by Barry Heard
Boom … boom … boom.
Then, thank Christ, the artillery, our artillery: that wonderful, reliable, dependable accurate artillery. You fuck’n bewdy! They got it right, first time. That’s skill. The shooting eased slightly, but mayhem still prevailed. I tried to move to my right, and again a pain shot up my shoulder. I thought it was a piece of a grenade.
The artillery team was doing a top job; with fine-tuning by the gunners, eventually the small arms fire died down. But it still wasn’t safe to move. After a brief wait, I checked my watch to see that, unbelievably, over an hour had passed. Time seemed to be warped. There were scenes that were vivid and clear that lasted ages, and then a gap of ‘I don’t know what ...’
Bugger it. It was time to get up quickly and see what I could do. My God, wherever I went were wounded or killed. I couldn’t comprehend the number, there were so many. Shit, there were blokes I knew. It was terrible. I found one poor sod with what looked like a shocking wound. He was white with shock and fear. Quickly, the medic had determined he would be OK and told him so. We tore the field dressing off the butt of the soldier’s rifle, and quickly used it to plug his surging purple blood. The calm medic, in a brief conversation, told me at what stage he should be dusted out. Further along I saw Stretch. He was gone … oh shit! Not Stretch … no … then two good mates … wounded … one badly.
Any conversation was quick, practical, and supportive. Then, sitting, leaning up against a tree, was another bloke. He was alone, with sweat dripping off the end of his nose, and he was in a lot of pain.
‘Turd, I’m not good, mate.’
I knelt down. his shirt was open, and there was a small puncture hole where the bullet had entered.
‘Show me ya shoulder. Shit … bugger it … you’ll be right,’ I gabbled. ‘Looks OK to me. We’ll get you when the dust-offs coming in, but wait ya bloody turn, OK? And keep ya fuck’n head down.’ He gave me a look that stopped any conversation. Then he added, just to be sure, ‘I’m going, mate.’
He was dead when I returned later. My words were probably the last ones he ever heard. I believe that, fleetingly, I felt guilt set in, but I’m not sure. Maybe even at that time I did ask myself whether I should have spent more time with him, or called for a medic. I genuinely thought he would be OK. If only he had been choppered out earlier …
In later years, those questions would haunt me, even though there was nothing more that could have been done.
There were too many wounded; I think at least a dozen or more. Already I had seen four dead bodies. Three of them were blokes I’d known for almost a year, but there was no time for that. I again asked the medic what order the wounded should go out in. Who would want to be a medic? The bastards are so cool.
The first dust-off chopper came in … we were still under some enemy fire. The winch man was shot and the chopper damaged.
Poor bloody medics: with all the pressure, their first evacuation was stuffed up. One approached me, and we had another urgent, clipped conversation: ‘Stuff me drunk, Turd. We gotta get these blokes out.’
Then he headed back into the area of the contact. Still in great danger, in seconds the medics assessed the situation and relayed vital information about it to others. The wounded were being ferried to a landing zone. At last, some order. The company was gaining the upper hand, turning total chaotic madness into an organised, fortified position capable of handling dust-off helicopters. Some soldiers shouldered weapons and carried wounded mates … their faces were solemn, drawn, and tired. Suddenly everyone looked old, haggard, aged beyond their years … but we were only kids.
As the wounded were marshalled to the LZ then organised to be flown out, a soldier walked past me, barely able to move because of the severity of his wounds. His back was a shattered mess of mud, blood, and pulped flesh. I recognised him, and we nodded. A year earlier, in training camp in Canungra, he’d been called a useless dickhead and ridiculed by an instructor for incompetence … told he’d never make it.
‘Shit, are you OK?’ I gasped, shocked.
He couldn’t answer. Later, it was acknowledged that he must have been in appalling pain. It was a miracle he was able to walk at all, but he would have worked out that we were undermanned, and hardly coping with the wounded. So he kept silent, as silent as he’d been that day hanging onto that ladder at Canungra River.
Moving to my left for the first time, I found Jock. Shit, was he a mess. Half of him seemed to be missing. He had bones, mud, guts, and blood splattered all over his body. My first thought as I looked at him was that he was a goner. I was off a farm. I’d seen lambs attacked by crows and foxes, then die from the severity of their wounds. That was my claim to medical knowledge. Jock looked like he’d been attacked with a chainsaw. A rocket had hit him, striking one side of his face and tearing off a proportion of his left side. His left leg was twisted at a strange angle. He was very badly wounded. I wiped his face.
‘Am I bad, mate?’ he asked in his funny Scottish accent.
‘Nah, just a bloody flesh wound. She’ll be right.’
A lie. I couldn’t look him in the face. That didn’t really matter, though. He couldn’t see, as there was so much blood in his eye socket. It was terrible moving his mangled body. I laid out my hoochie beside him, and we gently pulled him across. We wrapped him in it like a Mintie, then lifted him and headed for the evacuation zone.
‘Who’s got me?’
We both answered.
‘I owe you a beer when you get in,’ he said.
Then he was quiet, never complaining as we carried him to the chopper pad.
At last, things were moving in our favour, and wounded men were being choppered out regularly. There was a quiet numbness and blank stares wherever I went. Blokes only asked questions about their mates. I found it difficult to answer most of the time.
Then the final task; it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to help bring the dead blokes to a collection point. Stretch, who I’d gotten to know on the advance party before 7RAR arrived, was gone. We placed his tired, old, tall body carefully with his mates. At the beginning of our tour, totally pissed one night, we had briefly shared our fears and confidences about arriving in the country early. He was a good man, a popular bloke, and a respected leader. Sadly, his best mate was dead also.
It was time to collect our thoughts, but I felt blank. It was all too much, and there was too much to do. We had to tidy up the details of the dead and wounded. It was three hours since that first shot. Slowly, the reality started to settle in. We’d been decimated.
It didn’t bear thinking about where we would have been if not for the artillery firing their shells with such accuracy. One thing the VC didn’t have was artillery. Yes, we had artillery, jets, tanks, B52s, etc. The VC had only themselves — but still they beat us …
It was over. I stood there, stunned, noticing that it was getting dark. It was decided we would only move a short distance before we bedded down. I took off my shirt; it was covered in blood and mud. Someone told me there was a very full leech hanging off my chin. I probed my left shoulder with my finger, and found a bamboo thorn the size of a cigarette butt, lodged in there when I’d been running at the start of the contact, hours before. I thought a bullet had nicked my shoulder. Bamboo, like blackberries, is sharp and unforgiving. Then, finally, I noticed that my pants, like my shirt, were in shreds.
I checked my pockets. My precious letter was gone. The codes, which had been in my left trouser pocket, were lost somewhere in the mud. I believe this was a first.
Well done, that man.
Now the major effort of changing codes throughout the entire networks would have to begin, thanks to my stuff-up.
It was pouring with rain as the names of our soldiers killed and wounded in action were radioed back to base headquarters. Somehow, both Kards and I remained calm and precise, pushing our emotions down deep somewhere. We read out the list of familiar names to BHQ while a silent, stunned group of weary old men stood by. Tha
t was hard. Perhaps it was like telling members of your family about a devastating tragedy.
Then total darkness fell. Nothing was said. What could be said?
Over twenty men had been choppered out. There were too many. I couldn’t get my head around that number. I squatted in the rain all night. Perhaps my excuse was that my hoochie had gone out, wrapped around poor Jock. No matter; there was no way I could sleep.
Next morning, there were no tears, no overwhelming sadness, just blankness.
Vaguely, I recall a brief burst of anger: fuck the handset. Then, looking at the still warm jungle, somehow it didn’t seem right to me to die there in the mud, alone, scared and waiting, away from family and friends. It was a filthy, muddy part of the jungle, just like any other place out there in that shithole. Probably a dozen other crazy thoughts jostled around in my brain. Already I wondered why I had survived and why others had died. (Looking back at what I have just written, I still can’t say the names. Even after 35 years. Yes, the name Stretch is invented, but the incident itself and my comments about that fine man are true. Those who knew him would guess his real name.)
There was no doubt we’d struck a sizeable force, one that didn’t seem content to use the hit-and-run tactics we’d experienced previously in the tour. Up until then, the VC had a knack of disappearing with mysterious skill, unless they’d been wounded and we’d used the tracker dogs. They had been a difficult enemy to detect. Now, maybe, it was payback time. Until that day, our company had been very ‘successful’ in Vietnam. We’d been in front with kills. We were good; the best. Perhaps if I’d gone home before August the sixth I would have assumed the role of hero, and basked in the glory like a footballer that gets cheered by his supporters after shirt-fronting and seriously injuring the opposition’s best player.
Suddenly, all the talk about being invincible, brave, dedicated, even serving with honour or laying down our lives for our country, was shattered. Maybe a lot of things were shattered.
The contact on August the sixth was a turning point in my life. After that event, it was no longer possible to go back to the life I would have had if my number had not been drawn in that barrel.
It is possible the changes had been happening gradually since the exercises at Barrawinga in Queensland the year before. During that time, we had walked for months; there were no free weekends, no chat around a campfire at night. Social contact, apart from the army, was zero. The army became my world. My mates were my family. It made me physically fit and emotionally blunt — the skills required of soldiers in war.
In Vietnam, drinking was the only means of escaping from the reality of what we saw and what we did. Emotional numbness allowed us to face the jungle again and again — to accept, without question, that life in Vietnam was divided into several simple blunt realities or moments. I believe I lived day to day. It changed during that major contact to hour to hour, down to second by second, then down to moments. Was that frightening scene of Connors Hill an attempt to let me return home, for just a moment? I still find it very chilling.
Perhaps this is why people who haven’t experienced war find it hard to comprehend a veteran’s behaviour upon returning to his country. Does this explain why so many became hermits or socially isolated, only able to mix with other veterans?
RETURN TO BASE CAMP
IT WAS STRANGE, but I wasn’t looking forward to my return to base. I knew before I got to my tent what would happen. Like in the jungle, I was the source for information. But this time I was unwilling, withdrawn, and would do all I could to avoid talking to the blokes. Even Knackers — what would I say to him? He hadn’t come out this time.
Finally, in my tent, the inevitable happened. I tried to read my precious mail whilst being inundated with urgent questions from the blokes who hadn’t gone out with us.
‘What happened to Snoz?’
‘Where’s Loppy?’
‘Shit, poor …’ ‘What happened, Turd? … you look like shit.’
‘Is it true what we … Jesus, mate?’
‘Bummer, mate … you OK?’
The words needed to answer those questions just wouldn’t come out. The answers were too hard anyway. They were in my face, and I couldn’t handle that. I needed a beer, badly. I needed some close company. I couldn’t find Knackers. I had to see him. Why hadn’t the bastard met me at the airstrip? The bloody Sallyman had, instead, with his cup of coffee and a smile.
There were too many pricks in my tent asking questions, begging for explanations. I knew it was the only way they could find out, but I was getting angry.
The army didn’t give debriefs, detail the severity of wounds, tell us where the blokes had been sent, or the rating of their injuries — like serious … stable … out of danger … just a nick. In time (weeks, in fact), the army provided some answers. It was bloody terrible waiting.
Blokes wanted to know what had happened. Not to hear gory details, just what had happened. Hell, were they kidding? I wanted a few of my own questions answered.
‘Where’s Knackers? Is he back yet?’ I asked. As mentioned, Knackers had missed this op. He’d been on R&R for five days in Bangkok, and had been very excited when he left. He should have been back by now.
Several blokes started talking at once. Then Garbs took over.
‘Knackers is OK. The bastard walked into the company lines on the sixth of August, waving a pair of tiger-skin knickers. A scalp, no doubt.’
Before I could cut in, Garbs added: ‘Would you believe, no sooner had he stepped off the Caribou from Saigon and got to the company lines than he heard your voice on the radio, Turd.’
He paused. ‘Poor bastard, he freaked out, went bonkers, and tried to get his machine gun and get on a chopper at the strip and fly out to you blokes. He then got really angry and was pissed right off that you blokes talk in that stupid frig’n code! He went to the boozer and got plastered. He’s OK now, probably sleeping off a giant hangover.’
‘All I know is he hasn’t been out of his tent for two days, poor bastard,’ said someone else.
I turned my back on these sad men wanting difficult answers, and fell onto my bed. Then, bluntly, I told everyone: ‘Look piss off, would ya, fellas? I’m rooted.’
As soon as they left, I grabbed my mail, maybe as a distraction. I wondered what I’d say to Knackers when I saw him. He’d want answers, too. I was no good at this stuff. Suddenly, there was someone at the tent flap … bastard.
‘You’re wanted at the command post,’ he said.
‘Pig’s arse. I’m bloody well staying here.’
‘No bullshit, Turd. It’s the boss.’
‘Give us a break, mate. I’ve just got in. Stuff ‘em. I’m gunna finish my mail.’
Mail. Thank God I had mail. I read my important letters. It was strange, almost eerie; that news was from another world. For a fleeting moment I felt sad, briefly homesick perhaps. I didn’t open the others or the parcels. A little later, at the command post, I got the news.
‘You’re off to Hong Kong on R&R. The plane leaves at 1400 hours. Do you need money?’
Initially I was comforted. Anything to get away from the base, away from those poor bastards simply wanting the truth. Numbly I showered, packed, changed into summer uniform, and quickly walked down to the airstrip, clutching a piece of paper saying I was on official leave for five days. I was on my own. In my self-absorbed tunnel vision I had forgotten about Knackers and others who were close mates. Maybe I was in some sort of shock.
I didn’t tell anyone I was going to Hong Kong. It was weird, me being told I was going on R&R. It had nothing to do with the contact; it just happened to be my turn. The rest of the blokes would be left in base, briefly, then would probably go out again before I got back.
Within two hours of receiving the news, I was on a Caribou aircraft headed for Saigon. Wearing a neat, clean summer uniform, being clean-shaven, and carrying nothing on my back was peculiar. It was the first time I had worn undies since the 5RAR blokes left in
April, and this was August. I boarded a civilian plane. It was only a short flight to Hong Kong. The Yank sitting beside me in the plane was immaculate with his medals and patches. Like so many Americans we met, he was warm and polite, and tried to strike up a conversation. I ignored him, and turned and looked out the window. I could see the ocean getting closer and closer until, with a screech, the aircraft’s wheels contacted the tarmac.
In busy Hong Kong, we were ushered to a meeting room, full of service members, mostly Americans, although I think I noticed an Aussie. A serious-looking Yank, with one of those chins that separates them from any other nationality on earth, drawled some rules and eventually got to an interesting bit.
‘These hotels are free; don’t wear uniform. Questions?’ There were some stirrings. He went on.
‘If you want something a bit more up-market, stay behind, but remember you will have to pay the difference.’ More stirrings. We were getting impatient.
‘Guys, I know a lotta you are here because we have the lowest VD rate, but take care, y’hear? Wear a rubber, OK?’
The room emptied in seconds. I stayed behind. The only other Aussie on the flight introduced himself.
‘Blackie, mate. You a Pig?’ (The mascot for our battalion was a pig.)
I nodded. He had recognised the purple lanyard hanging from my shoulder: 7RAR, the Pig Battalion.
‘What company?’
‘Turd, A Company …’
‘Jesus, mate … shit, ya poor prick. Fuck me, were you out there …?
I nodded.
‘You must’a just got back in …’ He trailed off. ‘Did ya know …?’ My blank, bewildered look stopped any further questions. Blackie was attached to D Company; his mob had been deployed to a blocking position during and after our contact with the enemy on August the sixth. I was grateful he asked no more questions. The Yanks left in a bus — a happy, loud bunch. Blackie and I were alone with this immaculate Yank who looked like he should have been in Hollywood.
