Expatriates (21 page)

“The more you know, the less you need.”

—Australian Old Saying

L
ike all of the other civilian employees, Chuck Nolan was asked to not leave Site G once the Indos began their landings. He mainly assisted with the sporadic nighttime visits by the FLB's supported units. These vehicles would arrive using only blackout lights, with the drivers wearing the standard issue ITL N/SEAS night vision monocular, very similar to the American PVS-14 system. They would load up quickly—mostly rations and ammo—and then be gone in less than an hour. These “pull” missions were straightforward, and became almost routine. There were of course nagging fears that the Indos might observe the routes they took, but that level of risk couldn't be avoided. They hoped that within a couple of weeks, there would be a major Australian Army advance and that they'd soon be inside friendly lines.

There were also three daring nighttime “push” logistics runs to re-supply isolated units. These were just individual trucks from the FLBs, driven by soldiers wearing NVGs. Also in the cab was a navigator, who usually spent most of each run with a poncho draped over his head so the light from the GPS screens wouldn't blind the driver. They intentionally left the infrared blackout light on the vehicles turned off, realizing that they could be spotted from a great distance by any night vision equipment. In Afghanistan, their IR lights had even proved vulnerable to detection by inexpensive consumer video cameras used by the Taliban. This combat lesson was still fresh in their minds.

The first Indonesian landings were conducted at night, but once they had large numbers of troops ashore, they began to feel confident and ran their landings twenty-four hours a day. For Caleb Burroughs and the men at his FLBs, an anxious waiting game began.

—

N
ine days after the landings began, Site G had their first enemy contact. Word came from a concealed ridgeline observation post (OP) that was three kilometers to the southwest. The observer reported a possible dismounted Indonesian patrol advancing toward the FLB. A minute later, he radioed a follow-up: Based on their uniforms and weapons, they were definitely Indonesians—either army or marines. The FLB was quietly put on full alert. Their usually shunned Tiered Body Armour System bullet-resistant vests and helmets were enthusiastically donned, and the perimeter foxholes were all manned. Caleb Burroughs ran from foxhole to foxhole, imparting some strict rules of engagement. He hoped the FLB would go undetected and that the Indo patrol would pass them by.

As a civilian, Chuck Nolan felt redundant in this buzz of activity. He donned his Camelbak and boonie hat, picked up his rifle and approached Caleb. He said hurriedly, “I'm not really needed here. Everyone's been trained and equipped to demo the whole site without my help. You know I'm a good runner, fast on a bike, and a good shot, so what do you say I go east of here and draw them off?”

Burroughs hesitated for just a moment before firmly ordering, “Go!”

Chuck didn't waste any time. He cross-slung his rifle and jumped on his mountain bike. Pedaling furiously, he was out to Litchfield Park Road in less than a minute. Four more minutes of riding brought him to the base of a brushy hill that gave him a commanding view of the valley. He left the bike fifty yards into the jungle on the east slope of the hill and started to climb. In another few minutes he was atop the hill, lying prone and observing the eleven-man Indo infantry patrol through the scope on his Enfield. They were arrayed in a shallow V in fairly open ground. They were now just three hundred yards from the FLB's southern perimeter. Chuck was nearly perpendicular to the patrol's avenue of advance.

By their casual movements, Chuck could tell that they weren't expecting contact. Even without military experience, he knew that if they were anticipating trouble, they would be using bounding maneuvers. This looked more like a nature hike—just a typical security patrol with only the precaution of the wide wedge formation. But he could also see that if they continued in their direction of advance, they would eventually impinge the west side of the FLB's defensive donut.

Chuck sighed. He pulled back the bolt hammer that he had
slowly
released earlier on a live round. It served as a nice additional safety on a chambered round, on the SMLE. There was no wind, but this would be a very long shot—he roughly estimated it at seven hundred yards—and he was shooting slightly downhill. His rifle was zeroed for two hundred yards. Referring to the drop table taped to the rifle's forend, he saw that he had to hold over by six feet four inches. But he came back down eight inches to compensate for shooting downhill, which would otherwise make the bullet impact too high. Chuck also had to lead slightly, compensating for their steady walking speed. He aimed for the second man back from the point man. Realizing that he had little chance of a hit when shooting so hastily from such a long distance, he squeezed the trigger anyway. His job, he reasoned, was just to
make noise
and draw them away—not to win any awards for marksmanship. The rifle bucked against his shoulder.

By the time he got his scope lined up again, all of the men in the Indo patrol had dropped to the ground. He slowly cycled the rifle's bolt. With the patrol in high grass and brush, Chuck could see only two of the Indo soldiers. He took a steady aim and fired again. This time, he could see a puff of dust kicked up by the bullet's impact—slightly high and to the right. The Indonesians started to return fire. Despite the range, the Indonesians peppered the hilltop. Chuck could hear some rounds going over his head, a queer sound that he had never experienced before.

Instinctively, Chuck began crawling backward. The bullet impacts were getting closer. Dirt kicked up on both sides of him, but after just thirty seconds of crawling, Chuck was safely below the crest of the hill. Holding his rifle at high port position, he took a couple of jumps and then started running down the reverse side of the hill. As he ran, he glanced up and picked out another small hill near the winding road, about a mile up the valley. He was quickly on his bike again and pumping the pedals. His mouth had gone completely dry, so he took a few pulls from the bite valve on his hydration pack. He had a lot of ground to cover in a hurry. Once he was a half mile down the road, he heard more firing coming from the hilltop he had just recently occupied. At first sporadic, their rifle fire became intense, coming in long volleys. A few rounds twanged on the pavement ahead of him and beside him.

Finding an untapped reserve of energy, Chuck rode even faster. A few hundred yards farther down the road, a curve took him behind a hillock, blocking the Indos' line of sight. The shooting stopped, and Chuck started laughing. “I can play this game all day!”

He continued cycling rapidly. As he worked his way up the valley, he changed his mind about the hill he had picked out, deciding that it would be too obvious. He opted instead for another hill on the left side of the road, slightly closer. This one wasn't in line of sight to the hill from which he'd fired before.

He intentionally rode beyond this hill as well, to be able to approach its reverse side. Walking carefully with the bike's frame over his left shoulder, he did his best to avoid leaving a trail in the grass. This made for uncomfortable walking, especially with the rifle slung over his other shoulder. He left the bicycle in the jungle—farther in this time, and broke a few tree branches off to camouflage it.

Chuck started up the hill at a slower pace, stopping to take several pulls from his Camelbak. Even if they ran, the Indos wouldn't be close for another half hour.

He reached the crest of the hill in twelve minutes. This hill, slightly higher than the first, was more heavily covered with trees. It made observing the valley more difficult, but it gave him better camouflage. This time, he carefully selected his position with his eventual retreat in mind. He picked a hollow near the summit, one that was particularly brushy. Just a ten-second scoot backward would take him safely behind cover. He decided that to avoid being predictable, this time he wouldn't go back to his bike. Instead, he would plunge into the dense jungle to the north. “Try to find me out there,” he whispered to himself.

After he got his breathing under control, he took stock of his situation. He reloaded his rifle with two fresh rounds from a stripper clip of the same Greek ball ammo that he'd been shooting. With the rifle topped off, he examined the scope and wiped the dust off its objective lens with the tail of his T-shirt. Alternating between scans of the valley with his scope, he inventoried his pockets and his Camelbak pack. He found his wallet, his Leatherman Wave tool, six granola bars, an Aquamira Frontier siphon straw water filter, ten stripper clips of .303 ball (one of them now short two rounds), one full Enfield box magazine of .303 soft-nose, two melted Cherry Ripe chocolate bars still in intact plastic wrappers but feeling squishy, a similarly squishy Aero Chocolate bar, six toilet paper packets (from CR1Ms), a small bottle of Italian Gun Grease brand gun oil, a Bic lighter, four Band-Aids, a mini Maglite, a handkerchief, a C-A-T tourniquet, and two Australian Army battle dressings.

He scanned the valley again, and took a few more sips of water from the tube over his shoulder. As a new believer in Christ—a “baby Christian” in Baptist parlance—Chuck had not yet memorized much scripture. He had, however, committed to memory the first four verses of Psalms 91, which he said aloud, nervously.

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.
Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.”

After pausing for a moment, he added a phrase that had caught in his memory from a movie he had seen about the American Revolution: “Lord, make me fast and accurate. Amen.”

Realizing that he might need a quick reload with the same type of cartridges he'd been using, Chuck methodically unloaded the spare 10-round magazine of soft-nose and refilled it with ten of the Greek ball cartridges. He needed to be sure the rifle would have the same point of impact with every shot. As he was reloading the soft-nose cartridges into the emptied stripper clips, the Indonesians came into view. He took a long look through the scope. There were still eleven of them. He could see that they were now in staggered file on both shoulders of the road and moving at a trot. He estimated their range at twelve hundred yards. He toyed with the idea of engaging them at this extreme range, but then decided against it. He again donned his Camelbak and waited.

He suddenly wished that he had better camouflage. Lacking a typical three-color camouflage face paint compact, he picked up a handful of mud from a low spot that was just within reach. He rubbed the mud over his face and neck, the exposed V of skin at the top of his green shirt, and the exposed backs of his hands. Noticing the shiny finish on his scope, he also smeared mud on the scope tube. He used some more of the mud on the back of his neck.

Taking another look through his scope, he saw that they were now about eight hundred yards away. Even at this distance, he could see that most of the soldiers were nearing exhaustion. The soldier in the lead turned and shouted to the others. Chuck surmised that this was an NCO.

Thankfully, there was no breeze as he readied his rifle. Since they were only slightly quartered to him, there was no need to lead to compensate for their rapid pace. He had just confirmed the holdover required for seven hundred yards, so he decided to engage them at the same distance. They would also be in an open stretch of ground with no brush.

His first shot missed, going just over the soldier's shoulder. The second shot, fired right as the soldier crouched down after stopping, hit him in the solar plexus. He went down hard, flat on his back.

The Indos, now prone, began answering with bursts of fully automatic fire, vaguely in Chuck's direction. Chuck took deliberate aim. With his subsequent eighteen shots, he hit three more soldiers—two of them were decisively hit and left sprawling belly-up, like the first one.

At least one of the Indonesians must have caught a glimpse of Chuck or seen a muzzle flash, because the incoming rounds were coming in uncomfortably close. The Indos moved off the road and maneuvered toward the base of the hill, running in pairs. Chuck slid backward, crawling behind cover. A 5.56 bullet caught the top of his boonie hat, spinning it around and nearly plucking it from his head. As he reached full cover, Chuck felt a warm trickle running down the side of his head, parted by his ear. He reached under his hat and felt a three-inch-long grazing wound to his scalp. Only after he'd touched it did it start to sting.

Chuck started down the ridge, picking up speed. He reloaded his rifle from stripper clips as he ran.

“Whoever looks upon them as an irregular mob will find himself much mistaken. They have men amongst them who know very well what they are about, having been employed as rangers against the Indians and Canadians; and this country being much covered with wood, and hilly, is very advantageous for their method of fighting.”

—Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, from a letter written April 20, 1775

T
hree days after he had first engaged the Indos, Chuck Nolan stumbled back into Site G. In a close call, he was nearly shot by anxious perimeter sentries for his failure to know the day's password.

Chuck reported to Caleb's truck-mounted shelter, which served as both his office and sleeping quarters. Caleb took one look at his haggard face and his filthy, bloodstained shirt before declaring, “Good Lord, Nolan! You look like a box of blowflies, and you smell like a big two-day-old Bondi. What happened out there?”

Caleb chewed an Anzac chocolate bar from a CR1M ration as he answered. “I was running and gunning with them for a day and a half. I kept moving and fired anywhere from two to six rounds every hour or so, leading them on a merry chase. Most of those shots were just to make noise. I was about twenty miles northeast of here when I fired the last few shots. Then I went and found myself the most gosh-awful dense patch of jungle to crawl into and slept for about ten hours. After that, I very quietly made my way back here, using a circuitous route.”

Caleb watched Chuck practically inhale the ration and immediately open a second one. “What did you eat for the past three days?” Caleb asked.

“Other than a few candy bars I had in my hydration backpack, just a few bush bananas and a couple of snakes. One of them was a big mulga and the other was some variety I didn't recognize. But I assumed it was poisonous, too. I pinned their heads down with the muzzle of my Enfield and then cut their heads off with my Leatherman. I ate them raw.”

“Crikey.”

“Well, like they say, ‘protein is protein.' Anyway, I was moving too fast to do any serious foraging, so here I am with one heckuva appetite.”

After taking a sip from his Camelbak, Chuck asked, “Did you have any enemy contact here?”

“No, it's been quiet. The Indos seem pretty clueless. No systematic patrolling despite our proximity to where you first started shooting. That was fantastic of you, playing offsider for us. It was like seeing a Spur-winged Plover faking a broken wing. You fooled the Indos, so you're going to be the camp celebrity for sure, mate.”

“I just want to clean my rifle, get a shower, get some more to eat, and some rack time. I also need to scrounge for some .303 ammo since I shot up almost sixty rounds.”

“No worries, Chuck. Your low ammo supply justifies me issuing you an SLR and a pile of ammo and magazines.”

“An L1A1? Really? That would be great.”

Caleb shook his head. “Don't mention it. That's just fair dinkum.”

As Nolan pulled off his boonie hat to show Caleb the scabbed-over wound, he said, “Oh, one more thing. I'd like the medic to look at this little bullet graze.”

Caleb chortled. “Ooh, that was close. An inch lower and that round would have emptied your skull out like shooting a melon.”

Chuck let out a grim laugh. “Yeah. I've thought about that.
A lot
.”

“Oh, but Ava is going to love it, after it heals. It'll make quite the dashing
Mensur
or
Studentische Fechten
scar for her to admire,” Caleb said. He ran the tip of his forefinger across his own cheek in a slashing motion to emphasize his point.

“Yeah, right. Some fencing scar.
Schön und hässlich, gleichzeitig
. She'll probably tease me about it, endlessly.”

The wound had already filled with pus, which the medic said was typical in the Northern Territory, even with well-treated wounds. After his initial assessment, the medic painfully cleaned out the wound, rebandaged it, and counted out a bottle of flucloxacillin. He also issued a stern warning to use up
all
of the pills in his prescription even if any signs of infection had disappeared.

All in all, Chuck considered himself lucky to have made it back to the FLB in one piece.

Just hours after emplacing the Claymore mines in the headquarters building at Robertson Barracks, Samantha Kyle had packed her SUV and joined the stream of refugees heading south. She got to Canberra as quickly as she could and then drove twenty miles east to Bungendore. After spending just eight hours in a motel, she drove seven miles south to Headquarters Joint Operations Command (HQJOC), the ADF's top operational headquarters. Arriving at seven thirty
A.M.
, she found that her ADF Disabled ID card and a warm smile got her past the main gate of the General John Baker Complex to the HQJOC building. The one-story glass-fronted building looked more like a modern college classroom building than it did a military headquarters. She was directed to the desk of a secretary in the office of the deputy commander. After explaining why she was there, Samantha was immediately referred to the Special Operations Command (SOCOMD), which was also headquartered in the same base complex. “They're the ones who handle all of the Stay Behind issues,” she was told. Samantha looked displeased until the secretary said, “No worries. I'll give you directions and I'll phone ahead.”

Once at the SOCOMD headquarters, an armed SAS trooper escorted Samantha to the commander's office. There, she was met by the commanding general's aide-de-camp. A first lieutenant with deep-red hair, he sat at a surprisingly Spartan steel desk. His beige SAS beret was tucked into the left epaulet of his MultiCam shirt. The doorway behind him had a doorplate stenciled
SOCAUST
, which she knew stood for Special Operations Commander, Australia. Samantha explained that she had been involved with the Darwin Stay Behinds and that she needed to brief the commanding officer. The lieutenant explained, “The general will be in late today. On Wednesday mornings he does his longest run of the week. He should be here at 0815.” He gestured to a nearby chair for her to wait.

The lieutenant did his best to pry some more information out of her, but Samantha clammed up, saying, “I'm not certain you have a need to know.” The lieutenant seemed nonplussed and quickly transitioned to chatting up Samantha. Most of their conversation was about crocodiles and beaches.

The commander arrived at 0814 wearing MultiCams and a beret. He immediately went into his office, with his aide following close behind. Three minutes later the lieutenant emerged from the inner office and gave Samantha a thumbs-up, holding the door open for her.

The aide shut the door from the outside to give them privacy. Samantha was nervous. This was the first time she'd ever spoken to a general officer. Major General Rex Raymond was near sixty years old but still lean and fit. He had a pencil-thin mustache, short-cropped gray hair, and a deep tan. The walls of his office were lined with photos and memorabilia.

After brief introductions, Samantha haltingly described the preparations being made with the Darwin area Stay Behinds. Then she explained her civilian work in home remote-control systems and how she had just wired the headquarters at Robertson Barracks.

General Raymond laughed. “That's simply brilliant. I'll give you full marks for that.”

Emboldened by the general's response, Samantha pressed on. “So now I want to wire some more Claymores in the control tower at the Amberly Air Force Base.”

The general laughed again, and said, “You don't bandy about, do you?”

Without giving Samantha a chance to respond, he said, “I don't think the Indos will ever advance down the east coast far enough to threaten Amberly. Our ASIO liaison and all the top planners and analysts agree with that. The Indos have delusions of
adequacy
. Granted, they've got superior numbers, but they don't have the nakas for a big stand-up fight, and that is what they'll get if they try to advance south of Townsville.”

He hesitated for a moment and then said, “I do like your idea, but it is far more likely to be put to good use if you emplace Claymores in the control tower at Townsville. I can send you up there with a couple of my troopers and a few Claymores, but you'll have to convince the civil air authorities that stray RF from their radios or radars isn't going to set off your blasting caps prematurely. That would be most unpleasant.”