In a slice of Eastern heaven

in nineteen eighty seven.

I sat on twenty million dollars,

worth of paint

 

From on the Island.

Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Where poor people 

see rich people stroll along.

 

My mate the bosun

Ng and I were close uns 

We rolled together

In all the weather

 

Shipmates through and through.

I’m the officer and he’s the crew.

We knew who’s job to do.

but we were good mates too.

 

So I’d wander to his paint locker

Where the paint sits and waits 

For brush and roller

To masticate on steel plates. 

 

And we’d laugh and joke

About being rich and living dreams.

As we danced in rickshaws 

in Kowloon and being men of means.

 

And I’d sit on twenty litres of two pack white

As Ng gave the paint to his merry men

To paint the bulkheads and deckheads

And heavy lifting crane heads times ten.

 

And we sailed from Hong Kong 

And like Cooke arrived in Sydney

Ready to conquer and run amok. 

And lived it up around the clock.

 

Which we did for a little while,

Then we came to a grinding halt.

As customs and cops came leaping out

with guns and slavering dogs by the dozen. 

To abuse a phrase we were frozen.

 

And when the interrogation ended

It was clear I’d befriended

A man who’d upended

the laws of sunny ‘Stralia. 

 

And the twenty litres of two pack.

Faithfully loaded, 

And faithfully guarded by friend Ng,

Also contained an added extra…..

 

Twenty million dollars

Of the finest Chinese white

Heroin, poisonous shite.

Death in paint.

 

And I’d sat on it and laughed

As we’d planned and spammed.

And laughed together because

i’d smuggled two bottles of rum

And a kilo of baccy.