Sitting in the small steel capsule in the ceiling of the torpedo room, Mac tried to stay calm as he ran through his final checks: rebreather unit strapped to his back, face mask, regulator console with compass and depth gauge, and the waterproof gear bag now attached to his belt on the side. He checked the compass, which had an orange luminous bar preset to his course heading, then he put his hand on his Heckler, holstered in a marinised pocket down his right leg.
Below him the XO peered up with curiosity. In the Oberon-class subs the diver’s lock over the torpedo room was generally used in drills for emergency evacuation.
‘Right, sir?’ asked the seaman, sitting on the aluminium stepladder that rose to the lock.
‘Good as gold,’ lied Mac, giving the thumbs-up.
‘When the inside hatch is sealed, the red light will come on,’ said the seaman, pointing. ‘Then I’ll open the exterior valves, sir, and the lock will fill in about six seconds.’
‘Gotcha,’ gulped Mac, his dinner threatening to erupt in the face mask hanging beneath his chin.
‘Then – when the pressure equalises in the lock – I’ll open the exterior hatch and the green light will come on,’ said the bloke, ‘at which point you can push through the hatch, sir.’
‘Thanks, champ,’ said Mac, struggling to control nervous reflux.
‘And I know you know this, sir, but I have to remind you: please breathe out all the way to the surface.’
‘Can do,’ said Mac, dreading the darkness that would soon envelop him like a fog, taking him back into a zone he’d sworn he’d never again enter after the Royal Marines.
The bolts in the interior hatch were slid home, leaving Mac sealed in a space about the size of a car boot, the darkness and clammy heat made worse by the dim red light above Mac’s right eyebrow and the bulky old RAN Dräger rebreather weighing down on his back like a tortoise shell.
Keeping his mask off, Mac tried hopelessly to keep his breathing regular as two metallic taps sounded on the interior hatch. The sub was running at about twenty metres and because Mac had been put in the lock at the same air pressure as sea level, he’d have to exhale all the way to the surface to stop his lungs exploding. Some frogmen put their rebreather mask on at this stage, but Mac was breathing so hard that he left his off in case he breathed in by mistake. He’d put it on when he reached the surface and had oriented himself with the shore. A small grating sound filled his ears and then the outside ocean was racing into the chamber, drenching his black bodysuit and filling the lock. Keeping his eye on the red light, Mac took last breaths as the chamber flooded and then the sparkling water that effervesced around him like a large glass of mineral water suddenly switched from an eerie red glow to a bright green hue as the bolts pulled free in the exterior hatch. He checked the depth gauge on the side of the rebreather, which said nineteen metres, meaning it had immediately acknowledged the pressure equalisation of the diver’s lock.
Pushing out of the lock, Mac left the glow of lights, plunging into the inky blackness, a sensation so overpowering that he almost gasped. There was nothing quite like being underwater in the ocean at night. Mac gave a flip of his fins, consciously blowing bubbles as he ascended. His ears screaming, he slowly slapped his fins against the water and concentrated on a gentle exhalation of bubbles, relieving his lungs of the pressure as he rose to the surface.
The blackness closed around him, inducing a nameless fear. The combat-diver section in the Royal Marines Commandos was a watershed for the young men who endured it. Having gone through the basics of free diving, SCUBA and rebreathers, one night the candidates were hauled out of bed to go diving in the dark.
Mac recalled hearing blokes sobbing in the barracks after those dives, and others who requested a return to unit. Diving at night made you face what you feared most and made you do it completely alone. Along with many of the other blokes, by the time they got to the three-hour nocturnal missions around harbours and up rivers, Mac was fortifying himself with grog to get through it. Nothing to be proud of, but there it was.
Making himself blow bubbles, Mac got to nine metres, humming ‘Nadine, honey, is that you?’ to keep him in touch with himself. Almost out of air at five metres, Mac kicked out and pursed his lips, saving the last dregs of expanding air for the final three metres. As his depth dial showed one metre, he kicked and blew the final air from his lungs and came up for air like a cork.
Gasping as he surfaced, Mac scanned the ocean. The night was dark and the sea relatively smooth. A light, warm breeze came from the west, off the Indian Ocean. Treading water, he did a three-sixty and saw no vessels, heard no aircraft. Filling his lungs with air, he acclimatised to his environment.
Lifting the dive console so he could see the compass better, he aimed himself along the course where the compass spindle lined up with the setting made by the orange bar. Besides the compass, Mac also had the GPS on his right wrist, but he would use that later for confirmation – he wouldn’t swim by it.
Making a final check of the regulator settings as he trod water with his fins, Mac breathed in and out – nice and slow – the familiar closed-cycle hiss of the rebreather on his back keeping time with his breaths.
Dipping his head below the surface, Mac swam to about two metres, pulling the compass in front of his eyes. Finding his course, he balanced his kicking with his breathing, and set out for the south coast of East Timor.
Fifty metres from shore, Mac trod water, removed his mask and scanned the beach. He was searching for a rocky point overlooked by three pines, the tallest on the left, the smallest in the middle. But Mac wasn’t looking at a rocky point – he was looking at a white-sand beach with no pines.
Checking on the GPS, he realised he’d come into shore too far east. Refastening his mask, he swam submerged along the shoreline for ten minutes before checking on his GPS and coming up to the surface. In front of him were three pine trees overlooking a rocky point, with a mix of beech trees and palms stretching away on either side. The tide was out revealing a tongue of sand between two lines of rocks. With any luck, he’d get out of this swim without scraping himself on the rocks and avoid the scourge of combat divers: tropical ulcers.
Getting into the shallows, Mac crouched in the lapping waves while he removed his mask and fins, keeping his shoulders under the water. Seeing no one on the point, he waded through the shallows and jogged to a hide below a rocky outcrop, his legs almost giving way beneath him. It was 1.09 am local time – nine minutes late for the RV, which wasn’t bad for a bloke who’d had to swim it rather than be delivered by boat.
Unharnessing the rebreather unit, Mac dropped it on the sand, removed his neoprene head piece and pulled the Heckler from its holster. Casing the area, he moved out from the behind the rock and stealthed towards the trees, wanting the cover of foliage.
Making beyond the rocky point, he got to the tree line, panting as he crouched behind a fallen log, the warm breeze drying his wet scalp. This was one of the more heavily patrolled areas of East Timor and, with the ballot getting closer, it was now Indonesian Navy, Marines and Army patrolling the land and sea borders, not just the militias. Looking into the trees, Mac searched for a good hide while he waited for the Commando escort from 4RAR.
The stand of trees looked clear of unfriendlies and Mac was readying to move when he heard someone speak.
Throwing himself to the ground and rolling away, Mac came up with the Heckler in cup-and-saucer, his heart banging in his throat.
‘Settle, Macca,’ came an Aussie voice from somewhere in front of the tree line. ‘You’ll hurt yourself carrying on like that.’
‘Identify!’ rasped Mac, barely able to get enough air in his lungs.
‘Robbo, from Holsworthy,’ came the voice.
Next thing Mac knew, Jason Robertson, the sergeant with the 63 Recon Troop, was walking into the open, M4 assault rifle over his forearm.
‘Robbo,’ said Mac, relief replacing panic.
‘Shit, Macca,’ said the Aussie as he approached, hand outstretched. ‘Like the bodysuit, mate – that lycra?’