He stood in the river, water up to his knees, searching for something to help him float downstream. Spotting a log caught up in the trees and hanging over the river, he hauled it out and pushed it and himself into the river. Going with the gentle current, Finn slung his arms over the log and began kicking gently. He had a flashback of swimming at the Boy Charlton Pool with the swim squad. It seemed like someone else’s memory, something that someone had told him about — not something that he used to do every other day.
Chastising himself for daydreaming, he started to think about his next move. It was now fully light, though the sun had not yet risen. If the Chinese saw him drifting down the river they could easily shoot him. Finn decided to angle across to the other side of the river. At least that way he could get to cover quickly if he was spotted.
After three hours of drifting down the river, Finn felt like he had put some distance between himself and the Chinese. His arm was throbbing now and his legs were beginning to cramp. Reaching the bank, Finn hauled himself out — exhausted, thirsty, hungry and completely lost. His legs shook weakly. He needed to get his bearings, work out a way of getting help. Finn knew if he headed east he’d have a better chance of finding help — he’d just have to be careful not to run into an enemy search party. The prospect of being captured again was not a thought Finn wanted to entertain, having seen what they were capable of. But what choice did he have? He could die out here, wandering around lost, or he could give himself an objective and see how far he could get.
He would head east, directly away from the river for as long as he had to. That had to get him back into the vicinity of a town or farm.
Finn drank as much as he could from the river, praying that it would not make him sick, and then set off up the hill. After six hours of beating his way through the bush and desert, Finn felt he could go no further. Exhausted and weakened by the loss of blood from his injury, he collapsed on the ground.
Heat, throbbing arm, nagging hunger and an all-consuming thirst conspired to create a fog of delirium. The sun was still high in the sky, with no clouds. There was no sign of respite. The terrain had changed markedly from the hillside near the river. He was now in semi-arid desert — no cover if a Sankaku flew over. He only hoped that, if their mission was part of a coordinated attack, the Chinese would be far too busy to run after a lone escapee who may or may not be alive.
Finn heaved himself up off the ground, telling himself to keep moving. One foot in front of the other, his head drooping, all he could look at was his feet, making sure that they landed securely on every step.
Darkness came quickly, as it does in the desert. He was so exhausted he collapsed beside a rock. The cool desert evening felt good after the heat of the day, but quickly Finn started to shiver as the temperature continued to drop. That night Finn slipped in and out of consciousness — fitful dreams and hallucinations played with his mind as he tried to deal with the shock of what he had been through.
Waking as the sun rose, Finn struggled to his feet and willed his legs to move forward. His head thumped from dehydration and his shoulder now ached mercilessly. He looked at the ugly mess of his shoulder wound. It was only a flesh wound, but it could be serious if it became infected. Finn tried to keep it from his mind. If he didn’t get some help soon, his shoulder would be the least of his concerns.
Five hours of erratic stumbling and the horror of feeling his body shutting down began consuming his mind. The pain was now being eclipsed by the panic of realising the symptoms they talked about in training were actually happening to him — swollen tongue, cramping legs, headache and dizziness. Finn had to fight the rising panic — he knew that if he let the terror of what was happening to him take over, he would be dead.
The sun was dropping low again. Finn, exhausted like never in his life, cried a tearless cry at the thought of another night in the desert. Between sobs he tried to talk to himself, willing himself to harden up and just deal with it, telling himself that tomorrow he would find help and get out of this hell.
That night his body convulsed and shivered from the cold, hallucinations playing with him mercilessly, replaying images back to him: Carver’s head being blown off, the Chinese commander with a pair of pliers, his mum being shot, his arm being amputated with a saw. On and on the dreams and visions came to him — it was like his mind was punishing him.
Finn woke feeling just as exhausted as when he went to sleep. His mouth was dry as sand. His tongue felt huge, but his gums had shrunk and his teeth felt loose.
‘Get up, just get up,’ he told himself.
As soon as he moved, his head started to pound again with a vengeance. His shoulder thumped as blood came back to the wound. Clutching his shoulder, he stumbled onwards. Walking towards the morning sun, he knew this would keep him heading east.
By the afternoon he was so delirious he did not notice the dust plume on the horizon. In fact, Finn didn’t even register the sound of the truck as it got closer, not until it reared up over the steep ridgeline he was on and skidded to a standstill only a metre from him. Startled, Finn fell backwards as his balance gave way and he collapsed on his back. Closing his eyes, darkness engulfed his mind as consciousness slipped away.
Chapter 15
In the general’s office in the SOF, General Stephens was with Sarah and Fletcher going over the post-attack evaluation reports.
‘Looks like a good success rate, Fletch,’ Stephens said with a satisfied look on his face.
‘It certainly does, Marty,’ replied Fletcher, grinning.
Sarah turned away from the screen she was reading from. ‘Australian casualties are low and the key missions were all successfully executed.’ Sitting forward, Sarah continued. ‘Our strategists say these attacks will slow down their exports to a point where it is about four times more expensive to get a ton of iron ore out of Australia than it was for them to buy it from us two years ago.’
‘That’s an excellent result,’ said Fletcher. ‘At this stage our only game plan is to make it economically untenable for China to stay here.’
‘I think we’re succeeding,’ said Stephens, ‘however, the Chinese have massive resources — they may be able to take short-term losses, holding out for long-term gains. They know that we cannot continue with a guerrilla war for long. Whereas, for them, every day they’re on Australian ground, they’re expanding their roots, creating more infrastructure.’ He rubbed his face with both hands, moving them to the back of his neck, squeezing his shoulders. ‘I just don’t know if we’re being utterly futile with these guerrilla attacks.’
‘Marty, this is like back in the early 2000s. Remember when the Howard government got us involved in Afghanistan and Iraq? We were the invaders then, along with the US coalition. Do you remember the terrorists who fought so hard to get us out? Well, remember how godawful they made it for us — remember how many lost their lives trying to fight the local terrorist cells?’
General Stephens nodded wearily.
‘Well, we can keep making life hell for the Chinese, just like they did to us then,’ Fletcher said. ‘We just have to stay resolute. We will win in the end.’
‘I know what you’re saying, Fletch,’ said Stephens. ‘The trouble is that there’s no halfway point in this strategy. We have to commit fully to this line of warfare if it is to succeed and, like it or not, we will be bringing the Australian people into the frontline — just like in Iraq and Namibia.’