18 Hours Read online

  DEDICATION

  For my brother, Gavin Lee.

  And for the soldiers of the Australian Army,

  past, present and future.

  EPIGRAPH

  ‘We sleep safely in our beds because rough men

  stand ready in the night to visit violence on those

  who would harm us.’

  George Orwell

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Maps

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Photographic Insert

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Select Bibliography

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise

  Copyright

  Swift and Sure

  The motto of the Royal Australian Corps of Signals

  Who Dares Wins

  The motto of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment

  Maps

  PROLOGUE

  They represented the elite, and today they were going to face the public, which had devoured tales of their heroics in the nation’s newspapers but had yet to put a face or name to the stories of incredible survival and battlefield triumphs.

  ARMY SIGNALMAN MARTIN WALLACE didn’t feel much like a modern-day war hero. If anything, he felt slightly awkward as he stood on the perfectly manicured deep-green grass outside Government House in Canberra; conspicuous for all the wrong reasons. Wallace, a member of the Australian Army’s elite Special Air Service Regiment, had been called to the nation’s capital where, in a few minutes, he would receive the prestigious Medal for Gallantry, one of the nation’s highest decorations for bravery in perilous circumstances. Wallace had earned it one hellish day nearly nine months earlier while serving his country in the War on Terror in Afghanistan. He had been fighting the remnants of the religious fundamentalist Taliban regime and their terrorist partners, al Qaeda, after the murderous September 11 attacks in the United States.

  Their Excellencies, the Governor-General, Peter Hollingworth, and his wife, Mrs Ann Hollingworth, had issued official white invitations, stamped with King Edward’s golden crown atop a sprig of wattle, to the investiture. Proceedings would commence at 10.50am and conclude exactly 70 minutes later at noon, sharp, on 27 November 2002. The dress code on that sultry Wednesday morning was appropriate to the occasion — service dress ceremonial and accoutrements. Signalman Wallace was proud to wear the Australian Army’s uniform, and proud of being a soldier in 152 Signal Squadron at the SAS base in Swanbourne, Perth, but the dress code had presented a slight and oddly amusing problem for him.

  Despite being the star of the morning’s pageant of pomp and ceremony, and despite his impressively chiselled good looks and ramrod-straight posture born of years of military service and parade ground marches, he felt like an impostor. While his lean, athletic physique gave it a definite and dignified authority, most of the all-khaki ceremonial uniform he was wearing had been borrowed, hastily. It came from his fellow soldiers in the Special Forces crew that lives by the credo ‘Who Dares Wins’. Wallace appreciated the irony, and had a laugh at his own expense: he was a member of the most elite and highly organised regiment, renowned for its adaptability in any environment, and here he was decked out in an improvised uniform. Bloody perfect, he thought.

  The uniform he wore belonged to his troop commander at 152 Signal Squadron, a top bloke called Marty whom Wallace respected and admired. The shoulders had had to be widened slightly to accommodate Wallace’s build, and the badges changed to recognise his rank. Wallace had borrowed the gold buttons for the jacket from a corporal within the SAS Regiment’s 1st Squadron, an old mate named Mick. They had served together on their first overseas mission twelve years earlier, and like Wallace, Mick had also served in Afghanistan. The wide black leather belt and brass had come from a fellow signaller at 152, another chook, as signallers are known, who had also completed a rugged tour of duty in Afghanistan in the early days of the War on Terror.

  It was all a bit of a laugh, but what did irk Wallace later after the ceremony was that he was asked to remove his royal-blue beret for the official photographs thereby robbing his Royal Australian Corps of Signals of the honour he felt they deserved at this proud occasion. ‘I felt like an op-shop dude going up to get an award in a borrowed suit and tie,’ Wallace remarked later, humour mixed with a small measure of embarrassment. At least he wore his own corps’ blue-coloured lanyard over his right arm, clearly identifying himself as a member of 152, something he would toast privately with his best mate and fellow SAS trooper, Mooka, over a beer after the ceremony.

  But Wallace’s awkwardness went beyond the borrowed uniform, and if truth be told, he focused on the uniform to conceal the real cause of his discomfort. His awkwardness was deeply entrenched in that rare characteristic possessed by brave men and women who would prefer not to be singled out for simply doing their job, no matter how extraordinary and courageous their actions have been. His reticence was rooted firmly in something that could only be described as the humility of heroes; he felt uncomfortable that the ceremony about to unfold would spotlight him and celebrate his gallantry and courage under fire. Soldiering is about mateship and teamwork.

  There was something else, too. Martin Wallace — or Jock, as he automatically became known, thanks to his Scottish ancestry, when he signed up as a seventeen-year-old in 1987 — also felt sorely the absence of another brave Australian who was with him the day all hell broke loose in the largest combat operation in the War on Terror, and the biggest to involve Australians since the Vietnam War.

  It was 2 March 2002, in a freezing place called the Shahi Kot Valley high in the Afghanistan mountains, where the air is so thin it’s hard to breathe. Of historical significance and breathtakingly beautiful, the area was the last stronghold of the multi-national terrorist group al Qaeda, and American intelligence had placed its Saudi leader, Osama bin Laden, in the region. Warrant Officer Class Two Clint was right beside Jock for most of the eighteen hours they were in the valley, pinned down after being ambushed by an estimated thousand al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban fighters. Clint and Jock fought for their lives and those of 80 soldiers from the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division who had been deposited there that morning by three fully loaded CH-47 Chinook helicopters. If Wallace had his druthers, his brother in arms Clint would be standing right beside him again now, being similarly honoured. Instead, Clint was hard at work, having been overlooked for any award, something Wallace thought was wrong.

  Wallace couldn’t pinpoint the exact emotion he felt but the ceremony seemed somehow superficial, a bit hollow. A bit of a show, put on more for others than for him. The dangerous work had already been done, and yet more was needed back in Afghanistan. As a soldier, Jock wanted nothing more than to get back to the business, but he also knew the medal ceremony was bigger than him, bigger than one man who had done his duty. It’s about the nation and about being Australian, he thought to himse
lf as he surveyed the smartly dressed politicians and dignitaries who had come to salute Jock and the other soldiers who were being honoured.

  Wallace was in good company. With him were the tough-as-nails commander of the regiment’s 1st Squadron, Major Daniel McDaniel, and his squadron sergeant, Warrant Officer Class Two Mark Keily. Both were superior officers in the SAS who, with Wallace, took part in what the Australian Defence Force called Operation Slipper as part of the American-led coalition’s Operation Enduring Freedom. The three soldiers had notched up several decades of military service between them and had seen action in various countries on several continents. They represented the elite, and today they were going to face the public, which had devoured tales of their heroics in the nation’s newspapers but had yet to put a face or a name to the stories of incredible survival and battlefield triumphs.

  Three other SAS soldiers — a corporal, a sergeant and a captain — would receive awards anonymously due to their current operational status. And the SAS Regiment’s absent commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Peter ‘Gus’ Gilmore, would receive the Distinguished Service Cross for his command and leadership. Wallace had been Gilmore’s signaller, keeping him connected to the outside world and to his troops on patrol in Afghanistan throughout the early days of Operation Slipper. The boss had recently returned to Afghanistan where he was once again running the show for the Australian contingent.

  Wallace might have been a reluctant hero but he knew what to expect. That morning, after a good night’s sleep in a serviced apartment in the Canberra suburb of Dickson, he and McDaniel and Keily were given a thorough media briefing by those higher up the chain of command. There was the small matter of journalists descending on the wartime heroes to record their moment of glory and sing hosannas in their honour. They had to know what they could say, but more importantly, what they couldn’t say. Operational, tactical and security matters are highly sensitive issues for active SAS soldiers. Top secret, in fact. Wallace knew the drill and respected it. Men and women’s lives, including his own, depended on it. The pre-ceremony briefing was essential. Some things would be off limits.

  As befitted the occasion, the Australian Defence Minister, Senator Robert Hill, was at the investiture and so too was the Chief of the Australian Defence Force, General Peter Cosgrove (no doubt in a perfectly tailored uniform, Wallace thought to himself with a chuckle, self-consciously tugging at his borrowed jacket).

  The ceremony began precisely at 10.50am, in a splendidly decorated room in Government House. Wallace, McDaniel and Keily stood perfectly still, their chins thrust forward, their hands clasped in front of them. They didn’t flinch. They didn’t smile. They listened with a practised solemnity, in true military style. Wallace was first cab off the rank. The order of service recognised the fact that he was to receive the highest decoration that day — the Medal for Gallantry, no mean feat for a digger who was outranked by all those around him.

  With a practised regal bearing that would, months later in the dying days of his governorship, be described as arrogance, Dr Hollingworth called on Wallace to step forward. ‘For gallantry in action in hazardous circumstances while undertaking communications responsibilities in Afghanistan during Operation Slipper,’ the citation read.

  Jock’s mother, Margaret, sat a few rows behind her son with his elder brother, James, and best mate, Travis Standen, aka Mooka, and Travis’s fiancée, Frances. Jock was permitted to invite four people to share his moment of glory and he’d chosen them carefully. James and Margaret had taken the Hume Highway from Sydney to Canberra and had been so excited that they couldn’t eat breakfast. Mooka and Fran had flown across from the west, where they then lived, courtesy of the Australian Army. Jock would be Mooka’s best man a few months later, performing the honour over the phone all the way from Iraq, when Mooka, a second-generation SAS man, and Frances tied the knot in a surprise wedding. They wouldn’t have missed seeing their best man get the distinguished medal for quids, and the fact that they made the trek meant more to Jock than he could say.

  Despite the significance of the moment, Margaret Wallace was not easily impressed by the pomp and ceremony. She had always been extremely proud of her second son, as she was of James, and while she knew little of what Jock had done six months earlier in an isolated and nearly unpronounceably named place in eastern Afghanistan, she knew instinctively that it wouldn’t surprise her. Jock had grown up with a dogged determination and strength of character that was unwavering. He had a way of excelling at everything he attempted, even when he was testing the boundaries with typical teenage exuberance, which he had done regularly and often spectacularly.

  What Margaret Wallace secretly wished for was that her late husband, Reg, was alive to see their son being honoured by his country, but Reg had died ten years earlier, a victim of mesothelioma, a virulent form of cancer associated with asbestos. Margaret looked over at James and spotted a splash of tears on his cheeks. ‘It was a lovely ceremony and James was a little bit moved,’ she recalled later. ‘And I suppose he felt it with his dad not there and him being the eldest male in the family. But it wasn’t spoken of.’

  In the ornate room, Dr Hollingworth continued reading the citation. ‘Signalman Wallace displayed gallantry and courage under fire when performing communications responsibilities during Operation Anaconda, as part of Operation Slipper in Afghanistan. He maintained composure under sustained heavy attack from enemy forces while performing his duties as a signalman, attending to the wounded and providing leadership to those around him …’

  As the words echoed through the hallways, Jock’s thoughts slipped back to the battle. Jock could see it all in his mind’s eye in vivid technicolour, as clear as when it happened. A young soldier lay beside him, his camouflage uniform stained, sticky and wet with blood from a sucking chest wound. He was only a kid, eighteen, maybe nineteen if he was lucky, a pimply faced American terrified of dying on foreign soil. As the drugs flowed through his body, anaesthetising his pain, Jock told the kid not to worry.

  ‘You’ll make it, mate,’ he said. ‘You’ll make it.’

  Jock lit the kid a cigarette and rugged him up, checking on him every few minutes to make sure he was still alive and hadn’t slipped away. Jock smoked half a pack of cigarettes that day, something he remembered thinking his mum would not be happy about. Stuff it, he thought, as bullets cracked overhead and mortars exploded metres away, ripping apart his fellow soldiers and sending shockwaves through his body. There was a good chance he could be killed — what’s a few durries?

  As the battle raged on, Jock had no way of knowing that those opening eighteen hours of Operation Anaconda would later be regarded as one of the most intense battles against al Qaeda.

  That day was just nine months ago and the memories were still so bloody raw and real, but it could have been another lifetime. Jock’s attention snapped back to the present as he heard his name called out.

  ‘Signalman Wallace’s gallantry has brought great credit to himself, the Special Air Service Regiment and the Australian Defence Force,’ Dr Hollingworth said.

  Jock Wallace stood perfectly still. He looked at Dr Hollingworth as the Governor General leant forward to pin, above Wallace’s left breast, a shining, round gold medal, hung from an orange ribbon lined with chevrons — or inverted Vs — a deeper shade of orange. The medal featured a Federation Star surrounded by flames representing action under fire. It was surmounted by a St Edward crown affixed to a bar inscribed ‘FOR GALLANTRY’.

  The hero soldier and the Governor-General shook hands and the audience applauded politely. And that was that. Wallace was directed to the back of the room where he stood at ease watching McDaniel and Keily receive commendations for their conduct in the war.

  With the official business out of the way, Senator Hill directed the human traffic out onto the lush lawn of Government House where plastic chairs were set up for a true-blue celebration with beer and biscuits.

  ‘These soldiers epitomise the profession
alism, dedication and courage of the Australian Defence Force. Their efforts in difficult and dangerous situations have been outstanding and have received international praise,’ Senator Hill said later. ‘They have done their nation proud. The awards are just recognition for a job well done. That the awards cover such a wide range of ranks, from signalman through to lieutenant colonel, reflects the quality and depth of leadership throughout the entire Special Forces Task Group.’

  The politician had not overstated the impact of the Aussie SAS on the international community. The US Army had already sung the regiment’s praises. Indeed, soon after the battle, the commander of Operation Anaconda, Major General Franklin ‘Buster’ Hagenbeck had said, ‘You won’t find a more professional group than the Australians that have served here with us.’

  After the festivities and good-natured backslapping, Jock Wallace took a moment to read the citation that outlined, in broad strokes, the reasons for the medal pinned above his heart, a medal that had elevated him to an elite rank of brave and gallant soldiers and enabled him to sign his name as Martin Wallace, MG. As he read the citation, he shook his head in wonderment. It all sounded so easy on paper, so clean and straightforward. Out there in a place dubbed Hell’s Halfpipe by some young American soldier who thought the unforgiving terrain looked like a skateboard pipe back home, it was anything but.