Hammond Innes - High Stand

I hesitated. A tree trunk was in some ways rather like a giant version of a walking stick and with the trunk hollowed out … ‘Can we go down to the pulp mill and have a look at those logs?’

I thought they were going to press me to say what was in my mind, but instead, after a momentary hesitation, everyone staring at me, they got to their feet. ‘Okay. Let’s go have another look at that timber.’ And I could see that all of them, the two customs officers, the American drugs man and the RCMP officer — Brian and Miriam, too — were mulling over in their minds the idea I had given them, unwilling to put it into words for fear it would prove as nonsensical as it seemed.

We drove down in three vehicles, turned right by the Indian Reserve on the level flats of the Gold River estuary just short of the quay and entered the pulp mill. The logs were stacked in a pile close by a great tree trunk of a boom crane. Across the water the local passenger and cargo ship, the Uchuck HI, was just pulling out from the pier past the Coastguard cutter which was still lying there. The trunks were very uniform, and in that setting, with the booming ground just below us, the great pile of the mill at our backs plumed with white smoke and the rock walls of Muchalat Inlet to the right and die even narrower gut of Matchloe Bay to our left, clouds hanging black against a shaft of sunlight, they looked so much smaller.

It was the butts I wanted to examine, for I was sure the ones I had seen up-ended against that cliff above the logging camp had been butt-end up. Unfortunately the stacking had been done regardless of the order in which they had been loaded on the barge and they were wet from having been off-loaded into the booming ground first, so that the sawdust clinging to the butts was sticky and very tenacious. In the end, we had to get the mill people to bring in a pump and hose them down under pressure.

The first two dozen or so we examined had clearly not been tampered with in any way, and after that we had to use the back of a truck to give us extra height. All the time large clutches of logs were being brought in from the forests and tipped into the pen, an unnerving bustle of big vehicle activity. And then, when I was beginning to feel I had made a fool of myself, the logging boss who had been clambering over the logs without bothering to use the truck, called for the hose. ‘Something here.’ He was on his knees, leaning over the round raw wood end of a log, feeling it with his hands. ‘Sort of irregular.’ The truck was shifted slightly and the hose jet washed the sawdust clear. We could see it then, a slight protuberance and the growth rings not quite matching.

We saw the same thing then in several others. A plug had been inserted. Brian thought it might be just that, having drilled certain logs with the intention of making a boom and then being faced with the prospect that felling would be stopped, they had decided to ship the whole lot out. But it had been very cleverly done, in most cases the growth rings matching and only the slightest crack to indicate that a plug had been inserted in the drill hole. A lot of trouble had been taken to make those plugs fit exactly.

The foreman had scrambled down from the pile and was lumbering across to his office shack. Rain closed off the inlet, grey billows of cloud between the black rock walls. He came back with a big chainsaw. Also a piece of paper, which he handed to the RCMP officer. ‘Sign that.’ His heavy-jowled features cracked in a grin. ‘All right for you, but my people, they wouldn’t like it if they got a bill for a damaged cedar log.’ The policeman signed and the foreman stuffed it into his pocket. ‘Which shall we take first, the one I picked out?’

The officer looked at the rest of us, then nodded. The saw was passed up to us and the foreman began directing the winch winder in the boom crane’s cabin. One by one the logs were lifted down until the one that had quite obviously been plugged was fully exposed. The big Canadian was standing with his feet carefully balanced. ‘I’ll take it bit by bit, okay?’ he said as we handed the saw up to him. He pulled the starter cord and the engine roared.

That was when the rain reached us, but he took no notice, though all he was wearing was a heavy coloured shirt, and braces of course. Water spurted from the blade as he leaned forward, the grip claws positioned about two feet from the butt, the engine note deepening as the chain sliced down through the bark and into the wood, pale sawdust pouring out and all of us watching as the rain poured down and lightning flashed somewhere in the hills above us. Suddenly the saw checked and the foreman pulled the blade out, the motor idling, the chain still. He peered down, turning the saw and picking up a smear of dust and oil on the tip of his finger. ‘That’s not wood.’ He held his finger out to us, flecks of white amongst the sawdust, a pale slime, but mixed with the oil and the wood dust it was hard to see the difference. ‘Won’t do the saw much good if I try and go through it. Have to go round. There’s something there.’

He had the crane operator lower the grappling chains, shifted the whole tree trunk several feet, so that the butt hung out over the back of the truck, and then started to cut round the trunk to a fraction over the depth of the saw blade. The rain stopped and at one point, shifting the position of the saw, he said, ‘Looks like plastic.’ Finally, with the log cut all round and hanging by just a single hinge of wood, so that the end-section trembled at a touch, he stepped back. ‘Okay boys, now see what it is.’ He paused then, looking at us. The man had a natural sense of the dramatic, holding the heavy chainsaw in his big paw as though it were a sword. Then he leaned forward, revved the motor and snicked the wooden hinge with the tip of the blade, the whole log-end suddenly hanging free.

He gave it a kick and it fell into the truck at our feet, and we were looking at a new butt-end with a hole in the centre of it about eight inches in diameter and white powder dribbling from it. The American reached forward, took some of it in his hand and stood staring down at it. ‘Jeez! It’s pure. Virgin pure coke. Uncut.’

Customs men gathered round, dipping their fingers in, staring at the powder. ‘Let’s see how much they’ve stowed there. Is it plastic bags?’

The foreman shook his head. ‘A container more like.’ His big hands were already working round the broken edges of the hole. ‘Yeah, plastic container — long one by the feel of it.’

It took three of them to drag it clear and lower it to the truck. It was a clear plastic tube measuring 20 cms by 4.5 metres and it was packed from end to end with cocaine.

‘Not much difference, is there?’ The Drug Enforcement agent had straightened up and was staring at the great pile of logs. ‘Why the hell didn’t I think of that?’ He turned to me. ‘Walking sticks! It’s just a matter of scale, isn’t it? If you can hollow out the one, you can hollow out the other.’

‘If you’ve got the right equipment,’ I said, ‘and it’s available in the right place.’ I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it, or Tom, looking down on the Cascades logging camp and seeing that mobile drilling rig and a tree trunk up-ended against that cliff.

‘Yeah.’ He took off his glasses, nodded to himself as he wiped the rain off. ‘Neat. Oh, so very neat.’ He put his glasses on again, staring at the stack of logs. ‘Wonder how much we got in that pile? One hell of a lot, that’s for sure. And only a few days back we checked out a barge-load and let it through.’

The elder of the two Canadian customs officers patted his shoulder. ‘Not your fault. You’d no means of knowing — ’

‘Of course I hadn’t. I wasn’t there. But we had our suspicions — a tip-off. Reliable, too. And we never had the sense to relate that special stand of trees to the drug concealment potential. The barge-load we let through a few nights back will have been trundled through the passes and across the plains, and right now it’ll be in the SVL Company’s timber yard in Chicago, or maybe it’s already out in the street… Just think what that means in terms of road accidents, muggings, rape. God! I never thought I’d be faced with something as big as this.’ He turned to the foreman. ‘Better take me to the manager’s office. I need a phone — lots of calls — Chicago.’ He was already clambering down from the truck. The other followed.