“A fine marksman with a second rate rifle is far more effective than the reverse.”
Just as he was finishing up camouflaging the lid of his third spider hole, Quentin caught his first glimpse of the Indonesians: a Korps Marinir scout vehicle roaring through an intersection a quarter mile away. It was a French-built AMX-10P, but Quentin initially mistook it for an American-made M113—a model he’d once ridden in. It was not until he had a chance to look at the vehicle through his rifle’s scope that he could see the distinctive 25 mm gun turret atop the APC.
Quentin spent the next three nights further stocking his three spider holes. On a packboard, he carried three four-liter water jugs and one case of CR1M rations to each hole. He also spent a few hours at the Road Watch spider hole observing the Indos’ vehicle movements on the Stuart Highway through his binoculars or rifle scope. A huge variety of vehicles passed by, most of which looked unfamiliar. Nearly half of the trucks appeared to have been of civilian manufacture and simply painted in tan and reddish-brown blotches to prepare them for use in the Australian invasion.
The vehicle movements initially looked chaotic, but then he noticed a pattern: at five P.M. each day, an Alvis Stormer tracked APC stopped on the shoulder of the Stuart Highway just south of Howard Springs Road. There, a soldier set up a small satellite dish on top of the vehicle and connected it to a backpack SATCOM radio. Once it was set up, another soldier—presumably an officer or NCO—climbed atop the APC to read a message into the SATCOM radio’s handset, referring to pages on his clipboard. Each message seemed to take about five minutes to transmit. Then the subordinate soldier would disassemble the radio, collapse the folding dish, and stow the gear. Each time, they’d make a 180-degree turn and drive back in the direction of Palmerston.
Whittle surmised that they chose the spot near the road junction because of its excellent line of sight to the north. He decided that if the opportunity arose again, he might have the chance to take out an officer or a senior NCO.
The next day, Quentin spent the late afternoon watching the highway through his rifle scope instead of his binoculars. The Stormer APC arrived on time as usual. As the radio man set up the SATCOM dish, Quentin used his rangefinder and confirmed that the APC was 570 yards away. He tested the wind with a spittle-moistened finger. There was a very slight breeze from the south. The soldier with the clipboard climbed atop the APC and began sending his message. He was facing almost directly toward Whittle, but the other soldier was looking southward.
Quentin started feeling anxious. He knew his rifle was zeroed for three hundred yards, so at this distance he would have to hold high. With the rifle steadied on a Harris bipod, the scope crosshairs tracked smoothly. In a way, this almost felt like harvesting a roo, but he had never shot a man before, and this seemed particularly cold-blooded. The man with the clipboard droned on. Quentin decided to aim at the top of the man’s left ear to allow for both the bullet drop and the slight wind. He clicked the rifle’s safety forward and took deliberate aim. He could see a slight oscillation in the crosshairs caused by the pounding of his heart. He fought to control his breathing. A seven-vehicle convoy approached, so Quentin decided to wait.
Once the convoy was out of sight, Quentin again took up his normal cheek weld on the Remington’s stock. He settled the crosshairs above the soldier’s ear. He let half a breath out, and gently squeezed the trigger with the first pad of his trigger finger. The bullet struck the Indonesian just to the right of the center of his chest. As the rifle came down from the recoil jump, Quentin caught a glimpse of the soldier going down. But he didn’t wait to observe any longer. He slipped into his spider hole and slowly slid the lid in place. He was breathing rapidly, feeling overwhelmed. In the almost pitch-blackness of the spider hole, he methodically cycled the rifle’s bolt and flipped the safety back to the safe position.
Just then, the 25-millimeter atop the Stormer came to life. Firing in long bursts, the gunner expended 120 rounds. Of all those rounds fired, Quentin heard just two rounds zip over the top of his spider hole, so he knew that the Indos had only a vague idea of the direction from which his shot had been fired. There was a pause in the cannon fire as the gunner switched to a fresh ammo can. During this lull, Quentin could hear sporadic lighter-caliber fire. He surmised this was from the 5.56 mm rifles he had seen the Indos carrying. The gunner cycled the first round from the belt into the cannon and resumed firing. This time the bursts were shorter—just three to six rounds per burst. Again, the gunner burned up an entire belt, but unlike the previous belt, Quentin heard no near misses. He snorted to himself and mouthed silently, “Those wankers have no clue where I am.”
The firing ceased. Quentin could hear other vehicles stopping near the APC. There were many shouted orders. After five minutes, Quentin heard a whistle blowing. It sounded just like his rugby coach’s whistle from twenty years ago. Expecting a dismounted infantry advance in his direction, Quentin’s attitude quickly changed from curiosity to fear. He wished he had a miniature periscope or something like a webcam so he could see what was going on around his position. He didn’t dare lift the lid of the spider hole. There were a few rifle reports as the skirmish line of nervous Indonesian soldiers shot at any suspected targets.
After a couple of minutes, Quentin could hear the voices of individual Indo soldiers. It wasn’t long before the voices became quite distinct. He heard the crunch of approaching footsteps. Quentin’s breathing grew more rapid, and he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. His hands began to shake, but the Indonesians passed by his undetected spider hole. The voices faded into the distance. There were still a few occasional rifle shots, but none came close to his hiding position. Sitting in the darkness, Quentin grinned in relief. He whispered to himself, “What galahs.”
Other than cracking the lid roughly once an hour for fresh air, Quentin stayed hunkered down in the spider hole. He took sips of water and nibbled on a packet of prawn crackers, but he didn’t feel very hungry. He waited until his wristwatch showed three thirty to fully open the lid and investigate his surroundings. The Indo vehicles had long since departed. A sliver of moon was setting in the west. He waited, watching and listening intently for ten minutes. After the moon had set, he hopped up out of his hole and carefully replaced its lid. He moved very slowly and quietly in case the Indos had left an ambush patrol.
Quentin sprinkled a bit of earth around the edges of the spider hole’s inset lid. If it weren’t for the distinctive Y formed by the limbs atop the lid, it would be very hard for him to locate, even in full daylight. Forty minutes later he was resting in his daytime hide. He had trouble getting to sleep. Just before falling asleep at sunrise, he thought to himself, One down, three hundred thousand to go.
The next morning the sky became overcast early and it began to rain. Quentin spent some time deepening the draining trench at the uphill side of his sleeping platform. He crawled back into his bivy bag, zipped the mosquito netting closed and shifted the thin tropical-weight sleeping bag beneath him for extra padding. He fell asleep. After a half hour the rain transitioned to a torrent. He zipped the bivy bag’s end flap shut. He chuckled and said to himself, “Try using your tracking dogs now.”