The Easy Day Was Yesterday (7 page)

After breakfast we bolted for the ambush position. John set a blistering pace — well, as fast as you can go in secondary jungle — and, at the end of that that day, I was well and truly rooted. At the end of the next day both Tony and I had a bitching case of crutch rash. Having trousers that were continually wet meant some severe rubbing on the inner thighs until the skin was gone. It felt as though someone was running a blowtorch across my thighs. The worst was the local guy. He had his head down all day and just seemed content to follow and do nothing more. I had to stop the patrol more often for the local guy because I didn’t want to lose him nor did I want to embarrass him should he go down with heat exhaustion.

At the end of the fourth day we were still 4000 metres from the ambush site. We found a secure spot inside some thick undergrowth to conduct our nightly routine and sleep. After a tactical breakfast in the morning we moved off on a general bearing of 5900 mils. This would take us pretty much to a position some 200 metres to the rear of the ambush position.

Patrolling in the jungle is very slow, and covering 4000 metres in one day is unheard of, but we had to cover this, so we patrolled at a speed that was faster than I would usually be comfortable with. We’d patrolled for about an hour and just got smashed by some bloody thick jungle that was almost impenetrable. We were making too much noise trying to find a way through this wall of foliage so I stopped the patrol and told John to push forward to see whether the jungle opened up. Moments later, I’d lost sight of John, but heard him swearing and cursing. I wanted to tell him to shut up, and I moved forward, taking the patrol with me, to see what was going on. John’s cursing grew louder as I got closer to him but I still couldn’t see him, so I called to him. He replied but, to our surprise, so did someone else. We froze, wondering who the hell it was. Slowly we moved forward and the jungle opened to reveal a small cleared area where I saw John. He had dropped his pack and webbing, his weapon was on the ground, his shirt was off and his trousers were around his ankles. At the same time another Asian patrol broke through on the other side of the clearing. We all looked at one another, then the semi-naked John and then back to one another. Their once narrow eyes were now as round as dinner plates as they tried to process the sight of this naked, cursing white man in the middle of nowhere. This was beyond confusing. What the fuck was John doing and who the hell were these guys?

I heard the guys behind me laughing. I looked closer at John and realized he was pulling green ants from his hair, chest and pubic hair. In fact he had ants all over him. Obviously he’d walked under the nest in a tree and it had collapsed on him. This other patrol saw we were laughing and did the same. John eventually got all the ants off himself and we sat and had a chat with these other guys. It turned out they were a patrol from Singapore doing their officer training and had been in the field for only a few days. We threw on a brew and shared a few stories with these guys before heading off again. Before we left, their patrol commander approached me on the quiet with his map in his hand and asked if I could show them where they were. No problem and we parted ways.

We continued on and, at about 3.00 pm that day, I located the track that we were to ambush. With the patrol dropping a little further back and John and I moving a little further forward, I located a suitable section of the track to ambush. I told John to lead the patrol to the rear of the ambush position so we could prepare to occupy the position at last light. It was to be a rifle ambush and, given that we weren’t using any comms, there was very little preparation required. I located a reasonably secure lay-up position and, about 20 minutes before last light, we moved in and occupied the ambush site. I lay in the middle of the ambush, about six metres off the track and in a small hollow in the ground. I expected an enemy, possibly two or three, to move down the track at around 10.00 pm this evening.

Once the ambush was set, the only thing to do was to wait and be patient. At 7.30 pm I heard some people talking as they moved up the track from north to south. There were about ten people, maybe two families, laughing and chatting as they went, using torches to guide them. The children were all over the place and very unpredictable. They were walking off the track and into the jungle, and came within a few metres of us. In an ambush, the trick is to remain motionless. If they aren’t looking for you, they won’t see you. Children, being so inquisitive, are the best at compromising ambushes. I was sitting in an ambush near Daly River in the Northern Territory once, and we were trying to ambush the Americans at a creek road junction. The plan was to allow their humvees to cross the creek and ambush them with a few sticks of PE-4 (explosive) which would shower them with water to let them know they had been hit. While we were waiting, a car load of Aborigines pulled up next to the creek for some lunch. We waited, hoping they would leave, but they didn’t. The men walked into the bush and started removing bark from a tree about two metres in front of me, and the kids spotted the explosive in the water and moved in to retrieve it. The men then walked to another tree behind me and were about to kick me when I let them know of our presence. They didn’t say a word as the rest of the patrol recovered the explosives and we withdrew.

Back in our jungle ambush position, we watched as the family moved along and again we waited. About 15 minutes later, I heard more noise and saw more torches coming down the track. ‘Fuck me,’ I whispered. Then they came into view: four men wearing military uniforms and carrying M16s. As the middle man came to my front, I let rip with a 28-round burst from my weapon and the rest of the patrol followed suit. We didn’t all fire 28 rounds, some only fired 20 and some 10 — we didn’t want to risk everyone having a stoppage at the same time. The enemy went down and I gave the nod for my search teams to go into the killing ground to search the dead enemy. After two minutes my guys returned and we withdrew through the rear of the ambush.

We couldn’t move far because it was as black as dogs’ guts in the jungle, and our night vision had been destroyed by the gunfire and torches, so we propped and waited. One of the pretend enemy soldiers called out for us to make our way back to the track.

We followed the soldiers back along the track that would take us to a small township. When we arrived we moved into a military camp and were shown a piece of lawn to sleep on. More cats. They were everywhere. There were kittens all over the place and, while John was taking a piss, Tony shoved one into his sleeping bag and, less than a minute later, John crawled in after it. The kitten obviously decided to crawl up onto John’s chest to get comfortable and warm. John screamed, and I thought he was going to kill it. Instead he just threw it about 10 metres away while we all sniggered like kids under our sleeping bags. Even exhausted we still had a sense of humour. John didn’t seem to have one, though. Stop laughing and you grow old was our theory.

We slept in until about 5.30 the next morning when we were woken by the ritual call to pray at the Mosque. Over a loudspeaker a man would wail a prayer that seemed to go on for ages. None of us could sleep during this so we just lay there waiting for this guy to stop, but he just kept going. I knew the other blokes were awake when Tony said, ‘For fuck’s sake, stop mumbling, say what you’ve got to say.’

When the cleric stopped momentarily, John said in his best Elvis voice, ‘Thank you very much, now here’s a little number, I wrote on the way in tonight.’

Well, that was it, we all got up, and I went to find the Captain.

‘Morning Sir, what’s happening today?’ I asked.

‘Good morning. At around 1400 a long boat will pick you up from here and take you back to HQ.’

‘No problem, we’re going to secure our guns and kit inside the barracks and have a bit of a look around town, if that’s alright with you.’

‘Okay, that’s fine, there are some good restaurants for breakfast and lunch.’ That was all I needed. To hell with the ration packs, let’s get a decent feed.

We had a bit of a clean-up as we hadn’t shaved since leaving the jungle camp and were all looking a bit rough. We threw all our kit into a spare room and headed for town and some breakfast. We were in luck. There was a guy cooking some roti with egg, so we lined up and grabbed a couple each. That certainly filled a bit of the gap, so we went for a walk around town.

The place was like any other Asian town with the smells of food cooking in cafes and stalls on the footpaths, the open sewerage drains constantly moving with high rainfall, the markets selling vegetables, and fresh meat hanging in the windows or along the verges. We started to get a bit peckish again and found a small cafe. We sat down and ordered coffee and tea all around. We still had a few hours to kill, so there was no rush to eat. A young lady told us we could have nasi goreng (fried rice) or mee goreng (fried noodles). In conversation the name ‘mee goreng’ is often shortened to ‘me’, and when one waitress approached Cleve and asked ‘You want me?’ Cleve looked at the stairs going to the second floor and thought the woman was making him an offer of sex. ‘No, no, no, no, I’m okay, thank you, just some food, thanks.’ The poor woman had no idea what this crazy white person was saying, so she just smiled and walked away.

We made our way back to the jetty and sat around waiting for the boat which eventually arrived at around 3.00 pm. It was about 10 metres long, about 1.5 metres wide, and had a huge outboard motor hanging off the back. We gingerly loaded all our shit into this death trap and then slipped into a seat ourselves. Funnily enough, the boat was quite stable and, shortly after moving away from the jetty, the driver got under the bitch of a thing and we flew across the water heading for the Special Forces camp, which was an hour away.

The trip, though fast, was uneventful and when we arrived at the camp we unloaded our weapons and handed in all our ammunition. All leftover food was thrown to the shithouse and we sat and cleaned our weapons. Once that was done we put them back in the trunk and stored them in the armoury, then went to get cleaned up. We really needed a hot shower to get all the crap off our bodies and out of our skin, but there was no hot water, so we did the best we could with cold water.

The good Warrant Officer came up to our room that afternoon and asked if we’d like to go to the yacht club for dinner. Would we? Bloody oath we would! I could already taste the beer and steak. He picked us up at 7.00 pm and we all piled into his Pajero and headed for the club. On the way he pulled into his mate’s place and said he would only be a minute. When he returned he had a bottle of scotch in his hand.

At the yacht club, we took a seat outside to enjoy the sea breeze. It was a wonderfully relaxing place to sit and spend some time. The wide landing we sat on protruded over the ocean. The steaks arrived and so did the coke, and that’s when the Warrant Officer pulled out the scotch. Now, I’m not a big scotch drinker, in fact I hate the shit, I’d rather have a beer — the only thing scotch does is destroy a good glass of coke. But the Warrant Officer had gone out of his way to get the bottle and I wasn’t about to offend the man, so I slowly sipped the poison.

Once again, I’m buggered if I know how we got home because the Warrant Officer was so pissed he had trouble finding his car, let alone driving the bastard. But get home we did and, after a bit of a sleep-in and breakfast with the cats, the commanders decided we needed a day out downtown. This was beyond boring. There was very little to do or see. We couldn’t sit down and have a quiet beer, but we did decide to risk Kentucky Fried Chicken. We stood at the counter checking out the menu when a young local boy came in and stood next to us. No big deal, but suddenly this kid squealed like a cat having its tail stood on, then he meowed. Well, fuck me; I nearly shat myself. Initially we didn’t know where the noise had come from, but when he meowed again we were hard pressed to control our laughter. John could barely get his order out he was in such a fit of laughter. Two of the blokes walked into the toilets so they could laugh. I hoped he wasn’t making those noises from eating too much KFC. With that, we ate our order and walked around town for a while. Tony and I found a small cafe that was wall to wall with people, so we decided to sit and have another feed. The food was great so, with our bellies finally satisfied, we found the rest of the patrol and caught a taxi back to base.

We said our farewells and, after a night of karaoke with Stuart thinking he was Barry Manilow, we headed home again, but this time with no beer for the trip.

Well, that was that. It was bloody hot in those jungles, but not as hot as the Sub-Inspector’s office. Right now, I’d rather be in the jungle somewhere — anywhere but here.

Monday 26 May

At 3.00 am I decided sleep wasn’t going to happen, so I got up and sat at the Inspector’s desk. It was still very dark outside, but the power had come on and so had the lights. I sent a text to Sallie to let her know I was awake. She said that she’d spoken to a few people who’d advised her that this was a ‘nothing’ offence and I’d be released following court today. Well, that seemed to be good news and I certainly needed some right now. What a damned mess I’d gotten myself into. I should have been sleeping on the rock-hard mattress in the hotel instead of sitting here awake at 3.00 in the morning.

At 5.00 am the door was unlocked and we wandered outside into the fresh, cool morning air. The Sub-Inspector had set up a table in front of the police station to take advantage of the cool air and he now began the paperwork. He had a statement from Ujwal, the immigration guys and his own statement. The morning chai arrived in the traditional small glasses, pre-milked and sugared. It was very hot and sweet and I was grateful for it. My cell phone was almost out of battery, so I asked if the Sub-Inspector had a charger. He did, but there was no power. He then asked me to sign a statement that was written in Hindi.

‘No, I’m sorry, but I don’t read Hindi, so I have no idea what I’m signing,’ I told him regretfully. He seemed annoyed and considered this for a while. Then he said, ‘Perhaps you can write that you were asked to sign this, but you did not know what it meant or said.’