Dragon of Hope Island
Firstly, I would like to say that there is no such place as Hope Island, at least not in the Banda Sea. Many years ago, I was on pirate patrol in the South China Sea in a 150-ton-twin-engine TTL, when suddenly on this particular occasion I spotted a fairly fast moving object on the radar crossing our bow at about 18 kilometres ahead. I told the skipper there was something suspicious at the relevant location.
Full throttle and we steered at high speed toward the blip. Before we made visual contact, as was the case with most pirates their speed suddenly decreased. They would pretend to be harmless traders or fishing. The lookout visually spotted them – sure enough it looked like a harmless Junk, probably an island trader. But the radar had told me these boys were doing 16 knots, something no Junk could achieve. The skipper ordered a shot across their bow to attract their attention. No sooner had we opened fire than a cloud of diesel fumes rose from the Junk, and she accelerated to almost 18 knots and headed for a nearby island. In seconds we heard the scream of incoming mortars – their accuracy was pretty good, and the shells landed only a hundred metres off our port bow. We returned fire with a twin 50-calibre machine gun. Unfortunately, the pirates knew the waters better then we did, our skipper veered off the attack. The water was far too shallow for us to follow. We stayed out of the enemy’s mortar range and called the Royal Navy for help while keeping an eye on the pirates. A few hours later a Royal Navy Corvette turned up, she carried six-inch guns with at least ten nautical mile range. The RN Skipper said he’d chase them out with a few heavy-duty rounds. The big gun turned to face the island, and ‘BANG’ a huge shell screamed toward the shore. With an amazing shower of dirt, sand and splintered wood the pirate ship exploded and vanished from sight. “Sorry old man,” called the RN Skipper over the radio, “a little too close.” And they sailed away. The island though probably not inhabited inspired me to write the story of ‘The Dragon of Hope Island’. My thinking being that those pirates saw the place as their only HOPE of escaping our fast boat.
