Expatriates: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse

40 DEBRIEF

Three 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.”