by Jack Twist
Chapter 26
By the time I got back to the compound with my illegal load, the trucks were nearly all lined up.
“Where you been? Crazy Al thinks you’re tryin’ to hide from ‘im,” said Donald Duck, the convoy commander, in his hoarse, forced way of speaking. He had one foot rested on the dash of the Land Rover. Sergeant Duncan Miniver was an ex-tankie and had sustained some sort of throat injury which made speech difficult for him. So he had become Donald Duck.
“Had to pick up a load of laundry,” I told him. “Dropping it off at Baria laundry shop. Only be a minute.”
“You can have two, and no more. Get up front so we don’t have to wait for you. And in future do your own washin’. Baria’ll be off-limits soon.”
“Sarg.”
Al climbed in and I drove up near the head of the line. As prearranged, Tony Carmody followed me in his truck. He had said it was the least he could do for a crazy man. Then I had Al to explain it to. He looked tired but more willing and relaxed than I’d expected. Al Stanley was more heavily built than either Barry Love or Lyle O’Malley, and possibly Tony Carmody. You just didn’t notice. With a different attitude he could have improved his physique significantly. But attitude is a mental thing, and Al’s mind was elsewhere. It seemed a shame to take such a rare contented look off his face and when he asked about the boxes I ignored him.
“How are you? Sleep alright?” I looked at him. The scratches on his face from the day before still showed.
“Yeh, I’m all right. Thanks. No infantry to pick up, heh? Just gear and equipment. No infantry.”
“Yeh. Now that Lyle has shown me how to get the seats right in the back. Where were you, last night? I went lookin’ for you.”
“Did you? I was in the guard house. They know me from CB and gave me a bunk. Couldn’t sleep though. I waited till it started to get light and went back to the hut.” He sat looking straight ahead for a moment. “Listen. I’m sorry about all that last night. I just lost it. I’m just so sick of this place. Sick of the whole thing.”
“Did anyone tell you about Moll, after you took off?”
“Yeh. Moll. Who’d’ve thought. I thanked him.”
“Wha’d he say?”
“He told me to fuck off.” I laughed and Al smiled. “You know, I thought, before I left to come over here, that there’d be some antiwar feeling among the troops. At least some. In America there’s a big movement of soldiers against the war. They’re already calling them veterans and they join the protesters when they get home. I’m hoping there’ll be the same sort of thing when we get back home.”
In my single-minded concern for my own survival I never considered such things but I wondered at Al’s optimism. I was reminded of a night in a sparse, hard, Canungra canteen where we’d been granted a night off and a television set to watch one of those big world title fights between Mohammed Ali and Joe Frazier. There must have been a hundred men squeezed into the room, all weeks, maybe days, from embarkation to the war. Ali had recently declared his refusal to be enlisted and the vehement, clamorous cheering for his opponent surprised even me. There wasn’t one voice for Ali. “Kill the loud-mouthed conshi!” was given unanimous support. Good luck with your revolution, Al.
We passed by the first APC parked along the Baria Road. Some kids had gathered around but two of the crew, lounging on top beneath their temporary shelters, ignored them.
“What are those boxes?”
When I didn’t answer he turned to look at me. “We’re gunna make a little detour in Baria. Just for a moment. For laundry.”
“I thought you did your own washing.”
“It’s not really washing.”
“What?’
I had to pull the truck well over as a small American convoy passed. It was a busy road.“I’m doin’ a deal for Daniels. I have to.”
“Why? What do you mean, have to?”
“I want to get back to Saigon, Al. The only way I could get Daniels to swap for the parade job was to sell some cigarettes for him.”
“Black market. Black market is evil. It’s Bush Daniels. It’s not you. Jesus, Mark. I thought you were okay. You and Tony. I thought ... “
And away he went. I was an accomplice in the sort of corruption and exploitation that prolonged this despicable war, to the detriment of the suffering, poverty-stricken masses whom we purported to want to help. Black market was symptomatic of the evils of rampant capitalism, another reason for the coming revolution. Etc.
“For Christ sake, Al. Leave it out, will you? We’re happy. Remember? We’re all going home. Leavin’ on a fuckin’ jet plane. Happy. Okay?”
But then he expressed concern for his position. Was he an accomplice of mine, since he was in the vehicle? He grew pale as he spoke and eventually I turned and shouted, “Shut up!”
He looked scared then and shut up.
“It’ll only take a minute. We’ll be back in the convoy in no time. And you won’t have to get out of the truck.”
“How much money are you getting?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Holy Jesus.”
“Listen, Al. If you don’t shut up about it I’ll tell Urquhart your name’s Alexis Stanis...what’s a name.”
“Holy Jesus.”
Despite the same name Tran and Tran were opposites in appearance. They stepped out from under an old iron awning beside the laundry shop and I pulled the truck in as close as I could to the building.
One was plump and well-dressed in white shirt, grey slacks and black leather shoes. He had the air of the senior partner and stood silently in the background against the wall. His accomplice was wiry in cheaper semi-western dress and sandals but he was the front man. “Where Bush?” he asked with an amiable, decadent grin.
“Not come. No Bush. Can you hurry? My sergeant waiting.” I pointed behind me to the road.
He grinned again and nodded. He held up two fingers. “Truck. Sell truck too.”
“No. Cigarettes only.”
“Bush say truck too.” He held up two fingers again. “Truck too.”
“No. No truck, okay? Only cigarettes.”
I climbed up and began pushing the boxes off. The thin Tran took them as they tumbled off and stacked them under the awning. He was stronger than he looked.
I walked over. “Okay?” He nodded and smiled. “Money?”
“Truck?”
“No. No truck. Just the cigarettes.” I pointed to the boxes.
“Bush say truck.”
“No Bush. No truck. One thousand dollars, please.” He nodded and smiled. “Come on. One thousand.”
He was still smiling. The fat one showed no expression. “No truck. No money,” said the thin one. “Bush say truck. No truck. No money.”
“Look. Bush say cigarettes, One thousand dollars. My sergeant up there. He come down here soon.”
But they knew this was an empty threat. I went under the awning and began picking up the first box.
“No. Cannot take Nui Dat. You see? Cannot take Nui Dat.” I dropped the box heavily and kicked a hole in the side of it. The man’s grin did not fade. “Truck too. You see. Truck too.” He held up the fingers again. “Tell Bush we send money when cigarettes sold.”
“Send the money? Where send the money?”
“Uc dai loi. You give me name. You go home soon, see? Uc dai loi. We send money.”
“To Australia? You want a name to send money to Uc dai loi?”
Of course he nodded and grinned. And I was too angry, felt too foolish even to smile at the proposition. “Name? You want name? Uc dai loi?” Perversely, his grin encouraged me. “Okay. Send it to Major fuck up, Uc dai loi. You got that?” His grin was enormous now and I wanted to kick his teeth in.
“Mark!” It was Al. I looked up to see the Land Rover coming down the narrow side street. I ran to the truck and started it.
“What’ve you been doin’, Ross?” Donald Duck’s voice seemed more strained than ever. “Well? What took ya?”<
br />
“Little disagreement about cost. It’s all fixed.”
“Catch up with the convoy. Now. And that’s the last time you stop off here. Right?”
He pulled the Land Rover back to the side and I charged past. I was relieved to see him turning in the street to follow me. It didn’t occur to me until later that I was supposed to be stopping there on the way back to pick up the washing.
“What’ll Daniels say?” said Al.
“Fuck Daniels.”
He wanted to call off the swap and even asked O’Brien, who showed him the door without discussion. He cursed and carried on. At boozer closing time he even wanted to fight me, until he stood up and found it too difficult to stay on his feet.
“Ask Al,” I told him. “He heard it all. There was nothing I could do about it.”
But he blamed Al as much as anyone for his loss.
- 0 -
The following day, the day before I left for Saigon with the newly formed marching detachment, we drivers in the evac convoy arrived back in camp, and immediately sensed a change. Not an obvious change. There was something in the air, something amiss. As we climbed out of our vehicles to head for the showers it felt too quiet. Not even a shout or curse from the workshop shed, a clang of metal on metal, a revving engine. A group of soldiers hung about the admin office, hangdog, listless, unsupervised. When Barry Love called out to Daniels, who was among them, he turned away, shook his head.
When repairing a flat truck tyre you had to be careful when hammering down the last steel ring, the one that locked a fully inflated tyre into the wheel rim. Until they were hammered right into place these rings could spring off the wheel, with such force that one had left a deep dent in the iron roof of the workshop shed.
As part of evacuation preparations a small detail was left in camp that day to finish the tyre repairs. The party included Al Stanley who had volunteered immediately to avoid going to Nui Dat and the man in charge, Lance Corporal O’Malley.
Lyle would have been doing most of the work himself but he hadn’t hammered this final ring on. It was said that Al did, although no one could get any sense out of Al after the event so that it was never finally established. And it didn’t really matter by then.
The wheel had been turned over, with the final ring facing down, so that when it came off it shot the whole wheel into the air with tremendous force. Standing over the wheel at the time, preparing to stack it with the other repaired ones, Lyle took the full force in the face.
Al Stanley reacted so hysterically that he was taken to the hospital with Lyle where he was sedated until the next medevac home. This time there were tears, his distress unstoppable without medication.
I rose early the next morning and packed quickly so that I would have time to visit the hospital before the bus to Saigon arrived.
I was only able to see Lyle. The doctors had worked through the night to repair his face and make it as near to its original shape as possible, but you could see that even when the stitches and the swelling were gone, it would be a face that people could hardly bare to look at. He had been horribly and permanently disfigured. It just wasn’t him anymore. I never did have a lot to say to Lyle and even on this day, when I really tried, there seemed to be nothing. It was so hard to say something when I couldn’t stand to look at him.
While I was in Saigon Lyle was taken home on the RAAF C130 Hercules medevac flight. I knew something of that home from stories he’d told me when we shared a tent at Canungra. Four younger siblings still at home with his mother, who was just sixteen years older than Lyle and had recently started her first full time job at the local hospital. The father was long gone.
His girlfriend Narelle, always at him to tie the knot. Lyle too busy with work. Picking oranges at Griffith, pears at Shepparton, grapes at Mildura. Sometimes shearing, even the odd roo shoot back of Ivanhoe. It wasn’t just the money. Or the mates. It was the work. He loved the work.
And then came the army. Yeh, sounds good. I’ll be in that. At basic they wanted him to apply for infantry. He could join the training squad, maybe stay in Kapooka for his two years. But Lyle wanted action and someone told him transport was the go now, in the later stages of our part in the war.
A week or so after I returned from Saigon, just before we all went home ourselves, we found out that Lyle had died at home. Some internal complication? A blood clot? Or simply the reaction from Narelle, the looks on his family’s faces? It could well have been the latter. He wouldn’t have wanted to cause any trouble. He deserved a blaze of glory, not a flying truck wheel, but in the end there is no blaze of glory, just another dead body.
In dark insomnious nights of later years, visions of Lyle would remind me of the luck of survival, and shed an unsightly light on all the innocent courage that perished. And inseverely self-absorbed, 2 or 3am moments, on my own survival, on those selfish, duplicitous tendencies of mine that helped secure it, and the luck, mostly the luck. So that before I finally slept I would remind myself that life can be unfair, and when you wake in the morning, it does, as they say, go on.
Although the unfairness can seem infinite, and relentless. At one time in those later years, I went through a list of Australian servicemen killed in the war and his name was not among them. Lyle might have died in Australia but he was killed in Vietnam.
Part 5
The World
