Warrior Brothers (31 page)

Banda Aceh had been the scene of a separatist struggle since the mid-1970s. The Free Aceh Movement (
Gerakan Aceh Merdeka
, GAM) violently opposed Indonesian rule, resulting in a resistance campaign that resembled East Timor's. But Banda Aceh was pretty much off the Western radar until the Boxing Day tsunami crashed into its coastline.

Following the tsunami, a ceasefire was agreed upon, but the engineers who were deploying with two large desalination units opted to take security. Several of the engineers and security contractors had previously worked together in Iraq and had established a tight bond and a high level of trust. Although the threat in Banda bore almost no resemblance to Iraq, the company that employed the engineers decided to send in a six-man security detachment to ensure the safety of their employees. I had been chosen to lead the task as, along with my SAS background, I was a competent Indonesian linguist, having completed a six-month intensive language course during my time in the Regiment.

Although I'd been sceptical about leaving the troop for six months, the experience had been brilliant. The course comprised eight hours' instruction per day, with a teacher for every four students. We were also expected to study privately for a minimum of three hours a day. Of course, I gave it a fair bit more than that. How obsessive can you get? Weekends
were an excellent chance to catch up on the comprehensive word lists that we had been given during the week. We were often given over 50 new words to memorise each day. There were many skills to master – speaking, listening, reading, writing and translation. Our study schedules had to include all of the above if we were to maximise our efficiency.

Families once again had to be understanding. Some wives must have breathed a sigh of relief when their husbands told them that they weren't deploying anywhere for six months, but many weren't prepared for a study schedule that bordered on demented.

But my language skills served me well in Banda. Logistically, being able to speak the lingo allowed us to get the job done, but it also meant we had a huge emotional involvement. Speaking to the locals, interpreting their broken voices and hearing of their tragic loss, touched me deeply.

Death surrounded these people, and it has been said by many a soldier that once you have smelt death you will never forget it. So true. The stench of death is unique, so strong and so repulsive that it remains seared inside one's memory. That distinctive stench was in no small part responsible for the depth of horror I faced when I arrived on the island of Sumatra. Never in my life had I experienced such a feeling of dread as when we stood atop the rubble that had become the tombstone of Banda Aceh. But I had smelt this odour before.

On the morning following the tsunami, the day before I arrived back in Baghdad, a 107-millimetre rocket had landed just outside our compound, no more than 40 metres from my accommodation hut. This was a close call, and a rocket landing amongst crowded accommodation huts could easily have claimed many lives. On another occasion, while seated at my desk in the operations room, I heard a tremendous blast. I immediately donned body armour and went outside to investigate. Eight Nepalese guards had been killed when a rocket struck their mess tent some 200 metres from the ops room.

It was not uncommon for a bullet to sail through a hut's tin ceiling and embed itself in the floor. Nor was it unheard of for a piece of metal from an RPG burst to land on one of the huts in a clatter, as if pebbles had been thrown onto the roof. Rockets and mortars were fired into the International Zone regularly. This one, on 27 December 2004, had claimed a life.

The rocket had slammed into the earth no more than a metre from an Iraqi man who was employed as a security guard on the front gate of the adjacent compound. We acknowledged these guys whenever we entered or departed our compound. The dead man was unlucky but wouldn't have felt a thing. He had left the relative safety of his guard box and ventured into the open, perhaps to relieve himself. The rocket had sailed over the outer perimeter wall and detonated next to him with a tremendous roar.

Several pieces of metal and rocks penetrated the tops of our accommodation trailers. The guard was not riddled with holes but blown in half. His torso was completely severed, his twisted limbs flung in one direction and his mangled upper body in another. Several security contractors ventured out and made the grisly discovery. They placed a blanket over the guard's remains before informing his colleagues. ‘It would have been quick,' they consoled themselves.

I have often wondered if there's any awareness when death comes so instantaneously. Does the mind have time to think, ‘Oh shit, there go my legs, and here goes my body. How freaking unlucky was I to be right beside that 107-millimetre rocket?' I doubt it – the blow would have knocked him senseless immediately, like someone being king-hit in a fight. You'd feel nothing.

In my more morbid, reflective moments, I can't help but think it has to be better than dying of cancer or being shot in the stomach, where it takes a couple of hours of agonising misery before you finally say goodnight. This man was alive and then he was dead – there was nothing in between.

The following morning, having arrived and heard the news, I joined some members of the team to investigate the site of the explosion. A large crater, over a metre in diameter, clearly identified the rocket's point of impact and the very place the man had ceased to breathe. The earth that was previously hidden a metre below the surface, safely tucked away from the violent Iraqi sun, was now scattered across the surface with all its differing colours. Next to the murderous hole, a large dark stain marked the soil. The blood on the ground was dry and crusted, and this, coupled with the scattered shards of bones and pieces of flesh, was a stark reminder to us of the fragility of our existence. Although I didn't know the guard personally, I felt hollow and numb.

But well before we reached the site, we were steeling ourselves. From a considerable distance away came the sickening smell of death, filling the air with a grotesque and unmistakable flavour of sadness. I had only smelt this foul aroma once before, when as a child I stumbled across a cat that had been struck by a train on the railway tracks behind our home. John, a friend who lived up the road, helped me dispose of the body. We thought the incinerator can, still alight with cardboard boxes, was as good a place as any to dump the mangled body.

With sticks we managed to pick up the maggot-riddled remains, cringing with every step towards the fire – there were no more than 20 steps before we could get rid of the thing. We flicked the body onto the fire and thought we had done a good thing. Alas, within seconds the vilest smell we had ever experienced wafted out of the drum and into our nostrils. The stench continued over the fence, and the grey deathly smoke enveloped the street like a ghastly blanket of fog. It was so putrid that we fled the funeral pyre, fearing that we had done something very, very wrong.

We ran through the gate, around the front, onto the road and finally several houses up the street with our T-shirts
pulled over our faces. We stopped and were astounded to find that the smell had overtaken us. A slight westerly breeze had spread the odour without lessening its rankness. We began to dry-retch. It was my first introduction to the trademark stench of death and decay. Its true horror is difficult to revisit and capture in words. It is a memory that should only be suppressed.

In Banda Aceh, the waft of dead, decaying bodies seeped out of the ruins. Tens of thousands of corpses lay beneath the surface, entombed in a muddy grave of twisted metal and debris. The situation was exacerbated by the stifling humidity. The thick, wet air embraced the scent, which hovered and wrapped itself around us. There was no escape for the victims in Banda Aceh, or for us as we tried to make order from all the chaos.

Yellow trucks packed with human remains ferried the dead to mass graves on the outskirts of the city centre. Thousands were dropped into body bags. Thousands were not. Decaying limbs and faceless skulls were piled high in the rear of the trucks, a most unenviable task. The drivers appeared to complete their task with impassivity, as if they were unloading a trailer of soil. The scale of the tragedy numbs one's senses to the point where carrying on with living seems possible again.

The Acehnese are some of the most resilient people I've met. Perhaps this is because of the hardships so many of them have faced since birth. Whatever it is, they should be proud of the fortitude that enables them to wake up, breathe and get on with life. Many thousands of lives were lost in the tsunami, but many stories of survival also emerged. Horrific and heartbreaking as their tales were, the local people were intent on sharing their loss. It may well have been their way of dealing with the tragedy.

One young man, who was inspecting our water-treatment units, approached me with a surprisingly cheery disposition that only partly masked the grief and horror visible in his eyes. A contrast of extremes. I greeted him in Bahasa and he immediately warmed. We chatted and he was appreciative that we had arrived to lend support. As we talked, he told me of his personal tragedy. The tsunami had taken away everything from him except his life and his memories. His mother, father and sister were all missing, yet he was still able to muster a smile as he talked about the previous three harrowing weeks while he searched for their remains.

I asked where he thought his family were, and he replied, ‘Probably somewhere out to sea. Thousands of people were swept into the ocean when the waters receded.'

I was confused about how he could abandon his search, but after seeing several of the recovered bodies I understood. They no longer appeared human and identification would be impossible. The humid conditions had stripped the bodies bare in less than a month. There was no skin, very little hair and no internal organs. The humidity and parasites had dissolved them with the same efficiency that a scorching sun melts ice. The skulls had nothing more than tufts of hair remaining and the mangled skeletons contained tendons and sinews but very little else.

The young man, aged in his mid-twenties, had no other family, yet he was not as distraught as I would have been. I was surprised. How did he remain so strong? How could he inspect the water-treatment units that we were bringing into the country with such diligence? How was he able to live? He was friendly and warm but his great sadness was still apparent. He suppressed these feelings and continued to function. ‘
Maaf, sedih sekali
,' – ‘Sorry, very sad,' – was all I could muster as my right hand gently patted the area of my chest above my heart. I didn't know what else to say.

He just grabbed my hand, looked deep into my eyes and
replied, ‘
Terima kasih teman saya. Saya senang sekali anda sekalian datang di sini untuk membantu orang Indonesia
,' – ‘Thank you, my friend. I am very happy that you all are here to help the Indonesian people.'

His situation was unthinkable but, in Banda at that time, heartbreakingly common – to lose everyone and everything that you love in one cruel stroke. I admired him enormously, trying to imagine if I could have shown his strength. I'd never wish to experience his loss, but if presented with a similar situation, I would like to emulate this man's deep dignity and strength. He was indeed a warrior from within.

The bodies were transported and piled into a series of trenches near the airport. There was very little time for emotion or sensitivity in this dismal task. Squashed on top of each other, the corpses were rolled off the trucks and into the mass grave. There was a real chance that an outbreak of disease could increase the hardship, so the expedited disposal of the bodies was not a task of sentiment. It was a real and very human necessity.

Sitting back in my own home in New South Wales, writing my recollections of operations past, I listen to the sounds of ‘normal' domestic life ringing out from the other room. The rewards back here are considerable, but as I retell old stories and relive the incidents that still haunt my dreams, I feel the ache of loss.

When the most remarkable and powerful friendships you will ever have in your life become severed by distance – both in geography and lifestyle – it feels like the death of a friend. And this separation is not a gradual loss. At one moment we are laughing and taking the piss out of each other, and then we part ways.

Back in civilian life you miss those who would challenge you in the gym or on a cross-country run. My email inbox is bloated and my phone continually beeps with messages from my former life, but it's not the same. These snippets from my past are valued but they don't fill the void of separation. For some strange reason, those who know me seem to think that I have made the transition to life as a home dad and university student with ease. They are so very mistaken. My past won't let me go that easily.

The day after I received word of Joe's passing, the phone was ringing hot. This time it was Drewy, hilariously funny, totally irreverent, everyone's mate, but also the guy who keeps the lines of communication open between us all. But Drewy was unchar
acteristically sombre. He informed me that three of the boys, three Australian SAS soldiers, had just been killed in a Victorian car accident. I knew them well and, just like Drewy, had shared a laugh with them all. They had recently been involved in challenging and dangerous operations, so to survive those and be killed in a car accident seemed a tremendous waste.

For some peculiar reason, the painful news didn't drag me deeper. I was already feeling so low after Joe's death that the additional loss did not seem to compound the pain I felt. It wasn't possible to feel any lower. I felt sick, but I could not fall any deeper. I'd already shed a tear, for fuck's sake, and I wasn't going to do it again. The three of them were warriors, passionate soldiers who were loved by those who knew them. It was impossible to have a dull party with those guys around. They lived, worked and played hard. Such a combination rarely allows one to grow old.

Kane was away working and he sent a message that helped to strengthen my soul.

Kane called me a couple of weeks after sending this message, but his voice resonated with despondency. Not being one to hold back, he simply blurted out two words: ‘Jezza's dead.'

Now it was my turn to lend support. Jerry was Kane's closest mate in Melbourne, a fiercely loyal and passionate man. Kane's words that ‘sadly, many warriors die' were indeed prophetic. Jerry, a man who was rather fond of a fist-fight, died in an altercation in which he was looking the other way and still had his hands in his pockets. He was cheated by a cheap shot and died in Kane's arms after hitting his head on the pavement.

The year 2007 was rapidly proving to be pretty average, and funerals were beginning to top my list of social engagements. It also resurrected feelings of nostalgia, as I struggled to come to terms with leaving behind a major part of my life.