degrees round, until the tiller was facing backwards, and then accelerate. They were cheap and reliable, and Teddy loved that boat.

That was the end of any serious school work for Teddy. He spent as much time out on the water as he possibly could. Soon he was supplying fresh fish for his family and most of the street. His dad had a stern rule that he had to be home within an hour of the sun going down. This was because Teddy’s mum worried a bit. The thought of having his beloved boat taken away, for even a day, was enough to make Teddy adhere to every rule.

There were plenty of abalone in the shallow water in Port Phillip Bay, and, equipped with a snorkel and face mask, he could easily get as much mutton fish (abalone) as he liked. But it was hard to sell. He often came across a crayfish, and that was welcomed into the family home. Teddy’s family lived better than the rich people, simple pleasures are the best. Love and happiness make a great family, not wealth.

Teddy’s elder brother became an electrician, and his younger brother went on to university and became an accountant. This was a big step-up for anybody from their street. When Teddy left school, he got a job down at one of the many shipyards that were on the waterfront at Williamstown. He soon became proficient at most types of mechanical and boat maintenance work.

Unfortunately, both his parents passed away when Teddy was in his twenties; it was a sad time.

The three brothers decided to sell the family home and try and set themselves up a bit. Teddy, who was no good with money, decided that the best thing that he could do was to buy a decent boat, and he found an old wooden fifty-footer and lived on that. He renovated the inside, made a spacious galley, and did up the wheelhouse. It looked old from the outside, but when you went inside, it was a real surprise.

Teddy mixed with all types of people, men mainly, from the wealthy boat owners who rarely used their vessels to the lower end of the scale—people who had always wanted to own a boat. Strangely, these sorts of people would come down of a night, after work, and muck about on their boats for hours at a time.

Teddy met and fell in love with the daughter of one of his wealthier clients, and they got married. But soon the magic disappeared. She wanted to be in the bright lights, and Teddy wasn’t that keen on getting dressed up and mixing with the wankers as he called them. Teddy was happiest being with people who loved the sea. The married pair agreed to divorce, and as the wife had more money than the groom had, Teddy kept the boat and all his gear, and she kept everything that she had brought into the marriage. They parted and remained friends.

Teddy decided that, to increase his income, he would get stuck into abalone poaching big time. So he worked out a plan. It was simple. He would take out his big boat on an evening, steam over to a reef that was out of sight of land, and get a couple of hours in the darkness under the water, collecting abalone. At that time, the fisheries were more concerned with grabbing the New Australians for taking too many or undersized fish, and they never really bothered Teddy. He always worked at night and kept a low profile. He did a deal with a processor, and all went well.

Mixing with all the people in all the pubs in Williamstown, Teddy got to meet and enjoy the company of some shady characters from the Painters and Dockers Union. These were hard men who, more than likely, worked hard and played even harder. Once they realised that Teddy was OK, they didn’t bother him. Like the old Beach Boys song goes, ‘The bad guys knew him and they left him alone.’

Teddy was free to do his thing, and he made a lot of money, all tax-free. He was always on the lookout to make money. In the times before computers, there was always some shady bloke who worked in a factory and was able to get his hands on some stuff that had been missed in a stocktake, and Teddy was always on the lookout for cheap, often hot stuff.

He became friendly with the thieves and the stand-over men and the full-time crims. They were normal people as far as he was concerned.

Quite often, there would be fights in the pubs, and Teddy wasn’t too bad at defending himself. He never started trouble, but if trouble came looking for him, he would accommodate it—no problem.

His younger brother, who did his tax, suggested that he sell the big boat and buy a smaller, faster boat and a small home in the western suburbs. Teddy decided to follow the advice, and the sale of the big boat went well, as it was well known around the waterfront.

He bought a small single-fronted house in Williamstown and placed it under an almost untraceable system that his brother, the accountant, had put together so as to make the ownership almost impossible to track back to Teddy.

He then took possession of a nineteen-foot Haines Hunter with a 115-horsepower Mercury motor. This boat really moved along, and when he considered all the time he had wasted before, by only going eleven knots, he laughed to himself. Yes, Teddy was away, wind in his face, and happy with life.

Teddy dated a few women and got on well with most of them. One day, he bumped into Rita. She was having lunch, sitting in the sun at an outdoor restaurant. He had spoken to her a couple of times at the library where she worked. He was a keen reader and had to change his address when he sold the boat, so she remembered him.

Teddy boldly walked up and said, ‘Hullo, Rita, how are you this fine day? Do you remember me? I spoke to you the other day about changing my address from my boat to the house I just bought in Williamstown. My brother talked me into it as he said that it would be a good investment for the future. He’s an accountant, so he should know, shouldn’t he?’

Teddy was nervous, and the words tumbled out. He knew that he was talking too fast, but once he started, he couldn’t stop.

Rita was a bit taken aback by the flood of words.

She smiled and said, ‘Yes, mister, ah… ‘

Rita pretended that she couldn’t remember Teddy’s surname.

Teddy cut in and said, ‘Don’t go with the mister bit. Just call me Teddy. Everyone else does.’

Rita smiled and said, ‘All right, it’s Teddy, and, yes, I do remember you.’

Rita thought back to the books that Teddy read. You can tell a lot about people by what they read. Teddy read a lot of action fiction. His favourite authors were Wilbur Smith and Frederick Forsyth. Rita had at times ordered books in for him. She was comfortable with someone who enjoyed such authors.

Teddy blundered on. ‘Are you on your own?’

Rita looked at the big bloke and saw that he was completely out of his depth.

She answered, ‘Yes, I’m just having my lunch.’

Teddy asked, ‘Can I join you? Do you mind?’

Rita looked at him and said, ‘That’s the best offer I’ve had all day.’

It took a moment to sink in that she had accepted his offer, and Teddy promptly sat down.

That was easy, he thought.

‘Please keep eating,’ Teddy offered and looked to seek out a waitress to get him something.

When the waitress came, Teddy ordered a pie and chips.

He looked at the salad that Rita was eating and exclaimed, ‘I suppose that I should eat a bit more rabbit food, but it doesn’t seem to fill me up.’

Rita smiled and said, ‘I like salads.’

They talked for a while about the weather and the amount of people who were about—just small talk. Before Teddy realised, it was time for Rita to go back to work. So he walked her towards the library.

‘I’m going this way anyway,’ he explained.

Teddy left Rita at the library door and walked away.

Rita went inside and watched Teddy walk away, and she thought that he was a nice person.

I wonder how things will turn out, she thought. He must like me or else he wouldn’t have walked me back to the library.

He was easy on the eye. Rita knew that Teddy had been married to an up-herself rich daddy’s daughter and that he didn’t have a permanent partner. In a small, end-of-the road suburb like Williamstown, word gets around pretty fast about who is available and who’s not. Love-wise, things had been a bit quiet for Rita. Not a lot of available men came to the library. Her clientele were mostly older men and women and retired people who were all very nice but, like she said, old people.

Rita wondered what would happen next; maybe she was destined to be an old maid. The cranky old librarian, who always wore black, and the kids poked fun at behind her back, as they pretended to read books, and laughed when they looked up fart in the dictionary.

Teddy walked away and said to himself, ‘Rita seems to be a nice sort of girl, but she’s not the type who would like some of the lower pubs where I hang around. I want to bump into her again and have a talk.’

So next day, at lunchtime, Teddy staked out the library, and when Rita walked out, there was Teddy.

‘Hi, Rita, are you heading off for a bite to eat?’ Teddy asked brightly.

Rita looked surprised and answered, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I didn’t get a chance to have a cup of coffee at 10 a.m., so I’m a bit hungry.’

Teddy asked, ‘Are you going to have a salad?’

Rita smiled and said, ‘No, Teddy, today I just might have a pie and chips, washed down with a coke.’

Teddy laughed, ‘And would you let me shout you lunch as a special favour?’

‘I keep saying it, but that’s the best offer I’ve had today. Of course, you can,’ she said.

Teddy thought that he fell in love that instant. He closely looked at her; she was trim and had a great smile and a great figure. And she was smart. She had to be if she worked in a library. They sat outside once again, and the warm breeze gently made her hair glisten in the sunshine. Teddy thought that she was beautiful.

They spent heaps of time together. Teddy met her parents, and, of course, they had heard of him. When he turned up for tea one night and brought a couple of two-kilo crayfish, he was welcomed into the family with open arms.

Everything was going well, and Rita agreed to move into Teddy’s place.

^^^

By now, Teddy was a partner in a boatyard down on the waterfront in Williamstown. There wasn’t a lot of money in it, but it paid their bills, and also Teddy got away on a night and did his abalone poaching.

He was approached by his partner and agreed to sell him some of his share of the boatyard business. On advice from his younger brother, Teddy retained a share of the property that the boatyard was on. His ex-partner and he agreed on a monthly rental, so Teddy had a bit of an income from that.

Things were going along well with the abalone poaching. He tried taking out other divers but found that they were all heavy drinkers or couldn’t keep their mouths shut. So he stayed on his own and kept his eyes open for a team that he could use to make even more money than he was at the present time.

He had noticed three younger blokes who were poaching abalone and kept his eyes on them. He watched as they started to travel further away in their cars. Some of the blokes in the pubs started to buy crayfish off them, and a couple of those blokes mentioned them to Teddy.

So, one day, he approached them and said, ‘Hullo, boys, I know what you have been up to. I’ve just bought a Shark Cat and I’m looking for a team to put together and really get stuck into getting a big quantity of abalone. We can start out in the bay and then move up and down the coast. I know all about this abalone-poaching caper, and I reckon that if we all stick together, we will make a good quid.’

Dean was the first to answer, ‘What’s the split-up? What do we get?’

‘Mate,’ Teddy said, ‘this is how it’s going to work. I’ll supply the boat and compressors. You supply your own gear. I’ve got a processor sweet who will take what we can get for a decent price. I’ve got the connections, and we split it evenly up between us. If we make $10,000, then we split it four ways and we get $2,500 each.’

The three boys looked at each other.

Curly said, ‘We will have to think it over. Can you give us a couple of hours, and we’ll get back to you?’

‘No problems,’ Teddy laughingly said. ‘But don’t take too long, or I might change my mind. Here’s my phone number. I’ll talk to you soon.’

With that, Teddy walked away.

The three young men looked at each other.

Dean said, ‘What the fuck! He’s talking about splitting up $10,000 worth of abalone. Fuck me, he must know where all the reefs are, and he’s got the markets sewn up.’

Curly agreed, ‘That’s a shit load of money. I would love to get my hands on that much.’

Tom said, ‘I reckon that this Teddy is the real McCoy. I reckon that he has been in it for a while.’

The boys all agreed. Tom rang Teddy back and said, ‘We are in. Can we meet up at a pub and have a talk?’

Teddy was happy with the result and suggested that they meet in the lounge bar in the Yacht Club hotel. This pub overlooked the bay, and they had cheap meals on the menu.

They all gathered there, and Teddy got a round of drinks. He gave them a brief history of himself, and they told him about their adventures. Teddy warned them not to say a word to anyone, as rumours would get about, and the next thing that you knew the fisheries would be on your back and the penalties were severe.

From the very start, the operation ran smoothly. Teddy could see that Dean was a gentle giant, Curly was an eager starter, and Tom, well, he was a whole different kettle of fish and was old-fashioned tough. Teddy thought that when the chips were down, then he probably couldn’t get a better crew to be with.

On the first night of them all poaching together, they all met on time, down at the boat ramp. Teddy was impressed by how they all handled themselves. They weren’t half-drunk, and they spoke quietly to Teddy and showed him respect. He explained how he was going to do things and how it would all work.

So they went to work. Teddy took the Shark Cat out into the bay and drove over to a reef. Then Dean and Curly went over the side and worked off a T-piece. Tom worked off another hookah (diving compressor) and stockpiled the abalone in a central drop zone.

This way, if the fisheries were to stumble across them, then they wouldn’t have any abalone on board. Teddy gave Tom an underwater light that Tom placed on a net bag at the stockpile so he could see where the pile was each time he returned. When the distance between the stockpile and the divers became too far, they surfaced (after they turned their head-mounted torches off), and Teddy pressed the MOB (man overboard) key on his GPS to mark the spot.

Then they moved to another spot.

As this was their first dive, Teddy was only concerned about covering costs, but the attitude of his three new friends surprised him. They were all go—eager to get back into the water and get more abalone. This was a heartening attitude that they had.

After midnight, Teddy said, ‘Well, boys, that is about all we can get as we now have to shuck them out and bag them up. Let’s start to get them to the surface. Who wants to go down and start swimming them up to the boat?’

Tom immediately said, ‘I’ll do that. I’ll swim them up two bags at a time.’

With that, Tom went over the side and started to swim the net bags to the surface.

After shifting the Cat a couple of times and going back to where the stockpiles were, all the net bags were soon on board. Teddy shifted the boat out into the middle of the bay.

After a couple of hours, all the abalone were shucked out of their shells and bagged up in clear plastic bags.

Teddy rang Tony, an Italian bloke, who took the abalone to the processors.

Tony was a disabled pensioner who was fit enough to do the running around for Teddy and was paid on cash-in-the-hand basis.

Teddy had previously told Tony not to introduce himself to the new boys as he wasn’t sure if they could be trusted.

‘Keep well back,’ he told Tony. ‘Let them unload the abalone and then pick it up and take it to the factory when we have gone back to sea.’

Teddy phoned Tony and headed towards the distant boat ramp. When they got close to it, a torch light shone out to them, and Teddy guided the Shark Cat into the boat ramp. The three boys piled up the bags of abalone on shore and jumped back into the boat.

Tom, Dean, and Curly were in awe of how Teddy operated. They couldn’t believe just how smoothly things went. The fact that, for almost all the time, there wasn’t any abalone on board was something new to them. For everyone to get in and shuck the abalone was a masterstroke. Then to have someone pick up the abalone at another boat ramp so that they could return to the boat ramp of their departure empty, it was all too much. No wonder, everyone thought that Teddy was a genius.

On their return to the boat ramp, Dean jumped out of the Shark Cat and backed Teddy’s F100, with the trailer for the Shark Cat connected to it, into the water, and Teddy drove the boat up onto the trailer. Dean clipped the bow ring onto the hand winch and then pulled the Shark Cat out onto dry land. Teddy and the remaining boys climbed down.

Teddy said, ‘Well, fellas, that’s it for tonight. How did you think that it went?’

The boys were all stunned; they weren’t used to things going this well.

Dean asked, ‘How much do you reckon that we will end up with?’

Teddy smiled and said, ‘I reckon that we ended up with 250 kilos of meat weight. That should get us about $10,000, so we should end up with $2,500 each. How does that sound?’

The boys were over the moon.

Curly said, ‘Bloody hell, that’s terrific. That’s more than what we earn in a month.’

Teddy grinned and said, ‘We’ve only just begun. It will take me a couple of days to organise the money. If you’re short, tell me, and I’ll be able to sub you some until we get paid from the processor.’

They all laughed and went their separate ways.

Tom said, ‘If we do this once a week, then we will be rich.’

The others agreed. It was a time of great excitement for them.

Teddy arrived home, had a quick shower, and slid into bed.

His partner, Rita, asked, ‘Did everything go as planned?’

Teddy smiled, kissed her, and said, ‘Yes, love, it went really well. The new young blokes worked steadily throughout the night, and we ended up with about 250 kilos.’

Rita said sleepily, ‘Well done, love,’ and went back to sleep.

Teddy closed his eyes and went to sleep almost instantly.

^^^

Tony watched as the young blokes stacked the bags of shucked abalone in a pile, and when they had gone, he drove the van down beside the pile and quickly threw them into the van. He drove into the night, back to a processing factory. He had a couple of hours wait until they opened, and he wasn’t happy. The processor was making sounds that it was getting a bit hot, accepting illegal abalone.

Teddy and Tony would have to start looking for another processor, one who was willing to fit in a bit easier with how they worked.

When the factory finally opened and Tony was able to weigh in the abalone, he rang through the weights to Teddy. Teddy made arrangements to meet the processor and was told that he couldn’t get the money for three days. Teddy reckoned that the processor was just having a lend of him, but he didn’t cause a blue; he just went along with it. The processor was a Jew and a very smart businessman. He squeezed out every cent that he possibly could.

Because of his background, of working on boats both big and small, Teddy got to know all the fishermen—the cray (lobster) boats, the shark boats, the scallop boats, and even the abalone boats. Most of the abalone boats were fast fibreglass outboard boats. The abalone divers who worked in Port Phillip Bay mainly stuck to themselves. A couple mentioned that a mate of theirs had just started to buy abalone off them and he was struggling to get enough abalone to export overseas. So they gave Teddy a knock-down to him. Teddy went with one of his mates and met Derek, the new processor.

He was a friendly sort of bloke, and Teddy saw that he had exactly what he was looking for, a place to unload illegal abalone. Both the men liked each other from the moment that they met. They agreed on a price and were both happy with the result.

In due time, Teddy went and picked up his money from the Jewish processor and told him that things were getting a bit hot, so they might give it a miss for a while.

The Jew looked at Teddy and asked, ‘They don’t know that you and I are working together, do they?’

Teddy smiled and said, ‘No worries, mate, we don’t leave any trails anywhere.’

The Jew looked relieved as Teddy drove away with the money.

Teddy invited all the boys round so that they could be involved in the whack-up. He had a fridge full of cans, and they all relaxed out in Teddy’s backyard. When Teddy started to give them their money, they couldn’t believe it—$2,560 each.

Teddy explained that he had picked up $10,240 in cash.

Dean looked at the money and asked, ‘Who pays the bloke who picks up the abalone?’

Teddy looked at him and said, ‘I do. Why?’

Dean said that the three boys had talked about it and they had agreed that they should each pay a bit so that it didn’t all fall on Teddy’s head. Teddy was a bit amused. These kids seemed to be really genuine and fair.

‘All right, fellas, from next trip, we split up Tony’s wages between us,’ he said.

They all had another can and got going back to their homes. Teddy felt as if something was going to develop out of this.

Teddy rang Tony and said, ‘Mate, I’ve got a new processor ready to take some abalone from us. I want to pick you up, and we’ll go and meet him. His name is Derek, and he’s just started to buy abalone off a couple of mates of mine who are legal abalone divers.’

They agreed on a time next morning.

When the three men met, Tony was happy to discover that whenever he wanted to unload the van, Derek would be there to weigh in the product. That meant as soon as Tony had grabbed the abalone, he would ring Derek and they would meet and weigh in. That was perfect.

Derek had also said that as soon as the abalone was weighed, boxed up, and in the freezer, he would get the cash out of the bank and pay straight away.

Everyone was happy.

^^^

Things were going well, so Teddy decided that he would ring his friend Dave in Bairnsdale. He had given Dave an untraceable phone that he had got some vagrant to buy for him. He let him know that he and his new crew were going to come up for a flying visit, and if the weather was right, they might get a couple of days diving in.

Teddy and Dave had been friends for a long time. In the 1960s, Teddy had decided to buy a New South Wales’s licence to dive for abalone. At that time, the abalone licences were $2.00 each. So each winter, when the weather blew from the southwest, Teddy would tow a tinny up to Eden and dive for abalone up there.

It was a real treat to be a legal diver for a while. Teddy used to stay at Dave’s place, which was a run-down farmhouse on the outskirts of Eden, and the pair got on fine.

Dave ended up getting a bad case of the bends, and Teddy looked after him when he was at his lowest. Dave was the sort of bloke who never forgot a favour. They were good mates.

So now whenever Teddy decided to do a bit of poaching up that way, he always got Dave and his brother Lee to get the abalone back to Melbourne for him. Lee had a smallish furniture van that they concealed the abalone in, behind a wall of furniture, so that they could freight the abalone to Melbourne undetected.

^^^

Teddy felt as if everything was starting to develop well. He thought that with the new Shark Cat and his new crew, the future looked great.

Whale of a Tale

Wallace (Piggy) Trotter, senior fisheries officer, was deep under cover, disguised as a wealthy grazier from the Monaro High Country. He was clad out in R M Williams gear from the boots up, and instead of a baseball cap, he had on an Akubra Stockman’s hat that shaded his face and looked ridiculous.

He was drinking with a couple of down-and-outs in the top pub at Pambula, New South Wales. He was into his second week as an undercover agent.

He had been sniffing his way around all the pubs in the area and, at last, had come across a couple of dead beats, and he just knew that they were abalone poachers. One was an Aussie bloke called Gazza and the other one was of Italian heritage and called Louie.

Bastards, he thought to himself.

He was buying them middies of beer and getting to know them. He had told them that he was looking to buy some abalone for a friend’s fiftieth birthday party which was in a couple of weeks. They said that it wasn’t a problem, as they had done a bit of abalone diving and could put their hands on some. In confidence, they told him that they could get a few kilos of abalone meat and could deliver it to him whenever he wanted it. There was no problem at all; he just needed to have the cash ready.

Piggy was getting excited with the prospect that he would have these blokes wrapped up good and proper.

Then one of the bastards said, ‘If you really want to get some weight together, then you should get onto the crew that comes down from Melbourne. They really get into it and get a tonne or two at a time.’

Louie said, ‘My cousin works for them. He tows their Shark Cat around and does odd jobs for the one that’s in charge.’

Piggy felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Were these two morons talking about Teddy and his crew?

‘Who are they?’ Piggy asked. ‘Do you know anything about them at all?’

The two down-and-outs looked at Piggy and smiled.

‘Mate, we don’t know much at all about them. But we do know that they are the best poachers in Australia. They always get abalone.’

Piggy smiled and said, ‘Surely they have been caught by the police or fisheries.’

The two men looked at Piggy, laughed, and said, ‘Mate, the fisheries are so dumb that they don’t know what day it is. Before the fisheries even hear about them, they are gone, gone but not forgotten.’

Piggy asked, ‘How come you know so much about them?’

The two men looked at Piggy, and Louie said, ‘Mate, we hear everything. My cousin keeps me informed about what’s happening. Anything that happens around any fishing port eventually comes back to us. There is a network of people talking to each other, and word soon gets around.’

Louie was starting to speak as if he was part of the crew and that Teddy relied on his input whenever he did a run-up this way.

Piggy was beside himself with joy; maybe there was a chance of him being forewarned about when Teddy and those bastards were coming there for another run. If he was waiting and ready for them, then it was a piece of cake. He could grab them with their abalone, and they would get jailed. Yes, that would show them not to mess with Senior Officer Trotter. Piggy was well pleased with himself, and he got another round for his new chums.

^^^

Teddy and the boys were getting ready for another trip up to the Victoria-New South Wales border area. They were still basking in the success of their trip down to Pedra Branca. It had been a real winner, and they had all come out a mile in front.

But Teddy said, ‘You don’t beat a good horse to death. We’ll keep shifting around, doing what we do, and keep under the radar so no one can see us. Keep cool.’

Everyone agreed with Teddy on that plan. That is what made Teddy so successful. You couldn’t predict what he was going to do next or just where they were going to pop up next. It kept everyone on their toes.

^^^

As the summer season approached, the humpbacked whales started their long migration up to warmer waters in the north of Australia.

He was a young male humpbacked whale. He hadn’t reached his sexual maturity yet as he was only six years old. Female humpbacked whales become sexually mature at about five years of age, and it takes the male another two years to reach theirs.

He had spent the first six months at his mother’s side. He was roughly the same size as her head, approximately twenty foot (six meters) long, and he still suckled her pink milk. For the next six months, he would suckle and catch his own food until he was able to be on his own and not need his mother for food or protection.

The humpbacked whales’ social structure is one of mainly solitary living. They may band together for a short time to feed. But they spend most of their time alone as they journey from the Antarctic Circle to warmer water to give birth and to breed. They don’t eat while they are travelling or are in the warmer waters. They live off the fat stored in their bodies from the krill and small fish that they consume in the Antarctic waters.

^^^

Teddy decided that the weather was right for a trip into the New South Wales—Victoria border area. He rang Tom and said that they would be heading up north. Tom was happy to be getting moving and doing something as it had been a few weeks since they had fired a shot.

Teddy rang Curly and said, ‘We are away in the next couple of days.’ Curly was also happy to be on the move.

He got on to Dean, who seemed to be a bit interested, but as he had just had the love of his life (the beautiful Leckie) move in with him, he wasn’t that happy about going away for a few days.

Teddy laughed and said, ‘Will I have to throw a bucket of cold water over the pair of you to get you separated?’

Dean laughed and said, ‘That won’t be necessary. I’ll be ready, and I’ll let Leckie know what’s going on.’

Teddy was happy for Dean. He seemed to be really in love, head over heels. It wasn’t any wonder, as Leckie was one of the most beautiful women that Teddy had ever seen—a real Asian beauty. She was nice with it, and she had a real happy nature. Let’s hope that she can control Dean’s gambling, Teddy thought.

He then gave Tony a call and told him they were a day away from heading up the coast. Tony confirmed that all was in readiness and the Shark Cat was full of fuel and ready to go.

Teddy contacted his mate Beaver at the Wonboyn caravan park and asked if there was enough water on the entrance of the lake’s bar to take the Shark Cat out there. Beaver told him that there was plenty of depth. So Teddy thought that he might go out from there, as it was a bit quieter there than at the boat ramp at Eden. There were not as many gigs, and, hopefully, there would be no fisheries present.

^^^

Dean looked at his new love. She was asleep in bed, and he thought that she was perfect in every way. He hated to leave her alone, but what else could he do? She wasn’t the cheapest person to keep as she was determined to send money home for her family. Dean, in a drunken state, had said that whatever she wanted to send home, she could. The first money order was for $5,000. Christ Almighty, you would reckon that they could buy the whole village for that. Still, Dean reckoned that it was still cheap being with her. He looked again at her perfect face, smiled, and thought, What a bargain!

Tom told his partner Sandy that a trip was on the way and there wasn’t a problem. Sandy accepted that Tom would be away from time to time and that’s just how it was.

Curly mentioned to his mum that he would be away for a few days, and she started to pack him some clothes in a small leather case.

^^^

Hamm Nugent, the brothel owner, was bitterly disappointed when Dean had come and taken Leckie from the front desk of the brothel.