The Easy Day Was Yesterday

by Paul Jordan

  My scout was John, who was also the patrol linguist. John had been a mechanic before completing the selection course and transferring to the Infantry Corps. In fact, John was one the few blokes to have successfully completed the selection course twice. The first time, he had indicated that he wanted to remain a mechanic and was marked accordingly. Then he decided he wanted to join one of the squadrons as a trooper, so he was forced to do the selection course again. Despite getting a fair bit of shit hung on him for being a loser, it was a real credit to him and the fact that he had successfully completed a bloody tough course twice showed just how determined he was. Most soldiers are unable to do it once. John was a bushy and had a real Paul Hogan Aussie accent. He wasn’t a big bloke — maybe 5 feet 10 inches (177 centimetres) — but he was strong and spent a lot of time in the gym building muscle. Despite being under 30, he had more lines on his face than a topographical map of the Grand Canyon. Now he was learning the skills of being a scout.

  Stuart was the signaller. He was the tallest bloke in the patrol, so I should have made him the scout so he could clear all the cobwebs for me. As the sig, Stuart had the most important job in the patrol — a sig who can’t get comms is useless, and if the patrol can’t communicate with Squadron Headquarters, then it’s a wasted asset and of no use to anyone. So Stuart carried the radio and most of the spare batteries and had the heaviest load. Despite this, he could walk faster and for longer under load than anyone I knew. Stuart was new to the Regiment as was Cleave the patrol medic.

  Cleve was part North American Indian and a real chick magnet. On the training we’d just completed in Kalgoorlie we managed to get a night off and had a few beers in the local pub. A group of young ladies walked in and, within five minutes, they were all gathered around Cleve making cow eyes at him. It was an amazing phenomenon to watch and damned painful for the single blokes in the troop. To try to keep Cleve’s ego in check, the rest of the blokes gave him the nickname ‘dances with pigs’. But the reality was that he was dancing with Vogue models. Cleve had not long before completed the patrol medic’s course, so was still adapting all that knowledge to the requirements of the patrol.

  Everything went smoothly, with most of the pre-deployment work completed by the Regimental Headquarters before we knew anything about the deployment. We packed a trunk which contained the patrol radio, two hand-held emergency radios, spare radio batteries, spare weapon-cleaning material, a primary and secondary weapon each and any spare equipment required to make our limited stay in their barracks a bit easier. We sent the trunk to Perth airport one day in advance so it could be sent as cargo.

  We caught a direct flight from Perth to a dry (non-alcoholic) country. The flight was smooth (except for Cleve getting stuck with a big fat woman who chewed his ear off the whole way) and a Special Forces Warrant Officer met us on arrival. He was a great bloke and we ended up spending a lot of social time with him. We collected our kit and waited for our trunk to arrive, but for some reason they had put it on another plane and it wasn’t going to arrive until the next day, so we boarded a small van and headed towards the barracks.

  We decided we were bloody hungry after the flight, so I asked the Warrant Officer if we could stop for something to eat.

  ‘Huh?’ he answered, looking as if I was now speaking Swedish.

  ‘Food — we’re hungry.’

  ‘Ahhhh … huh,’ he replied, with a look of confusion.

  Damn, how hard can this be? So I started using hand gestures and pretending to spoon food into my mouth. Again he shrugged his shoulders like I was trying to explain Pythagoras theory to a preschool kid. Alright, time to get John, our linguist, involved.

  ‘Hey, John, come and ask the Warrant Officer if we can stop for a feed somewhere.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He turned to the Warrant Officer.

  ‘Sir, can we stop for something to eat?’ asked John in fucking English. ‘Oh, food! Okay, no problem,’ replied the Warrant Officer in bloody English. John leant back and looked at me as if the two of them had just had some deep conversation in the local language and said, ‘He said he’ll stop somewhere, no problem.’

  ‘I fucking heard all that. What the hell was that? I thought you were going to speak in the local language.’

  John just shrugged.

  ‘Why? He speaks good English.’

  Maybe my English was more like Swahili. The rest of the patrol laughed. After that, John was known as ‘Mother Tongue’.

  The Warrant Officer took us to the yacht club where we had a beautiful steak and about a six-pack of beer each. He surprised us with the beer — he’d bought it on the black market. The cold beers went down really well in this humidity. I think we flew to within two miles of the sun — damn, it was hot and sticky. I could have poured the beer over me.

  The Warrant Officer drove us to our accommodation block and, by the time we arrived, it was about 10.00 pm. We were on the third floor and had one big room to accommodate all of us. There were five beds with mattresses and enough bedding to be comfortable. We had a cupboard each for our packs and webbing, and a large refrigerator stocked with milk stood in one corner. Next to the fridge was a table that had a hot water jug, plenty of brew gear and some biscuits to snack on. Along the balcony was the bathroom, but there was no hot water for the showers. The natives considered it a waste given that the temperature was always above 30 degrees. The toilets were just a hole in the floor in the shape of a toilet bowl. Next to the hole were two foot pads so you could line yourself up correctly. All in all, the accommodation was good and we had no complaints.

  We spent the next day and a half preparing our kit for 16 days in the jungle with the rest of the Special Forces soldiers in the jungle training camp. We were issued 10 days’ rations and, with each ration pack, we were given a bag of rice. We had flares, 300 bullets each, grenades, radios, medical kits, six litres of water, spare clothes, hammocks, hutchies, mosquito nets and mosquito repellent. I always had a particular pair of cams that I liked to wear when out bush — and this was no exception. I laid these cams on my bed and packed the essential lifesaving pieces of equipment into the pockets. Into the pocket on my left sleeve went my camouflage paint compact. Into my left shirt pocket I put my signal mirror and a US Army issue plastic spoon. I tied a can opener to the buttonhole of my pocket. Into my right shirt pocket I put my patrol diary and pen (wrapped in a waterproof wallet to prevent it from deteriorating from the effects of rainwater and sweat) and a pen torch with a red filter. Into my right trouser pocket I put my plastic-covered map, and into my left pocket I put my patrol SOPs (standard operating procedures), some emergency ration chocolate and a 20-round magazine. I placed my compass on top of my shirt. When I get dressed, this will be the first thing to go on. It has a piece of green cord attached to it so I can wear it around my neck. I also had the toe of an army sock threaded over the top of the compass to camouflage it when exposed. All items that could be tied to my pockets were. This prevented things falling out and compromising my patrol’s position. My purpose in packing my clothes with all this shit was to be able to survive in a hostile area should I be separated from both my webbing and my pack. Ideally, this should never happen, but I liked to be prepared for anything.

  We weren’t really sure what we were in for once we got into the jungle, so we decided to pack for a 16-day tactical exercise. I loaded my ten 30-round magazines with 28 bullets, and then placed three magazines into the small pouch, and six into the larger pouch, with one magazine to go on my weapon. Into my right-hand pouch I put a red smoke grenade and a small hand-held patrol radio. I carried a large pouch on the back of my webbing which contained some basic weapon cleaning stuff, a strobe light, a torch with a red filter attached, mosquito repellent, personal medical kit and some emergency food. I threw my webbing on the floor and pushed it under my bed with my foot, noting the great pile of shit that I was supposed to squeeze into my pack.

  I carried a US Alice Pack which I’d had modified into two co
mpartments so that I could access my sleeping gear without digging through the top of my pack. I packed this bottom compartment first and put my winter-weight sleeping bag into my bivvy bag (a water-resistant bag that will keep the sleeping bag dry when there’s heavy dew and light rain, but not a heavy downpour) and fed it into the sleeping bag compartment. Next to that went my mosquito net, then my hutchie and my hammock. A hammock is an essential piece of equipment in the jungle. It’s not something that’s used every night, but comes in very handy when the patrol has to sleep on a steep slope, in a swamp or in a non-tactical location for any length of time. I then had to break down the rations we’d been given into three meals a day. Breakfast consisted of a small sachet of meat and vegetables that was designed to be mixed with the small portion of rice I had packed, some biscuits, and some brew gear. Lunch was a quick meal and consisted of chocolate, muesli bars and/or biscuits, and dinner was the same as breakfast except that the sachet of food was bigger. Each meal was packed together in a plastic bag with a rubber band wrapped around it. This meant I only had to remove one package from my pack and then close it again so I was ready to bolt if I had to. Six days’ worth of these small parcels of food were packed into the bottom of my pack. On top of the food went my raincoat, a spare set of cams and a pair of socks, both in plastic resealable bags, three water bottles and two spare batteries for the patrol radio. On the outside of my pack I had three pouches in which I put a further four days’ worth of food in two pouches and a water bottle in the other pouch.

  The rations didn’t look too good, so we thought we would fill our bellies at the mess — but this wasn’t meant to be. They tried to do their best for us and even gave us a spoon to eat with when everyone else used their right hand — the left was used for something else! For breakfast we feasted on two boiled eggs and a cup of sweet black tea. Lunch was better; we had chicken and some vegetables. We hooked into the chicken only to have chicken blood and juices run over our hands and drip from our elbows. To add to this we had to put up with a constant parade of cats across the table and around our legs. Part of going overseas involves immersion in another culture, and that’s what we were doing. We just accepted what was happening and were grateful for everything. Our hosts took us to a fast food stand to have some ‘roti with eggs’. This is a nice snack made from about five cups of pure cholesterol and dough that is spread thin and fried on a hot plate. The egg is then thrown on and the dough rolled up. These were 50 cents each and, while the locals had one each, we had four each. Aussie pigs yes, but we were bloody starving.

  The Warrant Officer asked if we’d like to go on a hash house harriers run that night. ‘Yeah, why not?’ He picked us up that afternoon and off we went. We were late, so once we got to the start point we headed off straight away. We ran into the jungle deeper and deeper and it started to get dark. Tony and I became concerned, as did the Warrant Officer, so we headed back to the road. The Warrant Officer had obviously been over this ground before because he knew exactly where the road was. We arrived back at the start point as a few other blokes started to drift in. Once everyone was accounted for we wandered down to the beach to have a few beers. Apparently they had bought a heap of beer on the black market at $80 a carton. We had a few beers as we watched the sun go down over the South China Sea. It was a relaxing atmosphere until a squadron of mosquitoes practically chewed through to my bones. The Warrant Officer was pretty smashed, but nevertheless drove us back to the accommodation block.

  On the morning of insertion we got dressed in our PT kit and wandered down to the mess to fight the cats for a feed. We had to be ready to go at 10.00 am so, at about 9.00, we started to prepare. We’d been delaying this because, once the gear goes on, the sweat starts to run; but it couldn’t be delayed any longer so we got organised. I slung the compass around my neck then put on my pre-packed cams, then my black explorer socks and jungle boots. I checked around and all the blokes were pretty much ready to go. We had a jerry of water in the room and we all guzzled as much as we could stomach to replace what we were losing at a great rate. We threw all our kit into a rover and were driven to the helipad.

  Waiting at the helipad to go into the jungle camp were another six people, eight crates of claymore mines, three crates of ammunition and a crate of explosives. I thought they were bringing in a Black Hawk helicopter to carry all this shit. But no, a Bell 212 (Huey) showed up and in we all squeezed. John pointed out that our hosts had life jackets and that we did not. We all accepted with indifference that we were going to drown.

  The Huey finally got airborne after dragging its sorry arse along the ground for 100 metres and flew out over the South China Sea. I reminded the blokes of the helicopter underwater escape training we’d done recently and to dump all their kit before going out through the door. When a helo crashes into the ocean it quickly inverts due to the weight of the engine and rotor on top. Those inside have to wait until it inverts before opening the door or kicking out the window and scrambling out. It can be bloody frightening, especially if you happen to be flying over Bass Strait at night or the South China Sea in an overloaded helo during the day.

  We arrived at a military camp some 15 minutes later. One of the officers told me that five people would have to get off the Huey so it could get over the ranges. I told my patrol to get off. Stuart was sitting in the gunner’s seat when I told him to get off. As he was getting out, the loadmaster leaned out and, without seeing Stuart trying to get off, started to slam the door shut. Unfortunately, Stuart was only halfway out and had his head slammed in the door. The loady, without looking, obviously felt the door continue to jam, so he just kept slamming it harder into Stuart’s head in an attempt to overcome the jam, not realising that Stuart’s head was the jam. John and I watched the events unfold and could barely stand up we were laughing so much. It was something out of a three stooges show. Stuart finally got out and came over to us bitching and swearing with some bark missing from his head.

  The Huey came back after 30 minutes and we were dropped on top of a little knoll in the middle of the jungle. Our first feeling was having flown even closer to the sun. Shit, it was hot under the jungle canopy. We had to go back and forth and hump all the equipment and ammo from the helipad down to the camp. We thought we were going to pass out — sweat was just pouring off us, but eventually we had all the gear stowed in the jungle camp.

  The camp was just a section of jungle alongside a river — nothing spectacular. We were welcomed by an officer and then shown a place to set up our camp. We were next to the corporals’ camp alongside a very cold, freshwater jungle stream. Life was very easy for the next 16 days because our hosts were more interested in training their own people than us. That was fine by me and we generally just took it easy, but when it came time to put in a solid effort, the blokes performed extremely well. Generally, the daily routine consisted of reveille about 15 minutes before first light and then standing-to until about 15 minutes after first light. Then we had about an hour to sort out our morning routine which consisted of giving the weapon a clean and oil, eating and drinking, morning ablutions and whatever else was required for the morning. Some units include shaving and boot polishing as a part of this routine — I don’t. Shaving in the bush is a waste of water and there’s a risk that the razor may cut the skin — cuts in the jungle quickly become infected. On the other hand, the growth of facial hair provides a natural camouflage. Polishing boots is a waste of time and pack space. It’s far better to let the boots become the colour of the jungle floor rather than polish them black. After morning routine we joined our hosts for a PT session. This consisted of doing sit-ups, push-ups and a run to the helipad and back. Following a bath in the creek, we started the day’s activities.

  A day or so later, we were just sitting around when Cleve decided to build a bunk to sleep on and started cutting down trees to use in its construction. Cleve was up on the high ground above the corporals’ campsite cutting down a tree. When it finally came down, it wiped out the camps
ite of our neighbours. Cleve ran around trying to fix up their camp as the rest of us were pissing ourselves laughing. Sure enough, about 10 seconds later, our neighbours returned to find their campsite demolished. Cleve could do nothing but apologise and call us a pack of pricks for not helping him.

  Our hosts had some ranges set up in the jungle, one of which was a contact range. The patrol would contact the enemy and, after one bound of breaking contact, we’d put down a claymore mine on a seven-second fuse. Tony would pull the initiator and we’d patrol off. Seven seconds was a lot shorter than we’d used before, so I decided to rehearse with just a detonator. As we broke contact I told Tony to blow the detonator and we patrolled off. We got about three metres from the detonator and off it went. This gave us a good enough guide to the time we had to clear the mine, so we went for it. This time we blew the live claymore and, when I told Tony to pull the initiator, the patrol thought they were trying out for the fucking Olympic 100 metre sprint team. They bolted past me so fast I was lucky to catch them and — wouldn’t you know it — we had a blind; the claymore failed to fire. We patrolled around to the rear of the mine to wait the required safety time (30 minutes) before approaching the mine. As we sat and waited, I heard the Captain, who was acting as the safety officer, calling for me. I stood up and called him over. When he approached, he held out the claymore and tried to figure out why it hadn’t gone off. I glanced at the patrol who looked as though they’d seen a ghost. Good safety here.

  One night we joined the rest of the blokes and practised our claymore ambushing. My patrol knew the drill from plenty of training, and the country was so close I knew I’d never lose sight of my men as they positioned the claymores, so all in all it was to be a very simple ambushing task. Just on dusk we patrolled to the site as a squadron. When we reached the site, patrols were being positioned along a track. We were last and were finally given our location. The Captain pointed to the track and told me where to position my patrol. The distance between the two was about four metres. The patrol gave me a look that said ‘sort this shit out’, so I told the Captain that we would be moving back a few more metres. Six claymores amount to 4.2 kilograms of plastic explosive, so I wanted to give us a few metres of stand-off behind the mines.