Crossfire

by James Moloney

  The sun was almost gone as they arrived, and by the time they had stoked up the fire and placed the billy and frying pan over the coals, darkness had closed in and the temperature had dipped considerably. Luke wriggled into his two sweaters and claimed a spot around the fire with the others, who had started on the last carton of beer. There was little conversation during the meal, apart from the teasing and insults with which these men cuffed one another, rather like animal cubs at play.

  But afterwards, the beer and the food in their bellies relaxing them, they began to relive the adventures of the past few days, each trying to grab Tom’s attention, instinctively wanting to impress him. Tom smiled in all the right places, but without displaying any real enthusiasm. Every now and again there would be a pause in the torrent of story-telling. It was the obvious moment for the visitor to regale his new friends with his own stories of hunting and near-misses and the romance of the bush. But on each occasion the big man remained silent, and the long seconds dawdled by awkwardly, until one of the others took up the relinquished opportunity to speak.

  To kill one of these uncomfortable silences, Dave asked Tom about himself, and it was then that the visitor mentioned his war service in Vietnam. This galvanised the interest of the other men, whose faces glowed with more than the reflection of yellow light from the flames.

  Wayne Aldridge said, ‘You know, I reckon being in a war would be the only way to really test your courage. Of course, me and the fellas here were all too young for Vietnam. Wish I’d got a chance, though. To shoot at a human target, that would be the ultimate.’

  Around the fire the others agreed. ‘Of course, they shoot back, you know,’ said Doggy, quick with the retort as always. There was laughter, but Tom did not join in. He was deep in his own thoughts.

  Wayne saw this and prodded the guest. ‘Did you see much action, Tom?’

  ‘A bit,’ said Tbm staring straight at Wayne. He seemed determined to maintain his silence and reject yet again what was a plain invitation to regale them with a story. But then he saw something in Wayne’s face, or perhaps behind the man’s face, which stirred him and he began talking.

  ten

  ‘I was on patrol with my platoon in the bush late one afternoon,’ Tom began, while the others huddled around the campfire, eager to hear him tell his story at last. ‘We hadn’t seen enemy fire for weeks and we were getting pretty complacent, not paying attention to detail. It happens like that. Another hour or two and we would be back safe in camp. You get lulled into forgetting you’re in the middle of a war. The line of us became very spread out, too far apart. I was with a mate of mine named Gavin. Suddenly, there was gunfire off in the distance where most of the platoon must have been, but when we tried to make our way there, we came under fire ourselves. There were a couple of Viet Cong soldiers cutting us off. We tried to circle round, but they knew the paths through the mulga and of course we were just blundering along, following whatever tracks we found and scared out of our skulls that we’d spring a mine.

  ‘It was growing dark. There was no sign of the rest of our mates, not even any gunfire to give us an indication of which way to go. Once the sun was gone, we lost all sense of direction. Being frightened didn’t help.

  ‘Gavin and I stayed still for a long time, hiding, hoping that the VC would guess we had slipped away. The undergrowth was so thick we imagined ourselves invisible. Besides, the slightest movement nearby would alert us, giving us a chance to shoot first, at some kind of target at least. After all, we thought, they can’t see or feel their way around in the pitch black any more than we can.

  ‘We were wrong. There was an almighty bang and I was thrown backwards like a rag doll. They’d taken a careful aim but the bullet must have struck my rifle and glanced away. I’m certain that if my rifle hadn’t been there, I would have been blown in two. My first reaction was to retrieve my weapon, but there was a movement close by and Gavin hissed at me to get clear of the area. I scampered away on my belly, like a lizard, assuming that Gavin was right behind me, but when I stopped … nothing. I could hardly call out to guide him towards me. I was completely alone and defenceless. There is no more petrifying sensation. Not in my experience, anyway.’

  Tom paused, reliving his terror. ‘What should I do? If I continued to crawl away I risked attracting enemy fire. If I stayed still and they were brave enough to continue searching in the darkness, eventually they’d discover me. Did they know I had lost my rifle? How many of them were there?

  ‘I simply had to avoid them: I could only come off second best if there was contact. And second best meant death. Hiding seemed the best way to avoid them and that’s what I did. At times I knew, sometimes through sound, sometimes through instinct, that they were near, perhaps stalking Gavin. I swear that desperate terror stopped me from breathing for minutes at a time.

  ‘I figured that if I could stay alive till after dawn, our own people would be out searching and this might scare them away. Maybe it was a false hope — but what choice did I have. But at first light, I suddenly realised that before it could save me it would give me away. The undergrowth had hidden me in darkness, but now …

  ‘Inevitably they spotted me, though from a distance. A round was fired off, like the formal start of a race’ — here Tom gave a brief, humourless laugh — ‘and I took off, running low, weaving from side to side on the narrow track. At any moment I expected to meet an ambush or step on a land mine. When I looked back I caught a glimpse of two men in the black pyjama suit that all the peasants wear.

  ‘You sometimes hear people talk about what the human body can do when it’s driven by fear or desperation. Rubbish. All rubbish. I hadn’t eaten nor taken a drink of water since twelve the previous day and the nerve-racking game of cat and mouse through the night had drained away my energy. In minutes they would be in a position to pick me off. They were going to kill me sure as that damned sun was coming up. The frustration and hopelessness of it came tumbling in on me. I started to bawl out loud as I ran, forcing another few strides.

  ‘A shot whizzed above my head and I looked over my shoulder to see one of my executioners standing alone on the track, carefully lining me up for another go. I thought he must have out-distanced his partner, who was nowhere to be seen, but this hardly mattered. One of them was enough. I’ll never forget that next shot. It made the loudest noise I’ve ever heard. Oh, I’d been in fire fights before with bullets winging around my head, but that was in a general melee, machine guns spitting out a random sweep of death at no one in particular. This was my own personal show. Suddenly, I wasn’t terrified any more, just ferociously angry. It was as though all the anger I might have felt in a longer lifetime was being concentrated into my final moments, now that my life was to be cut short.

  ‘That second shot missed’ (at this point there was a collective sigh of relief from the listeners around the camp fire) ‘and the black figure decided to come closer to make sure the next time. He was small and the heavy rifle was difficult for him to steady. I forced my body along the track, but there was really no chance to move out of his sight, to put any kind of hesitation in his mind. This fact made me more annoyed than ever: not a single glimmer of hope was now left to me. So — I suddenly turned and hurtled back along the track towards him.

  ‘He was startled, but he drew the rifle to his shoulder. I sidestepped a couple of times like a footballer and though I didn’t realise it until afterwards, I was yelling foul language at him from somewhere down in my guts.

  ‘The surprise and confusion gave me just enough time — he still hadn’t fired by the time I was close enough to dive. I launched myself horizontal and just as I crashed into his hips there was a thunderous explosion. I hardly knew whether I’d been hit or not, but it didn’t matter. My fury was finding release and I rose up over his body, knees pinning him to the ground, my fist raised to hammer at him — when I realised that beneath me was a sea of blood. The little bloke had been opened up by a bullet. I thought his rifle must somehow
have backfired as I tackled him, and I stood up. The last of the air was bubbling out of him and already his eyes had that glassy look that only the dead wear. He was gone, no doubt about it. So there I was, fist raised, staring down at a corpse.

  ‘That was when I heard the terrible cry from the slope above the track. The second bloke, the older one, called out from the trees, clearly visible. I began to understand. He’d taken a parallel track on higher ground to intercept any desperate charge into the bush that I might try. He’d seen me turn — he probably had me in his sights, about to shoot, when I rampaged back at his mate. He’d followed my run, panning his rifle steadily, waiting for the moment. Unfortunately, he’d left it too late and my desperate dive had spoiled his aim just as he pulled the trigger. Instead of shooting me, he’d killed the little VC.’

  Tom paused again, staring into the embers of the fire. ‘I was exhausted, couldn’t run any more. I was still ferociously angry, irrational, ready to lash out at anything, anyone. I was sure the second VC would simply take aim a second time and shoot me where I stood, but instead, he started to push his way through the undergrowth towards me, all the time bellowing out in anguish. The dead VC’s gun lay on the ground, so I picked it up. I needed a weapon in my hands after all those hours of vulnerability. I think I almost expected it to have some magic power to turn back bullets. I saw it was ready to fire.

  ‘The VC kept coming through the bush, thrashing at everything in his path, wailing all the time. Bloody ridiculous, I thought. I could only think in terms of killing. Surely he’d stop to steady himself and pick me off. But then he emerged onto the track less than thirty metres away and began this slow reluctant walk, his face all contorted, weeping as if he’d never stop. The rifle was already tucked into my shoulder and I lined him up in the sights. What a circus. It dawned on me that though he still carried his weapon it was trailing uselessly, the barrel in his hand. He completely ignored me, just stared down at the small blood-stained VC at my feet, coming on slowly along the track.

  ‘In all my life I’ll never know anything so bizarre.’ ‘What was going on?’ demanded an eager voice. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Any other time I might have guessed. But now I was too full of hatred and the fear of death. Concentration too intense. Stop to think and you become disoriented, and that’s the fast track to the grave for a soldier.’

  ‘But why … ’

  Tom put his hand up to show he would explain. ‘The VC dragging his gun and bawling his heart out was the other guy’s father, and he’d shot him. He’d killed his own son. That was all he cared about.’

  ‘And?’ prompted Jacko.

  ‘You have to understand that none of this occurred to me at the time. It was all pieced together later. That moment, standing on the bush track, he was just another VC in my sights, and I was mad. Mad enough to kill.’ Tom held his hands open in a gesture of futility. He remained silent. The story was over.

  ‘You shot him.’ Wayne made the statement.

  ‘He was an enemy soldier who had just tried to kill me, who carried a gun in his hand. It wasn’t until later I knew he was a frantic father distraught at killing his own son. I shot him, yes, through the heart. God knows, it was already broken.’

  A long silence fell over the group. It suddenly felt cold. In Luke’s eyes, every man there seemed to have become smaller, huddled in his blanket or sleeping bag around the fire, under the enormity of the starry sky. The exception was Tom himself; he still sat with his back straight, looking from man to man without shame. Not one of them returned his gaze. Luke recalled his father’s claims of a few minutes before, about shooting at a human target, about testing his bravery in the heat of battle. Then he saw again his father snagged beneath the fence as the boar rampaged towards him, heard again his father’s pitiful cries before the timely rescue. It all seemed rather ridiculous now, quite childish. A cold hard stone was setting in the pit of Luke’s stomach. He knew it was made of loathing and disgust and shame, but he was unsure where to direct these emotions. He was confused and uneasy, unsure of what he felt and thought.

  Suddenly he felt incredibly tired, not just in his arms and legs, but in every part of his body. Without another word, he shuffled away to the tent and slept.

  eleven

  When Luke awoke on Thursday morning, Tom was gone and the men were getting ready for another day in the truck. Luke had lost all interest in the hunt; the prospect of many hours being buffeted about in the back of the four wheel drive held no appeal. He told his father so.

  ‘Suit yourself whether you go or stay,’ said Wayne offhandedly. ‘If you want to wimp out, that’s up to you, but you’ll be bored here by yourself.’

  Luke just shrugged his shoulders. Being alone would be the best thing for him now. So after breakfast, the vehicle pulled away with Luke waving it off. He explored the region close by the camp but lacked the confidence to roam more widely, in case he became lost, so he pulled his sleeping bag into the shade and slept until the men returned.

  It had been a thoroughly fruitless morning, and in a fit of frustration and annoyance, Wayne suddenly announced that he would take Luke and head for home. He’d missed four days work already; if they left now, he said, he could be home in time to catch a little sleep and report for work next day

  This decision cast an air of depression over the whole group; before long, Jacko and the others had convinced themselves it was a good idea to head home as well. There was none of the usual friendly banter between the men as they broke camp, each man attending to his own possessions and silently dividing the hundred small tasks in preparation for the long journey. Within an hour of their return from the morning’s hunt, Wayne’s panel van and the four wheel drive, its fibreglass cover now returned to its place over the tray, drove away from the camp site towards the homestead, and beyond it to the main road, at the end of which lay the city and home.

  Luke arrived home from the hunting trip in the early hours of Friday morning and slept the night at his grandparents’ house. Wayne didn’t stay. He didn’t even come inside, simply let Luke in with the key, dumped his son’s gear and sped off.

  Later in the morning, while Luke was still in bed, Belinda phoned to say that Alison would be discharged from hospital in an hour or two. Luke was to take the train home.

  Luke had already reached home when Belinda brought Alison back in a taxi. She was still weak after her ordeal, with her arm heavily bandaged and immobilised in a sling. This made her appear frail and vulnerable in a way Luke had never expected to see his mother. He thought of her as a strong woman, never beaten. Exhausted, Alison went straight to bed and was soon asleep, leaving Luke to handle his aunt who made no secret of her displeasure with him.

  ‘Where have you been, Luke? You haven’t been up to see your mother once in five days.’

  ‘I’ve been at my other grandparents, Belinda, you know that. It’s a long way to go to the hospital from out there.’ But Luke knew it was a lame excuse.

  So did Aunt Belinda. ‘On the electric train it’s nothing. You made it home quick smart. I’d have thought a boy as big as you would make the effort to see his sick mother after all she’s been through, specially after the way you deserted her, the day it happened.’

  Luke felt awful, as though his aunt had slapped his face. Tears welled up behind his eyes.

  ‘Luckily, you’ve got your chance to make amends. Your mother’s going to take at least a week to get back on her feet, and she’ll need looking after in the meantime. I can’t stay here twenty-four hours a day. Got a job of my own and Sally is on day shift at the moment. So you will have to stay here with your Mum. You’re still suspended from school, so that shouldn’t be a problem.’ And Belinda went on to outline exactly what she expected of Luke.

  His aunt was right. This was his chance to redeem himself, and he listened intently as she told him how he must cook and clean, make the beds and tidy away, wash the clothes and tend to the patient’s needs. Then she sent him off to the com
er shop to fetch a few things while she cooked and cleaned, made the beds and tidied away, washed the clothes and tended to the patient’s every need. When Luke returned, the chores were completed and Belinda was preparing to leave.

  ‘I’m off to work, Luke. It’s up to you now. Your Mum will be okay. They wouldn’t have let her out of hospital otherwise. She just needs rest. Show her you care for her. I’ll ring tomorrow to see how things are going — Oh, by the way, while you were out at the shop, a boy named CP or something brought your bike around. I told him to leave it under the house. I doubt you’ll be needing it much.’

  ‘Thanks, Aunt Belinda,’ said Luke politely.

  She was gone at last, leaving Luke in a very quiet house that felt strange to him, as though he had never lived here before, but had just moved in.

  Alison awoke just after noon and called him to join her in the bedroom. Her eyes showed the many hours of sleep and her stooped shoulders told of her weakness, but she smiled at him and asked for a glass of water to wash down her tablets.

  ‘How’s your arm now?’ Luke asked as his mother settled back against the pillows.

  ‘Fine, thanks. The doctors say there’s no permanent damage. The danger of infection has gone completely. That’s why they’ve let me come home.’

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get up to see you. It was so far from Grandma’s — ’

  Before he could finish, Alison put up her good hand to halt his words. ‘It’s all right, Luke. You don’t have to explain. You must have been having a good time.’

  Her words were like a frozen hand reaching inside him, grasping his heart and stomach. What was she hinting at? Did she know he had been out west with Wayne? His father’s warning had been tumbling about inside his head since the day before: If your mother finds out you’ve been hunting with me, she’ll apply to have my access cut off. You’d better be careful what you say to her.