by Jack Twist
Chapter 4
A burly sergeant checked the lieutenant’s papers at the gate to the American compound. A soldier in the guard house carried a weapon and watched us steadily. Already things seemed serious. But it would take more than baleful looks from American guards to shake my nonchalance. The lucky malingerer. In the right place at the right time. That the course of whole lifetimes can swing on certain moments in time, for better or worse, was of no concern to me just then. My curiosity about the assignment was already waning. The reasons, full and open, as to why the lieutenant and I were there, waiting to escort strangers to places we knew only from a map, were none of my business, and not for me to wonder at.
I lounged back in my seat, tried to match American seriousness with Australian lack of it. This sergeant had no authority over me. I might have put my foot on the dash had not the lieutenant been with me. My main concern here was still for the loss of my precious day off. I had no way of knowing how that random monster, the war, as subtle and oblique as it could be brutal, was about to tap me on my complacent shoulder, take me by the scruff of the neck and give me a good hard shake, from which I would remain, always, just a little shaken.
The business of the oil company, Vung Tau division, was carried out in a low flat building which I had observed once before, a large and sturdy one by local standards with a wide veranda roof along the front. The lieutenant strode to the door with even more swagger than I’d noticed back at the transport compound. When he came out from under the veranda, accompanied by Mr Jake Klein, his daughter and a local woman, some of the young officer’s dash had wilted.
Jake Klein was not as solidly built as most of the Americans I saw, and there was a softness about the face, although it might have been his curly reddish hair, tinged with grey and longer than I was used to. The middle-aged Americans I’d seen were senior officers who looked bullnecked and self-assured with close cropped hair and tight, peaked caps.
His daughter was slim with pale skin, the sort that might have been lightly freckled. It was some time before she looked in my direction because she was showing concern for the local woman. And here was the cause of the lieutenant’s now more measured demeanour. This woman was enormously pregnant. She wore a large khaki shirt over brown pants and leaned back as she walked.
When Abbie Klein finally turned in my direction at the lieutenant’s brief, perfunctory introduction, I lost faith forever in Blowfly’s opinion of women. She was no Ann Margaret but I liked the look of her from the moment our eyes met. A kind of confidence shone from her eyes belying the softness of her facial features. I was struck immediately by those eyes and by the shape of her mouth when she smiled.
Aside from how the girl looked, the moment also held interest for me, as unsophisticated as any other Aussie suburban son born in the baby boom, simply because she was American. You couldn’t turn on a radio or television set, go to the movies, or, where I was now in particular, open a magazine, without feeling the force of America. It was the place the rest of us followed, that we all sought to be like, whose culture had become a part of ours. And here was a living example.
She had her hair cut short, wisps of it curling around her neck and ears beneath her military cap. The strap of her duffel bag was slung over one thin shoulder and she was dressed in a kind of olive green flying suit, loosely fitted. I was able to observe her while she attended to the progress of the other woman.
The pregnant woman was something new for me too. Until now the women of our host country had been for me distant figures bending at their work in rice paddies. Or they were school girls hurrying past our parked convoy in the streets of Baria, their wide, conical hats tied under their small chins as they bent their heads forward to shield their faces from sun or rain, and from us, tall western strangers with loud mouths and big trucks - and yet not American. Or local women were Asian parodies of Playboy bunnies, with too much make-up, smiling at me and chatting about nothing while they ran their hands along mythigh in smoky, overcrowded, dimly lit bars, wanting my money.
In spite of her condition and the surrounding mix of westerners, this woman had a dignified, knowing look about her. Jake Klein introduced her as Thi Lin Quang but she became Lin because that’s what the girl called her. She must have been ten years Abbie’s senior and she smiled calmly and sadly at the lieutenant and me in a way that indicated no sense of inferiority. She had an intelligent face. It reminded me of a teacher I’d had once, one whom all the kids respected though she never raised her voice. Both Americans showed her considerable attention and obviously thought much of her.
“... can’t thank you enough,” Jake Klein was telling the lieutenant, and me to a lesser extent. “... know it must seem unusual, if not a bit out of line, but we’ve been caught out here. Lin insisted on working right up till her time and it’s suddenly arrived. Major Collins said to me once, ‘any time’, but I didn’t count on your making a special trip. And Abigail wanted to stay and help out right up until the baby arrived, so we thought two birds with one stone.”
I took the opportunity to look at the man’s daughter again. She was smiling in a bashful way as her father spoke. The lieutenant put their bags in the back and I started the engine while they said their goodbyes, which they did with some restraint, as though some unspoken tension weighed on them.
“A couple of requests, Lieutenant, if you wouldn’t mind.” said Jake Klein, pronouncing it ‘lootenant’.
“Certainly, Sir.”
“I wonder if you wouldn’t mind going along the beach way, please?”
“Sir?”
“I’d like you to drive back along the beach, if you don’t mind. I thought maybe you could turn up off the beach and head out through the Australian base.”
Jefferies looked puzzled. “Yes, Sir. No problem.”
“Just a little added precaution.”
“It’s quite okay. Of course.”
“And would you have helmets they could wear?”
“Well, not with us. I could get some though. No problem.”
“If you wouldn’t mind, I’d be very grateful. Might attract less attention. Thank you.” The American smiled with what seemed genuine gratitude.
The high barbed wire fence that separated our base from the Americans went out into the sea for some thirty metres and we had to double back away from the beach to get to a gate. A corporal came out of a guard-house as we approached, opened the gate and waved to the women as we passed through.
I turned back towards the beach and Jake Klein was waiting by the fence near his office. The three of them waved until we dropped down onto the sand track that took us to the beach. When he had disappeared from view the two women turned back to the front and I caught a glimpse of Lin’s face in the rear-view mirror. She held that patient knowing look but when I looked again I could see tears in her eyes.
We used British made Land Rovers, apart from the trucks, the back seats of which usually ran front to back along the sides, like small troop carriers. This was the only one with a seat that ran side to side and the lieutenant had unearthed a seat cover for the ladies’ comfort. I’m sure he would have liked to rearrange the seating positions too, if he could have, because Abbie Klein was directly behind him, so that, turned as he was, he could only see Thi Lin Quang. Still, he ignored her.
“We’ll just stop in at our admin to get those helmets, Miss Klein. Shouldn’t take a minute.”
“Thank you.”
“Been to Saigon before?’
“Only passing through the airport on the way over.”
“Looking forward to going home?”
“Yes and no. I wanted to be here to see the baby. But my being here worries my father. I’ve been able to help him with his work but I couldn’t really take Lin’s place and there hasn’t been much else to do. He wouldn’t even let me go into town, for safety reasons.”
“I’m sure that was wisest. You’ll need to be careful in Saigon too. Know anyone there?’
�
�Yes. I’m staying with an acquaintance at the embassy, until my flight leaves.”
When I pulled up outside the admin office I was glad to see only Blowfly. Wandering across the compound he gave the women little more than a glance. The lieutenant deemed it best that he stay with the ladies and I was dispatched to collect four helmets.
“Helmets?” Joe Bartolino looked out through the office door as he spoke. The lieutenant was still turned around talking to the girl. “For a drive to Saigon? He wasn’t too bothered when I told him all the radios are out with the convoy. Now he wants helmets. Is he trying to make an impression?”
“Actually it was the father’s idea. Although the lieutenant said to get one each for us as well.”
“What’s he think this is? I don’t know if we got any bloody helmets. Wait here.”
While he was gone the office typist got up and went to the door. “What’s she like?” He put his head outside but had to withdraw it when Jefferies was looking back.
A skinny little sex maniac who spent every second night in town, he annoyed me. “Alright, if you ignore the sore.” He looked at me. “She’s got this big, black, scabby lip thing on the other side of her mouth.”
“I’ve found one.” said Joe, holding a helmet. He stopped. “What are you doin’?”
“Just havin’ a look.”
“Well have a bloody look at today’s orders. And while you’re lookin’ at ’em, try typin’ ’em.” The typist had another look before he went back to his desk. Joe went on. “I swear. Some a’ you blokes’ve had your dicks in your hands so much over here you won’t know how to communicate with a woman when you get back home. Now if the lieutenant wants more helmets you’ll have to go over to ordnance. I’ll write you a chit.”
The lieutenant looked so disappointed when I told him this that I wondered if he’d been in the middle of explaining what an efficient, potent, well-oiled installation he was running here, all varieties of military equipment at our finger-tips, including helmets.
“Helmets?” said Greg Urquhart from behind the ordnance stores counter. Although one of us drivers, as a qualified carpenter Urquhart spent many of his working days in camp as a general handyman and on this day he was helping out in stores. Like Lyle O’Malley, he was a driver I knew from before Vietnam, but whereas I liked Lyle, Greg Urquhart annoyed me, without trying. He felt the same about me and one day the matter would come to a kind of head.
“Yeh. Three.” I gave him Joe’s written request.
“Where you goin’?”
“Saigon. But we’re taking two women.”
“Women?” He ducked his blockish, blond head to peer through the storehouse window. “So why do you need three?” It was none of his business, but that was Urquhart.
“The prefect said three.”
“What’s he tryin’ to do? Impress the ladies?”
“Must be.”
Back in the vehicle the ladies put their helmets on immediately. The lieutenant and I waited until I had turned onto the Baria Road. Then he turned in his seat again. “Can you tell me any more about this trip, please? My C.O. was a little vague.”
The girl was not quick to answer. “My father is being cautious for my sake, Lieutenant. I’m sorry he made you drive along the beach and get these helmets. I don’t think he’ll really relax until I’m back home.”
“That’s quite alright.”
We passed the docks area on our left, ship-loading cranes highlighting the rusted decay of flat warehouses beneath them. Both women seemed interested. “Vung Tau wharf,” the lieutenant was pleased to tell them.
“Yes. My father wants his office there. The army insists he stay down at the beach compound, for safety reasons.”
The stench of the fish market killed conversation for a while and then people, markets and homes gave way to small open fields as the rice paddies began. I had to slow down behind a wagon pulled by a water buffalo while an American convoy passed. Someone called out, “Heh, beautiful!”, which prompted a chorus of excitement from the back of the last truck. The lieutenant indicated to me that the way was clear and I swung out to pass the wagon. The old man on the back did not look sideways.
“It must be difficult,” said the girl, “driving on what is the wrong side of the road for you.”
“You get used to it,” said Jefferies, without so much as a glance at me.
I turned towards the girl and smiled discreetly, in an attempt to show that I wasn’t a complete zombie. I caught a glimpse of her pale face under the dirty green helmet and straightened up in my seat to try to place her somewhere in the mirror, but when I looked at it again I saw Lin who looked back at me immediately.
