Indian Ocean Invasion - 7. IOI Chapter 7

For the next few days, Mitchell and I remained in the treehouse, during the day we heard several flights leaving and arriving on the island, plus the sounds of the mine starting operations again, and at night we saw regular patrols of the walkway from the lodge cabins to the carpark.

At 0700 hours every morning I would call Colonel Bridges at Campbell Barracks to report in what activity we had been observing and hearing.

On the 8th day since the invasion, during our daily report, I was informed that and SAS unit of 8 men, would be landing at my suggested location, at 2100 hours this evening, and they would be at our location, before daybreak the next day, and that I would receive a call on the Sat phone when they are in the area.

I was a little anxious that there was going to be so many people in the treehouse, and that it will soon be no big secret, but I just had to go by the orders. Since there are 4 hammocks stored away in the store room, I pulled them out and set them up on the veranda, on the north side, facing away from the access walkway.

With the hammocks and two spare lounge beds, that would be able to accommodate most of the visitors. When I returned to the store room to do an inventory of what we have in stores, including the two spare mattresses, that we had been using on and off since arriving in the treehouse.

It occurred to me that the shelves on the straight internal wall, that backs onto the bathroom, were a lot wider than the shelves on the curved wall.

I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, and I relocated all the stores on the lower and 2nd shelves on the straight wall to the other shelves, before I lay one of the mattresses down on the shelf, and it was a perfect fit.

I placed the mattress on the second shelf, and retrieved the spare pillows and blankets, and placed them on the end of each new bed, before stepping out and getting Mitchell to join me in the store room.

“Oh cool, so it this going to our beds from now on?” Mitchell asked when he saw the new setup. “I think it would be best, especially when we have visitors coming tomorrow, so how about you reorganise all of our stores, so they are all easily accessible on the other wall.

We will use these two shelves as our beds, and underneath for storing away our luggage” I suggested, and Mitchell got to work to do as I asked.

This now meant, there is beds available for all the visitors, but for now, I turned the beds over, so they became lounge seats again. Not sure how the SAS team would be arriving, we spent the rest of the day quietly cleaning the treehouse.

I climbed up onto the roof, to uncover the solar panels, so that we could get the solar batteries recharged, as most of the flights in and out, were early morning or late afternoon, giving us plenty of daylight time to get the batteries recharged.

When we had a late afternoon heavy rain shower, we took the opportunity to use the toilet and have a shower each, with the rain hiding any noise that we created, and when the rain stopped, I climbed back onto the roof to cover the solar panels again. Just before sunset, we heard helicopters for the first time, and it went straight over the top of the treehouse, as it patrolled the island.

After dinner we cleaned up the kitchen area and settled down in our store room beds for the night, and listened, as we heard the helicopter fly over again at 9pm and midnight, with strong search lights blazing down onto the forest.

I hoped that the treehouse was camouflaged enough to remain hidden, especially when the roof is green corrugated iron, along with the camouflaged netting that covers the whole roof, and the upper half of the veranda shutters.

I woke up just before daylight, and I turned on the Sat phone, which I had managed to recharge yesterday, and less than ten minutes later, it vibrated with an incoming call.

“Hello?” I said cautiously, “Lt Commander Shaw, this is Captain Mike Kenworthy, Commander of Bravo Patrol, A Troop, 3rd Squadron SAS Regiment, we are at the coordinates, given by Colonel Bridges” a voice replied, which I heard through the phone and outside, as crept out of the store room, and out onto the north side veranda.

Below me I saw eight men, well disguised lying flat on the ground. “Welcome to Christmas Island, Captain, you have made good time getting here” I responded smiling as I looked at the commander, who was looking around as if he was searching for my location.

“Thank you, Lt Commander, would you mind giving us your exact location?” the Captain asked, “Certainly Captain, look up,” I replied, as I began to chuckle, and as the captain looked up I smiled and waved.

"Holy …” the Captain started to say before ending the phone call, and I went around to the other side to lower the rope ladder, so the soldiers could climb up.

“Gentlemen, welcome to Fort Courage” I said thinking of the old American TV show of “F Troop”, and I shook the hands of the eight men, 1 captain, 1 sergeant, 1 corporal and 5 privates.

“This is quite some set up you have here Lt Commander,” Captain Kenworthy said to me. “Well I’m not the owner of this establishment, it belongs to my brother and his three friends, who own the three eco lodge cabins, known as Swell Lodge,” I replied.

“I see, well let’s have a look around then” the captain commented, “if the National Parks service found out about this treehouse, they would be in big trouble, as you see it is mainly open plan, the veranda as you see has post and rail fencing on the lower half and shutters on the top half, that can be lifted to give more light and airflow, when closed they help to keep the rain out.

The Treehouse walls are only from the floor to half way up, to allow airflow, especially during cyclones, the recent category 3 cyclone was not a problem, at all, with no structural damage at all.

As you can see we have four bench lounge seats on two sides, and we have this” I said as I pushed and released the walls in two places, to reveal the full-sized kitchen.

“We only have two cane lounge chairs and the coffee table, plus and additional fold up table and chairs in the store room, which I will show you in a moment” I continued as we walked around to the other side of the treehouse.

“As you can see, we have set up four hammocks on the veranda for your accommodations, that plus the bench seats are all we have available for you I am afraid”, I added, before turning back to the centre of the treehouse, where Mitchell came out of the store room and froze.

“This is my 15 year - old nephew, Mitchell Hughes, who is unfortunately caught up in this situation, Mitch this is a patrol from the Australian Army, who have come to assess the situation with the invasion,” I said making a brief introduction, before I continued with the tour.

“That room that Mitch came out of is the store room, and our bedroom in this treehouse, next to it is the only bathroom, fully operational, with eco-friendly septic tanks.

We tend to wait till when it is raining heavily, to take a dump and shower, as the rain hides the sound of the shower and toilet” I said as I pushed and released the bathroom door, and each of the men had a quick look inside.

“We have solar panels on the roof to power our lights, refrigeration, and microwave, plus two power points for recharging stuff, and you may have noticed the four water tanks on the veranda, for our water supply” Mitchell said adding his input into the tour.

“That is, it gentlemen, now as you may have heard last night, the enemy has begun helicopter searches of the island at night, as of at dusk last night, with large search spot lights, the roof and solar panels have a camouflaged netting, to hide the treehouse.

We also have a rope swing system, that stops anyone from tracking us from the raised walkway to the treehouse, if you want to get to the other side of the walkway to get to the detention centre, you need to use the ropes and hide them once you used them, to keep the treehouse secret,” I said.

“Thank you, Lt Commander and Master Hughes, we will need to get some rest, so we will bunk down for the day, and catch up on some sleep” the Captain said, and the privates headed for the hammocks, while the others headed for the bench seats.

“By the way Lt Commander, I have a special package for you, from your brother” the sergeant said to me, as he pulled out a package wrapped in waterproof canvas and handed it over to me.

I unwrapped the canvas covering, and inside was a small aluminium waterproof case. Snapping the locks open, I lifted the lid and looked in, to find two small boxes, 2 sets of headphones and two packets of playing cards, which made me chuckle.

I opened one of the boxes, to reveal an Apple I Pod, and a small note. “This is Mitchell’s I-Pod, that I had made him leave at home, regards Jeremy.”

I gave a light whistle to get Mitchell’s attention and motioned him over, before handing him the box, and a set of headphones, and he had a huge smile open his face, when he saw the I-Pod and the note from his dad, and he headed back to the store room.

The second box had a brand new I Pod, and also had a small note, “Just something to keep you occupied while you stuck at your location, Regards Jeremy.”

I followed my nephew into the store room and showed him that I had the same thing, plus the two packets of playing cards, “Just remember to keep the headphones connected and the volume down” I said to Mitch, and he nodded his head that he understood.

While Mitchell was listening to his music, I climbed up to see what the plastic containers on the top shelf contained, as I had not had to time to fully check out everything.

When Mitchell saw me lifting down two plastic containers he turned off his music and stepped up beside me as I placed the boxes onto my bed and open the lid of the first box.

Inside, we found 20 editions of Outback magazine, 20 editions of Australian Geographic magazine, and about twenty fiction novels, which Mitchell was very pleased to see, as he took a quick looked at each item one at a time, while I opened the second box.

Inside contained an extensive first aid kit in a canvas carry bag, 4 hand held UHF walkie talkies, each with ear pieces, and belt attachment, and two A3 size laminated topographical maps of Christmas Island.

Looking at the maps carefully, I saw no makings to indicate the location of the treehouse, or where the ropes are located, which I was pleased to see. When Mitchell looked to see what was in the second box, he lost interest straight away, as he went back to picking out two magazines, and returned to his bed to start reading them.

I closed both boxes, and placed them under Mitchell’s bed, next to our luggage, so they can be easily accessed, before heading back out to the main treehouse living area, where I sat on a cane chair, and started looking at what was on my new I-Pod.

I was pleased that Jeremy had added a lot of music that I liked, Pop, a little bit of rock, and plenty of country music, and I popped on the head phones and began to listen to some of the music as the soldiers slept.

At 11am, I heard a noise that wasn’t coming from my I-Pod, as I played a game of patience for the eighth time, and I turned it off to listen, and soon recognised the sound of the helicopter approaching once again.

All the men were awake and quietly listening, as it flew close by, and turned to make another sweep a little further away, as it did last night. “That is the first time that they have done a search near the middle of the day” I whispered to the Captain, as I heard the distant sound of a foot patrol walking along the raised walkway.

“We will do an overnight reconnaissance tonight, to see what is happening elsewhere on the island,” the Captain said to me.

“I found a topographical map of the island earlier, that may help, I will get it,” I whispered, and I stood up and quietly walked to the store room, where I found Mitchell sleeping.

Once I had one copy of the map, I exited the storeroom, and made my way back to the cane chair, and placed the map on the coffee table, before sitting down, leaving the Captain and Sergeant to look at the map and discuss a few ideas.

“Lt Commander, you are a Naval Clearance Team member I understand?” the Captain asked me, “Yes Captain, but I am on Medical leave, due to injuries received during service,” I replied, “Let me guess, Afghanistan?” the Captain asked, “yes, three tours, the last one is when I received the injured from an IED” I replied.

“So, in your professional assessment, from what you have seen so far, do you think that any IED’s have been laid around the Detention centre?” the Captain asked me.

“No Captain, I think there were none, when I walked around one third of the outer fence line earlier in the week, but I don’t know if that has changed since,” I replied. “Ok, fair enough, we will take a precautionary approach, in case there have been some laid,” the Captain responded.

“It is just over 2 km’s in a straight line from here to the eastern side of the detention centre, and by road it is 15 kilometres to the high school, on the eastern edge of the settlement, and 17 km’s to the airport,” I informed the Captain.

“Very well, we will have to spend a few days out in that case, if we have not returned by day break on Monday, call the Colonel and let him know that something may have gone wrong,” the Captain said.

“So, you are leaving after dark tonight?” I asked, “Yes, we will head south a little way before we cut across the main path towards the Detention centre, that way keeping well away from the treehouse,” the Captain replied.

At lunch time, I pulled out 2 cans of baked beans, and heated it up on the stove to feed Mitchell and myself, while the soldiers ate Army ration packs.

For the next few days, Mitchell and I kept our selves busy, by quietly cleaning the treehouse, reading magazines and books, and playing cards, and just after midnight, I woke up to the sounds of whispering, and I cautiously opened the storeroom door. “It’s ok Lt Commander, we are back a little early, go back to sleep, and we will fill you in on what happened in the morning,” I heard the Captain say.

The next morning, while Mitchell was still asleep, the Captain filled me in one what happened while they were checking things out. They managed to work out, that there was no IED’s or land mines around the Detention centre, and they checked out the Phosphate mine, which is in full operation, with a ship in harbour ready to take the phosphate to Malaysia and Indonesia for processing.

The Captain also reported that they had a look on the outskirts of the harbour, where an Indonesian Frigate is moored to protect the cargo ship, and there are armed men all over the mining operations, the harbour and airport, on 24-hour guard duty, and the high school is the command centre for the island, with tents located all over the school ovals.