by Jack Twist
Chapter 24
We dropped a load of boxes and tarpaulins at the ordnance supply shed and back at the transport compound I went searching for the tools, and the expertise, to change the seats over to the middle. Lyle O’Malley was in the service shed, as he so often was, and he just about did it for me.
I walked up the bank from the compound to the lines and Bushfire was waiting for me at the hut doorway. “Listen. I got it all arranged. Even mentioned to O’Brien that you’d like to go to Saigon. He seemed interested.”
“I’m not goin’, Bush.”
“What? Why not?”
“Forget it. Deals off. I don’t need it.”
“Al was that bad, heh?” He cursed Al and went on about the money and the trouble he had gone to. “I even asked Donald if it’s okay to drop a load of laundry off at Baria and pick it up in the afternoon. No problem. You’re thowin’ away easy money.”
“Well you do it then. I’m not interested.”
“I will. Don’t worry, I will. I’ll take the lot. And you wanted so much to go back to Saigon.”
“Not anymore.”
He cursed Al again. I went into the hut with nothing more on my mind than a shower and a cold beer and was greeted with a letter lying on my bunk.
“Dear Mark, (Papasan!)
Julie said she could get a letter away quickly with a diplomatic priority bundle so I took advantage. She told me the Australian section is pulling out soon.
I wanted to let you know what happened after we were interrupted. I won’t be going out to get the baby this morning but I’m not giving up on my little sister. Especially since I still haven’t spoken to my father. It has me wondering if he’s in worse shape than they’re telling me. So I’m getting Chuck the driver on side and will wait for a better time. Julie says my dad won’t be in any trouble. They just see him as naive for getting himself involved with an enemy agent but he’s done nothing wrong, legally. I’m staying on for a few more days so that I can get a civilian airline out, through L.A. to Seattle and he will follow me soon after, courtesy the Air Force.
Which brings me to the point of this. I was really sorry about the way we parted, papa san. Would it be possible for you to give me a call here? I realise there might be restrictions but was hoping that you might get some sort of dispensation after your ordeal up here. If it’s at all possible I would love to hear from you again before I go. If you can make a call it’s best to ask for Julie Shields in the Attaché’s office. That should get you through direct. I hope this finds you before you go home. I thought I should at least try since I’ll be here for a few more days. Here’s hoping.
I must hurry now.Bye.
Love,
Abbie. (xxxx etc!)
I put the letter back in the envelope and buttoned it down in one of my leg pockets.
“Where’s Bushfire?”
“Boozer.”
I had Daniels out of the canteen and on the way down to the admin office in five minutes. “What brought this on? I think you’re too late, mate. The office’ll be closed. Joe’s in the boozer.”
The office was closed.
The hut was empty when I got back there. Every night now the canteen was crammed full with celebration and unending renditions ofLeaving on a Jet Plane. I decided to take advantage of the quiet and get an early night although as I climbed into my bunk something sparked a loud cheer. Probably Moll. He’d been in full flight when I’d chased up Daniels, standing on the table. Or was he dancing? Ignoring Smiley, the canteen corporal’s demands to get down.
Then they were leaving on a jet plane again and I lay awake listening to the rain and remembering, going over in my mind my approach to Captain O’Brien next morning. His opinion of Bushfire Daniels was an asset but I knew I would need more than that.
What had brought this on? Daniels’ question made me realise how much I wanted to see Abbie again. Was I in love, the real thing, whatever that is? The pop songs said so. And when I touch you I feel happy inside.
My sister, two years older, came to mind, back when I was sixteen. She had seen me at the local movies holding a girl’s hand and I remembered her singing in the hallway at home, where I could hear her from my bedroom. “I wanna hold your ha..a..a..a..an..and. I wanna hold your hand.”
“Shut up. Or you’ll find another cane toad in your purse.”
But in love? That wasn’t me. That was for the serious and selfless, or at least the mature, those willing and able to see the world beyond their own immediate needs. My most immediate need at that time was survival for the next few weeks, to ensure a safe return to the world of my former immediate needs. Important immediate needs, like skittling the wickets of as many batsmen as I was capable, drinks after, drinks after that. Then off to town, where the girls were. What happens to such of life’s important needs when love, honour and ‘til death us do part’ raise their obstinate and obtrusive heads, demanding commitment, something of which I wasn’t capable, even were there someone in need of it specifically from me?
I suppose we are all, to some extent, a product of our times, although it seems to me the sixties, the Age of Aquarius, arrived a little late in sleepy, subtropical Brisbane. But there were new freedoms, like the pill for girls, and more choices, allowing us to put the adult responsibilities of our parents’ generation on hold, to please ourselves, and dream on some. And dream I did.
I had sense enough to know I wasn’t ready for university. First priority, a place in the A grade cricket scene. Serious, full time relationships were to be avoided, which presumed I was actually in demand. In fact I was possessed of more self-doubt and shyness than I would have admitted to, but the occasional girl was prepared to overlook my immaturity, show enough interest and offer enough attention to keep my ego more or less intact, superficially at least. So that, on any given Saturday night, fortified with enough beer and the company of mates, I was out on the town, swaggering around the night spots like the man in the song. And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner. When it was me doing the dreaming.
And of course none of my dreams, realistic or ridiculous, could have been hindered by the arrival of this American girl in my life, even were she looking to do so. We were two people a long way from home, from different continents, at a time when world travel was an exception. She would soon be leaving for some huge and different other world called America, always beyond mine. Mine meaning, first up, my insignificant part in the support role of a subordinate military ally, and beyond that, even further removed, absolute obscurity, antipodean suburbia. This could only come to nothing, my pre-army ambitions were safe, even if, just now, I wanted so much to see her again.
The splash of approaching boots in the mud outside woke me, then excited voices, louder as they grew nearer. I could smell their beer-fed arousal as they came in and had I not been half asleep, I would have sat up to see what was happening.
“Keep it down. We’ll go for a row if we get caught.”
Daniels said, “I know. Let’s not invite any officers.”
“What about Crazy Al?”
“You serious? He’s not gunna say nothin’.”
“Yeh. He’s too up himself for refusin’ orders again.”
“At least he’s been given a touch up for his trouble this time,” said Barry Love. “The fuckin’ lunatic. One to the grunts. Good on ’em.”
Hands rummaged through ice buckets and beer cans were opened as Tony Carmody came in. “Heh, T.C. Beer?” I saw his hesitation before he joined them. “Seen Al?”
“No.”
“Wonder where he’s hidin’ ?”
“What about all that rapist shit? T.C. You’re a rapist.”
“I know. I heard him.”
“I think the whole camp heard ‘im.”
“We’re all rapists. Let’s tell O’Brien Al reckons he’s a rapist.”
I missed most of the conversation from there. As I drifted off to sleep they were still drinking and talking about going home and home
itself and the picking up of their lives when they got there. For the moment Al was forgotten.
The silence and the sudden darkness half woke me. I would have gone back to sleep but felt, immediately, a tension, an anticipation in the air. Al came in as silently as he could and I knew that every ear in the hut was tuned to the sounds as he undressed, pulled his mosquito net down over its frame and climbed into his bunk. There was a tinny, crunching sound, a muffled curse from Al and then empty cans dropping onto the floor. They had filled his bed with their empties, laid flat and covered with his sheet.
“You’re not allowed drink in the lines, Al,” said Daniels.
Suppressed laughter burst forth from several bunks, Barry Love’s the loudest. Al was kicking cans under his bunk. When he climbed into it there was silence, thick with anticipation.
“Raped anyone today, Al?”
“Al?” Silence. “Al? You’re a rapist.” And then a long silence. “You’re a rapist, aren’t you, Al.”
“Yeh. So are you,” he said eventually.
“Am I a rapist, Al?”
“Yeh.”
“Me too, Al?”
“Yeh.”
“We’re all rapists, heh, Al?”
“Yeh. That’s what they’re saying.”
“Who’s they?”
“Protesters at demonstrations in America. I read it in Time magazine. It’s not so much about the way we treat the women.” His had started quietly, tentatively, but his voice picked up with an uncharacteristic confidence, even showed a frustration. “We’re foreign invaders, interfering in another country’s business. It’s immoral, A kind of rape.”
“We don’t rape no one, you mad bastard.”
“Yeh, and all that shit you were on about up at the boozer, Al,” said Barry. “How we’re all rapists. You forgot to mention the communists. What about them, heh? Forcin’ everyone to be communist whether they like it or not. They’re the rapists. And murderers. They’re real good at killing their own kind. And that’s why we’re here. For the people who wanna be free like us. We’re savin’ ‘em from communism. So go and stick it, Al. You wouldn’t know.”
Whatever Al had said in the canteen had had a ripple effect, the like of which I’d never seen or heard before. They were stirred. Barry Love wanted to offer insight for argument, beyond the usual abuse. It was an example of how political people had become.
I imagined Al’s protesters, a more serious bunch than we in Australia could ever muster. At one American university the national guard had shot a couple of them dead. And even in laid-back Oz, feeling had risen like never before. I had stood in Queen Street during Brisbane’s contribution to the moratorium demonstrations and witnessed the passion on the faces of the uni students leading the march. “One, two, three, four! We don’t want your fucking war!” A middle aged man, among the spectators near me on the footpath, was shouting back. “Better men than you fought and died for the freedom you enjoy. It’s rabble-rousers like you lot need some army discipline!”
They couldn’t hear him but a woman about his age, a little woman carrying her shopping in a string bag and walking behind the students, did hear him.
“Why don’t you go to the war, Dad, and take some of your warmonger mates with you. Instead of kids who aren’t old enough to vote!”
There were some cheers from the crowd and not only for her courage. It had become that divisive, had intruded so far into our sun-soaked culture that someone like Barry had answers. Barry Love, cold war authority. Analyst of east-west political dichotomy.
But Bushfire was concerned at this slip into seriousness, and aided by his mate as well. “Al?”
“What?”
With mock concern, as if talking to a child. “Are you ... insane?”
But the laughter only spurred Al on. “Do you know what else the demonstrators are callin’ us, Bush?”
“No. What else are they callin’ us, Al?”
“Baby killers.”
“Baby killers? Baby killers and rapists?”
“Yeh.”
“Heh, Al? How many babies you kill today?”
“Dunno. There’s no way to count ‘em all.”
Some of the laughter must have been audible in the officers’ hut. But Al wanted to continue. “They’ve dropped more bombs on this country than were dropped on Germany in the whole of World War 2. You think bombs discriminate?” But only a few of them heard him and he turned on Barry Love whose laugh was loudest. “Heh, Barry? You know why you can’t count how many babies you killed today? ‘Cause you got such shit for brains you couldn’t even count your fingers.”
The laughter was threatening then. Barry said, “I think you better shut your crazy fuckin’ mouth now, Al.”
“Yeh, shut up, Al.” Someone added with a yawn. “Stop encouraging him. I want some sleep.”
But Al was charging up. “Aw, shut up, Al. That’s brilliant. Listen to me. This war is killing babies.” The intent as he stared around at everyone in the semi-darkness encouraged more laughter. But Al didn’t hear. He reached under his mosquito net and grabbed a magazine from the wooden box he kept beside his bunk. “It’s all in here. If you don’t believe me. And what are they dyin’ for?” His voice quavered with emotion. “What have they done to us? You think a bunch a’ commies are gunna come and take your house? Set up a rice paddy on the M.C.G?” He was encouraged by the silence, dropped the magazine and gained control. “And I’d like to know where all the rich boys are, if all these rice farmers are coming to take our land and our money? Heh? Where are they? Why aren’t they here to protect their money? Anyone here rich? Doubt it. They’re all back home, getting ahead. Organising a rich future. While we’re here living in this shit.”
“Don’t cry, Al. You’ll be home soon.”
“You gunna be rich, Barry? Heh? Fat fuckin’ chance. You’ll be back detailing cars for that car yard in Adelaide, if they still want you.”
He was in our real world now and a silence followed. For a moment at least Al had us all thinking. Even Tony Carmody joined in. “If it’s being rich you want, Al, you won’t get it with communism.” I sat up in my bunk and nearly everybody else was. I doubt anyone was asleep. Tony went on. “Communism is just an economic, social plan, to organise people. Which means you have to trust in the leaders, and people will always want more than that to trust in. To put faith in. Communism gives you nothing to believe in.”
“It doesn’t give you democracy either,” came a serious voice from the darkness.
“Democracy? Look where democracy landed us. Democracy is only as good as the information we get. And they just keep lying. And you know one of the biggest lies? That we’re fighting for our country. We’re not fighting for our country. We’re fighting for western capitalism. Which means we’re fighting for the rich, and I’ve not met one bloke over here who comes from a rich family. Have you?”
Barry laughed. “Pity western capitalism if you’re fightin’ for it.”
“Fuck me!” Daniels almost shouted. “What is this? A political meeting?” Which meant, let’s get back to making fun of Al.
“It’s a political war, Bush,” said Al with an earnest, almost a confidence, that annoyed not only Daniels.
“Shut up, Al.”
“Following the Americans, to keep us safe. That’s politics.” He stared around, collecting his thoughts, and the look on his face, the huge eyes in the darkness brought back the laughter. He looked like some strange monkey, the mosquito net a cage in which he was doing weird things that made an audience laugh. But he wasn’t hearing it. He turned to Tony. “Tony. My point is ... if I was going to be rich, if I really wanted to be rich, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Maybe that’s just up to you. There’s no perfect world but at least we have the freedom to choose. You can whinge the rest of your life or get on with it. It’s up to you. You just don’t let things get you down.”
“Yeh, Al. Stop whinging.”
“You’re just jealous, Al. ’Cau
se you can’t hack it. It’s up to you.”
His voice went up again. “It’s not up to me. If it’s up to us, where are all the rich boys? Heh?” He was looking around again. “Why is it just us types? Me and ... Barry and ... “
Tony kept trying. He sounded genuinely concerned. “There are no ... types, Al. People aren’t any better or worse because they’re rich. It’s all in your mind. You just be what you want to be.”
Al stared, an agony of mixed emotions. Jesus, Tony. If I can’t make you see. And when he had no answer Daniels laughed. “It’s all in your loony, fucked-up mind.”
“Anyway,” said Barry. “You have to get your job back. It’s the law.”
“Yeh, Al. And you said you were goin’ back to work in the family business. You’re lucky.”
“Lucky? After this! Lucky?” Al calmed again, his voice steady. “Listen. I wouldn’t expect too big a welcome home.” He waved the magazine at us again. “You should see what they’re sayin’ about us. You think we’re goin’ home to a big ticker-tape welcome? Like we won the premiership or something. I don’t think so. Not this time. And the only ones worse off than us after this will be the nogs. They’ll be left to clean up our mess. Bury all their dead. Dead babies.” He stopped and the silence was so profound we could hear his breathing. He lowered his voice further. “And dead babies mightn’t fit too well with the Anzac legend, diggers. There were no dead babies at Gallipoli. Anyway. I’ve had enough. I’m out of it. I’m not a part of it anymore.”
Everyone was quiet, until Daniels tried again. “Gunna mutiny again, Al? Who’s with Al in a mutiny? We’ll start with Smiley, so we’ve got some piss for after.”
“I’ll let you into a secret, Al,” said Barry. “You never were a part of it. ‘Cept maybe with tigers. You’ve chased all the tigers out ‘a the Binh Ba rubber trees.”
Barry’s giggle came to an abrupt halt when a figure appeared in the doorway.
“What the fuck is going on in here? Did I hear the word mutiny?”
We didn’t recognise the voice at first because he’d changed and lowered it. “Urquhart. You prick.” Relieved laughter filled the hut.
“Did I hear the word mutiny? Well? Private Stanley?”
But Al lay back, suddenly quiet, recognising a threat that wasn’t present before. Greg Urquhart didn’t want him quiet. Barry and especially Bushfire weren’t happy with the night so far either. Al had almost achieved a kind of victory. Certainly he hadn’t been cowed as usual. They wanted more fun. Urquhart wanted fun too, but for him fun meant punishment.
“Come on, Al. Give us your plans for mutiny.” Al sensed the malice but there was no safety in silence, just a portent that was undeniable. Because Urquhart would not be denied. “You still reckon we’re all rapists, Al? Am I a rapist?”
Barry laughed, perhaps in extended relief after the scare. “I’m a rapist, aren’t I, Al.”
And Al might have been buoyed too by some relief, or by his earlier freedom, because he sighed, as if resigned to his fate and said, “Well, you’re not such a bad rapist, Barry. ‘Cause you’re too stupid to know you’re doin’ it.”
There was no laughter then, only movement. Even Moll, who had taken no part in the conversation, swung his legs over the side of his bunk to watch.
It was the cue Urquhart had been working for. “Al? You still haven’t told me. I don’t wanna be left out. Am I a rapist or not?”
Al was quiet, but of course it was too late. Pre-emptive Greg Urquhart spoke with the calm confidence of the man in charge. I could imagine the look on Al’s face. The same as it had been in the truck that day. The stare, not of the martyr but of the condemned. “You know what I reckon, Al? I reckon you got a thing about rape. That psychiatrist reckoned you might be a bit of a sheila.”
Daniels laughed and got up off his bunk to stand beside Urquhart, overlooking Al’s. “Wha’d’a you say, Al? All us rapists here. Maybe you’d like a bit.”
And then Barry was beside him. “Yeh, Al. Wha’d a’ ya reckon? You fancy a bit?”
Everyone else was now watching the scene. In the darkness I saw Daniels signal someone and they gathered around Al’s bunk and threw his mosquito net back. His struggle was pathetic. Even Urquhart laughed as he said, “Roll ‘im over. Roll ‘im over.”
Someone threw the magazine away. It flew up into the air and hit Moll’s mosquito net as it came down to the floor. Al began to moan, a woeful, sobbing sound.
“Shut up,” said Urquhart, “you mad bastard.”
Holding one of Al’s arms on the far side of the bunk from the rest of us, he pushed his head into his pillow with his free hand and when he let go Al was quiet. But he began to thrash about and Urquhart grabbed his leg. Someone took the arm. Barry and Bushfire were on the side closer to me, Barry holding an arm and Bushfire a leg.
Tony got out of his bunk and I stood up beside him. Moll was standing now, in front of us. We were accustomed to Al being the hut victim but tonight was turning into something else.
Al was on his stomach and when Daniels pulled his shorts down he moaned again.
“Shit. He is a sheila.”
Tony and I moved in closer, Moll still in front of us.
They were laughing as Daniels signaled for someone to pass him the nearest beer bucket. It was mostly cold water but he found a large rounded chunk of ice still intact and shoved it between Al’s buttocks. His scream was so feminine that laughter exploded at a new level. Barry and Bushfire were in such raptures they lost their grip. Only Urquhart had hold of a leg which Al was able to free in his thrashing panic and it sprang up and hit Urquhart on the side of his head
Al broke free and ran for the doorway, pulling his shorts up as he went. Nearly everyone was laughing. Not least because, despite his terror, one part of Al had registered some degree of incongruous if involuntary excitement. It jumped around in front of him as he made for the doorway.
Urquhart failed to see the humour. “Grab the cunt!”
We stepped aside to let Al pass. Bushfire and Barry gave chase but they were laughing and Al was as good as gone, so that they were not prepared for Moll. No one was. As Daniels reached him he dropped into a half crouch and then lifted, driving his shoulder into Daniels’ chest, ramming him into the nearest locker and pinning him there. Barry stopped in his tracks.
Urquhart pushed passed Barry as Daniels hit the locker. I put my arm up. He pushed it aside and glared at me but then everyone’s attention was on Moll and his captive. Bushfire Daniels was no lightweight but it was clear he was going nowhere. He struggled, panting heavily, until Moll relaxed his hold and stood back. The two big men stared at each other as they recovered their breath.
“What the fuck, Moll?” Daniels panted. “What was that? Was just a joke.”
But his complaint was already an apology. For you didn’t cross Moll, our moral guardian, unofficial leader, for all his self-destructive excesses. He had decided that a moral line had been crossed. A line too far. So that the shenanigans were suddenly over. Moll had spoken, without saying a word. No minor player in platoon culture himself, Daniels stared at him, and there was an unmistakable repentance in his, “Fuckin’ ’ell, Moll.”
Moll was too winded to speak and his body heaved with the effort of his breathing but there was no hint of humour in his eyes as he turned to Urquhart, who returned the stare.
“Fuck him, Moll,” he said. “Fucking big mouth deserved a scare. Who’s he think he is?”
“And it was just a joke,” Daniels added. “Fuck me. What was that all about?”
Moll looked back at Daniels while he said this and then turned and slumped slowly back to his bunk. He sat on the side of it, his breathing huge and taking a long time to steady.
“You alright, Moll?” It was Lyle O’Malley. A few drivers from the next hut had followed Urquhart in, attracted by the commotion. They stood around now with the rest of us.
Moll still panted. “No,” he said eventually as he exhaled.
; “You better lie back. Take it easy.” Lyle looked around at the rest of us. “I reckon the only reason O’Brien or Donald haven’t been over here is they think it’s just part a’ the fun a’ goin’ home.” He looked back to Moll. “You alright yet?”
Moll nodded. “Any piss left?”
“No,” he was told. “We drunk it all.”
We watched Moll in silence. He looked around and was about to lie back when Bushfire said, “Hang on, Moll.” He put his hand into a bucket under his bunk and produced a beer. Moll took it without a word and emptied the can without stopping. He belched, lay back on his bunk, chest still heaving. “Fuck it,” he said. “Just, fuck it.”
Nothing much else was said. Lyle and the others wandered off and everyone got back into his bunk. I noticed that Greg Urquhart was already gone.
