Bangalore. Roger Crook
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went dead.
Angus and Alice were watching her as she put the phone down. She told them what she had been told, especially about the publicity concerning Ewen, and added, “That means they were over the border in Pakistan and soon they will be back in Afghanistan. It’s a difficult choice they have, whether to evacuate them under cover of darkness or wait until first light. They will have to take an escort, probably Apaches, but the terrain is difficult and the evacuation team will stand a better chance of finding them in daylight. Conversely they will present a better target if the enemy is close.” With an air of resignation she said, “All we can do is wait.”
“And pray,” Alice added.
Pat then looked at them both, her expression was serious and she seemed to have gone pale, she didn’t take her eyes off Angus as she spoke.
“My CO says there has been a ‘stuff up’ as he put it. Ewen’s photograph with a story of the crash has gone viral on the world media. They, the ADF, don’t know how it happened. They say the story first appeared on an Arabic radio with the name, then television with the pictures, then the Internet and before anyone could even try to stop it, it was all over the world. They couldn’t stop the press coverage once it was on the Internet. The origin of the story was apparently from sources beyond their control. It is not NATO and certainly not Australian policy to release personal details of our Special Forces. My CO was really telling me there has been a serious security breach. He says we may get other visitors, not just from the press; he didn’t say from whom or from where. He asked me to apologise to you all on behalf of the ADF.”
Angus was the first to speak. Alice, looking apprehensive, stood quite still. “ Pat, any idea what is behind this security breach? What does that mean?”
“All I know, Angus, is that great care is taken to ensure the identities, especially of our Special Forces personnel, are kept secret. That is why when you see them on television they are wearing something that covers their faces – usually balaclavas – or their faces are blurred out. I have no experience so I am just assuming that once the pictures of Ewen were all over the Internet, then the Australian press ran with it. If someone like Reuters or another big news agency ran it, again I am presuming, the Australian press would have assumed it was okay. Again, I don’t know but I would imagine the ADF are trying to put a lid on it now but it’s probably too late. Not much they can do if it’s on Fox News and in the Sun newspaper in the UK, and of course all over the Internet. I suppose, depending on what kind of mission they were on in Pakistan, Ewen’s face will be plastered all over the media and there will now be a mass of speculation.”
Now Alice spoke. “Pat, they hide their identity to try and prevent reprisals?”
“Yes and no. These men are covert operators. You cannot be covert if your picture is in the paper – well, it makes it more difficult. Sometimes these men operate in civilian clothes here in Australia. They may be on duty when foreign diplomats or leaders visit if the AFP needs extra help. In Afghanistan they may well be dressed like the locals. I am not being clever, but covert means just that, and this is a war on terror, a war that relies on intelligence gathering by people who are…well… covert.”
Angus asked, “What will this mean for Ewen?”
“I have no idea, Angus. He’s probably in the safest place on the planet right now. Let’s just see what develops; nothing has changed. We will tell the others when they get here. Honestly, I am as much in the dark as to what might happen as you are. The ADF will try and persuade the papers to let it slide, but I don’t like their chances. There is nothing the ADF can do about the Internet or the foreign press. The best we can hope for is that something more important crops up and the press concentrates on that. It may well blow over in a couple of days.”
Alice sighed and said, “Well, Pat, we had better get on with what we started. It looks as if we are in for difficult times.”
The South Wing, or Madam President’s Quarters, as Angus later called it after his ex-wife, comprised two small single bedrooms, a double bedroom, a small comfortable lounge and a big bathroom with two showers.
All the rooms were furnished with old comfortable furniture that Pat thought were probably antiques. As she and Alice made up the beds Alice gave her the history.
“Angus’ grandfather added this wing. It was built so the next generation, in this case Angus’ father and family, could get away from the grandparents. So Angus and Michelle used it when they got married and I think Michelle hated it. She hated not having the run and control of the whole house. She had to wait her turn to be the lady of the manor; she never made it though.” She looked at Pat across the double bed as they folded in the sheets and with a perfectly straight face added, “So I’m sure she will be comfortable in here.”
As they left the South Wing, Alice said, “Pat will you please remind Angus to put some white wine to cool?”
Chapter 3.
Michelle, Roddy and Rachael.
As Pat walked down the hallway to find Angus she looked at her watch. It was a pilot’s watch, big enough to read at a glance with numerous functions that would help with dead reckoning navigation if instruments failed. Ewen had bought it for her and she thought about him somewhere in the cold mountains of Afghanistan, maybe injured, maybe dying, maybe under fire, running, fighting his way to safety with his mates.
She thought about her contact with SAS Troopers. Seeing them return after weeks in the hills of Afghanistan, where they had been self-sufficient, carrying all their needs on their backs. She remembered the tiredness, the exhaustion in their eyes, the smell of fighting men who hadn’t showered, maybe hadn’t washed in all the time they had been away. But most of all she remembered the cautiousness, the wariness in their behaviour, always checking, always looking out for each other. When they were being evacuated there was no scrambling to get away, each man watched the others’ backs until the last one got in the helicopter; even then one of his mates watched his back from the door. Always searching the landscape, always watching. She knew that if Ewen was going to survive, it would be because of those men.
Pat found Angus on the veranda, in the chair he had been in before breakfast. He was rolling a cigarette. As he licked the paper he motioned towards his tobacco and papers on the table, offering them to her.
As she picked up the pouch and papers, she said, “Haven’t smoked for six months. Ewen got me off them. Now I think I need one. I can always stop again.”
“Don’t let me lead you astray.”
“You’re not. I was dying for a smoke yesterday when I was driving out here, but I didn’t have any.” As she was speaking she was, quickly and with a definite dexterity that could only have been acquired with practice, taking a filter from the pouch, licking the paper and rolling a cigarette. Angus held out his lighter to her.
“I’m the same, with smoking that is. I just find it so hard to give up. All those holier than thou people, even governments, don’t seem to understand. They spend so much money on anti-smoking campaigns, and Drink Safe, and Work Safe and Drive Safe or whatever it’s called, and here we are in the new millennium and there are still thousands of kids living on the street, homeless. Old people needing blankets every winter. They tell me the cost of electricity is going through the roof. Taxes on everything. Now a carbon tax, which seems to have everyone confused, including me.
“More people paying twice for education and don’t even mention the Aboriginal people. There was a time when we had a school for all of the kids on Bangalore, and they all learned to read and write at the very least. Now many of the black kids in the desert communities are illiterate, and the stories are coming out of some of the remote communities about child abuse and petrol sniffing causing permanent brain damage, I sometimes wonder what’s happened to all the money over the last forty years. It’s so very sad…”
“Is that why you like it up here?”
“What, away from the maelstrom of what is called modern life, the new millennium? Probably. It’s getting