“How long have they been gone?” asked Carmen.

            Charlie looked at his watch, a present from his grandad for the trip to Polynesia.  It was a sports divers’ model and its luminous yellow face glowed with all sorts of information that a fourteen year old boy found fascinating but was largely irrelevant.  However, he had surreptitiously set the stop watch function going when Rick and George had left.  “Three hours,” he replied.  “I hadn’t realised they had been gone that long.”

            “It must be the pleasure of my company,” giggled Carmen nervously.  Since the experience with the radio they had sat largely in silence, dozing fitfully in the pilots’ seats, and mostly ignoring each other.  By some unspoken understanding there was an uncomfortable awareness that neither wanted to discuss what they had heard on the radio.  At the time they had agreed that what they had heard was probably a fragment of a play on another station that had drifted into the frequency of Radio New Zealand International.  Still, it had rattled them and conversation had been stilted.

            “Yeah, right, and I’m Captain Personality!” said Charlie, “Or at least I have been on this trip.”

            “I don’t think that you’ve been rude.  I think that you’ve done very well, considering.” Carmen reassured.

            “Considering?”

            “Considering that Rick is your Dad.  I mean it can’t be easy coming all the way out here from the other side of the world to find your Dad.  Then you find out it’s Rick!”  Carmen drew her legs up onto the pilot’s seat and chuckled.  “I’m not sure I’d want to be you.”

            “Why not?”  Charlie said defensively.

            “I shouldn’t say.  After all he is your Dad.”

            Something about Carmen’s tone really got under Charlie’s skin.  It was a kind of knowing smugness, something he’d had to put up with all his life from people who always seemed to know what was best for him.   What infuriated him was that Carmen appeared to think that Charlie would not be offended if she hinted that Rick was not all that he should be.   All of a sudden, he felt the need to defend Rick, something he’d not experienced before.  He had not come all this way, over 12,000 miles, to be embarrassed about his Dad!  “Go on!  Say what you mean,” he barked.

            “No!   I shouldn’t,” Carmen said, turning away from him. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.  Don’t be so touchy!  Forget it!”

            “Forget it!  How can I forget it when you think that Rick is some kind of prize idiot and that I shouldn’t worry about it!  Three months ago I didn’t know he existed!  How would you feel if one minute you suddenly have a Dad, something you’ve always dreamed about and then the next minute everyone tells you he’s a moron!”  Remembering the fragments of conversation with Toni in Port of Refuge only added to his anger.  Charlie felt himself losing control and pretty much yelled the last words at Carmen’s shocked face.  He stood up and felt hot tears start in the corners of his eyes.  Not wanting to stay in the same space as Carmen he fled out of the cockpit, footsteps echoing on the Catalina’s deck, and climbed into the observer’s seat, high up in the wing stalk.

            “Charlie…I’m sorry…I…sorry,” Carmen called after him.

            “Leave me alone!” he cried, choking and trying not to let out all his frustration and unhappiness.  He felt so very miserable and alone. A wave of homesickness washed over him and he even began to miss school.  Polynesia was definitely not like South London.  Oh for a break time giggling with Trev about Mr Norton’s bizarre dress sense, or a lunchtime avoiding Darren Holding and his ‘crew’, laughing with Trev about how thick Darren really was.  “Thick as a brick!”  Trev would say.  “Thicker than two!”  Charlie would always reply.

            As he sat there gazing out of the observer’s window he noticed a faint patch of light behind the volcanic peak to the north of their position.  As he watched, it grew, and a range of dazzling colours seemed to spread out across the sky, emerging from the darkof the night as if they had been there all along.  Orange, red, silver, purple and blue bands of cloud all blazed in the dawn light of the rising sun, which still had not risen above the horizon.  The sea and the land remained cast in shadow, framing a quite spectacular start to the day.  Charlie was enraptured.  Polynesia definitely was not like South London!

            “Charlie?”  Carmen said softly.  “Charlie, I’m really sorry.”

            He looked at her.  She was standing by the cockpit door and looking up at him, holding her arms across her chest and looking quite uncomfortable.  “It’s OK,” he said tiredly.

            “Are you sure?”

            “Yeah, it’s OK.  It’s just that I’ve had a lot to think about lately.  I’m sorry I blasted you!  I can’t blame you, and can’t even blame Rick, even if he is a bit of a twit.”

            “Charlie, there’s something you need to know,” Carmen spoke quietly and seriously.  “It’s something my Mum said about Rick.  If my Dad chooses to hang around with Rick then Rick must be worth hanging round with.  She’s told me that there is no one she trusts more than Dad and that apart from her, there’s no-one Dad trusts more than Rick.  And my Dad is the best person in the world!  Don’t apologise for Rick – Rick’s all right, just give him a chance!”

            “If you say so, Carmen.  But he’s not doing too well at the moment – he’s late.”  Charlie replied quietly.

            Just then there was a scraping along the side of the Catalina that seemed to originate from the forward section.  Charlie quickly pressed his face to the observer’s window.  Below and in front of him, beneath the cockpit, he could just make out the shapes of two people hanging on to the handholds that crept up the side of the Catalina.  They seemed to be talking quietly in the darkness.

            “Carmen, there’s two men out there, up by the forward hatch” He whispered urgently.  Something about their body language urged a sense of caution in Charlie.

            “It must be Rick and Dad,” Carmen said happily.  “I’ll let them in!  That one always sticks from the outside, Dad’s never been able to fix it.”  She called back over shoulder as she went forward.

            It was as she reached the cockpit and started to unlatch the forward hatch, above the pilot’s seats that Charlie remembered Rick’s instructions.   What was it that he had said?  They would come back through the main door on the side facing away from the island and knock three times to set the children’s minds at rest.  Something wasn’t right.

            “Stop!” he shouted but he knew it was too late before the words left his mouth.

            The hatch was yanked open from the outside as Carmen released the lock, too slow to respond to Charlie’s warning.  Still holding the inside of the hatch, she was pulled half out of the Catalina.  In the darkness beyond she could see two men.

            “Dad?  Rick?”  her voice quavered as she realised rather too late that both she and Charlie were in terrible danger.

            A tattooed hand clamped firmly down on her forearm and Carmen screamed.

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