Years ago into yesterday, wind and tide drove him south from his war-torn home. During the long and hazardous journey, one of the deck hands took a liking to him and named him Smudge; perhaps because his real name was foreign and difficult but more likely because this tattered apology of a boy seemed to him to have been partly rubbed out by the vicissitudes of fate.

Poor Sumajito.

This evening he sat on the edge of his bed, looking out through the grey-streaked flyscreen into the empty darkness. His mother, for now he must call her that, stooped and kissed him before retreating and shutting the door behind her, but the staleness of her cheap perfume lingered for a while where she had been standing. He got up and opened the window onto the square below.

Outside, the tramp shivered. The bench was damp. He stamped his feet, spat and pulled his coat up round his ears. He was cold and his bones ached. He turned with a shiver to tighten the drawstring around the top of his swag before moving on, but just at that moment a single moonbeam shone through a gap in the trees and slipped in through the open mouth of the bag.

The boy watched as Wolfgang shouldered the swag and shuffled away down the path. His breath caught in his throat with excitement. He had never seen a man catch moonbeams before. Without hesitation, he put his leg over the sill and lowered himself into the flowerbed below. His heart missed a beat as a ginger cat jumped down from the wall, knocking a pot plant over. The square was empty but for looming shadows and a sinister whispering in the sheoak trees. He hurried along, splashing through pools of moonlight to escape the pale ghosts reaching out at the creeping skin on the nape of his neck but, although his eyes searched this way and that, he could no longer see any sign of the tramp.

On the other side of the square the harshness of neon lights washed the street free of shadows, and his pounding heartbeat slowed as he reached this floodlit sanctuary. His pace eased to a saunter as he passed a deli and approached the toyshop beyond. It had a large plate-glass window jutting out into the pavement and a poster, torn in one corner, advertising last year's Come Out Festival. At first Smudge had been drawn to the window by the harlequin smiles beckoning from this poster with orange and yellow promises of laughter. Then his eyes strayed and he saw the fishing rod. His face pressed against the window as he wrestled with sharp memories of his father but that was a lifetime ago now.

A sudden gust of wind swept up his thoughts and set an eddy of leaves swirling into the gutter, and he looked up to see a police car slow down at the far end of the street. He quickly slipped back into the shadows and hurried on towards the parklands.

Soon he reached the twisted outline of a Morton Bay Fig with its fantastic sprawling roots. He climbed into an ancient hollow, worn smooth between two branches. He hunched himself up, clasping his hands around his knees and looked out across the grass towards the lake. It was then that he saw the tramp again, down by the water's edge. Wolfgang was staring across the glass surface of time into the misty corners of another place, where grey stone mullions haunted the halls of his memory. Smudge watched, hardly daring to breathe. Both man and boy sat motionless for a time, each lost in his own dreams until Wolfgang drew his swag towards him and fumbled over its drawstring again.

Smudge crept forward and as he did so, the old man reached deep down into the swag and drew out a small oblong bottle, which he tilted to his lips. Then, with his back to the boy, he started to mutter softly to himself, "Moonshine... always there is the moonshine, eh... what else is there to keep the cold from an old man's bones?" He rocked gently to and fro.

Smudge hesitated and then he coughed.

The old man spun around, wild-eyed. His shaggy beard masked a grey face thinly purpled with veins. He grabbed Smudge's arm and held it fast.

"What is it that you are doing, little boy, creeping up behind a man so? Half scaring him from his wits... eh?"

Fear constricted Smudge's throat. He tried to say, "Please..." but no words came. Instead he pleaded with his eyes. Wide circles of fear looked up expecting the eyes of a hunter, but seeing instead the defensive terror of one habitually hunted. Like two wild animals in the night, finding that they are not enemies after all, they both relaxed imperceptibly, each caring only that he was safe and still alive.

Gradually Wolfgang loosened his grip; a man driven to the edge of violence by fear and driven back again by reason.

"Please..." he said, lowering his sad blue eyes, "it was just that you startled me."

"I didn't mean to. I... I just wanted to... to find out... you know... about the moonbeams." Smudge glanced down towards the old man's swag as he spoke.

"Moonbeams?" said Wolfgang. "Moonbeams? What is it that you mean -- moonbeams?"
He followed Smudge's gaze, and he thought then that he understood.
"Ah! So you are speaking of my little bottle. Now I see. It is the moonshine, ja?"

"Yes," Smudge nodded eagerly. "Why do you catch it?"

"Why?" The old man laughed. "It lights a fire in my belly. That's why. It eats away my sorrow."

"Would it eat my sorrow, too?"

"No! No -- it is not for you, little boy. You are too young. All of life is ahead of you. Listen... I will tell you something..."

He had scarcely started to speak when the police car drew in silently to the curb. Two policemen leapt out and raced across the grass, keeping close to the bushes. As they burst from cover, one shouted, "Alright, you dirty bastard! Stay right where you are! Leave the boy alone!"

Wolfgang lurched up, overbalancing his swag and stumbled away down the path. The swag rolled down the slope towards the lake and fell open as ragged clouds drew back their curtain and silver moonbeams spread across the water. Smudge was lost in sadness as he saw them spill. He scarcely heard the policeman at his shoulder.

"Come along, sonny. You're all right now. You'll soon be safe back home with your mum and dad. It's over." Smudge walked towards the waiting car in a daze.

Meanwhile, a little further down the path, the other policemen had caught up with Wolfgang. He had his arm twisted up behind his back and was pushing him roughly across the grass.

In a flash, Smudge came to his senses. He took a deep breath and ducked out from under the arm of the law, away into the bushes.

"Hey, come back! Quick, Joe! The boy's run off. Radio back to headquarters for help while I go after him!"

Smudge weaved away, down past the boatshed and vaulted across a low fence running along the side of some tennis courts. After a few hundred metres, he crouched down and listened for sounds of pursuit. The silence around him was broken only by the intermittent growl of city traffic. He hardly dared to breathe.

Eventually he peeped over the fence and, after waiting a few moments, he ran off towards the street. He was about to cross when a solitary car pulled out from a side street. He drew back into the shadow of a tree, away from the glaring arc of the headlights. The car drove away towards the city and he stayed hidden until it had disappeared into the distance, then he quickly crossed over.

It was a wide street of imposing houses set back from the road. They were mostly bluestone villas with tall shrubs shading wide verandas. About halfway down, a large old house loomed up in the moonlight. It had wrought-iron gates and a dilapidated brush fence grown over with jasmine and honeysuckle. Smudge could see the white silhouette of a small yacht laid up in the carport, partly shrouded under a tarpaulin. He looked up and down the street. It was empty and silent as he squeezed in through a broken fence panel.

A moment later, an observer, had there been one, would have seen him swing himself up over the gunwale and edge open the wooden hatch. He climbed down into the cabin where, before long, he was curled up under a blanket, the salt tang of the sea weaving familiar patterns into the stuff of his dreams. It was one o'clock.

Gradually, through the matchstick hours of the morning, news seeped across the city. At 5 a.m. a telephone rang on The Advertiser's night desk.
"Hello? Oh, hi there, Bill. What gives? Have they really? Hey! That's fantastic! Yeah, we'll get going right away and draft a story on it. Look, you'd better get straight down to the police station and see what you can find out. Some old Kraut dero, was it? Should've shot all those bastards at the end of the war. Let me know when you hear anything more about the boy. He must have had the wind up to scarper from the police like that. Do you reckon it might be the same bloke as murdered the Dawson kid last month? Deserves everything he's got coming to him, I'd say. So long then, mate. Yeah, and the same to you! 'Bye."

Morning crept up over the outer edges of the city and lights started to splash from bedroom windows. Transistors blared. Kettles whistled and people began to stumble reluctantly into the discord of a new day.

"Hey, did you hear that, Shirl? They've caught the bloke whose been doing in all those kids. Yeah, that's right. Just said so on the news. Last night in the parklands. Caught the bum red-handed. Reckon the police got there just in the nick of time, else he's have had another one. Some poor little refugee kid. Yeah, poor sod. You'd have thought he'd had his share of troubles. No, I'm not sure. Chink or something like that. Hurry up with that tea, love, or I'll be late for work. Where was it you said you'd put my shirt?"

At 7.15 Mr Williamson picked up the phone for the second time that morning. "No, I'm afraid my wife can't talk to anyone. Yes, I know. Look, I'm sorry. It's been a terrible shock. We only started fostering little Sumajito a couple of weeks ago. He was settling in so well, too. No - from Nha Trang, a fishing village in Vietnam. Both parents killed. That's right. No, the police still don't know what happened. Reckon he must have conned the boy out into the street. His window was open and there was a pot plant smashed nearby. Oh, yes. He spoke quite good English. His mother used to work at the American airbase. What was that? What'd I like to see done to the old bastard? Don't ask. Hanging would be too good for him, mate."

Down at headquarters, the police were making their enquiries. Cross-checking statements. Confirming facts...

"Oh, yes, officer. We know him. Often comes here for a doss down. Harmless old bird, he is. One of them what got interned in the war. Not much more than a lad he'd have been at the time. Some of the people I've spoken to in the German community reckon his family got turned over by the Hitler Youth back in the thirties. By all accounts they got pretty badly beaten up again when they arrived here. He wouldn't have had a fair go in his life, I don't reckon. Go easy on him, whatever he's done. What are you after him for anyway? No! Not him! No, that couldn't have been him... red-handed you say? Well, I'd never have thought it. Just shows, don't it? You never can tell. Thank God the boy's all right. Disappeared? Poor little codger. Probably scared half out of his wits."

At 7.45 Smudge woke with a start. A car door slammed and there was a grating sound as an engine was thrown into reverse. He looked out of a porthole just in time to see a black LandCruiser backing out down the drive. He realised he was hungry and saw a biscuit tin stowed on the galley shelf. He reached up and took it down. Empty. Not even a few stale crumbs. Another need was even more pressing. He crossed his legs. The more he thought about it, the worse it became. The agony was just getting unbearable when he saw an Elsan stashed away by the forward bulkhead. He crawled forward with a sigh of relief. Then ...catastrophe!

His world gave a sudden violent lurch as the front of the boat came down with a sickening crunch and he was thrown forward in a heap amongst the sails. A few minutes later the world started to level out again and there were thumps at the stern of the boat. The hatch was thrown open and the sky above him was filled with a mean-looking woman in a pink dressing gown, brandishing a poker and thin, sagging breasts. Smudge thought his last hour had come.

"What do you think you're doing down there, you little tyke? I'll have the police on you for this! Just look at the damage. Come on out or, so help me, I'll come in and fetch you. Simon! Simon! Drat, where are you, boy?"

"Coming, mum. What's the matter?"

"Don't you 'What's the matter' me, my lad. Get inside and ring for the police -- and look sharp about it."

An hour later, Smudge found himself down at the central police station surrounded by people trying to be kind to him. The policemen in the outer office were talking amongst themselves in low voices.

"No, it doesn't look as though there'll be any charges. Seems like it was all a mistake. Apparently the boy slipped out of his own free will. No idea why. Homesick, maybe ...or perhaps he was running away."

"Sounds more like sleep-walking to me. Some cock-and-bull story about catching moonbeams. But he swore blind the tramp never laid a finger on him."

"Hah! You believe that? I don't reckon there's ever smoke without fire. You don't know what might have happened. Anyway, it's no good me standing around here. I'm on traffic duty up by Government House in quarter of an hour."

There being no charges, he was soon released. Smudge was sitting on a bench in the foyer with a cup of hot sweet tea, waiting for the Williamsons to pick him up when Wolfgang came out. The old man hesitated before going across to sit by the boy.

"I'm sorry little fellow. It is long since I was young enough to chase moonbeams. I had forgotten all about such things and I did not understand. Besides," he added with a sigh, "I never did catch any."

"But I saw you! I wish I could have just touched one but ...but they all spilled into the water when you ran away."

"Ah, perhaps you are right! Who knows? Maybe after all, at last... but I have grown too old to keep hold of such things now. Listen, my little friend, you must go out and catch your own moonbeams, then you will not need mine."

Smudge looked once again into the tramp's sad blue eyes. "Is it easy?" he asked.

"No," said Wolfgang. "It is not easy."

"Then will you show me how?"

Wolfgang smiled and put his hand on the boy's shoulder. Just then the desk sergeant looked up.

"C'mon, mate. Leave the boy alone. It's time you were back on the road."

The tramp turned. "Auf Wiedersehen, mein kleiner Freund!" he said as he stood up. He shouldered his swag and shuffled out onto the street, leaving an empty space where he had been ...with just a faint whiff of moonshine hanging in the air.

Smudge smiled. He no longer felt quite so alone.