Expatriates: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse

43 THE SPIRIT

Quentin Whittle was typical of the solo Stay Behinds in the Northern Territory. He had military experience and few family connections. A self-proclaimed “spitting chips mad bogan,” Whittle was a former bush logger and commercial hunter. He was forty-three years old and divorced, with no children.

When he was in his early twenties, Quentin had served just two years in the Australian Army as an infantryman before a trailer hitch accident crippled his left hand—leaving him with only one finger and very limited strength in his thumb. Although the army would have allowed him to continue with active service if he transferred to a support branch, he opted to take a disability “early out.” He eventually settled into a job as a truck driver and log loader operator with Kasun Logging headquartered in Rapid Creek, a suburb north of Darwin.

After the Crunch curtailed most logging, Quentin took up commercial hunting. His hunting territory ranged mostly east into the Garig Gunak Barlu National Park where he mainly went after feral pigs, feral banteng cattle, feral sambar deer, and magpie geese. He sold or bartered all of the meat that wasn’t necessary for him to survive and drove a battered old Toyota HJ75 trayback ute that was equipped with a pivoting hoist and electric winch for lifting the heavier animal carcasses.

Quentin was one-eighth aboriginal by the blood of his great-grandmother Polly, but his fair skin and light brown hair didn’t show it. His status as an “octoroon” gave him aboriginal hunting and fishing privileges under the Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 1976 and the Cobourg Peninsula Aboriginal Land and Sanctuary Act of 1981. He was occasionally confronted by the Parks and Wildlife Commission of the Northern Territory Rangers. When showing the Aboriginal Land Council hunting permit and the Aboriginal Status Declaration documentation that he always carried in his wallet, he would often play it up, putting on a heavy aboriginal accent. “Why you blokes always harassing us hard-yakka black fellas, uh?” This infuriated the park officials since his status made him immune from enforcement of most of the game laws, and even from the requirement to purchase any hunting permits under the most recent legislation.

Whittle’s small and nondescript rented house outside of Jabiru, about 150 miles east of Darwin, was notable only for having three chest freezers filled with frozen meat, and rawhides dominating the living room. His next-door neighbor was a full-blooded aboriginal named Sam who made his living catching and drying freshwater barramundi. When the Indonesian invasion started to look imminent, Quentin gave Sam two of his three freezers. With Sam’s help, they loaded the third freezer into Quentin’s ute bed. Towing a trailer containing only the most valuable and useful items from his other household goods, Quentin drove to Rapid Creek. Among his other gear was a duffel bag of military field gear that he had stolen several years before from a fellow army private in retribution for a barracks prank that went too far.

In Rapid Creek, Quentin took up residence in the disused gardener’s house on the grounds of an estate owned by Kasun Logging. The owner was about to “head for the Big Smoke” (a big city) with his family and was happy to have a caretaker.

Quentin Whittle owned just two guns: a 1920s-vintage Belgian-made Liege 12 bore double-barrel shotgun with almost all of its original bluing worn to a gray patina, and a Remington Model 7 .308 Winchester bolt action. The latter was equipped with an inexpensive Simmons variable 3-9-power scope. The rifle’s buttstock was badly battered from constant use in the field.

As a designated Stay Behind, Quentin was issued four pale olive green 200-round cans of ammunition marked 7.62 MM BALL F4 on their sides and 7.62 BALL BDR-CHGR on their lids. Each can held four green canvas bandoleers of ammunition in stripper clips. The ammo was compatible with his .308 Winchester rifle. His prior army qualifications also made him eligible to be issued fragmentation hand grenades and Claymore mines. After a half-hour refresher course, he was given ten frags and six Claymores with one proviso from Caleb Burroughs: “Be sure to put them to good use. Do not bury your talents.”

By training, an infantryman’s first instinct is to dig. During the week before the Indos landed, Quentin selected, developed, and stocked sites for three hidden firing/hide positions on the periphery of Darwin and one bivouac site. He spent the next two nights shuttling clothing, rations, ammo, and gear from the guest house to the four sites. At the three chosen firing positions, he dug foxholes with wooden lids, commonly called spider holes.

According to his laser range finder, each of the holes was between 350 and 550 yards from positions that would likely be occupied by the Indonesians. The first spider hole was on the military crest of a knoll near the edge of Holmes Jungle Nature Park. This hole was 407 yards from the junction of Vanderlin Road and McMillan Road. He called this his Jungle Park hole.

The second spider hole was in Charles Darwin Nature Park and had a view across Sadgrove Creek to a long stretch of Tiger Brennan Drive. Even before he finished digging it, the bottom of this hole began to fill with seeping swamp water. This “swamp hole” was in a wetland location that would be difficult for the Indonesians to pinpoint and even harder to access.

The third spider hole was on a triangle of scrubland at the junction of Howard Springs Road and the Stuart Highway southeast of Palmerston City. He called this his Road Watch hole. This one was just sixty yards from Taylor Road, but he didn’t plan to shoot in that direction. Anticipating that the Indonesians would quarter some of their troops at the abandoned Robertson Barracks and that they would frequently use the Stuart Highway, he hoped this would be a prime sniping location.

His main bivouac—a “sleeping hide”—was one and a quarter miles northeast and just a mile east of Robertson Barracks, just beyond a group of small lakes. He found one of the thickest patches of brush in the area, crawled in, and leveled off a shelf on a gentle slope that was not much wider than his bivy bag. The brush was so thick that he could hardly see the sky. This bivouac site was just a few yards uphill from a small creek where he could refill his filter canteen. From his position, he could hear the Indo ships unloading vehicles at the East Arm docks. Darwin Harbor was full of Indonesian and Malaysian ships of all descriptions. A few of these were civilian roll-on, roll-off (RORO) ferryboats that had simply been painted gray and pressed into navy service.

Quentin plotted the coordinates for the three spider holes and his sleeping hide with his GPS, offsetting each sixty yards to the east, in case his GPS receiver was ever taken.

The spider holes were armpit deep. He used thirty-inch square scraps of Australply laminated plywood for their lids. With a jigsaw, he cut the lids into curving oblong shapes to reduce their chance of detection.

Quentin then camouflaged them further with a generous coat of Clag Kid’s PVA white glue and sprinkled them heavily with soil and dried leaves. A few small downed tree limbs were then attached with finishing nails. He was careful to use soil, leaves, and limbs gathered in the immediate vicinity of each spider hole so they would look natural.