One Life One Chance Page 18

  People always say don’t look down but for fear of missing out I always do. Below me the cliffs fell away into the valley and I could make out the edge of the turquoise lake where our base camp was located. Slowly I pulled myself hand over hand towards the other cliff staying calm and keeping a firm grip on the cable. It felt like minutes but was only seconds before my shoulder nudged the cliff as I came tight to the other side releasing one hand from the cable and securing a handhold on the rock behind me. I scrambled up to a secure area and unclipped myself, feeling the rush of relief and adrenaline as I stepped away and took off my pack to await the rest of the team. Everyone managed the crossing well, a few slower than others, and only Nicole seemed to have a little freezing moment while in the middle of the cable but was talked around and finished the job to her credit. Conquering fears while in that sort of position is an incredible achievement and the rest of us were happy to see her safely across.

  The final ridge to the summit was a scramble over sharp rocky edges with drop offs on either side, and eventually after another steady hour of moving upwards there was nowhere left to go. The ridge formed into the summit and as I pulled myself on top of the last boulder, noticing the ground falling away on three sides, I realised I was standing on top of Carstensz Pyramid. It had taken us almost eight hours of climbing to reach the summit and although I was physically tired, my mind was clear and my breathing was steady. We all hugged each other as we took turns on the top taking pictures for our family and sponsors back home. The view was incredible with grey rocky mountains all around us and small turquoise lakes filling the valley below. In the distance, from where we had come was the thick green jungle with the orange, grassed marsh land filling the space in front of it. Vitidnan cried as he held a picture of his king above his head and sung his national anthem. It was a moving moment and I asked him if it was okay for me to get a picture with his king as well and he gladly agreed. A final group photo of us all crammed onto the small outcrop of the summit concluded our time on the highest point of the Oceania continent.

  The descent was faster than our climb up but still took us four hours of down climbing and rappelling to achieve. The traverse across the void was quicker the second time around but as I moved along I maintained total focus, knowing that any slip or fall from one of these ridges would be fatal. Clipping into the fixed line and rappelling down the steep section was great fun. The scary parts where I had been on fingertips and tippy toes, bounced past in seconds as I slid down the line. By the time I had unclipped from the last anchor point and climbed down the final section of the route I was totally exhausted. The last team member stepped from the wall just as the rain started to fall and we all cheered and congratulated each other for a safe and successful day. It had been twelve hours since departure by the time we filed into base camp in the drizzling rain, chatting among ourselves and settling in for a hot drink and dinner in the guides’ cook tent. I ate as much rice and chicken as my stomach could hold and drank water and tea by the bucketful. When I rose to leave the group my body had stiffened up and I basically crawled back to my tent, utterly broken from an amazing day. Vitidnan was writing in his journal as I unzipped our tent, looking up at me with tearful eyes as he recounted the day’s event in his writing. I congratulated him again on his success, cleaned my face with a baby wipe, brushed my teeth and pulled my sleeping bag on top of me.

  …

  The rain fell all that night and around midnight I woke up to shouting and arguing outside. I could make out Meldi’s voice mingled with what sounded like the porters. There was lots of discussion as the rain continued to fall and I thought to myself they probably downed a few sneaky glasses of whisky and were just arguing about something unimportant, so I drifted back to sleep. In the morning I woke up very stiff and sore yet refreshed, and I walked down to Meldi’s tent where a few of the team were gathered around looking very concerned. As I arrived I was told what had occurred overnight.

  Down in the valley the rain had caused a slab of rock to come loose in the cave the porters were camped in, the rock had fallen and crushed one of the locals, a sixteen-year-old boy. It had struck him on the chest and head killing him, sending the rest of the porters into a frenzy. One of them charged up the valley to our camp with his machete and spear to claim the life of one of the westerners for the life of one of theirs. He was wild with anger, slashing his machete on the ground and demanding one of us come out of our tents and surrender to him. In their culture it was simple, a life for a life – it was our fault they were up in the mountains so one of us needed to die. Meldi managed to calm him down after a while with a promise we would come down the valley in the morning to see the body and sort everything out. The porter knew we couldn’t go anywhere so he agreed to the terms and went back to the cave.

  Meldi was nervous about the whole situation but he told us we had to go down and try to sort it out. As we were talking a porter arrived from down in the valley, a different one from the previous night. He was there to escort us down to the cave to see the body and discuss the problem. Dean and I volunteered to go down with him; we had no idea what we were going to say to them and the whole scenario felt like a trap but there wasn’t another option. The team couldn’t get back through the jungle without the porters as even Meldi didn’t know the way back, and even if he did we had to fly out of the porters’ small village. The porters weren’t going to move until something was done about the death of the boy. We brought along a two-way radio and told the team we would try and keep them updated if we were within range and waved goodbye to the nervous faces of the others.

  Meldi, Dean and I moved off down the valley with our escort. I had been in tense situations before with the military but this was up there with the best. I was running all of the ‘what if’ scenarios through my head, trying to come up with solutions to problems that could occur. Dean and I were both nervous but kept it hidden as we walked and chatted quietly to each other. An hour later I spotted another porter standing up ahead. He was carrying a rifle, and as my heartbeat increased I was on high alert for an ambush. As we came closer and he was within ten metres of us I noticed it was a harmless air rifle and I felt a sense of relief. I think the guy was there for theatrics more than actual security or attack and he fell in beside us as we continued our walk in silence. We were at a point in the trail that cut in towards an overhanging cliff and I guessed the porter camp was nestled in under there somewhere. Our porter escort began to whistle out to the camp up ahead to warn them of our arrival, and I was once again expecting an ambush.

  We crested a ridge in the trail and before us lay a collection of small fires and shelters under a big, overhanging rock wall. As we walked into their camp it was a mixed reception with some of the porters crying, some smiling and shaking our hands and the younger guys staring at us with hatred in their red swollen eyes. We were led to the scene of the rock fall and to the body of the boy, which was being cradled in an older female’s arms. The slab of rock that had fallen down was massive, at least a foot thick and the size of a coffee table, it would have weighed 100 kilograms at least. They gestured for us to take photos, which I thought was weird, but I did as they requested and took some photos of the rock where it now lay. Dean asked to see the victim. He was a qualified mountain rescue ranger in Utah and had seen plenty of avalanche and rock-fall victims in the past and wanted to assess the body.

  The ladies laid the body down on the ground and Dean leant over to check his condition. Blood was coming from his right eye and he had some clear liquid seeping from his ears, showing clear signs of head trauma. He put his hand softly on the boy’s chest and noticed a very slight rise and fall. He then put his ear to the boy’s mouth and felt a very soft breath; checking the pulse he confirmed what he suspected and looked back at me saying, ‘This guy’s still alive!’ I couldn’t believe it; we could possibly avert a disaster if the kid was still alive but we needed to make sure he stayed that way. We had a quick talk among ourselves about what our opti
ons were and after realising the jungle was impossible and that we were within three hours’ walk of the Grasberg gold mine, we made a snap decision. We organised the porters to build a stretcher for the boy. We were to carry the kid to the mine and hopefully get help from the mine doctor and ambulance that they surely must have with 20,000 employees. We knew it was a risk after everyone telling us to keep clear of the mine, but we were out of options and needed to save this kid’s life.

  The rough stretcher was assembled in minutes and with some porters running ahead to clear the way and to alert the mine of our arrival we followed up behind, taking shifts carrying the boy over the rocky trail. Hours later we climbed the steep dirt wall bordering the mine, and as we stumbled over the top there were security guards and military soldiers already waiting for us. We placed the boy at the feet of the heavily armed guards who were in immediate discussion with Meldi and the porters. I couldn’t understand what they were saying but I could easily see they weren’t happy about our arrival. After a few minutes of protest the head guard notified someone on his radio and twenty minutes later a mine ambulance arrived. I was over the moon as they loaded the boy into the back of the ambulance and departed for the mine hospital; I thought we had pulled off a miracle rescue. As the vehicle disappeared into the pit we sat with the porters for a discussion about what to do next. We were supposed to head back into the jungle so we wanted to know if they were happy to lead us out and back to their village. They agreed to start the next day so Dean, Meldi and I made the slow hike back up the valley towards base camp, proud of how we handled the situation, but also thinking about what could still go wrong.

  We arrived back to our nervous team who hadn’t heard a word from us all day, as we were out of range of the small radio. We called everybody together into the cook tent and recounted the day’s events, up to the porters agreeing to take us back to Sugapa. We then brought up some possible scenarios to discuss: the porters had seemed okay with letting one of us die the night before and we were now going to go back to their local village minus one young porter; how would the boy’s family react when we got there? What if the boy died in hospital while we were travelling through the jungle and we arrived at his village to an angry crowd who had found out about his death before we did? These were our two main concerns and Meldi seemed just as worried as we were. Meldi called his boss Ferdinand back in Jakarta and told him the situation, he then asked about a possible helicopter evacuation that we all had the insurance cover for. Ferdinand told us there was no possibility of a helicopter rescue and that we were best to head into the jungle. He did not seem very sympathetic to our situation. Our only other option was to risk everything on the mercy of the Grasberg mine security again, leave the porters to go home alone through the jungle and surrender ourselves to the mine for a possible evacuation on their helicopter.

  We decided to leave our final decision until the morning and all retired to a restless sleep under the ever-present cliffs of Carstensz. The porters arrived shortly after breakfast ready to take us back to Sugapa. Meldi called a few of the senior porters together and asked them about our concerns and what could possibly happen if the boy died in the next few days. The porters were silent for a while and when they couldn’t give us a straight answer, it heightened our concerns about worst-case scenarios. We then held a meeting as a team to make our final decision with the porters waiting patiently nearby. Dean ran through the possibilities of heading back to Sugapa which we all readily understood and then the likelihood of being arrested and held in custody if we tried to go into the mine. Together we decided on the option with less risk of injury and death – to abandon our porter team and walk ourselves into the mine and take our chances.

  Meldi made another call to Ferdinand to update him on our decision. He was very angry and told Meldi that if he went with us he would lose his job and never work again in the trekking industry. Ferdinand was only concerned about the risk to his company’s ability to operate in the area if we violated the mining company’s rules of no trespassing, and from what I could tell he didn’t seem to care about Meldi or our safety. I really felt sorry for Meldi who was crying as he hung up the phone and told us, ‘I have to go back to Sugapa with the porters.’ We consoled him as best we could and then borrowed his satellite phone to make a few final calls before we parted ways.

  I waited my turn for the phone and dialled Mum’s mobile number back in Australia. Dad picked up at work, having borrowed Mum’s phone for the day; the country twang in his voice was a comfort to hear. I gave Dad the rundown on our current situation as well as our plan to head into the mine to face possible arrest and told him to relay everything to Mum. I told him to ask Mum to contact the Australian embassy and tell them of our predicament just in case things didn’t work out in our favour. Dad comes from a tough country breed where no problem is too big and in signing off he simply said, ‘No worries mate, chat to you soon.’ I felt some relief that Mum would be straight onto the embassy for us, and as we said goodbye to Meldi and the porters we took our first steps towards the mine and to whatever fate awaited us.

  Together in single file we made our way down the valley towards the Grasberg mine. Two hours later we scrambled over the edge to the very same outpost we were at the day before, this time however, it was abandoned. We dropped our packs next to a shipping container and Dean and I set off walking into the mine, leaving the rest of the team behind. Not sure what our overall plan was, we were just going to alert someone to our presence and see what happened. We walked for twenty minutes down the winding dirt road and heard the rumble of the dump trucks ferrying dirt out from the bottom of the pit. We saw one coming towards us and stood to the side of the road on a pile of gravel as this enormous piece of machinery rolled slowly forward. When it was close enough we waved to attract the attention of the driver who looked bewildered spotting two white people in bright Gore-Tex jackets standing to the side of the road. The young Indonesian driver didn’t stop but we noticed him pick up the radio to tell someone what he was seeing. Moments later a small water truck came by and stopped to let us climb into the cab.

  The driver looked confused and didn’t understand a word we were saying while picking up his radio to talk to someone. He placed the handset back and gestured to us that someone was coming and we should stay inside the cab. Minutes later a security truck pulled up with two armed guys who collected us from the water truck and put us inside their vehicle. The head guard spoke English and we directed him back to the shipping container and our waiting comrades. When we arrived back to the team the guard looked baffled by all the white faces staring back at him. We gave him the full story of what had occurred up to this point, to which he simply replied, ‘You cannot stay, you must go.’ We thought there might have been a language barrier but after careful explanation of our scenario again his answer was the same, ‘You must go.’ We didn’t budge and he wouldn’t help us, which led to another radio call, this time to ‘the Big Boss’.

  Twenty minutes passed before two more vehicles arrived crammed with military-style armed security guards and an older man who was Mr Nolti, the Big Boss. We all nominated Dean to be our negotiator; he was the most experienced climber and in my eyes was a born leader who had stayed calm under pressure this entire time. Dean went through the details again with Mr Nolti, who listened patiently before dismissing us instantly and telling us all to ‘Go back into the jungle.’ He walked off under our protests, climbed into his vehicle and drove away. The remaining guards started to unlock the container door and it was obvious they were going to lock us inside. Thinking quickly Dean said, ‘Follow me’ and five of us snuck around behind the container and climbed into the remaining security vehicle. We weren’t going to steal it, we just locked ourselves inside in protest. After realising what had happened, the guards came to the driver’s window, where Dean was sitting with the keys, and gestured for us to get out. We didn’t budge, asking them again to please just help us get through the mine so we could go home. The gu
ard picked up his radio and called for back-up, and shortly, three vehicles pulled up loaded with security guards and soldiers. Mr Nolti appeared at the window holding a crowbar, he paused for a split second to see if we would get out before he smashed in the driver’s window, where two guards grabbed Dean, dragged him out and threw him to the ground. We were all pulled out of the vehicle, shocked with the sudden escalation of the situation. Things were going from bad to worse, as one by one the entire team were shoved inside the container. The lock slid shut behind us with a metallic click and the vehicles departed one at a time, leaving a single soldier to guard the new prisoners.

  There we were, ten of us, all crammed into a small shipping container that had one door and two small barred windows. The guard unlocked the door just on dark in order to let us perform bodily functions, knowing that we were stuck between a jungle we couldn’t go into and a mine he would stop us from entering. He carried an F88 Austeyr, the very same rifle I had used in the infantry. These guys were not normal security guards, they were guns for hire who typically had no rules of engagement to stop them from doing what they liked. I lay awake on the floor, side by side with the others all night. We had multiple visits by soldiers on shift change, who would shine their torches through the windows and open the door to blow cigarette smoke inside to intimidate us. The door was opened at dawn again and as we crept outside to a chilly morning the guard was nowhere to be seen. I guess they were hoping we were going to just leave the way we had come but Dean and I simply asked each other how long do we wait until we venture into the mine again to poke the hornet’s nest.