by Jack Twist
Chapter 6
Apart from the effects of time on memory, I wonder if the poignancy of acute fear also gets in the way of what really happened, clouds the picture, when you’re trying to recall. And does memory subconsciously expurgate, fade out the less palatable, to allow for happier days and more restful nights in the aftermath? For some days and nights after those few bloody moments along the road to Muc Thap, my mind, my nerves, were in a state of intense jumpiness. I can only hope that what I say here relies more on a memory that is true than on imagination that is not.
I can still see the houses in the village. Unlike those in the larger towns, put together with used timber and sheet iron, in Muc Thap they were bamboo and thatch. “Ask her which house,” I said. Abbie had calmed, absorbed totally in her concern for Lin.
It was a comparatively wide construction but I had to bend as I entered. There were two rooms in front, one with an earth floor covered with bamboo matting. The floor of the other room was slightly raised and I was led into it by an old woman who indicated a thatch matting bed where I laid Lin. The two rooms opened out to a covered earth-floor area at the back where an assortment of children, dogs, chickens and a goat watched me.
For all her swollen little body, Lin was a lightweight and I was able to put her down carefully. Blood oozed from the head bandage and ran down the side of her face. She groaned, from a depth of pain, a sound that was hardly human.
Abbie dabbed at her face. The old woman cried soundlessly as she brought a dish of water and some towels and as I stood and stepped back another woman, younger and swifter of movement, appeared from the darkness of one corner to take them from her. She squatted beside Lin and began immediately to wash and comfort her.
I became aware also of an old man, wizened with brown parched skin, standing in the same corner, watching. There was no recognisable expression on his face as he regarded Lin but I felt compelled to explain. “Men shoot. Man in a jeep, shoot her.”
He looked at me sadly and something like a smile crossed his face. Lin was groaning in spasms now and clutching Abbie terribly, pulling her closer as she tried to speak. “Your father,” she said. “Your father ...” The younger woman had begun opening her shirt and when I turned the old man was no longer there so I went outside.
Some kids had gathered around the back of the vehicle and they took off when I appeared. I checked our bags, rifles and helmets. Everything was as it had been and I resisted the temptation to pick up my M16, not wanting to attract the wrong sort of attention. Instead I searched through the vehicle to make sure there was no radio. Where Lin had sat in the back a section of the seat-cover was soaked in blood while there was almost none on the front seat.
And so began a long and frightening afternoon and night. And the loneliness. The lieutenant had been no friend of mine but I missed him now, his presence if not the man himself. Who was the man? Where had the forces of fate begun that brought Second Lieutenant Malcolm Jefferies, Australian Regular Army, to this war. Who would miss him? I knew so little about him I didn’t even know then if he was married.
I remembered the youthful seriousness that had marked his style, and amused us, his troops “Try to look like a soldier, Private Daniels. There is a war on, Private Stanley, and we have a job to do. Can’t you find a bigger shirt, Private Mollineau?” And then the day of the shoulder tap. “Aren’t you forgetting something, Private Carmody?”
The convoy was parked for a lunch break on that day, at the clearing opposite the Nui Dat turnoff. We were gathered around the urn that sat on the back of the command Land Rover, when a typical conversation, the alleged sex habits of regulars compared to nashos, turned serious. Lieutenant Jefferies joined in. “If it comes to that,” he said, “you’re all volunteers because you all agreed to serve overseas.”
“No we didn’t,” said Tony Carmody quietly. We all turned. Tony was not one to take part in these discussions very often. Oblivious, unperturbed, he went on. “Maybe some units got to choose, or maybe the rules have changed, but nobody asked me if I wanted to go to war? In fact I asked not to be sent but they didn’t want to know. They said I needed a compassionate reason. Like sick parents, or a pregnant wife, dependent on me. Or conscientious objection on religious grounds.”
This was followed by silence until, “Aren’t you forgetting something, Private Carmody?”
“What’s that?” Tony’s focus was on the conversation, so that the lieutenant, without saying a word and in unforgettable fashion, reminded him of his rank. The following silence was pointed. In a way that seemed calculated to save the lieutenant as much as himself Tony said quietly, “Sir.”
And the shoulder tap was institutionalised, a joke behind the young officer’s back, used in endless affectations of authority. But not for long now. From the moment the transport company learnt of the lieutenant’s death, there was no more shoulder tapping.
I leant there against the vehicle, trying to hide my fears, and as thoughts on the loss of the lieutenant faded, my own sense of vulnerability began to rise. I wanted to go. The local woman was with her family now and I had the American and the lieutenant’s body to deliver to Saigon. And what sort of reception would I get, arriving at HQ with Second Lieutenant Jefferies, half his head blown off? Maybe I should take care of that first and come back for this American since she’s so concerned for her friend.
I went back inside. The younger woman was cleaning Lin’s head wound while the old one wiped her brow. Abbie held her hand and talked to her. The confident intelligence of before was now a writhing, panting ugliness and as she breathed out heavily blood oozed from the hole at the top of her chest.
It stopped me. I might have left the room had not Abbie turned, her face streaked with tears. I put my plan, whispering to her. I had to see to the body. You know. The lieutenant. “What if I take him on to Saigon and come back for you?” Lin was groaning again but I pressed on. “They’d probably send out a chopper anyway. A medevac or something for you.”
“You’re gonna leave me here?” There was no anger or desperation in the question. I think she was too concerned for Lin for that. She just wanted to know. But I couldn’t answer and she turned back to Lin.
Outside I found the old man looking at the Land Rover. He turned and smiled in his wistful, distant way again. For a second he reminded me of Lin the first time I had seen her. “Britisher,” he said.
“Yes,” I answered, when I could understand him.
He looked at the vehicle again and then back to me. “Uc dai loi same-same Britisher.”
“Yeh. Same as British.” It was easier than discussing the differences.
We heard Lin from inside again but the old man seemed unperturbed. “British, Uc dai loi fight Japanee. Here.” He made a faint gesture to indicate the land around him.
“Yeh? Japanese here?”
He was nodding. “France. Japanee. Britisher.”
At first I couldn’t understand him again. “Oh, right. French. Yeh, French too. And then Americans.’
“GI. GI and Uc dai loi.” He seemed pleased with the order of all these visits and smiled again. He was very old. His smile revealed few teeth.
“Can you tell me which way is closer to Saigon?” I pointed up the road one way and then the other. “Saigon?”
Without hesitation he pointed towards the low mountain to the west, the direction in which we had been travelling. “Saigon,” he said, along with something that I couldn’t understand although I sensed that it was something to do with the mountain. I followed his gaze while I shooed some flies that had begun to hover around the body.
“How far?” I asked the old man when he’d stopped talking, but again I couldn’t understand his answer. It couldn’t be far. We must have covered fifty kilometres to get here.
I muttered something that was meant to show a concern for the women and went inside. The same sad scene presented itself and this time even Abbie didn’t notice my presence. The old woman knelt by Lin.
&nb
sp; The other one, still with her back to me, was leaning over Lin while she wiped her brow. In the semidarkness, and for all the sense of urgency and family calamity that filled the humble little room, it was noticeable how deft and controlled this woman’s movements were. I suspect she was very responsible for Lin’s survival during that long evening and night. I did not know then that she was Lin’s sister. Lin hadn’t mentioned a sister. So there was a mystery, an obscurity and a darkness about her from the beginning. Not once during my time in the house did she turn to look at me, even when she knew I was there.
It became clear that they weren’t concerned only with Lin’s wounds. They were preparing her for the birth. This seemed to make it all more of a family affair and consequently, I hoped, Abbie’s presence less necessary, maybe even out of place. But she was as concerned for the easing of Lin’s pain as the others were. And none of them was anything to me. I could arrive in Saigon and Jefferies’ body would explain leaving the others, even the American. She wanted to stay with her friend. I had my comrade-in-arms, an officer, to take care of. I had put duty first.
But my duty was delivery of the passengers. And the lieutenant was dead. His delivery was hardly an emergency. He was a dead body.
In frustration I sat down in the little shade that had gathered at the back of the vehicle and as the hot afternoon progressed there was no baby. Later in the day it clouded over and rained but there was little relief from the heat even with the rain falling and the sun came out again, in a spiteful and triumphant return, drying everything rapidly. Then it settled on the wide low curve of the mountain, dropped behind it suddenly, and for a few moments the green fields were splashed with a greyish pink. I put my bag in the driver’s seat and climbed into the passenger side, noticing a smell from the body.
With nightfall I was stuck. I decided to wait there all night and if nothing had happened by morning, I would go, girl or no girl, before the smell from the lieutenant’s body became unbearable. Even in death, Jefferies deserved consideration and there was a procedure to follow with the bodies of men killed in this war.
I took a magazine out of my bag and clipped it into my rifle, left the safety catch on and rested it on the vehicle door. I wouldn’t sleep. I would watch and wait all night. The sky in the west was now nearly as black as the mountain as I watched some local villagers walk by the vehicle. They were all women and children and they looked at me anxiously.
A couple of hours later there was a movement at the doorway of the house and I looked around to see the American girl approaching.
“Thanks for staying,” she said.
“How’s she going?”
“She’s calmer now. I think the wounds shocked her whole system. It was like she was afraid she would die before she could have the baby. She seems more stable now. Her sister and her grandmother are amazing. I didn’t know she had a sister. And she’s marvelous. Like Lin.”
It was not easy to see her face with the feeble light from the low little building behind her but she seemed calmer herself now. “Will she be alright?”
“I don’t know. The pain seems to have eased but she has such great courage it’s hard to tell how bad she really is.” She leaned against the door of the vehicle with a sigh.
“You must be tired.” She rubbed her eyes as she nodded. “Sit down for a while.”
I took my bag from the driver’s seat and put it in the back. She climbed in. “It’s not so much a physical tired as an emotional one. It’s all been such a shock. You see, I’ve grown so fond of Lin. I would never have lasted as long as I did in this country without her.”
“I know what you mean. You need friends in this place.”
“Thanks again for waiting for us. I know how much you must want to take care of the body of that poor man.”
“Tomorrow will do. He’s not in a hurry.” I turned to look at her. “Did you say, thanks for waiting for us? Do you want to take her with you?”
“Yes. I can’t leave her here like that. When the baby is born she’ll need care in a hospital, and lots of rest. And my father will make sure she gets the best possible care. And the baby. The baby’ll have to be with her of course. If it all goes okay. The birth, I mean. If the baby is .... okay.”
“You don’t think they’d be better off here, with the family?”
“In that state? No. She’s shown amazing strength just to stay alive.” She waited, looking towards me, but I had nothing to say. “It’s not a problem, is it? She’s never a problem. And apparently Saigon’s just over that mountain up ahead. I want to postpone my flight home until she’s well again.”
“Have you any idea why anyone would want to kill her?” She was staring ahead in silence, the faint light outlining her soft profile. “I mean, I’m sure it was her they were after. Not Lieutenant Jefferies. I’m sure they weren’t aiming at him, or me. They were aiming at her. And they weren’t wearing any sort of uniform.”
She turned to look at me. “I know that Lin is involved in ... in the politics of her country. I don’t really know to what extent but I think it might cause problems because of her position with my father’s company, an American company.” She looked ahead again and her voice trailed off. “I’ll be calling my father from Saigon the minute we arrive at the embassy. I hope he can get to the bottom of it, after he’s found a place in a hospital for her. Which reminds me. I’m supposed to call him as soon as I arrive this evening so there might be a search party out looking for us soon. If not tonight, I’m sure there will be early in the morning.”
“Good,” I said. “Tonight would be best.”
She turned to look at me again. “I’m sorry. Putting you through all this.”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
“And I’m afraid I didn’t get your name. Was it Ross?”
“Mark Ross.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mark. I’m Abbie. “ She sat up suddenly and stepped out of the vehicle. “I’d better go back and see how things are going.”
I wished she had stayed, and not only because I liked talking to her. I was alone again.
