Dreaming the Enemy

by David Metzenthen

  The returned fighter scratched the stump of his right arm with his knuckles. Perhaps, Johnny thought, Khan might be thinking of the battles for Fire Base Leslie? Because it must have felt like the sky had fallen on the North Vietnamese forces as the place exploded and the air turned into fire and steel. The shouting and screaming were God-awful. The recoil of Shoey’s rifle had felt like the heartbeat of a monster. Same went for Khan firing his AK. Torn faces and broken skulls. People turned inside-out and the world upside-down.

  ‘We withdrew,’ Khan said. ‘Beaten but not defeated. And in the end, we drove you out.’

  True enough, Johnny agreed, but we gave you a fair bit to think about before you did. And vice-versa, he had to admit.

  It was obvious to Johnny that Khan loved the country he had fought so hard for. It only made sense, being a man of the land; perhaps a rice farmer before the war, like so many of the enemy. It was also obvious that Khan lusted after that good-looking girl whom Johnny named Lien, but it was the plain one, Phuong, the one who was missing in action, a sister-in-arms, that the returned Main Force fighter truly loved.

  It was every soldier’s dream that dead and missing comrades might return. Yet, until this happened, memory, powerful memory, was all that remained.

  ‘It would be,’ Khan muttered, looking at the stars, ‘a heavenly thing to see Phuong.’

  Johnny downed half a can. You could always go look for her, sport, he thought. Perhaps, one in a million, she’s not dead. Head back down south. Why don’t you? Do the honourable thing – because if neither of us stops searching, we both might find what we are looking for – whatever that is.

  A future, maybe.

  Thirteen

  Shoey, up to his guts in brown water, held his rifle high as the patrol waded through a swamp. The place was dotted with tiny islands of tall grass that he would’ve loved to shoot the shit out of, but as this was not possible, he and the boys waded on, closing in on a line of tangled bush.

  Suddenly an image of Taralia’s main street popped up, Johnny conjuring craggy farmers, plump ladies, parked utes, and the town clock’s stiff black hands. There was the Corner Hotel, and Nigel Stuart Menswear, a spray of grandpa shirts and Levi’s in the front window – and there was he, Private JA Shoebridge, reflected in that window, green sleeves rolled, finger on the trigger guard of his SLR.

  Get back in the swamp, you bloody idiot!

  Johnny ploughed on, staring at the tree line, mud sucking at his boots.

  ‘Shark!’ Lex hissed. ‘I swear. A fricken mako!’

  The boys laughed and Johnny grinned, shaking his head.

  ‘Oi.’ Captain McCrae pointed. ‘Save it, eh?’

  The idea, Johnny knew, was to push the VC who’d been in the village towards two other Australian patrols. This silent, slow-motion pursuit was like brushing aside a hundred sets of curtains, not knowing what was behind any of them.

  Was he about to trip a wire attached to a grenade?

  Were machineguns two seconds away from cutting him in half?

  Was a sniper aiming to blow his head off?

  Were the boys about to walk into a killing field of mines? Be speared with bamboo stakes? Shredded by mortars? Surrounded and butchered? Johnny could not cancel anything out. It felt like he existed from one heartbeat to the next, his life as fragile as an egg.

  He waded on, watched Barry working forward with a face set like iron, M60 held as if carrying that weapon was his life’s purpose. And Johnny knew, as they closed in on the trees and the enemy, that’s exactly what it was. Catching Baz’s eye, Johnny gave him the thumbs-up, a simple sign that meant everything.

  Khan, Trung, and Thang were running now. Each was bent low under heavy packs of rice as they splashed along an irrigation ditch. A scout had reported to Captain Van that an Australian patrol was coming up behind. Van nodded. More trouble. He was also aware of two other enemy forces to the north-east. So the D555 fighters, inexperienced reinforcements, ran as if tied to the wrist of the man in front.

  Khan prayed there were no mines in the ditch. There was always some local village lunatic who might have sown a few without telling anybody. He could imagine a thousand red-hot steel balls blasting into the faces and chests of the men. Down they would go, like dropped coals.

  Van brought up a hand and the men stopped. Unsteadily they stood, heaving for breath. Khan listened, imagining time suspended. He could hear a fine, insistent buzzing. Yep, thought Johnny, that spells trouble for you, boys: little trouble now, big trouble very soon after.

  ‘There it is, Captain.’ Tien, the youngest fighter, pointed. ‘Eleven o’clock. Spotter plane.’

  Khan could see it, black as a gnat, coming directly towards the patrol. It was a Cessna Bird Dog, searching, capable of calling down all sorts of destruction on the fighters’ heads. A tightrope of tension strung itself across Khan’s guts; this was a truly bad sign. Captain Van, standing silent, watched the plane for ten seconds before ordering packs to be stowed under groundsheets and dirt and all men to lie face-down in the thick beds of tall reeds.

  ‘Be careful with your weapons.’ His voice was calm but edged. ‘Keep them clean and dry.’

  The boys stacked their packs. Groundsheets were smeared with mud and weapons placed carefully on the bank. Then the men crawled into the reed beds and bellied down to wait. The droning of the plane nagged at Khan like a broken tooth. Closer it came, a foreign insect invading the airspace of the people.

  ‘Faces down! Arms in!’

  The fighters took a breath and eleven heads went under. Khan savoured the temporary coolness, the loss of noise, and an easing of the tension in his neck. He imagined himself swimming to an underwater cave where he would rest in dim silence. After a while he began to see fine silver particles floating before his eyes like stars but he did not lift his head to breathe.

  ‘If anyone moves,’ Captain Van shouted, ‘I shoot.’

  Khan listened as the sound of the aircraft faded pleasantly away. Going, going, gone, he thought. At last. On Van’s order the fighters stood, knees and chests caked with mud. Some grinned and others coughed. Everybody was relieved. To Khan, it was as if the gods had granted them a chance to live and breathe. Then the firing began.

  Hearing sudden, massed gunfire, Shoey brought his weapon up. The contact was perhaps, he reckoned, a kilometre away to the north-east. For the fiftieth time that morning he checked his rifle.

  ‘Ours,’ Barry said, the first word Johnny had heard from him since breakfast.

  ‘Theirs,’ said Captain McCrae as the chat-chat-chat of AK47s answered, and a 30-calibre light machinegun joined in.

  ‘Skip, it’s Sunray Three.’ Young Pete, the radioman, held out the green handpiece to Captain McCrae, who stood in the swamp like a bollard a ship could be tied to. ‘Engaged approx ten Main Force fighters,’ Pete added. ‘Wants us up there A-sap.’

  Captain McCrae took the handset as Shoey searched the open farming land. Three muffled booms hammered the air. In the distance white smoke rose then drifted like clouds of vague thought.

  ‘Nine hundred metres, nor-nor-east, Skip,’ someone said calmly. ‘White smoke.’

  Captain McCrae looked, listened, said a few words then signed off.

  ‘We go fast,’ he said. ‘We go carefully. They might double back. Although they’re more likely to go east, towards the hills. Gunships are on the way. Let’s move. Keep your eyes skinned.’

  Shoey, with Lex and Barry, made for the bank.

  ‘Dry land,’ Lex said. ‘I wonder if any of it’s for sale? We could set up a dim-sim factory.’ He looked at Barry. ‘Or a dance studio, Baz? I think you’d be a hit. They might not have heard of country and western this far out, but you’d soon have them up on their feet and dreaming of Tamworth.’

  Barry mouthed two words, and as usual, Johnny laughed.

  The patrol, in two staggered columns, jogged towards the sound of fire and smoke. Shoey felt fear fade and excitement kick in. The siren had sounded. Game o
n. Waiting was worse. Or, at least, it felt worse. Through the bush he got a clear view up the ditch but saw no sign of Charlie.

  ‘There!’ someone shouted. ‘Breakin’ to the right! Seven, eight hundred metres!’

  Shoey could see figures in the distance. The bloody enemy! They were out of rifle range and running, in combat greens, heavily loaded. It was surprising how small they were, their progress marked by bobbing green hats. Two M60s opened up, streams of red tracer streaking out in beautiful low arcs, the sound of the weapons claiming the place.

  Captain McCrae spoke to a private called Billy.

  ‘Throw yellow smoke, mate. Bushrangers incoming sixty seconds.’

  Billy, the most tattooed bloke Shoey had ever seen, pulled a grenade from his webbing. Popping the pin, he casually lobbed it a few metres downwind. In seconds, mustard yellow smoke belched, indicating to the gunships where the Australians were.

  ‘Best to get that right!’ Lex shouted at Johnny, as the M60s hammered. ‘I’d hate to get shot by a fuckin’ Collingwood supporter!’

  Shoey could no longer see the VC. Like a troupe of actors exiting a stage, they’d disappeared into thick bush. The machineguns now silent, Johnny heard the ominous hard thwacking of attack helicopters. In they came, low and fast, sinister-looking green grasshopper twins, lethally armed.

  Suddenly they were overhead and turning. The sound was fearsome and rising, loaded with menace. Then they opened fire, rockets streaking, door guns blazing.

  A bolt of fear almost lifted Khan from the ground. Johnny saw this in a dream-like sequence distilled from reality and experience. Bullets zipped past the Main Force fighter’s head and then came the sound of the weapons. Nothing was clear. The North Vietnamese soldiers milled, the air full of noise and movement, confusion reigning until Captain Van pointed up the ditch.

  ‘Go! Stay low! Go! Go! Go!’

  Khan saw three of his comrades stop and return fire, spraying a patch of smoking scrub. He too fired, emptying a magazine into the trees, reloading as he ran. Something heavy smacked into his pack and in front of him a comrade went down as if pole-axed. Two fighters stooped to drag the man by the arms, a line of scraggly vegetation partially screening them from the enemy.

  Khan turned to fire at a figure who’d popped up to hurl a grenade. Then the soldier was gone and Khan was running, his pack losing weight as rice streamed from a long rip. Ignoring it, he took his turn to drag the wounded Noc, the weight of his comrade enormous. There was a slack feeling in the man’s joints, as if his spirit had regretfully stepped aside, to wait for silence to return so it could commence its private journey away from the living soldiers and the battle.

  Captain Van yelled constantly, encouraging, directing, and ordering his men to cover their retreat with disciplined gunfire. Now, hearing the helicopters, he ordered Khan and Thang, who held Noc, to leave him.

  ‘Lay him on the bank. Let’s go.’

  The fighters obeyed, knowing this was wrong but unavoidable. On they ran as the helicopters unleashed a storm of rockets and machinegun fire. Dirt, reeds, and spray flew. Fear gave Khan desperate speed. With his comrades, he sprinted for the shimmering bush that seemed so far away he felt like howling.

  Shoey’s patrol followed the trail of spent cartridges, crushed reeds, spilled rice, and blood. Ahead the Bushrangers hammered the scrub with rockets and M60 door guns. Johnny saw a flock of black birds fly from the burning trees; human souls, he thought, getting the hell outta there.

  ‘This’d make a good commercial.’ Lex watched the action, nodding with obvious satisfaction. He held up an index finger. ‘No, not for Cherry Ripes, Johnson. Or for Asian holidays. I mean for the army. Our army. You’d need to spell that out. You wouldn’t want people joining the wrong side. That’d be disastrous.’

  Shoey grinned. ‘You fuckin’ clown.’ As the men in front went to their knees, scanning the ground over open sights, he and Lex did the same. ‘See anything?’

  Lex strained to look. ‘Well, I spy with my little—’

  ‘There’s a Charlie here, skip,’ someone called back. ‘Brown bread.’

  To one side of the ditch Shoey could see a body, a couple of the boys checking it for booby traps. Gingerly they lifted the wet green shirt, poking around in the webbing before tying parachute cord to the ankles. Then it was dragged backwards, leaving a bloody smear in the grass. There was no grenade under it.

  ‘Search it. Bury it.’ Captain McCrae turned to the soldiers behind him. ‘Johnny and Lex, dig. Gary and Ant, give ’em a hand. Don’t get too carried away. We’re gunna link up with the other boys then search the woods as soon as the choppers have finished.’

  Shoey and Lex downed packs. Quickly they freed their entrenching tools and started to dig. The smell of the ditch reminded Johnny of a stagnant summer creek back home. Behind him the dead Viet Cong, a small man about Johnny’s age, eyes half-shut, exerted the presence of a stranger kept against his will but only faintly.

  ‘Jesus. Hot,’ said Ant, a wide-shouldered rifleman with red-brown hair. ‘Dunno how these bastards can live ’ere.’ He wiped his forehead with a brown forearm. ‘Another minute and that’ll do.’

  Johnny dug, feeling as if he was hollowing out a small space in his mind to store this moment. He was hardly thinking about it now. Survival was uppermost in his thoughts. But he knew he would think about it at length one day.

  The grave was filled in, the body so quickly gone that Shoey felt there was something like a magic trick about it; now you see him, now you don’t. Ten minutes ago the guy was alive and running, with the enemy – an enemy. Now he was somewhere else, Johnny thought, or nowhere else. Whatever, he was gone and not coming back.

  ‘Ashes to ashes.’ Lex, holding his water bottle, looked at the turned brown earth. ‘Dust to dust. Guinness Book of Records. World’s fastest funeral. Thank you, linesmen. Thank you, ball boys. Who’s for a G and T?’

  ‘Let’s go!’ Captain McCrae lifted a heavy arm. ‘Move!’

  Johnny imagined how Khan would feel as the Main Force fighter sprinted for the bunkers. He bet the Vietnamese soldier was praying like hell he’d get to cover before the door gunners got a sight on his back. It must have felt like whole countries of foreigners were after him.

  Ahead, Khan could see Captain Van calmly controlling lines of men as they waited to drop down into the tunnels.

  ‘Safetys on!’ Captain Van yelled. ‘Check weapons. No accidents!’

  Khan checked his AK was on Safe then clicked off the bayonet and sheathed it as he waited for Trung to disappear into the square hole. He followed, dropping into the dark chamber, making room for the men following. Other tunnels led away from the main bunker, two leading up to crawling trenches cut into the surface. Quickly the patrol spread, the soldiers knowing that fighting and winning was all about damage minimisation.

  Khan, Thang, and Trung were directed to a tunnel that led to the north. The air was moist and hot, the three making for a dot of white light forty metres away. Below ground the sound of the helicopters was muted but powerful, the shockwaves of the rockets knocking down clods the size of pumpkins. Khan felt fear as never before. It filled him so suddenly he felt he might explode.

  ‘Stay calm, boys!’ Thang hissed. ‘Breathe deep! And crawl!’

  The men crawled through tunnels deep in Johnny’s head. Overhead the sound of the gunships was like a thunderstorm fallen to earth, Khan expecting the ceiling to collapse with a life-ending whump – but it held, and in a minute he was looking out of a slit of silver like a view to heaven. When the helicopters left they were to bolt before the Australian patrols followed up.

  ‘Scatter in threes,’ Captain Van said. ‘Meet at the Cracked Boulders. We don’t have the numbers to fight.’ He smiled in the steamy gloom. ‘Good luck, men. We are doing well. Be proud.’

  The fighters waited, jammed together, heavy packs and weapons making everything awkward and dangerous. Captain Van moved among the boys, encouraging each with hardly more than t
he use of names. He patted Trung’s bulging rucksack.

  ‘We support ourselves!’ Van nodded keenly. ‘With the help of the people we help the people. And when these damn helicopters leave, so will we!’

  Khan listened to machineguns and the wild smacking of helicopter blades. As rockets shook the forest, he prayed to the gods that no jets were zeroing in. He could picture them streaking over the country, slim like silver pencils, loaded with bombs and napalm, roaring at him from another world, intent on destruction. ‘Run fast, men,’ Captain Van said. ‘Pray hard! And go!’

  You’d better, Johnny agreed, because we knew there could be anything in those tunnels ranging from a thousand weapons to a hospital, so we were always gunna blow ’em in or up just like the big bad wolf, except with high explosive.

  Fourteen

  Johnny woke early, the dim light of dawn easing through the broken windows of Malcolm’s hut. The air, cool and salty, smelling of peppermint, delivered him into the day with a soft landing. Putting aside a dream of patrolling alone along a narrow path between tall walls of bamboo, Johnny pulled on a pair of black and yellow Taralia footy shorts, and picked his way barefoot down to the water.

  The sight of the mottled trunks of gumtrees and the glassy surface of the inlet was calming. Here, without people rubbing against him, he could think. No, better still, and this qualified easily as the thought for the day, he might be able to not think.

  ‘No chance,’ he muttered. ‘At all.’

  Johnny looked at water that was a clear, heavy green. It soothed with depth and volume. I’ve gotta swim, he thought. Stuff the sharks. And in he went, hands joined as if in prayer, opening his eyes to a blurred seascape that shelved away into liquid darkness. Down he kicked, into a coldness that pinpointed his scars as if they were his weakness.

  But that wasn’t right. His scars were like armour.