Well Done, Those Men

by Barry Heard

  Quickly, I was summing up this bloke Blackie. He seemed OK. I needed a drinking mate, and he didn’t ask too many questions. I made a decision. ‘I’d like something really flash, don’t care about the frigging money. Want’a share, mate?’ I said to Blackie.

  ‘Sounds good, count me in.’ He turned to the Yank weighed down with decorations. ‘What ya got, mate?’

  The officer considered, flicking through a booklet of available accommodation. ‘The President is the best, $25 a night, shared.’

  ‘Do they sell Aussie piss, mate?’ asked Blackie.

  ‘What’s that?’ drawled the Yank. We winked to each other.

  I booked a room for two, and made sure there was a fridge full with beer — it was bloody San Miguel.

  It was the best room at the President Hotel, up near the top. We hired a chauffeur-driven Chevrolet and our own personal valet for the next five days. The room was magnificent, with beautiful views of the island. We were both impressed. I told Blackie, ‘I want to be alone for an hour, OK?’

  ‘No worries.’

  He quickly got changed and left, clutching a foreign beer.

  ‘Meet me in the boozer, mate.’

  I opened my address book and picked up the phone.

  ‘Overseas, Australia please, operator.’

  My first call was to home. I hadn’t spoken to my mother for over eight months. There were no phones to ring home at Nui Dat. Mum answered the phone. There was no hello from me — just, ‘Been in a bit of a bloody stoush over here, Mum. I’m OK. We were bloody lucky to get out! Anyhow, I want you to ring B’s family, S’s mob, and K’s mum … and … just tell them they’re OK.’ I gave her the phone numbers, which she copied down.

  ‘You’ll read all about it in a few days,’ I said. ‘Most of it will be frig’n crap. See ya.’

  I hung up, and made five other phone calls. I was cold, clear, and precise on the phone, like I was on the radio in the jungle. The army had trained me well.

  Many years later, my father said that when mum came back into the lounge room she was in shock. She told him that I just swore.

  After the calls, I lay on the bed that seemed as big as a suburban lawn, staring at the ceiling and trying to comprehend the fact that I had been in base camp in Nui Dat only several hours before. Yet outside my hotel door, in the passage, the foyer, and the street people were clean, well dressed, and busy. There were so many images rushing around in my head. Here I was in Hong Kong, a shopping bonanza, a nightclub Mecca and one of the most popular tourists resorts in the world. But what I really wanted was a heavy drinking-session at the boozer with Knackers, Bones, Kards, and the blokes. I wanted to go back, not home, or to my girlfriend, but back to the bloody army. The sterile, flash hotel room felt foreign. I wasn’t happy being alone. I would have been happier back in my tent.

  Reality snapped back. There was a knock on the door. I jumped up and opened it a fraction, and looked either way quickly — the coast was clear. Nodding, I told the bloke to come in. He had a bottle of wine on a tray.

  ‘The hotel wishes you have a nice stay and hopes you have a drink, please.’

  ‘Is that Aussie grog?’ I demanded.

  He took a step back. I think my bleak appearance frightened him, or maybe he thought I was going to frisk him.

  ‘A very good day to you, sir, and may you long live.’

  The attendant backed out of the room quickly and I snibbed the door shut. Shortly after he left, I got up from the very comfortable chair, stripped, and went into the spacious bathroom. The shower was like a gentle massage. I closed my eyes and soaked in the warm water, the fragrantly scented soap, and the quiet. I dried myself down with a fluffy towel and got out my shaving gear. The mirror reflected an old, starkly bewildered 22-year-old boy. It frightened me. My eyes had dark rings around them, my cheeks were hollow, my teeth were yellow, and there was a permanent, deep furrow on my forehead.

  I didn’t want to stay in that big room any longer. Quickly, I got dressed and left. A young woman approached me. She had been standing near the lift when we arrived. I’d noticed her, but it hadn’t registered — the phone had been the only thing on my mind.

  ‘Like a good time, soldier?’

  Why not? I turned and went back to the room. When I finally got to the bar, Blackie was pissed and I had some catching up to do. We didn’t see many sights after all. There didn’t seem any point. The chauffeur offered to take us on a couple of drives, but the bar and the women had more appeal. Two Yanks, Steve and Danny, were great company. They asked no questions, and went out of their way to look out for us. They insisted we eat, and encouraged Blackie and me to go out, smell the fresh air, and do some shopping. So we devoted four hours to a shopping spree, bought as much as we could carry, a gift for every member of our families, and went broke saving money.

  On the third day, I had my decent first sleep. Just as well, as Blackie’s alcohol-induced snoring and farting was getting on my nerves. I think Steve put me to bed. Four hours later Blackie shook me awake. My left hook hit him in the ribs, and I apologised.

  ‘Get dressed, Turd, ya slack prick. I’ve got two birds, and we’re going to the Floating Restaurant.’

  It was our first official, organised outing. Well done, that man. The chauffeur was chuffed, and drove with dignity and muttered at all the other bad drivers in Hong Kong. He leapt out and opened the door when we arrived, and accepted our offer to join us at tea. He insisted we sit at a table where we could see his limousine.

  There were ten courses, the last being an orange, a delicacy in Hong Kong. The food was magnificent. Blackie and I gorged ourselves, reliving the habit we had gotten into in Vietnam. Prior to going out into the jungle, we had had a lion-like ability to eat volumes of food. I had never had Chinese food before, and it was succulent and rich. Bloated and drunk, we eventually returned to our luxury room. It was late. Blackie just beat me to the toilet. I grabbed the rubbish bin. We vomited for the next two hours.

  Suddenly, we had been in Hong Kong for five days. Back tomorrow. ‘I’d love to piss off,’ said Blackie.

  ‘Me too.’

  We didn’t mean it. We were looking forward to seeing the blokes.

  At the Hong Kong airport, we shook hands with the two Yanks, Steve and Danny. They were two bloody good blokes. At Nui Dat, I shook hands with Blackie. I never saw him again.

  Going to a place like Hong Kong straight after a major contact involving many deaths was crazy, but my turn for R&R had simply come up. I wasn’t sent because of what I’d been through in the jungle or because I had never had leave in Vietnam (apart from visiting Kards.) That was how it worked in the army. I had reached the top of the leave list. Mind you, that’s not to say that those left in base camp would have had a funeral service with a period of mourning, followed by much-needed counselling. Grieving and the like weren’t covered in the army-training manual. The norm was get drunk, watch blue movies, play crown and anchor in the boozer — then re-supply and get back out. I was always exhausted. The army, though, seemed content with this version of normality. Almost to a man, we were heavy drinkers. The VD rate in blokes returning from leave was high, but who cared? Any leave given was brief; hence, alcohol and sex were the priorities. So much for the innocent naive young man from Swifts Creek. My youth, which should have measured a decade, was already well behind me.

  Back in base camp after Hong Kong, there was little or no talk of August the sixth. Laughter was a rare and precious commodity now; there was little slagging, jokes, or humour. I caught up with some of the blokes. I found Knackers in his tent, pissed as a parrot. He wasn’t making a lot of sense, but his guilt at having been on leave whilst we were in a major contact was all he mumbled about. He wouldn’t look at me; instead, he just stared at the floor and cursed about going on leave. When he finally spoke some sense, it was like listening to an old man with a hundred years’ experience.

  ‘It’s gone, Baz. Everything we had is gone. Do you know that?’

&n
bsp; It scared me. First he called me ‘Baz’. No one called me that, although a couple of the blokes did when they were being choppered out on August the sixth …

  But it was what he said. I sort of understood, but I didn’t. Somehow, I think he knew what Vietnam would do to us. In time, I became aware, but that was many years later. Knackers had me worried. I tried to lighten up the atmosphere, and bragged with my army-learned wisdom about the non-stop drinking and sex on my recent leave. He wasn’t interested. After a period of silence, neither was I. Suddenly there was nothing to talk about. Somehow, we were different, and stuff like that seemed irrelevant. It was weird. He was drunk and making sense; I was sober for the first time in ages, but in my head I was lost. I was filled with a jumble of questions and doubts.

  Knackers continually told me he tried to get out to us on August the sixth.

  ‘What bloody good would that have done, you dopey prick?’

  But it was important to him. I left his tent, and went for a meal. He had changed. So had I. We still saw each other occasionally, but our youthful bravado or something like it had gone.

  Base camp was strange. New blokes were everywhere; they were like a bunch of 16-year-olds from Swifts Creek on their first visit to the big city. When they ate in the mess, all heads stayed down. We were becoming hardened, not much more than clones of the 5RAR blokes I’d met when I’d first arrived in Vietnam with the advance party. I never would have thought that this would happen. We made no real effort to welcome new faces, or to offer them any advice. To me, they looked like a bunch of kids too young to drink beer. They looked at us warily, and I couldn’t blame them, the poor bastards. They slept in beds that had once held mates, and they sat in mates’ places at the mess, in the boozer … that wasn’t right.

  The first night back after my time in Hong Kong I left the boozer early. I needed to find and read my mail, my precious connection with my other life. It was like going to a good movie. I could become almost totally absorbed with home and the people I loved. Returning to my tent, fairly sober for the first time since I’d been in Hong Kong, I found an intriguingly large and heavy parcel on the floor. It was from a primary school in Melbourne. It was dated 6 August 1967. Inside was an enormous fruitcake, with a note.

  ‘Dear Barry,’ it said, ‘we hope you enjoy this cake and that it arrives in good condition. Kindest regards from the Grade 5. Yours sincerely, M. Smith, S.S. 888, Camberwell. 3124. 6th Aug, ‘67’

  Inside the parcel were numerous letters and photographs. A covering letter read: ‘This is our pleasant surprise for you; we hope you and the boys in your tent enjoy the home cooking.’ All the kids in the class signed it.

  The blokes gathered in my tent made short work of the cake. The letters were wonderful, so innocent and funny.

  —Had we killed many Japanese?

  —Were the elephants dangerous?

  —Did I see any real big snakes?

  The photos were even more fun. I recall one in particular, a photo of someone’s backyard. On the back was written: ‘This is a photo of my cat.’

  It took us ages to find the cat. We decided it must have been the small black dot on top of the fence way down the back of the photo.

  I cherished my precious letters. They allowed me to venture off into another place that was almost a fantasyland by now — the high country. The people kind enough to write to me at the time probably didn’t realise what an important part of my remaining sane their mail had become. After eating the huge cake and enjoying the school kids’ efforts, the blokes just sat on the floor or beds. Some blokes waited for me to finish reading a letter so they could borrow it and read about Australia, about home. Yes, any home, anywhere, just a home — but particularly country homes like the ones I came from. Names like Ensay, Omeo, and Benambra became well known. Maybe it was the innocence or the old ways of both the community and the area. Tom Cook, now well known to the blokes, had such an honest way of reflecting it. I recall, on many occasions, they would say things awkwardly like, ‘I’d like to visit your area, Turd. It sounds good, and meet Tom … Say hi to Tom for me when you write.’

  Finally: ‘Tell us about Cossie, Turd. Tell us about old Jack … Cossie’s pub sounds like a bloody classic!’

  I told them the yarns, all those eager young old men in my tent, wanting to hear anything that could distract them from the war.

  Two of Tom’s letters brought sad news about two men, both cherished locals. The first was about Jack Campbell of Ensay. Old Jack wasn’t travelling too well. He’d been real crook, according to Tom. Old Jack had a farm just across the road from where I had worked before the army, and he was a unique farmer in the district. His only good fence was the boundary — the rest lay at various angles and were rarely stock-proof. While this didn’t seem to worry the old fella, he was almost paranoid about the boundary. First, it was the strainer posts. They were huge, and it had always bewildered me how he had got them in the three-foot holes. Most would have been the diameter of truck tyre and were always made of grey box, one of the hardest timbers in Australia. The fence posts were also massive, again grey box, weighing about 150 lbs. At least six holes were drilled through each post with a brace and bit, and then an auger to allow the wires to pass through. They will still be there several hundred years from now.

  I liked old Jack for his humour. From the day I started work at Topbar, if old Jack spotted me in the paddock he would stop his old red David Brown tractor, climb through the fence, stroll up, and tell me a dirty yarn. Being a bit wet behind the ears at age sixteen, most of the jokes went straight over my head. Still, I would laugh heartily and wish that I could return a joke. There was a slight humorous distraction while old Jack spun yet another Dave and Mabel joke — he only had one eye. The missing eye was covered with a pirate patch that would flap up and down in the wind, revealing a hollow socket. Mostly, it would be up. Jack had lost his eye in the First World War, and reckoned now he was the most one-eyed football supporter in Ensay. He was great company; he continually whistled to himself, or was calling one of his dogs. He loved his dogs — he loved all animals. His best dog was Shep, a dog with a bad gouge on his nearside shoulder that left some snow-white bone protruding. It had been like that for years; Old Jack had done it himself, accidentally backing over Shep with the David Brown years before and breaking his shoulder. Back then, Shep might have been of some use. Now he was deaf, blind, and slow, and lived on the trailer behind the tractor. If he ever ventured off, it was hilarious watching old Jack trying to get his attention.

  ‘Here Shep, here Shep, here Shep … here Shep, here boy here, old fella! Here, Shep!’

  Shep never indicated that he had heard old Jack. Or, if he did detect some sound, he didn’t seem to give a bugger anyway. Fortunately, Shep was slow, and old Jack would wobble and limp after the dog and then carry him back to the trailer himself.

  Old Jack’s farming practices were simple: low maintenance and low stock numbers, governed with a ‘she’ll be right and it’ll keep to tomorrow’ attitude.

  He just liked being on the farm around the stock and his dogs. When I was called up and due to go into army, he spoke to me for the first and only time about his time in France.

  ‘It’ll change you forever, mate,’ he’d said. ‘It will be the two most important years in your life. You’ll make some good mates.’

  I wrote to old Jack’s family and shared my fond memories of the old bloke. He would have been good company when I finally returned home, but the old fella had passed away. Perhaps we could have talked about things that only a war experience allows you to talk about. I would have liked to hear Old Jack’s story.

  Tom’s second letter told of the passing of Cossie, who ran the Little River pub at Ensay. Both Cossie and the pub were the stuff that legends are made of. Cossie came into my life at a very young age, when I first started working at Topbar.

  Several parents approached me about helping the local Scout troop. It turned out to be a great experience and my in
duction into the larrikin goings-on at the pub. The kids in the troop were mainly farm youngsters, keen and a lot of fun. Years later, they told me that Scouts had been a highlight of their week. They learned how to swear, roll smokes, tie a few knots, and survive in the bush. After Scouts, we would all take the ten-minute walk down to the pub. Most of the dads would be in the bar having a noisy ale, and Cossie would have two jugs of lemon squash with glasses in the lounge ready for the kids, no charge. Big Pete the scoutmaster would order a pot of beer that he’d swallow down in one gulp, while Cossie poured me a generous mug of sarsaparilla.

  ‘You’re OK, son,’ he’d say when I went to pay.

  He would never let me have a beer, being below drinking age, but every Friday night I could drink my sarsaparilla with the men in the bar. Entertainment was hardly the appropriate word to describe the atmosphere and skullduggery there. At least once a night Carpy would stand on his head up against a wall and skull a glass of beer. Sometimes a dogfight on the veranda would interrupt this remarkable feat. The regular drinkers were mostly farmers who’d drive utes with at least two dogs in the back, rarely tied up. The fights started early in the night, and owners would lean out the window hurling abuse at the dogs and jibes at the other owners.

  ‘Is that skinny bastard good for anything?’

  ‘Not only is he useless, he’s almost as ugly as you, Chummins.’

  This didn’t worry Chummins; his dogs were unique. Later in the evening, they would have all been beaten up and there would be a champion, usually a young cocky dog on one of his first visits to the pub. Just as he started his strut of glory around the veranda, Chummins’ four or five dogs would band together and belt the crap out of the hero.

  The owners would rush out screaming, ‘Git in the frig’n ute, you pack’a bastards,’ their mutts receiving kicks in the guts whilst being rounded up.

  ‘Why don’t ya leave the mongrels at home?’ Cossie would complain to the farmers. ‘All they do is piss on the frig’n veranda posts and leave lumps of shit, skin, and hair everywhere!’