Silas Parks in Batam

Batam is a right den of iniquity and one that can get even the most decent sort of person into trouble as it did me on this terrible occasion. The place is good for the drinker, the womanizer and the adventure - all at affordable prices. Not that I drink much these days, the odd glass now and again and a couple more at Christmas and anyway one wife was enough for me. Batam is for the youngsters not a grizzled and hairy seafarer but then I have mostly have no choice in the matter, I have to go where the ship is!

One fine day, many years ago, I was propping up the bar of a certain nefarious establishment simply because I was bored and I had nothing else to do. I don't go ashore much once I have climbed up the gangway - once up and once down that ladder is enough for me in any one trip. Anyway, I'm too old for all that sort of thing now, the malarkin around with the girls I mean. I tend to let the younger guys get up the road and let off steam whilst they still have the spirit to do so. On this exact occasion I flew out to Singapore and took the short ferry across to Batam to await the arrival of my ship. All I had to do was pass the afternoon away and then my ship would be berthed, the gangway would be down and I could clamber up it - just one afternoon more and then back to sea where I could go to regain my sea legs!

It doesn't take long to walk around Batam. A few ramshackle houses in need of a coat of paint, loads of bars and dens, some shops and that is about that. So there I was with about six hours to wait and nothing to do - jumping from shaded spot to overhang without meeting the sun was beginning to wear thin. One beer to cool off and to replenish the fluids that had been lost whilst walking around sounded good! One beer to while away the hours until my ship comes in.

There I was in this bar, perched on a stool, supping a beer or two and minding my own business, when a few guys came in to slake their own thirsts. I got to talking to them and so we shared beers! They bought a round and I bought one back and it wasn't till I happened to look outside, to find the sun had long since disappeared over the horizon, that I realized that I was a bit late for that appointment with my ship.

I am not very sure what happened between this realization and the following morning, which is when I woke up in the hotel and in bath tub, fully dressed and it full of water. I woke up at some hour of daylight with a pounding headache, a half empty beer can spilling dregs down my nose from its lying position on the bath tub edge and a half eaten burger squashed into the top pocket of my now sodden shirt.

It was extremely clear to me from my near-horizontal position that I had last night somehow had another drink and that this drink had caused me to miss my ship. I am not trying to blame others and I will suggest that maybe I was slightly to blame for the situation that resulted from this point onward but I would like to point out that the agent was also extremely negligent in his duty. Batam is not a large place and only has a few bars to its name so with a little effort on his part he could have driven around to find me.

Being in the bath and wet I decided that the best thing that I could do would be to shower up, get dressed in some dry clothes and pretend that I was wide awake and healthy.

I suppose, had I perfected and thought out my plan of attack better, the situation would not have steadily gotten worse. The agent located me whilst I was eating breakfast and informed me that the ship had come and gone; that the old Captain had stayed on till Australia and that the boss back in London wanted to talk to me urgently- at whatever hour I could be located.

I started off my approach in good form by lambasting the poor agent for not having found me sooner. Unfortunately, he was having none of that and told me, without room for error, that he had searched everywhere and that he had reliably informed me as to the exact time of the ships arrival. He was pretty angry at me!

After the agent had left in a temper I made the necessary call to head office to apologize to them.

This next bit of this episode has always left me flabbergasted. Whether the agent turned nasty or somebody else was trying to cover their back I know not but it seems that somebody told the office that I had been kidnapped. Not drunk, not overslept, but kidnapped and this was the reason why I had not managed to join the ship as scheduled!

Balderdash!

Kidnapped? To this day the personnel manager insists that it was I who told him this story on the phone on that very same day! He repeats the story verbatim, as if he had been taping it. "I stopped off in a bar for one beer and being the only customer some thugs dragged me to a darkened room and tied me up. Then they stole my wallet, threw me out onto the street and I couldn't find my way back to the hotel. Took me hours to find my way and it was only some passerby's who took pity on me and helped me back that saved my bacon".

It was less than an hour after I had made my call to England, and after I had most likely apologized profusely for missing the vessel (I cannot quite remember what I said during that call), that there was some loud knocking on my hotel room door. I was by this time correctly dressed, showered and with a now receding hangover and was thus very surprised to see half of Batams' police force on my doorstep!

I knew nothing about these kidnapping charges! How could I? I listened to this guy, who had so many ribbons and metal on his shirt front that I couldn't see the color of it, and came to the conclusion that he was off his rocker. These serious looking guys with very serious looking guns escorted me from the hotel, I felt like royalty at that moment, and they took me to what must have been the police station.

They grilled me, they questioned me and they drew out of me a story that even today I find hard to believe. Listen, this wasn't my fault! Somehow my boss had got the wrong end of the stick; he was obviously barking up the wrong tree and had contacted the police here. And I, with my now cast-in-stone story had to play along! The agent was there, he had a constant smirk on his face which just goes to prove that it was he who had started this viscous web of lies in the first place.

Anyway, to cut a long story short ……….. the girl that the police found in my bed in the hotel room (she had been cowering under the covers) was placed under suspicion, although how she got there (under the covers, I mean) was beyond me! She was questioned thoroughly by the police but denied all knowledge of what had transpired the night before and simply stated over and over again that I had picked her up at a bar and had taken her back to the hotel in exchange for some cash! I can only assume that the agent was involved here somehow too! The police had me tour the bars with them to try and find out in which one the kidnapping had occurred, they had me look at photographs of what must have been Batams criminal elite and through all of this I had to play along!

They eventually let me go! They told me to stay in Batam pending further investigation but I felt that a quick exit might be in order. They dropped me off at my hotel, I quickly threw my stuff into my bag and without further ado I hopped onto the next available ferry to Singapore. I never did find out how it all solved itself. Certainly my boss had been wholly taken-in by the scheming agent with his extremely false stories and I found myself on suspension pending a company investigation. They eventually gave me my job back but not without a series of warnings. They even wanted me to visit a therapist of some sort but I just couldn't see the point.

Looking back I can laugh but at the time I felt very worried indeed. And I never did find my wallet; I can only assume that the girl had stolen it or the agent for that matter but its all water under the bridge now.

I've never been back to Batam since.