Brother Fish

by Bryce Courtenay

  ‘What? What’s happening?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘Some of the Chinese must’ve infiltrated to our rear by placing themselves among the fleeing South Koreans, and now they’re having a go at battalion headquarters!’ he explained. ‘HQ are saying we can’t expect mortar support – they’ve got their hands full and can’t fire ’em.’ He jumped up from his weapon pit and walked over to the boss, and I heard him giving the company commander the bad news.

  When he returned I asked, ‘What about the Yank crew? Their heavy mortars are supposed to be there to support us!’

  ‘Can’t raise the bludgers. They must have caught bug-out fever and headed for the hills,’ Ian replied.

  ‘Jesus, mate, we’re up shit creek!’

  I’d hardly completed this remark when we heard the Chinese bugles, followed by the whistles, then the dreaded waiting in silence, broken at last by the exploding grenades, their screaming and the burp guns banging away like cracker night. Our answering fire came almost immediately. Below me was a confusion of thousands of muzzle flashes criss-crossed by red tracer fire from our Vickers machine guns. Exploding grenades, like camera flashes, momentarily illuminated the grim battle.

  Three hours passed with the sound of bugles and whistles continually in my ears, the pale moonlight not sufficient to see the battle. A thousand or so Chinese had attacked 1 Platoon and Ian informed me they were down to thirteen men from the original strength of thirty. Christ only knows what the chink casualties must have been, but later we were told the dead were piled high on the perimeter. Anyway, thirteen men were not enough to hold out any more attacks so 1 Platoon withdrew back up the spur line to company headquarters, and now the chinks occupied their position. That was the first link in our chain of defence broken. Things were looking decidedly crook.

  The company commander was back trying to make contact on the handset, though without much success. Finally he handed it back to Ian.

  ‘What happens if A Company can’t survive the night?’ I asked him. It wasn’t my place to ask such a question. And I didn’t really expect an answer. Besides, I almost knew what would be going through his head: No artillery or mortar support, no barbed wire or anti-personnel mine defences. Let’s say, maybe fifty men alive and still able to fight, only machine guns, rifles, bayonets, grenades and courage against an inexhaustible number of fired-up Chinese soldiers. He sighed, then to my surprise, answered, ‘If they can hold out ’til morning, the Chinese won’t have such freedom to move and we’ll have a chance to maybe find out what’s happened to the bloody artillery. Might even get some air support.’ The way he said it made it painfully obvious that, short of a miracle, A Company was doomed. What this meant was that D Company would be next onto the starting blocks. But then he added, ‘Yeah, well, with A Company gone the Chinese will get behind us, then we’re surrounded.’ It was his way of saying we wouldn’t be able to withdraw and would almost certainly share the fate of A Company.

  Baggy-arsed diggers didn’t see much of the company commander, he being somewhat out of our realm up there with God directing operations. Now I was to have the doubtful pleasure of dying alongside him on a lonely hill that didn’t even rejoice in a name and was simply known as number 504 on a military ordnance map.

  We waited for the inevitable attack from the chinks who now occupied 1 Platoon’s position, but it didn’t come. Not much happened for a while then, close to two a.m., the Chinese sent a barrage of mortars, including incendiaries, into A Company. The incendiaries set alight the low brush and started fires racing through their positions. This is it! I thought. With the fires raging I was able to see more clearly for the first time and could now make out a few of our blokes moving about and the Chinese dead lying right up against our weapon pits. Only the Kiwi artillery coming back on line could save them now. But to my surprise the Chinese attacked in far fewer numbers and with a great deal less shouting and enthusiasm when next they came at us. Maybe they’d taken too many casualties and were looking for a softer target for their main effort. The boys in A Company had put up such fierce resistance that the chinks may have been unaware of how close they’d come to breaking through again. I recall thinking, Please God, don’t let them wake up to the situation and mount an all-out attack while it is still dark. In the meantime, A Company wasn’t answering our calls.

  Dawn came and A Company was still holding out, and with daylight the hope was that as the Chinese preferred to fight at night they would withdraw. Ian managed to get A Company back on the radio and was told they were down to less than fifty men and had been trying to raise our own battalion headquarters without success. They’d finally managed to get through on the radio to the headquarters of an American outfit. Ian first told the boss and when he returned, told me the story, the way he’d heard it from his A Company counterpart:

  ‘Hello one, hello one, how do you hear me, how do you hear me? Over.’

  This, he claimed, was repeated several times with no response, then an American voice came on.

  ‘One, this is Red Dog three, send, over.’

  ‘One for Red Dog three, we are out of comms with our headquarters. We are under Chinese attack and need artillery support and relief. Can you help? Over.’

  ‘This is Red Dog three, send your unit name and location in clear, over.’

  ‘One for Red Dog three, A Company, 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment with the British Commonwealth Brigade, location five miles north of Kapyong 487356.’

  There is a pause. ‘Red Dog three, say again your unit, over.’

  ‘One, we are bloody A Company 3RAR. You bastards deaf or something, over!’

  Silence. Then, ‘Red Dog three, our information is firm, these units were overrun and destroyed last night. Whoever you are, leave the net immediately, out.’

  I’m not sure how much of this dialogue was Ian Ferrier’s sense of drama at play, but what was obvious was that the Yanks had written us off and the only hope of help – ‘rescue’ is probably a better word – was to get through to someone at our own battalion headquarters. The fighting appeared to have stopped, with only an occasional mortar bomb going off. With daylight, the chinks would be expecting an air attack and artillery and I wondered how long it would take for them to realise that neither of these was going to eventuate. The Americans were convinced we had been wiped out, the Kiwis hadn’t yet been located and we couldn’t talk to battalion headquarters. With no help coming the question was were we in for it or would the Chinese melt away until nightfall?

  We hadn’t long to wait for the answer. The need to break through and go on to capture Seoul was imperative because no sooner had Ian told me the radio communication story than I heard some small-arms fire coming from the direction of 12 Platoon. I listened in dismay as my platoon defended the forward edge of the company position, aware that I should’ve been with them copping the flak.

  You don’t like to be standing by while your mates are in the firing line, and when the boss arrived a short while later I requested permission to join my platoon. ‘Yeah, righto, now it’s daytime we can do without you. On yer bike, son.’

  As I arrived, the medics were taking out Ray Davis, who appeared to have a shattered arm. Ivan the Terrible yelled out for me to take his place beside Ted Shearer, Ray’s partner. I slipped into the weapon pit. ‘G’day,’ I said to Ted. ‘What happened to Ray?’

  ‘Bloody machine gun, his wrist, welcome back to 12 Platoon,’ he replied, all in the one rapid sentence. He and Ray were real good mates and with the battle at hand he clearly didn’t want to dwell on the matter.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘At first light, most of 8 Section went out on a routine clearing patrol down the spur line,’ he explained. ‘About 400 yards down they came across some Chinese setting up a machine gun on the high ground to the left.’ He pointed to our left front. ‘Across yonder gully, on the high ground, chink machine gun.’

  I looked to where he’d pointed and could see that the ene
my machine gunner was well sited to give us a heap of trouble. The odd burst of automatic fire was already shredding some of the scrub not far from us.

  ‘Ken can’t get to the bugger,’ Ted said. I looked across to where Ken Carter, the section’s Bren light machine gunner, was trying to identify exactly where the chink fire was coming from. Then he opened fire and the Chinese machine-gun position suddenly went quiet. Hopefully he’d got the bastard.

  To our direct front a narrow ridge line fell away. A couple of hundred yards down, it descended steeply and disappeared from view. The ten of us in 8 Section were positioned nicely to cover any enemy coming up the ridge towards us. There was not a lot of cover for an attacking force and what’s more, the ridge was only wide enough for a four- or five-man frontage. Attacking uphill is hard, slow work, so if they came this way there were going to be a lot of dead Chinese. This thought was immediately followed by the chilling knowledge that ratios didn’t matter to them – twenty of their men killed for every one of ours were acceptable odds. They seemed prepared to sacrifice whatever was required to win.

  I heard the distinctive ‘pop’ of a mortar fired in the distance and wondered if it was heading for us. The bomb soared high into the air, losing speed as it climbed, then turned and plummeted to earth. I listened for the sound of its downward path, like stones rattling in a tin can, the rattle growing louder and louder, meaning that it was headed in our direction. We ducked into our weapon pits as the bomb landed about a hundred yards away with an ear-splitting whamphar! followed by the sound of shrapnel slicing through the low scrub and zinging off the rocky outcrops. There was a pause then six more bombs followed, landing much closer. The chinks had got our range.

  The mortar barrage ceased at last and we put our heads up and, through the dust and smoke, Ted pointed to the Chinese troops about a hundred yards down the ridge advancing towards us. They could only fit five up front on the narrow ridge and those five were copping all the fire from our section. But as we dropped them, we could see those behind taking their place, rank after rank extending back as far as we could see. I wasn’t sure whether I’d rather fight at night when you couldn’t see what was coming at you, or during the day, when you became aware of the seemingly inexhaustible depth of the enemy.

  We were throwing everything we had at them without making too much impression. There was something missing. I heard our section commander, Bob Roland, yelling orders, and Ken Carter then turned his Bren machine gun onto the ridge line to create havoc. That’s better! But this freed the chink machine gun on the hill and his bullets were kicking up the dust around our pits, making it bloody hard to concentrate on the enemy coming up the ridge. Ken swung back to have another go at the machine gunner, but of course this in turn took pressure off the assaulting Chinese, who surged forward, firing at us as they came. It scared the shit out of me as I realised how remorseless and competent they were – the bastards had done this before and really knew their business.

  Every shot we squeezed off had to count. Missing even one shot increased the odds. Deadly accuracy was the only way we were going to contain this mob. We were so busy killing them that there was no time to be in awe of the bravery and determination of the enemy. You dropped one in his tracks yet the bloke behind him didn’t even slow down, kept coming at you. It was like watching a steam train coming down the track towards you and being unable to move. Some of the enemy were soon close enough to throw stick grenades. If they landed nearby you had to duck into your pit till they exploded. And if you were a bit slow at re-emerging, it gave any chink close enough a chance to charge forward and take you out.

  Shortly after we’d commenced the battle, one of these stick grenades landed near me. I ducked for cover and it exploded. Maybe I was a bit slow to pop my head up again – a Chinese soldier was no more than three yards from me with his burp gun spitting bullets that kicked up the soil three feet in front of me. Ted took him out.

  ‘Thanks mate, I owe you one,’ I shouted hastily, aiming at another line of chinks heading towards us. Even in the heat of battle, after a while it starts to sink in that you’re not going to be able to kill them all, that they’re getting closer and closer despite their fearful casualties. I was beginning to accept that being overrun was inevitable and I was almost certainly going to die.

  The point was that the act of killing a man was no longer a thing of blood, shattered bone and viscera, but a grim process of defeating a team opposed to you. But it was a team who had a supply of fresh players they kept bringing onto the field and you’d long since used up all your reserves. This must sound pretty crass, but there were so many men dying in front of us that we couldn’t grasp the meaning of death. Defending our right to stay alive, to win against the odds, was the only thing on our minds.

  Then there were some mighty explosions. Dust, debris and smoke filled the air. For a moment I thought the end was finally here – we were gone for all money. But when the air cleared I was still alive and there were dead and wounded chinks lying everywhere along the ridge line. The Kiwis had been found and their artillery, as usual, was dead on target. But the Chinese seemed undeterred and came running up from the rear, rifles and burp guns ablaze, and the attack gathered momentum again. Down came another salvo, and I swore if I lived I’d never say anything nasty about the All Blacks again. Some of the shells landed harmlessly in the deep gullies on each side of the ridge line and one landed uselessly, well behind the action. But once again the rest were bang on target and several shells landed slap-bang in the middle of our attackers. Through the smoke I saw several bodies thrown high into the air like rag dolls thrown upwards by a child at play.

  Suddenly everything stopped. The referee had blown his whistle in the form of a dozen or so twenty-five-pounder artillery shells. While the Chinese were able to press their attack despite the casualties we inflicted with rifles, Owens and even our Bren machine gun, there was no way they could withstand the decimation caused by the accurate artillery of our beautiful cousins across the Tasman. The chinks halted the attack and dragged their dead and wounded down the ridge line out of sight.

  ‘Well, I’ll be buggered. I think we’ve seen them off,’ I said to Ted, then I realised I was almost too tired to stand.

  No reply came and I glanced over to where he sat with his chin on his chest and his arms folded, his right hand holding his wrist. It was as if he’d just fallen asleep during a boring lecture, so I touched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Ted?’ I asked. Then, concealed by his arm, I saw the blood. A piece of shrapnel had torn through his chest and I could see a part of his heart, which was a bloody mess. With the cessation of fighting, death became real again.

  I called over to the medical orderly, ‘Chunky’ Dunbar, who took Ted away. Chunky had copped some shrapnel in the head himself but was simply carrying on regardless. I began to feel a terrible remorse and it was difficult not to cry. I hadn’t even seen it happen to Ted. Surely he would have said something, cried out, or given me a final message I might have passed on to someone he loved. I’d let him down – Ted, who had saved my life not long before, had died, so to speak, in front of my eyes, and I hadn’t even noticed.

  Shortly afterwards, to my surprise, John Lazarou slipped into the weapon pit beside me. ‘Come to join yiz, mate.’

  His sudden presence put a stop to my introspection. ‘G’day, Lazy, who are you with?’ I asked, still somewhat dazed, meaning, who was his partner in what would normally be his weapon pit.

  ‘Catflap, wounded in the hand. Bullet. Pinkie took clean off.’

  ‘That’s all? Lucky bastard.’

  Lazy grinned. ‘Yeah, he said it was lucky it wasn’t his pussy finger or Lotus Flower would be real cranky.’

  ‘Hadn’t you better get back? Chinks’ll probably be returning any minute.’

  ‘Nah, I’m staying put. If I’m gonna be killed in this fuckin’ shithole, I want to cark it next to me mate.’

  I laughed. I don’t know why. After the shock of Ted I should ha
ve been more sensitive, but I just laughed and said, ‘Well, mate, you’ve made an excellent choice. The odds are you’ll achieve your objective, this pit is attracting more than its fair share of attention.’

  I waited for the usual ingenuous reaction from Lazy. I could almost paraphrase him. It would come in slow motion, something like: ‘Shit . . . I didn’t think of that . . . yeah, right, Jacko, good one.’ But instead he slammed a round into the breach of his rifle and replied, ‘Them’s acceptable odds, Jacko. We done things together before.’

  ‘Yeah, but not yet died together,’ I quipped. Lazy didn’t see the joke.

  ‘That’s okay by me, Jacko,’ he said in all seriousness.

  I could see Ken Carter disengage from his ongoing duel with the Chinese machine gunner and swing around to the right to engage the ridge line. The Chinese were back. Mortars exploded around us with that deafening whampar! and we ducked for our lives. As the mortars lifted we raised our heads for a look. Here they came again, rank upon rank of them advancing into our small-arms fire. The enemy machine gun on the hill was giving us a bit of curry and Ken was swinging left and right like a yo-yo going sideways, taking them both on. A salvo of artillery fire exploded in front of us and as the smoke cleared I saw that the narrow ridge line hadn’t been hit and the Chinese were coming in fast. Thank Christ it was uphill for them, although they appeared to be pretty fit. ‘Storming in’ wouldn’t be entirely the wrong expression to use.

  The clatter of small-arms fire seemed deafening but I could still hear Bob Roland, our section commander, shouting an order and we responded by throwing hand grenades that rolled down the hill and exploded among the leading attackers. We kept hurling them, taking cover as they exploded and then going again. We were stopping a fair few but the rest kept coming. Now quite a few chink soldiers were close enough to throw their own grenades – the fighting was getting close and desperate. Then I heard another salvo screaming towards us and at least one twenty-five-pounder round hit the ridge and the silver fern had done its magic again and saved our Aussie arses.