Clandestine

Chapter 15 - Oz

I did not want to return to North America or the Middle East and I knew Scotland held nothing for me. As fate would have it I was offered a semi-civilian position in Australia, in 1982. It was a teaching position in Melbourne, instructing cadets at the Naval Academy.

It was an opportunity that ticked all of the boxes. I was looking for a remote and adventurous destination away from the action. I could think of no less politically volatile place in the world. I envisioned a place full of bouncing kangaroos and koalas munching on gum trees. I thought I would take up golf and punctuate my teaching with frequent trips to beautiful and exotic locales.

I arrived in Melbourne in January of 1982, in the middle of a heat wave. The air sizzled and the talk of the town revolved around cricket.  I had two months before I was to report to my job at the academy. I took up residence just outside the Kingston Heath Golf Club and put my name down for membership. I remember playing golf back at Oxford. The game proved to be perfect therapy. I enjoyed wandering the sandy dunes of the Melbourne golf scene, losing myself in the scenery and calm. It connected me to a sport that I had played briefly in my youth, and I found the challenge of lowering my handicap to a respectable level both a thrilling prospect and a hopeless pursuit.

Throughout the 80s I watched as the world unfolded. Russia could not keep pace with the spending of its American counterparts and never had the means to hold together the loose amalgam of states that had joined its Soviet Union. It became further entrenched in Afghanistan, fighting a war it could not win as the rebels -- outfitted with American weapons -- were impossible to locate and defeat in the inhospitable Afghan desert. As money flowed to helicopters over the Middle East, the Soviets ran out of cash and soon, after a dubious stretch of leaders, the Soviet Union itself broke apart. I watched on television as the U.S.S.R. began its collapse with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The Americans replaced a good man in the White House with a puppet. Ronald Reagan, a two-bit actor, was propped up and played the part of a tough marshal from the wild west for the entire world to see while the machinery that is the American financial industry convinced the government to de-regulate the entire system. As the government looked away it led to an unprecedented period of wealth and prosperity in the country, unfortunately one that meant the rich only got richer.

As I began to travel around Australia, I realised how immense and exotic the country truly is and how un-Australian Melbourne is in every way. Melbourne has a strange cocktail of weather that can rear its head at any time. It does not have the full-on intense heat that characterises much of the rest of the inland scene. It also boasts a glorious past driven by the gold rush of the 19th century. At one time it was the richest city in the world, fuelled by gold and dusted with European sensibilities. Melbourne is artistic and almost modern. Cafés and museums punctuate the downtown area and there is a hip and trendy vibe. In the inventory of Australian cities, Melbourne is the only lady in the bunch. The rest have a harder edge, full of saloons and outposts. But before you think that Melbourne is all rose petals and bubble baths, to be fair it is the sports mecca of the southern hemisphere. A trip to the Melbourne cricket grounds, a seat at a grand slam tennis event, or an opportunity to barrack for your side at an Aussie rules football match, must be experienced.

Work was easy in Melbourne. I did my best to stay out of the limelight. Teaching courses to naval cadets at the academy was a breeze and I rarely got into anything juicy. The closest I came was at a meeting where we prepared officers to embark on a mission to Fiji, in 1987.

The government of the little island nation was overthrown by a disenfranchised group of civilians, and immediately many nations were concerned about finding a way to rescue their citizens if events took a further turn for the worse. It was decided that Australia would offer safe passage to any Aussies, New Zealanders, Americans, Canadians, or Brits that might need to flee the country if the coup turned violent. At the meeting of senior naval staff I was informed that two Australian warships had been sent to Fiji to offer transit to foreign nationals. Perhaps it was a moment of weakness, on my part, but I asked what the plan was to get the civilians from the island to the ships. Apparently there was no plan, and the absence of forethought was a trifle embarrassing when I raised the issue in the assembly. After the meeting I was tasked with helping put together a full plan to mobilise the fleeing citizens. Despite an elaborate plan involving helicopters and staging points the issue became moot when the rebellion took a festive turn. No blood was shed and the revolution proceeded without incident; therefore there was no major risk to foreign diplomats. It showed how the Australian military had become somewhat lax in their tactical and strategic thinking. It is not a criticism of the Australian military but more so a reflection of what was happening in the Western world at that time. The cold war had changed priorities and there was a tactical and mission planning edge that had been overlooked as the world had sat back and watched an arms race between two superpowers. In the theatre of cold war politics many proud military nations, such as Canada and Australia, temporarily lost their way.

The hastily-put-together rescue mission in Fiji was titled Operation Morris Dance and, while I had a hand in developing the plan, I did not leverage my input into anything more senior within the Australian navy. I returned to my life of leisure and most importantly my golf game.

In July (winter) of 1987 I ran across a correspondence put out by Oxford University calling for all alumni to return to a homecoming at Keelbe College, my old abode from my days as a mediocre undergraduate student. One of the events that caught my attention was a golf tournament to be held at the Oxford Golf Club. I had been working so hard at my game I thought that this was a perfect opportunity to return to my school and enjoy a round with some of my fellow alumni. I marked the date on the calendar for June of 1988 and counted down the days as I readied for the long voyage back to Great Britain. My handicap had decreased to a respectable four shots and I was hoping that my new Australian-bred golf swing would impress the locals. As it would turn out it only impressed one man who would come to be my boss for the next decade and catapult me back into the world of international intrigue.