'What's your room like Tony?' I asked him.
'I believe the word is adequate; how is yours?'
'I've been in better, but it will have to do,' I replied.
'What is your plan now that we are here?'
'We need to keep an eye on the airport to see if there is anybody around and if the Beechcraft King Air appears.'
'Are we going to stick together or split up into two watches,' Tony asked.
'We can start off together and then see how we go. If we have to monitor the airfield for the entire night, we may have to do it in shifts so as we get some sleep.'
'I don't particularly want to be on my own up at the airfield; it is quite remote, and there could be wild animals and other dangerous creatures.' Tony sounded scared.
'We'll stick together then and one of us can sleep while the other is on watch.'
After lunch, I asked the Manager if we could hire two bicycles. A car would have been better as neither Tony nor I were keen cyclists; however, car hire was not on the list pf amenities for the area. He said that he couldn't hire us bicycles, but there were two rather old ones in a shed out the back that we could borrow. He told us where to find them.
We located the two ancient rusty bicycles in the specified shed. With a brief clean and the tyres pumped up, we set off on our bike ride. It was quite a sight, two middle-aged English gentlemen tottering along a forest track in Indonesia on two ancient bikes.
We didn't dare talk until we had reached the airport; all our concentration was required to stay upright. At least returning to the hotel would be downhill for most of the way.
We dumped our bikes in the undergrowth and went to find a shaded spot from where we could keep watch on the runway and the approach roads.
'Tony, I am going to see if I can find the driver of that old pick-up truck that brought us from the airport to the hotel. You never know he may have seen something.'
I walked around to where Tony had originally met our toothless driver. His VW truck was parked outside one of the warehouses.
The door was open, so I looked inside. There were, in fact, two men of similar ages sitting there. The second man had a similar dental problem to our driver.
'I am trying to find out if a relatively large two-engined plane has been using this airfield?' I asked.
They looked at each other and scratched their heads. After a brief conversation, they shook their heads.
'Have you seen any strange men around the airport recently?'
Again they scratched their heads and mumbled to each other.
This time they nodded their heads.
I was excited. Perhaps this was the breakthrough I needed to solve our search.
One of them finally spoke to me; 'Two men came on a plane this morning. Akmal drove them to the hotel. I think that you were one of them.'
They looked very pleased with themselves for having been able to help. I suspected that they were playing with me. Later events proved that they were a lot smarter than they looked.
'Have there been any other strange men?' I asked.
They scratched their head once more and then shook their heads.
I wasn't getting anywhere fast. When I returned to Tony, he asked me how I got on.
'It was a total waste of time. They did tell me that they had seen two strange men, but it turned out the strange men were the two of us.' I smiled.
'I meant to ask you earlier today if you saw those two men at the hotel we were staying at in Kupang. When you were otherwise engaged in your swim this morning, I saw two very European looking gents having breakfast together.'
'I didn't see them. Did they look Italian?'
'They certainly had a Mediterranean look about them so they could have been French, Italian or Spanish, or even from Greece.'
'When we get back to The Hotel on The Rock we can check them out, that is if they are still there.' I really didn't think that they could be mixed up in the drug smuggling, but you never know and they were European.
We had two options; we could go and sit in the jungle that surrounded the airfield, or we could sit in the rather posh shelter that was in front of the terminal building. We decided on the latter.
We made sure that we stayed on the airfield side of the structure so as we couldn't be seen by an approaching car.
It wasn't pleasant. We were soaked through due to the humidity and also being dive bombed by every possible variety of insect. Tony had brought a spray can of insect repellent that we sprayed over our exposed skin. Despite this precaution, I felt the insects biting me through my shirt.
'This is hell on earth,' my brother said with feeling.
'And, we could be here for days,' I added just to cheer him up.
'Can we not go and wait at the hotel,' Tony suggested. 'One of us can stay awake for a few hours and then we can change around on a watch basis. If a plane lands here, it will need landing lights, and we will hear it from the hotel.'
'Good point; we're not going to be able to spend the night here. We'll go mad from the insect bites. When Pete landed this morning, he made his approach over the hotel so perhaps that's the prescribed route.'
We went and rescued our bicycles from their hiding place and rode back down the hill to the hotel. In fact, we rode for a bit and then walked the remainder of the way. As night had fallen, it was pitch black in the midst of the trees and undergrowth, and we couldn't see the road. We both had encounters of a close kind with the forest before we decided to walk.
It took us about an hour to complete the journey, and it was just after nine when we reached the hotel.
I took the first watch telling Tony that I would wake him up at 2.00am. He, gratefully, went to his bed.
I wasn't feeling too sleepy, so I didn't disturb him until 3.00am. I was very thankful to get into my bed after a cooling down in a cold shower. I slept for the rest of the night with the ceiling fan fully on.
We were having our breakfast together on the veranda of the hotel when a plane flew over the hotel. It turned and then descended towards the airfield.
'That looked like Pete's Piper Cherokee,' I said to Tony.
'It was definitely his plane,' Tony agreed.
'He must have only two or three more passengers for the island as he has come in the Piper and not the Cessna.' I was able to arrive at this incredible conclusion based on the information I had been given yesterday by Pete.
It wasn't long before we heard the engine revving and saw the plane take off again. He had evidently dropped off his passengers.
'What do we do now, Vince?' Tony asked.
'Sit tight here and see if somebody appears. There is nowhere else for them to go.'
'Have you brought a gun with you, Vince?'
'No, I decided I wouldn't bring my Glock because of all the security checks and the difficulty of bringing it from the UK. It's back in the safe in Putney.'
'I feel very naked sitting here on a remote island with nothing to defend ourselves with. What's more, there are now possibly two or three criminals coming towards the hotel. I am sure that they will be armed.'
'We will just have to keep out of sight and see what happens,' I suggested.
We used Tony's room as our observation post. There was a much better view of the approaches to the hotel from his room.
Half-an-hour later we heard the VW pickup approaching. Whoever had arrived must have requisitioned the same driver we had used.
Two men got out and approached the reception area of the hotel.
'Those are the two men that I saw yesterday morning in the hotel in Kupang,' Tony whispered.
'They look Italian to me but I agree with you, they could be from any of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean.'
'What do you suggest that we do now?' Tony asked.
'We stay out of sight until they go somewhere and then we follow them.'
We didn't have long to wait. Approximately one hour later the two men who had recently arrived set off walking back
up the track to the airport.
On our way out I asked the receptionist if the men who had just checked in were the Italians we were expecting.
She checked the register and said that indeed they were. They had put down their nationalities as Italian.
It was starting to look as if we might be in the correct place.
We kept a safe distance between us and the two Italians. The road only went one place, so we didn't have to stay closer.
When we approached the precinct of the airfield, the two men went over to one of the buildings situated close to the entrance. They unlocked the big sliding door, pulled it back and went inside. They emerged pulling a trolley containing a large number of what looked like lanterns. Locking the door behind them, they towed the trolley to the gate leading to the airfield. One of the men produced a key to the gate that they unlocked. They then went through and progressed as far as the landing strip. Pulling the trolley along the runway they placed a lantern on the grass beside the landing strip every fifty meters or so.
'What are they doing Vince?' Tony asked me.
'It looks to me as if they are putting lanterns out to act as landing lights. That would seem to indicate they are expecting a plane to land soon, but it will be after dark.'
'Why are they only putting the lanterns on one side of the runway?' Tony asked me.
'We'll just have to wait and see. Perhaps they have a different colour for the other side.'
They put the last of the lanterns in its spot beside the runway and returned to the shed with their trolley. Fifteen minutes later they reappeared. This time they put the lamps down the left-hand side of the landing strip.
'You must be right Vince; as you suggested they are putting this batch of lights down the other side.'
'So we now know that there will be action tonight,' I said. 'All we have to do is come up here after dark and wait for them to light the lanterns. A plane should hopefully arrive shortly afterwards.'
'They have made it very easy for us. We won't have to spend the whole night hanging around in the faint hope that a plane might arrive.' Tony sounded very relieved. I don't think that he was enjoying his time in this humid jungle.
Chapter 19
'They're switching on all the lanterns that they are using as landing lights,' Tony observed.
'That sounds like a plane approaching,' I said, moving my position to have a better look.
It was now nine o'clock, and it had been dark for about three hours. Although we had previously decided that we would wait in the hotel until we heard a plane fly over, our curiosity had got the better of us, and we had returned to the airport. We were now in a hiding place just outside the perimeter of the airfield. During the evening, there had been a massive downpour. The jungle was still dripping so we were soaked through and steaming as the moisture evaporated from our clothes. It was not comfortable.
Tony tapped me on the shoulder.
'Can we go a bit closer to the action?'
'I prefer to stay here well out of the way,' I replied.
'We could go over to the shed that doubles as the terminal building and still be hidden from the runway and the apron.' Tony pointed to the shed.
'We would be out in the open if anybody came up the approach road,' I suggested. 'We should be able to see all that goes on from here.'
'If we go a bit closer we can get a better look at their faces. We want to be able to see the pilot to verify that it is Stuart Smith,' Tony argued. 'I'll go closer if you don't feel like it.' Tony had got the bit between his teeth and was going to move closer whether I went with him or not.
'Ok, you win. We will go closer, but be very careful.'
To get to the hut, we would have to cover about one hundred meters of open ground. It was pitch black so it was unlikely that the men waiting on the runway could see us.
As we were about halfway across the open ground, headlights from a vehicle lit the area. We heard the unmistakable sound of the ancient pick-up truck approaching. The noise of the plane's engines had masked that of the old Volkswagen, which explained why we hadn't heard it.
Picked out like rabbits in a headlight we bolted for the cover of the jungle. A couple of shots cracked through the air. They were firing at us. I lost Tony in the mad rush and arrived in the forest on my own. There were times when my gammy leg held me back, and this was one of them. I simply couldn’t run as fast as my brother.
I stopped and listened. I heard shouted commands in Italian, and I also registered that the plane had aborted its approach and had pulled up with its engines at full throttle.
Whoever had been in the pick-up truck now started firing an automatic gun into the jungle, in fact, it sounded as if there were two guns. Both were firing bursts of rapid fire that were ripping through the trees. They seemed to be just spraying the edge of the forest where I was and presumably where Tony was.
I lay down behind some large trees to make it less likely that I would be hit. It didn't work. I felt a sharp pain in my left arm and shoulder. I seemed to have been hit by a ricochet. I couldn't move and was in great pain.
The shooting stopped, and I heard the Volkswagen revving up and leaving the scene. I must have passed out as I don't remember anything until I came around with Tony squeezing my right shoulder and looking into my face.
'Are you OK Vince? You have received a bullet in your left arm and shoulder. I have put a tourniquet on the best I can, but we need to get you out of here and to a hospital before you bleed to death.'
I tried to compile some words but only got a moan out. It was agonising. I closed my eyes.
'I will have to go back to the hotel and get some help,' Tony bent down and shouted into my ear. 'I will make you as comfortable as possible, but I will have to leave you.'
Tony informed me later that he had been torn as to whether he should stay with me or go to the hotel. He wasn't used to taking decisions like that, and he was close to panicking. He was also anxious that he would bump into the two Italian gentlemen and would be shot himself.
I was in and out of consciousness and in great pain, but all I could do was lie there and wait for him to return. I have never known the time to pass so slowly.
In one of my lucid periods, I thought I heard a car. My one thought was that they had come back to finish me off. I was relieved to hear Tony's voice.
'Are you OK Vince?' he asked with a note of panic in his voice. 'At least you are still alive. I managed to find a doctor, and she will sort you out.'
I looked up into the face of a lady doctor. She proceeded to examine my wounds using a large torch.
'You have been hit in your arm and the fleshy part of your shoulder,' she explained. 'It's not life threatening but needs to be treated as soon as possible. You have also lost a lot of blood and will require a blood transfusion. I will take you back to my surgery, but I don't have the equipment to treat the results of gunshot wounds.'
'Thank you, doctor,' I managed to get out. 'I am in a lot of pain.'
'I will give you a shot of morphine to help the pain,' she replied.
Her car turned out to be an ancient Land Rover. She backed it into the trees, close to where I was lying and between the two of them they managed to transfer me to the vehicle.
A bumpy half-an-hour later we arrived at her surgery. Tony and the doctor's assistant moved me to a trolley,
'I have asked the doctor if I can use her phone. I will call Inspector Johnson in Melbourne, and get his input on what he suggests I do with you,' Tony told me. 'You obviously can't stay here and I don't know what the hospital in West Timor is like.'
It was some time before Tony came back to see me. I was drifting in and out of sleep as I was heavily drugged to mask the pain.
I came to with Tony hovering over me.
'The Inspector suggested to me that I arrange to have you flown back to a hospital in Darwin. I managed to get hold of Pete Adams, and he is available to come and pick you up and take you to Darwin in his Cessna Titan. The Insp
ector will pick up the bill for the flight.'
I smiled as I was not up to the monumental task of putting words together. Thanks be to God that my brother was with me and not one of the others.
The biggest thought going through my mind now was - What was I going to tell my wife?
I don't remember much of what happened next. I was put back into the Land Rover and taken to the airfield. They then successfully transferred me to the plane. The doctor made sure that I was secure on a stretcher on the floor of the aircraft with a drip, and she gave me another shot of morphine. Pete had removed two of the seats to make more room. I travelled from Rote Island to Darwin in an unrealistic haze. All I can remember is the unrelenting noise of the engines that seemed to exacerbate the pain. I thought that the torture of the flight would never end
Tony stayed close to me most of the flight worrying over me like an old hen. It was comforting to have him there.
Three hours later, the engine finally quiet, I was carefully transferred by Paramedics into an ambulance to be taken to the Royal Darwin Hospital. Pete Adams, who had done a marvellous job flying us there, said a fond farewell to me.
'When I showed you the Cessna Triton two days ago Vince, I didn't think that we would be using it so soon to bring you to a hospital in Darwin.' He squeezed my hand.
'Thanks, Pete, you're a star.' I managed to reply
Tony waited around in the hospital until I had been into the operating theatre. He then vanished for a well-earned rest in a nearby hotel. He had been on the go for close on thirty-six hours in a high state of nervous anxiety.
'And Vince, what I am going to tell Daphne?' Tony was back visiting me. 'I will have to tell her something.'
He was refreshed after a night's sleep and had even changed his clothes. He had fortunately remembered to pick up our bags from the hotel on his way from the doctors to the airport at Lekunik.
I was feeling considerably better and a lot more comfortable.
Tony sat down in a chair beside my bed and leant towards me.
‘Vince, while we were flying back from Rote Island, Pete Adams gave me some interesting information. I didn’t tell you earlier as I didn’t think that you were well enough to take it all in.’
Danger Down Under: Another Vince Hamilton Investigation Page 15