Warrior Brothers (32 page)

A dead face stares up into the sky from its bed of mud and debris. Two hands appear to hold one another, like a mother embracing a newly born child. One is significantly larger than the other, but the hands can no longer feel. They are frozen, stalled at 8:46, the time the clock ceased to function and was swept off the wall of a kitchen, living room or hallway in a building that, most likely, no longer exists.

Were the family who lived in this home killed at the same moment that the clock stopped telling the time? Were the hands that hammered the nail into the wall and mounted the clock still alive, or were they buried in the mud below? If a set of hands stayed with the clock, would that mean that the person would be still alive? The clock is damaged but not crushed or entirely destroyed. The pattern of swirls surrounding the face has been scratched and chipped, and the glass is shattered. Only a small section remains, in the lower-left portion of the white face. Only the numbers from 9 to 4 are visible; the remainder are covered in a thin film of mud, hidden from the world and no longer the centrepiece of a proud home, hanging for all to see.

An orange thong sits on the dark-brown mud. It is from a left foot. The colour of the sole would be unidentifiable except for a small cut on the inside and the strap that has been torn and now lies lifeless over the rear of the sole. Is the
person who was wearing this item still breathing? The distinctive plug has been ripped out of the centre, while everything around the thong has been flattened and covered in six feet of mud. Where is the person who walked on this sole as the wall of water approached them?

Distressing pictures of missing persons were plastered all over the windows of the airport in Banda Aceh. I asked a man if it would be offensive to photograph these images, and he replied that it was fine. ‘It is important that the world sees the devastation that has happened here,' he told me.

The man was a well-educated individual who was in Jakarta on business when the tsunami struck. He was a wealthy man from an affluent neighbourhood in close proximity to the coast. His entire family and extended family were gone, all 18 of them. There was nobody left. The street where he once lived had been swallowed by the raging torrent. He wore dark glasses and a smart suit. He was calm but looked terribly alone. Here was a man who lost his residence, all of his possessions, his entire family and most of his friends, yet he was able to talk to me and, above all else, was grateful for our presence. He didn't seem to be wallowing in self-pity and wasn't bitter about the cards he had been dealt. I didn't know what to say or do but just listened to his heartrending story. It was a privilege to speak with such a strong man. I was in awe.

The first photo I captured was of three children. A good-looking six-year-old boy with a cheeky grin is on the left, his left arm draped over the shoulder of his younger sister. Their two-year-old brother stands on the other side in a bright-yellow shirt. The children are well dressed and look happy. There is a circle around the boys' faces. They are missing.

Being a father with three children of similar ages to those in the picture immediately took my thoughts back home. I missed my children and wanted to hold them so very badly at that moment. I wanted to protect them and ensure they were safe. I don't believe there would be anything more
devastating than to lose one's child. Tens of thousands of children were killed in Banda Aceh. One class of schoolchildren numbered 43 on the morning before the disaster. Only six turned up for class four weeks later.

The second photo was one I have since studied in depth, trying to make sense of the associations. A total of seven people are shown as missing. A husband has put the picture of his wife and children on one side, and perhaps his sister and nephews on another. The man's wife is 24 years old and her face is one of quiet elegance. Their 11-month-old son is pictured below with a full head of hair and large smile. Another woman, aged 22, is next to the child.

The second page displays a beautiful woman with a smile that is so sincere and so warm that you feel you could open up and talk to her about anything. She is aged 35. Her eldest son, who is 10, is on her right. Her eight- and six-year-old sons are below. Three women and four children wiped from a family. They had been missing for a month. Their bodies would never be identified.

The next photo must have been taken during a family get-together or celebration. There are eight family members sporting large smiles with hands draped over one another's shoulders. They are all brightly dressed and the youngest child, no more than two years of age, is sitting in the lap of his father. The toddler is contentedly comfortable and is leaning against the man's chest. Both look relaxed and happy. It is a picture of love.

The six remaining figures are a mother and five more children, three girls and two boys. The family looks tight-knit, where everyone enjoys each other's company. The mother is kneeling above her children and has her arm proudly touching the shoulders of two of them. There is much love, and the familial bond evident in this photo is a stark reminder of what our lives should be about. Life in these photos is not about the size of a television, the weight of a
gold chain or the brand of car. The people in these photos exude a sense of contentment and yet, in contrast to our Western materialism, they have much less. In heart and soul, however, they are prosperous. They love and are loved in return. As I gaze into the photo, I hope there were no lone surviving children in this family. They deserve to rest in peace as one.

The final photo I took is no less distressing. A mother, at the left of the picture, has her head and body covered in a white shawl while she holds a fan in front of her chest. A branch with three large, brilliant-red jalapenos, a much-loved delicacy in Indonesia, is painted on the front of the fan. The woman is 33 years of age and 155 centimetres tall. The details of her age and height add depth to the image. She had lived.

Her son is pictured to her right, clothed in a blue-collared shirt and jeans. The boy, four-and-a-half years old, is wearing a red cap backwards. Next to him is a photo of his seven-month-old sister lying peacefully asleep. She has a magnificent head of black spiky hair, and a look of complete and utter calm as her little chubby arms hang down by the side of her body. Their father, who placed this photo here, went to work with a wife and two children. By nine o'clock that morning they had all been stolen from him. His legacy will be a constant rerun of ‘What ifs'. He may learn to live but he will never get over the grief.

These people are far from alone in their grief. There are thousands of parents who have lost their children and, likewise, thousands of children who have lost their parents. The orphanage near the airport overflows with the lost and homeless.

News reports stating that ‘an estimated 200,000 people have been killed by the Boxing Day tsunami' take the human loss and emotion out of this disaster. They distance the event for those in the West. A statement of bald facts belies the loss
and devastation evoked by these photos, by the sight of survivors digging in the mud and rubble for their loved ones, by the smell of death that hung in the air in the days and weeks following the tsunami.

And yet, despite all the hardship and grief that confronted us, several of the engineers we were protecting began to complain about the uncomfortable living conditions. ‘It's hot, I don't like the food, there are too many mosquitoes, we are working too hard for such a humid environment, sleeping on a stretcher hurts my back …' The complaints indicated that these men had started to become numb to the grief that surrounded us, and to our purpose of being in Banda.

Thank goodness the project manager, Jerry, was a man of great fortitude and compassion. He was aware that his company had sent him to the site of the disaster not as an act of compassion but as a money-spinning, publicity-driven exercise. The donation of $14 million worth of water-treatment equipment was hardly an act of philanthropy. They came to Banda Aceh not to help anyone but in the hope of making money.

Jerry, despite working for one of the largest corporations in the world, was a man with integrity who also knew how to get the job done. He believed in this task and so did we. He was a natural leader and, while he did not hail from a military background, his relentless work ethic, his desire to lead by example and his ability to motivate others would have seen him held in high regard in any military unit.

Jerry also sensed that his team was weakening and that morale needed boosting. He and I concocted a plan of motivation designed to shock the engineers out of their self-centred complacency. These men were benefitting from this disaster in the form of huge remuneration – we all were – but their hearts remained immune to the hardship around them. If they were to grow from this, they had to be shown the value of humility and humanity.

From my military background I knew there was a fine line between what we should and should not expose the civilian engineers to. To show too little might have resulted in the men not being motivated enough to put up with the conditions, but to show too much could well see them overly traumatised.

As for the security contractors, well, they performed like Trojans and applied themselves wholeheartedly to the task. One character, Harps, was a former SAS soldier and mate I had known for years. He had an enormous appetite for hard work and, during our time in Baghdad, was the most efficient team leader in getting his team up to speed. Harps was also an abrasive individual who hated incompetence. I generally found this side to his persona rather amusing. He definitely didn't have a problem with self-confidence. In fact, I think he still believes he is the hardest man to have come out of the Regiment. Harps, KVA and the other security contractors set the standard and led by example. This mindset aided our efforts to inspire the team of engineers.

‘Guys, what you will witness will affect you. If it doesn't, then you have no soul. You must be made aware that tens of thousands of children have lost their parents, many thousands of parents have lost their children, entire families have been wiped out. We know it's hot and the mosquitoes are annoying, but you guys are being paid a lot of money to be here and you are here to provide the survivors in Banda Aceh with clean drinking water. You are here to help sustain life. When things get hard, we want you to think about some of the things that you are about to see and use it for motivation. This is one task in your life that you can be proud of. Let's go!'

Our first stop was a bridge that was about a kilometre from the coast. Its river was now some 20 feet below, but there was evidence that the torrent had once covered the bridge entirely. The railings were buckled or torn away and a 44-gallon drum had somehow been wedged underneath one of the railings. The force must have been devastating. Vessels lay 12 feet from the water on the banks, their hulls destroyed.

The banks of the river were littered with six feet of debris. Corrugated iron, palings, shredded boats and housing materials had all been mashed together. And, worst of all, woven into the carnage were thousands of bodies. The stench was overwhelming. Bodies were being exhumed from the
wreckage while we were there, but the engineers were only able to watch from a distance.

Several of us were granted permission to inspect human remains. It was shocking. One body bag I saw contained three skulls and a thighbone attached to a crushed pelvis. The first skull was small. The front teeth were gone and only the front of the skull remained, with a flap of hair attached. The top and rear of the skull were missing. My chest hurt as I realised that it once belonged to a child.

The second skull was also missing several teeth but was otherwise pretty much intact. Deep fractures ran through the bone. The third piece had the remnants of a skull but no facial bones. If the force of the tsunami completely flattened vehicles, like an empty can of cola being squashed underfoot, it is little wonder that these skulls suffered a similarly violent end. This comprehension compounded the shock of the visual we were confronted with as we moved throughout this torn and devastated land.

We moved on to the city centre. It was a peculiar guided tour, but the engineers really had to feel the pain of this lost city. The streets were covered in mud. Ground-floor shops were littered with debris and only the obvious corpses had been removed. The drains must have been choked with bodies. The putrid smell told us this. Shopkeepers were trying to clean up their businesses and keep despondency at bay.

I spoke with a woman who was staring into the alley next to her home. She was wearing a brightly coloured orange dress that hung just below her knees. There were several muddy stains on the front of her dress and her thongs were stuck in the sickly mud beneath her feet. She was limp, shattered, empty. As we talked she revealed her loss. She had been on the first floor when the wave roared down the street. Her husband and children were in the shop below – they perished.

When our clients heard this woman's tragedy, one man cried and the others all had tears welling in their eyes. Her
grief and loss made the city and their place in it real. It was gradually dawning on them that while human life is fragile and frail, it is also something to cherish while you can.

We returned to our vehicles and I glanced across the street at a woman who held a broom in her hands. Like many others affected by the tragedy, her eyes stared vacantly at the mess she was confronted with. How could a mere broom sweep this ocean of mud from the sidewalk? Perhaps her sweeping action was an instinctive part of her survival, a way to deal with the devastation that surrounded her. We remained silent, wrestling with these shocking images and smells. We felt empty.

Later we saw footage of the tsunami. It was a bright, warm morning and Banda was a bustling hive of activity. People, cars and motor-scooters jammed the streets. One scooter had an entire family of five balancing on it. There was dust, fumes and commotion. Although the city had been damaged by the earthquake, on the surface all appeared normal. The footage was taken from the first floor of a building.

The cameraman was leaning out a window when a series of screams caught his attention. He panned to the middle of the street as a one-foot wall of water swept down the road. Panic set in immediately as people on scooters attempted to force their way through the crowd. Many people simply stopped and stared at the watery onslaught. Their incomprehension of what confronted them is almost palpable. This was a violent torrent of muddy water. It was rushing down their streets and consuming everything in its path.

The street came alive even more, but now the movement was not of normal day-to-day living. It was a city filled with screams and fleeing bodies. The wall of water, no less than 12 feet high now, poured and bounced down the road. Such was its ferocity that everything in its path was sucked to the bottom and pounded by the debris it had already swept up.

Eerily, the screams ceased. All that could be heard was the water's malevolent roar. One woman managed to scale the side of a building and was pulled onto a first-floor balcony. A vehicle washed by, upside-down and less than two feet below her. She had managed to survive but the anguish on her face and the rising hysteria enveloping her body indicated that she had left a loved one below. Those at ground level weren't swept away in the torrent. They were crushed, battered and dead in an instant.