LIFE & DEATH

shifted to the right, ready to put down rounds on the enemy. Instead he found himself stepping into the line of sight of the Indonesian lead scout, who had taken up an immediate ambush position directly ahead.

Before Lillico could depress the trigger on his self-loading rifle, the Indonesian nailed him through the left hip, badly wounding the SAS sergeant.

In the next second Thomson snatched up his rifle and emptied a savage burst into the Indonesian soldier who had just shot Lillico, stitching him with bullets.

Amid the noise and confusion, the third and fourth members of the patrol had bugged out to the emergency RV, following the procedure they had been taught.

Lillico and Thomson were now by themselves on the wrong side of the border, severely wounded and with an unknown number of hostiles ahead of them. In spite of their injuries they both returned fire, dropping two more soldiers and killing at least one of them. That sent the rest of the Indonesians scrambling and the two sides settled down to exchange sporadic bursts of gunfire through the jungle.

Both men were in rag order. Lillico was bleeding heavily and couldn’t stand up. Thomson’s left femur had been shattered and he had stemmed the loss of blood with a makeshift tourniquet.

A severed femoral artery is a lifethreatening wound – in most cases, the victim will bleed out in a matter of minutes.

Getting a tourniquet on it had saved his life but Thomson still needed immediate medical attention.

Despite his injury, Thomson reckoned he could make it back to the emergency RV, so Lillico sent him off up the hill, the lead scout