by Jack Twist
Chapter 25
I couldn’t sleep. Someone’s snoring made it impossible and put me in a bad mood. After about thirty minutes Al had not returned. How long was he going to hide somewhere, in just his shorts, while everyone else slept on through the hot night?
I pulled my greens and boots on and went outside. The humidity was building again after the rain and I walked around the huts, up around the canteen and the mess hut. When I couldn’t see him in the immediate vicinity I went down to the compound.
“Al. You there, Al?”
I walked down beside the row of trucks, past the admin office and as I headed for the workshop shed I saw a movement and then the shape of someone standing in the shadow.
“That you, Al?”
There was no response until I had almost stepped into the shadow of the shed. Then a mocking voice. “That you, Al?” It was Urquhart. I wondered if he had seen me wandering around the huts and followed me down, or had been down here already, looking for Al.
“Where’s Al?” I asked him.
There was a different, quieter sort of confidence about him, as though he had just finished something, or was about to. “Fuck Al! Let’s you and me settle it, eh? Let’s settle it.” The words were slurred. The usual self-assured swagger was there but not the brisk alertness. “You want your poofy mate, first you gotta take me.”
I wasn’t much of a fighter, certainly not as good as I imagined, but even were he about to let me, I couldn’t walk away. Stirred, angered by what I’d just seen in the hut, at that moment I just couldn’t stand him and I told myself I had a small reach advantage and a strong right arm. More than all of that, I was sober. Still, I would avoid a fight if I could. “You’re pissed, Greg”
“Fuck me. You’re all talk. You and your mates. The talkers.”
He came towards me then, belligerent, hands on hips, daring me, close enough for me to hit him and when I didn’t he took a jab. Sober, I’m sure he would have finished me off from there but the punch was just slow enough for me to move to the side so that it grazed one ear.
Hate flooded to the surface. I wanted to hurt him, put him in a place he wasn’t used to, on the receiving end, the victim. He stumbled as he was straightening up and I was able to push him hard, so that he fell back against the corrugated iron wall. It seemed to sober him. He was steady on his feet suddenly, shaping up and moving in. This time I didn’t wait and I caught him enough by surprise to land a punch in the middle of his face. His head went back and blood spurted from his nose.
He knew how to fight. Untroubled he moved in again more cautiously, faked with a left and drove a right which could have knocked me out had it caught my jaw squarely. But I had moved my head back enough and got my left arm in his way. It still jolted me. Andenraged me. I charged him, which should have been the end of me but it caught him by surprise again and though he hit me with another right on the left side of my chest I absorbed the pain, grabbed him and used my height and strength, and sobriety, to force him into the wall. I used everything I had, put all my weight behind it, and when he hit the wall with me up against him, he went down.
I was as relieved as I was pleased. When he tried to get up I pushed him down again. He was winded and the alcohol had taken hold but when I stood back he struggled up. I could see he wanted to go on with it so I moved in quickly and he lurched to one side so that I was able to force him to the ground again with less effort.
“Fuckin’ leave it!” I said, puffing and shaky.
He looked up at me as he panted and spat blood that leaked from his nose and managed to communicate pride and contempt even from there. I shut up. He didn’t want to leave it. For Greg Urquhart it was a black and white world. You were a soldier or a poof. You were a man or you weren’t. You won a fight or you lost it. You didn’t leave it.
I had a headache from the knock on the chin but most of the pain came from the left side of my chest between rib cage and shoulder joint. I stood there getting my breath back and trying to make my chest pain ease. He made a move to get up again and when he fell back I was pleased. I walked away and left him there, spitting blood at the dirt.
I was relieved that he didn’t come into the shower block while I was there but the shower freshened me so that I lay wide awake in my bunk. Even when I got my left side comfortable sleep wouldn’t come.
I picked up the magazine from the floor, sat up in my bunk slowly and turned on my torch light. It didn’t take long to find Al’s article. It took up several of the earlier pages and featured a colour photo of a demonstration, covering half a page. The opening paragraph made much of an attempt by the protesters to throw some sort of animal blood, pig’s blood was suspected, at the marchers in a military parade. I didn’t read where it had taken place because my focus was taken up by the faces of the protesters and the placards they waved above the crowds of people. Women against rape in war and Baby Killers. I took the magazine back to Al’s bunk and dropped it into the box where he kept his collection.
I put my mosquito net back over its frame and lay down. But I still couldn’t sleep so I took Abbie’s letter out of my pants pocket, turned on my torch light again and read it one more time.
It was some time after three o’clock when I fell asleep and Al had not returned.
I dreamed I was driving a strange car in some unknown location, the surroundings grey, mysterious and unrecognisable. Abbie was in the back seat and Al Stanley next to me and when a car loomed up beside us Abbie called out in alarm. I turned into a side street but it offered no refuge beyond its narrowness which prevented the car, still following, from coming up beside us again. The sky darkened as I drove and the street seemed endless. It was walled in on both sides by huge, indistinct and featureless facades, cracked and broken in parts and with no doors or windows. The walls increased the darkness and then merged into the trees and vines of thick forest which hung across the road, closed in on us, blocking the sky and the remaining light. Still the car followed, close behind us, though no shots were fired.
On we went into the darkness, frantic, unable to stop, unable to see what lay ahead. In the rear view mirror the vehicle looked close enough to reach out and touch, relentlessly forcing us on. Then Abbie screamed. I’m sure there were no gunshots but when I looked at her she was carrying a baby, a baby covered in blood.
Her scream was enough to wake me and I lay there in a sweat, relieved to find the whole thing had been a dream, one of those that feel so real you can recall certain details. I slept more peacefully after that, though such dreams would never truly leave me. This was a precursor of things to come. And that one I remember to this day.
In the morning the pain in my chest was worse though I had full movement of my left shoulder. Al was back in his bunk and I waited until he had gone to the showers before I approached Daniels.
“Bush. Come on. Let’s get down to the office early. Get this swap sorted if we can.”
He struggled out of his bunk and even after he’d showered and dressed he was quieter. In the short time Al remained with us after that night neither Greg Urquhart nor Bushfire Daniels nor anyone else bothered him. And Al was quieter as well. There were no more mutinies.
We stood at ease before the captain in his office while he examined us a moment. “Why? Why the sudden interest in a parade, a parade where you most likely won’t know anyone. And after all that happened?”
“I’d just like to go back up once more before we go, Sir.” A rough, brief, almost imperceptible flicker of sympathy crossed his large-featured face and I was encouraged. “I got to know a few of them at the Canberra. And, it would help me get it out of my system. The death of Lieutenant Jefferies. What happened, I mean.”
Which was to say too much. Some of the old cynicism returned. Captain O’Brien and Lieutenant Jefferies had been better friends than we all imagined and the captain was awake to any pretence on my part that his death was some personal loss.
“Help to get it out of your system?” he
said.
“Yes, Sir.”
“I see. For a start you wouldn’t be staying at the Canberra. You’d be put up in an American barracks block, at Camp Alpha, and up until the march you’d be practising for it.” He looked at Daniels. “I’ll give you this, though. Physically you’re a more presentable proposition than the alternative here. Which isn’t saying much. You both look a little drawn. You look particularly green around the gills, Private Daniels. I trust that noise last night wasn’t caused by any late night drinking sessions in the lines.”
“No, Sir.”
“I hope not. Sergeant Miniver will be checking tonight. So what do you say about Private Ross’s request?”
“I don’t mind swapping, Sir. Private Ross has been through a lot.”
“Well,” the captain sat back in his seat. I braced myself for the sarcasm. “This is a turn up. The Bushfire, a philanthropist. Ready to deny himself for his platoon mates.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What a stout fellow. Why is it that I smell a rat, Mr philanthropist?”
“Sir?”
“Command is not so keen on this parade now. If I get wind of anything untoward going on there will be no trips to Saigon.” He looked directly at Daniels. “Maybe not even to Nui Dat. We’ll be needing more hands on truck cleaning soon. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“That’ll be all, Private.”
Daniels came to attention, saluted, turned briskly and marched from the office, like a soldier with nothing more on his mind than his duty. The captain looked at me again. “You can go to Saigon again, Private Ross.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“How are you feeling now?”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Bear in mind that this parade is serious. Don’t expect to be off to the Canberra whenever you feel like it.”
I caught up with Daniels going across the compound to his vehicle. “Who’s Phil Ansodist?Whoever it was?” he asked.
“Forget it. No one we have to worry about.”
“You better get up to the boozer quick. Get the smokes on board. Got fifty?”
“Fifty what?”
“Dollars. Smiley won’t do nothin’ without payment in advance. Here’s my fifty.”
I swore as I took his money. “I’ll have to get mine from the hut on the way round.”
“He leaves the boxes at the back of the boozer. One’s marked ‘laundry’. Put that one on last. It’s got some old clothes stuffed in the top of it.”
When I drove off I saw Al coming across the compound. He was looking at me in bewilderment so I drove over towards him. “Back in a minute!” I shouted.
Corporal Meehan or Smiley took the 100 dollars from me over the bar and began counting it immediately. He indicated the back of the canteen with a nod as he stuffed the notes into his hip pocket.
I was loading the four boxes, the one marked ‘laundry’ facing out the back, when someone stepped out from beside the canteen hut. I turned quickly. It was Greg Urquhart on the way to some job, hammer hanging from his carpenter’s belt, and he looked at me as he passed and said nothing. His nose was red, eyes bloodshot, but they did not challenge. In the brief look we exchanged, I detected a calm about him, almost a humility and a hint of respect. There was, as always, that pride, but muted, without the supercilious smile for the lesser men around him.
Urquhart didn’t know I had taken no part in last night’s drinking. Why would he know? Apart from Blowfly, just about everybody spent those last nights getting drunk. And even in his silence I sensed that, to him at least, we had made contact, reached an understanding, in the best way he knew how. Unfortunately for him, it was based on a false premise. It had not been a fair fight. It was particularly unfair when you considered his attitude. He was an absolute asset to the army, a respected member of the group, courageous defender of the status quo, like a good loyal dog. I suppose that made me more catlike, one out, always looking for a comfortable place in the shade, and resorting, when cornered, to secret weapons, on this occasion the agility and the stamina of a body free of alcohol. But all’s fair in love and war, which is to say it’s not. I have not spoken to him since that night.
