Justice Cudlip Trout, sent away on gardening leave, has been wrenched from his geraniums to head the Armed Services inquiry into HMNZS Wellington and its naval inaction against the toothfishermen pirates.
Helped by Nicky Hager's angry nerds squad, we have hacked into Justice Trout's working notes. The transcript reads as follows: This is the last damn navy inquiry I'll have any part of. A services inquiry was once top drawer.
The visiting judge got his own batman, honorary rank, and the run of the officers' wine cellar. Nowadays you can't even find the rum ration. And, mark my words, this is a rum business.
Dodgy foreigners in squalid rustbuckets are roaming the Southern Ocean filching toothfish. (What the hell is a toothfish? I've never been served toothfish and chips. And surely the correct plural is teethfish?)
So - Wellington tootles up to these toothfishers, who are busy at their ragged nets. We tell them, very civilly, that the navy's coming aboard to inspect. But the oafs give our lads the finger, and sail on.
Foreign Minister McCully, in a right froth, gives Wellington the OK to board these impudent people, check their catch, and toss their toothfish back in the ocean. The events which followed are the nub of my inquiry.
Rather than swarming aboard with cutlasses drawn, our navy took photos of the poachers at their naughty play, and then - just sailed back home.
I must say this caused a hue and a cry. Joe Citizen, who has been in favour of every war since the Boers, was sorely disappointed.
''What's the point of a navy too chicken to board a fishing boat?'' Joe rumbled.
''If they couldn't clap the skipper in irons, or strafe with machine guns, the least should be a shot across their bows. Were these pansies worried they'd hit a passing whale, or provoke a protest from a delegation of dolphins?'
'Joe had a point. Our navy had looked like some tremulous titmouse.
My first witness was a navy top dog - a commodore called New Zealand Defence Force Maritime Component Commander. (His title may have been longer, but our stenographer is slow). This chap explained they would have boarded the scallywags, but the seas had been awfully rough.
''Are you quite sure some able seaman hadn't reported in with a toothache?'' I sniggered.
Pink with anger, the commodore gave the court a 10-minute rebuttal, explaining the raging seas, the working of a bosun's chair, the Treaty of Something, and the need for responsible judgement.
Actually, he made perfect sense. But then he spoiled it.
''My statement to the press explained it precisely. I told them - and you'll see this accurately reported in the Otago Daily Times - 'During this patrol, the captain and crew have encountered a range of difficult circumstances, and they have risen to those challenges safely and professionally every time'.''
''Did you get that from Monty Python?'' I asked.
''Or was it The Goon Show? That's management speak at its worst.''
''Really? I got it from our public relations department,'' said the commodore, nonplussed.
''I thought it was terribly good.''
I got similar gobbledegook from the skipper when asked why there'd been no shot across the poachers' bows. This officer, otherwise seemingly sane, quoted his press clippings too. His reasons for not firing a shot were ''safety and environmental issues'' (ODT again).
''Did that also come from your PR people?'' I asked. Dear God, where does the media coaching end?
Why can't these blokes use plain English and just say it was too damn rough, why scrape the paintwork on some rusty fishing boat, and who needs a Great Toothfish War anyway? ''
Acting professionally'' sounds like a real estate agent's excuse when he's up on charges.
''Safety and environment issues'' are government code words invoked when doing nothing.
Of course, my finding will be that the navy acted wisely, and everything's tickety-boo. They were a bit lacking in mongrel perhaps, but best not go there.
John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
