The Odd Angry Shot

by William Nagle

  ‘When do we go?’ asks Harry.

  ‘On the twelfth.’

  ‘What’s today?’ I ask.

  ‘Today is the…’ painful calculation, ‘today is the third,’ replies Rogers counting on his fingers.

  ‘Who’s going?’ I ask.

  ‘You, me, Harry and Bung Holey,’ he replies.

  ‘Vung Tau?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘I’ve got halfa already,’ says Harry thrusting his hips forward.

  THE mess line assembles for the umpteenth time. ‘Where’s your mate Harry?’ asks the cook with a sneer. ‘Recovering from a hangover, eh?’

  ‘No. You’ve finally poisoned him,’ replies Rogers from behind me.

  The plate fills as cookie spoons chicken, potatoes, sauerkraut and sweet corn. The water from the sweet corn spills onto my fingers. I lick them as I walk towards the mess tent.

  ‘Jesus, you don’t look too good, mate.’

  Clarkie, a member of fifteen patrol, is sitting looking at his food, his face showing pain.

  ‘What’s up mate?’ I enquire, looking at the drawn face beside me.

  ‘I think I’ve got something wrong with my guts,’ replies Clarkie.

  ‘Like what?’ I ask between mouthfuls of instant potato.

  ‘I noticed it about two weeks ago,’ says Clarkie. Jesus, he’s even got black circles under his eyes.

  ‘I went for a crap, and when I looked down I saw all these little white eggs in it.’

  ‘Do you mind if I finish my dinner before you start to speak of your bodily malfunctions,’ I sneer, adopting an offended air.

  ‘No, go on,’ says Rogers, looking morbidly interested.

  ‘Aw, Jesus,’ I say and move to the other end of the table, spooning potato all the while.

  ‘Well, as I said, I saw all these little white eggs in it and I’ve been getting worse ever since.’

  ‘Like how have you been getting worse?’ asks Rogers.

  ‘Well why in the Jesus don’t you go to the RAP or an MO or someone?’ I ask.

  ‘I did. They made me shit in a thing that looked like a soap container and they said they’d let me know the results.’

  ‘So what’s the result?’ asks Rogers.

  ‘Don’t know. I haven’t heard a thing from them and I can hardly eat and when I do it goes straight through me. S’cuse me, I’ve gotta go and have a crap,’ Clarkie makes for the door and disappears.

  Rogers looks at me as I move back up to the head of the table, and shrugs his shoulders.

  I shrug mine.

  ‘Wonder what’s for sweets?’ says Rogers.

  HARRY is sitting on the sandbags with a two-week-old copy of a Melbourne daily in his hands.

  Rogers is sitting on the side of his stretcher captivated by the series of figures on the piece of paper in his hands.

  ‘I should have exactly two thousand two hundred dollars when I get home.’

  ‘That’s if we don’t drink it for you first,’ says Harry looking up from his paper.

  I leaf through the Roneo copy of a sex book entitled She Devils about three nymphomaniac sisters and a sadistic nun.

  ‘What do you intend to do with your new found wealth when you return home?’ asks Harry from behind his paper.

  ‘Don’t know, might buy a sports car.’

  ‘Hard to screw in,’ says Harry.

  ‘S’pose so,’ replies Rogers thoughtfully. ‘Maybe I’ll buy a block of land.’

  ‘Knowing our luck, they’d probably put a road right through the middle of it and give you four bob compensation,’ says Harry scratching his chest.

  ‘They can’t do that can they?’

  ‘You’re too fucking right they can, mate,’ says Harry, putting the paper down on the sandbags beside him. ‘Got a smoke?’ The packet sails through the air once more.

  ‘What do you mean? Can they take your land off you even if you’ve been overseas?’ asks Rogers with a look of disbelief.

  ‘Look pal, don’t get any ideas that you’re anything special just because a few nogs have fired a few shots in your direction. They can do any bloody thing they like to you and you can scream your tits off and it won’t do you one ounce of bloody good.’

  ‘Aw, bullshit. I don’t believe that,’ says Rogers looking at me.

  ‘He’s right, mate, they can shoot you if they want to and there’s not a bloody thing you can do about it.’

  Harry lights another cigarette with the communal Zippo.

  ‘Listen pal, you had better start to believe that the greater majority of the wonderful people back home couldn’t give two stuffs if you lived or died. They’re sitting on their arses in front of the television set right now, and I’ll bet my balls that they are a damn sight more interested in Coronation Street than in your bloody welfare.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll buy the MG instead,’ Rogers mumbles, a look of disappointment spreading across his face.

  ‘Bet my balls the salesman takes you down.’

  Rogers throws his pen at Harry.

  ‘Bastards,’ says Rogers from his pillow.

  I FEEL behind me, my fingers searching for the top of the water bottle hanging from my belt. The morning sun is scorching.

  Harry is about six feet in front of me, bent double over his rifle. I can feel my feet itching. I haven’t taken my boots off for four days.

  An ant travels down the stock of my rifle. My eyes glance from the ant to the foliage around me. The ant stops as if unsure of himself. I blink, squeeze my eyelids shut, and the sweat stings my eyes. My clothes are saturated. My left hand finds the water bottle. It feels heavy as I weigh it with my fingers.

  Harry moves, then stops. I can hear them coming.

  I look behind me. Rogers is taking a grenade from his belt. I look at Harry again and fit the rifle into the joint of my shoulder and chest.

  Wait…wait until they are within about ten feet of us.

  Harry points towards me. The sweat is still running into my eyes. Blink. I am to initiate the ambush. I slide a spare magazine under my left hand. The pistol grip of my rifle is slippery with sweat. I notice the chips and scratches on the woodwork and turn the spare magazine around to avoid the sun catching the brass cartridges packed, sardine-like, inside.

  I feel as though I am about to break wind and contract my stomach muscles. I smile to myself as I think of the remarks if I did. Today’s lecture will be on how to initiate an ambush by farting…

  There they are, two of them. They stop. A straight line; eye, rearsight, foresight, head. The butt of the rifle nestles into my shoulder and my grubby finger curls around the gunmetal-blue trigger.

  Fuck him, he’s moved. No, stopped again. Another straight line. He’s turned his head to the side. Now.

  Eye, rearsight, foresight…profile…squeeze. BANG!

  The butt jerks back into my shoulder. I fire into him twice more. He falls, spinning around. His companion drops to the ground and fires a wild shot over my head.

  Harry’s first short burst missed him. He springs to his feet and I see the look of sheer terror on his face. Harry’s rifle drifts through the air and jerks as the hard nosed projectiles stitch the youth from shoulder to knee. Pieces of his equipment fly into the air as Harry hoses his body with another long burst.

  We wait, then, cat-like, we move forward towards the two corpses. Harry rolls mine over with the tip of his boot.

  ‘This one’s no worry,’ says Harry, now on his knees and searching the body for documents.

  The other one still twitches occasionally as if refusing to die. He will die, though. Harry’s shots have taken his right side and arm off.

  I look towards the signaller, now crouched beside Rogers.

  ‘Get the choppers in. Safe extraction.’

  We sit in the clearing, still peering into the foliage.

  The signaller is talking to the chopper pilot.

  ‘I see smoke, over.’

  ‘I see green, over.’

  ‘Green, cor
rect out.’

  ‘Wonder what it’d be like if they had air support?’

  Rogers says, as the chopper hangs in the air above us.

  ‘Thank the sweet Jesus they haven’t,’ replies Harry.

  ‘WHERE do we change our money?’ asks Harry of the service corps warrant officer with the huge beer paunch.

  ‘Where do we change money, sir?’ he replies.

  ‘Do beg my pardon,’ says Harry shuffling to what could only be termed as two per cent of the regulation position of attention. ‘Where do we change our money, SIR?’

  ‘That’s bloody better. You blokes think you can come down here and take the fucking place over, just because you’ve done a bit of time in the scrub. Well you fucking well can’t, and what’s more you can behave like bloody soldiers while you’re here. You understand that? It’s no fucking picnic down here you know.’

  ‘Yessir,’ I answer, trying not to laugh.

  ‘What unit are you from?’ he demands.

  We tell him.

  ‘Ah. You blokes think you’re all fucking supermen, bloody tin heroes.’

  ‘Ah get fucked,’ says Harry.

  That’s done it, I think. They were last seen spending their leave in the cells building behind sandbag walls.

  ‘What!’ screams fatguts in amazement, drawing himself up to his full five four.

  ‘I said get fucked, you great, beer-sodden bag of shit,’ screams Harry in reply, looming over him menacingly.

  ‘Right, smart arses, you’re all on a charge.’

  ‘Then you’d better make it murder, because I’m going to take your head right off, pal.’

  ‘I’m a senior NCO don’t forget,’ says fatguts, now not quite sure of himself or his prospects.

  ‘Hard luck,’ mutters Harry moving towards him like a snake after a mouse.

  ‘Right, ATTENTION!’ comes from behind us. The whole group, including fatguts, snaps to attention. It must be six months since I stood to attention that fast.

  From behind us appears the biggest and ugliest man I have ever seen. He wears the insignia of a lieutenant colonel on his epaulettes.

  ‘Were you about to strike this man?’ he asks quietly, not more than two inches from Harry’s face.

  What man? I think.

  ‘Ah, yessir,’ replies Harry, shuffling his feet.

  ‘And may I be so rude as to enquire why you were about to strike this man?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Well why, soldier?’

  Well sir,’ begins Harry, ‘we asked him where we could change our money…’ and begins to explain what happened.

  ‘You called these men what, sar-major?’

  ‘Tin heroes,’ interrupts Harry.

  ‘Shut up, you,’ snarls the colonel, still looking at fatguts. ‘You three behind me piss off out of here, NOW, and if I hear one report of misbehaviour concerning any one of you, I’ll have your balls mounted on my office wall, understood?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘And I would like a few words with you if you don’t mind sar-major. You three beat it.’

  ‘Yessir,’ we chorus again, and disappear down the steps of the villa.

  ‘Well, Harry my boy,’ I ask, ‘where do you propose to change our money now?’

  From above us we hear a voice: ‘You three.’ We look up, and I feel nothing but dismay as I recognise the face of the lieutenant colonel leaning over the balcony.

  ‘Yessir?’

  ‘You change your money at the post office on the beach. Follow the road out of town.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ mutters Rogers weakly.

  THE post office sits squat and silvery in the small hollow between the beach and the road to Vung Tau.

  ‘Gone to Lunch. Back at Two,’ Harry reads aloud, peering at the sign on the door.

  We sit on the concrete verandah and lean against the door.

  ‘What’s the time now?’

  ‘One fifty-five,’ I answered.

  ‘Five minutes. Not long,’ says Rogers.

  ‘Best count our dough and we’ll give it all in at once, eh?’ I offer.

  ‘Yeah, probably save time. That’s if this post office pooftah turns up on time.’

  ‘Think I’ll have a piss,’ observes Rogers, getting up and walking around to the side of the building.

  ‘Jesus, have a look at this.’

  ‘What?’ yells Harry.

  ‘Air conditioning. These bastards have got air conditioning. Well, I’ll be buggered.’ Rogers slumps down besides Harry again, muttering. ‘Air conditioning. Bloody air conditioning.’

  ‘Shit,’ says Harry, ‘must be a rough war down here, eh?’

  ‘I can hear the news flash now,’ says Rogers, ‘armed forces radio news, da-da. Vung Tau, today. Six post office workers at the Australian Logistics base at Vung Tau died from heat exhaustion when the air conditioning failed in the early hours of this morning. Two more were reported to be in a critical condition after hearing that the ice for the beer hadn’t arrived.’

  ‘You blokes want something?’ This remark from a weedy looking corporal with glasses breaks the spell.

  ‘Yeah mate,’ says Harry, getting to his feet, ‘is this where we change our money?’

  ‘You’ll have to go to the other end of the hut for that. And the rank’s corporal, not mate, soldier.’

  ‘Aw Jesus no,’ says Rogers, ‘not two in one day.’

  ‘The other end of the hut you say, eh corporal?’

  ‘That’s right, soldier.’

  ‘Thanks, corporal.’

  ‘Pimple-faced bastard,’ mutters Harry.

  We are almost around the corner when it happens again.

  ‘Hey soldier!’

  What bloody now? I think.

  ‘Where’s your web belt?’

  ‘Don’t own one, corporal,’ I answer.

  ‘Don’t you know that ROs state that web belts, black, will be worn when on leave in the Vung Tau area?’

  ‘No, corporal,’ I answer.

  ‘Well, I suggest that you acquaint yourself with routine orders quick smart. And get yourself a web belt.’

  ‘Can I have a word with you, corporal?’ asks Harry, walking back towards the weed.

  ‘Oh Jesus no,’ mutters Rogers with a dismayed look.

  Harry speaks quietly with the corporal for about thirty seconds, then he and the corporal come towards me. The corporal extends his hand.

  ‘Sorry mate, I didn’t know. Have a good leave.’

  ‘Er, thanks, er corporal,’ I stammer in amazement.

  ‘What the Christ did you say to him?’ I ask Harry, while we walk towards the other end of the hut.

  ‘I told him you were a nutcase and that the last time anyone gave you a hard time you tried to strangle him.’

  ‘You said I was a nutcase? You great prick!’

  ‘It got you out of the shit, didn’t it?’

  ‘I s’pose so,’ I answered with resignation.

  ‘Don’t hit me, oh please don’t hit me,’ says Rogers, backing away from me with tears of laughter in his eyes.

  ‘Jesus, out of all the bastards in the Task Force, how did I land you two?’ I grinned at both of them. They grinned back at me. Remember.

  WE stood outside the Washington Bar, just down from the market place, and the Flags—a huge sign board with the flags of all the participating nations in the war painted on it.

  Past us flow a continuous stream of Vietnamese, Americans and paunchy European civilians, all sweating, all smelling. A mother is wiping her child’s behind in the gutter across the street from us.

  ‘How’s that for an ad for Johnson’s Baby Powder?’ laughs Harry.

  ‘You want eat?’ A hand tugs at the leg of my trousers. I turn to see a toothless old crone hovering over a street cooker on which is frying the most inedible mess I’ve ever seen.

  ‘You want eat? You want eat, soldier?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t want to eat a soldier,’ snaps Rogers. ‘Now piss off, wi
ll ya.’

  ‘You want eat, soldier?’ she whines again, ignoring Rogers and looking now at Harry.

  ‘No! Piss off for Christ’s sake. We don’t want to eat, understand? No eat. PISS OFF.’

  The old crone bows her head and shuffles away under her load. We go back to weighing the merits of the bars arrayed in front of us. ‘Hey soldier.’ We turn around. ‘You get fuck, soldier,’ she yells, and at the same time achieves one of the most incredible feats I have ever seen. From twenty feet away she puckers her toothless mouth and spits straight into Harry’s right eye.

  ‘Good shot, madam,’ gurgles Rogers. I collapse onto the footpath shrieking with laughter.

  ‘You fucking bitch,’ screams Harry, ‘and you can shut up too,’ he says, looking at me. ‘You’ve got nothing to laugh about.’

  ‘Why?’ I grin, sitting up.

  ‘You just rolled in some dog shit,’ says Rogers slowly raising his eyes towards heaven.

  ‘Oh hell,’ I moan, wiping frantically at the brown smear on my trouser leg.

  And cousin Ming won the Concours d’Elegance.

  REMEMBER the day when—Harry and I sat in the bar with our knees resting against the table edge. Harry raises his hand.

  ‘Garcon,’ he says, waving his hand and adopting an elegant air. ‘Garcon.’

  A Vietnamese teenager dressed in a Hawaiian shirt approaches us.

  ‘Two beers, please.’

  We’ve come a long way from the pub down by the water in Watsons Bay I think.

  The teenager returns within ten seconds, carrying a tray on which rest two cans of Foster’s Lager.

  ‘Two hundred pee,’ demands the teenager.

  Harry peels two one-hundred pee notes from the roll in his hand. ‘Bloody Foster’s Lager! How come the nogs can get it and we can’t?’ asks Harry, a tone of amazement in his voice.

  ‘Black market, I suppose,’ is my reply, in between mouthfuls of beer.

  ‘You like buy me Saigon tea?’

  I look up from the cold top of the can, my nineteenyear-old eyes travelling and undressing the shape before me. I stare like an idiot.

  ‘You like buy me Saigon tea?’

  ‘Too bloody right,’ I answer. The bar girl sits down squarely on my lap.

  ‘You like buy me Saigon tea now?’ I fumble like a schoolboy looking for his lunch money, for the roll of notes in my shirt pocket.