Dreaming the Enemy

by David Metzenthen

  Nineteen

  Shoey walked towards the river mouth with his fishing rod and Alvey Junior tackle box given to him by his dad ten years ago. He’d bought some frozen bait on the way back from town, and the bag of pilchards still managed to give off a well-seasoned and old-fashioned smell of sea.

  Sitting where he’d first met Carly, he rigged up, feeling like a kid. His dad had taught him to fish; how to tie a half-blood knot, use swivels, and select hooks and sinkers. As he baited up, he pictured himself and his old man on the bare bank of the Rocklands Reservoir. There they were, sitting in aluminium deckchairs, trying to catch redfin with worms.

  It was like looking at a photo album in bright sunshine; the never-never land of the past hauled out into the open, with none of the kindliness of shadows to soften anything. Johnny let out a breath and consigned the memory to the too-hard basket. He cast and settled down to wait.

  Across the inlet he saw a guy sitting on a driftwood log. The bloke, fishing with a handline, was an Abo, Johnny reckoned; some unidentifiable element of belonging keyed him into the landscape. Johnny lifted a hand but got no response.

  ‘Yeah, good on ya, sport,’ he muttered. ‘Suit yourself.’

  Johnny was aware something in his head had shifted. He gradually got the feeling, like water stealing in over sand flats, that he was adrift in his own country. Perhaps he’d worked so hard at seeing Vietnam in an effort to see the Viet Cong that he had left himself behind.

  He lit a smoke and watched his line, a silver thread from rod tip to river bottom. At the moment, it seemed that this was about all the connection he had to anywhere.

  Toughen up, prick, he told himself.

  Then, oddly, it occurred to him that the opposite might work better. How about softening up? How about that? How about trying to understand what everyone else was saying about the bloody war? Maybe the demonstrators had a point? Maybe him and the boys were bloody savages? And the only way forward was to ask for forgiveness?

  Never. He sought forgiveness from no one here, just as he had never expected mercy from anyone over there. It was war. And that it was a war not of his making didn’t change anything.

  Just thinking about talking to the other side made him feel sick. Besides, talk and listen to bloody who? Uni students? Politicians? That bitch back in town? What did they know about what he’d done, what had happened to him, to his mates, what he’d been ordered to do? Hanging tough was always the only way out of this. Johnny looked across the water, seeing the other fisherman was gone.

  Had he ever been there? Or was he just another ghost, like Khan and his mates? Shadow men haunting shadow men?

  Shoey took a drag. Somehow smoking made it possible to sit and calmly consider the idea that he was three-quarters crazy. That he was a lunatic in search of something but not knowing what, where, or how to find it. From over the water he heard a bird – that single bell-like note he’d heard before, and it came, he thought, like a signal to hold on.

  Just in time.

  As Johnny sat by the inlet he conjured Khan on his way to visit the fish caged at the jetty. While walking, the one-armed veteran bumped into the good-looking girl, Lien. It was obvious to Johnny and Khan how delicate and beautiful Lien was in her white ao dai. She carried a basket of red, blue, and gold sewing things and something like a melody of loveliness rose from her, and a beguiling scent. But it was not a melody or scent intended for the one-armed Khan.

  Johnny laughed; you’re a bloody idiot, champ, if you can’t see that. But he figured Khan could see it, just like he could imagine it, because they both realised when a broken-down soldier stood close to a girl like Lien the more distant she became.

  ‘Good morning, sister Lien.’ Khan spoke gently, noting that as he did she became younger, and he older. ‘It’s a fine day.’

  She replied in kind but her words had no weight. Walking away, Khan knew that the sight of him darkened her life. His missing arm and his return from the south marked him as someone on intimate terms with the spirit world. In a brotherly way, he would’ve liked to tell her that he was not a ghost but only one lucky soldier with a melancholy mind trying to find a future.

  Yeah, yeah, Johnny thought. Aren’t we all? But he could not ridicule his old enemy because the bastard seemed intent on telling the truth – and the truth was gold, no matter who told it, who you were, or where you came from. So Johnny imagined Khan trying to smile, not because he was happy but because he was desolate. Like Johnny, too often he saw Brutus the bulldozer pushing red dirt over the broken faces of Thang and Trung and twenty others.

  For different reasons, neither of them would ever be able to forget it.

  You guys shouldn’t have taken us on then, Johnny thought. Surely you knew what we had? Who we’d call? What we’d do? Yet still you came. Orders are orders, I guess, Johnny mused. Orders are orders.

  He watched as Khan walked out onto the jetty. The sun, pale bronze, infiltrated the water with golden rays. Upstream, mist rose like spirits departing. Downstream the red-tiled roof of Son’s house was visible on the bend. Johnny decided that Khan should hate that mongrel Son for dodging the war, although this was not as simple as it sounded.

  Did a person have the right to make up his own mind about fighting in a war? Was every order given by unseen men to be obeyed without question? Were the people in charge gods? On whose authority were they acting? And what was it they sought to gain? And besides, on a more human level, Johnny saw that Son was repentant and respectful. And he had said he would try to repay this famous debt to Khan, which would prove interesting if the trader could be trusted – if a debt like that could ever be settled.

  Johnny cleaned the flathead he’d caught, throwing the froggy-looking heads and guts into the water. Glancing up, he saw Malcolm striding down the track, his hair flat to his head as if recently combed.

  ‘Gidday.’ Johnny stood, aware that he was an unpaying guest on the man’s land. ‘How ya goin’?’

  ‘Well.’ Malcolm nodded, his height made even more impressive as he stood uphill. ‘Yourself?’

  ‘Fine. Thanks.’ Johnny had to stop himself from saying, sir. The man might have been a general, the way he presented himself. ‘A nice spot.’ He looked around to show his appreciation. Dusk was descending, the night slipping from the bush, darkly sombre. ‘Thanks for lettin’ me stay ’ere. Appreciate it.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ The tall farmer’s attention stayed on Johnny. It seemed ownership replaced the need to look elsewhere. ‘I was wondering, John, if you might consider doing a bit of work for me. Labouring, really. Blackberry spraying and rock-gathering where the tractor can’t go.’

  Sounded simple enough, Johnny thought. Do-able, even. And possibly a step in the right direction – whatever that direction might be. He met the man’s stare.

  ‘Sure. Right. When?’

  ‘Come up to the house in the morning.’ Malcolm pointed up the slope rough-patched with bracken. ‘You know the way. Bev will give you lunch. Eight-thirty, if that suits. Good.’

  Johnny nodded, watched the farmer go then turned to the inlet. He thought about the Abo he’d seen fishing; had he imagined the resentment coming over the water? The connection to the place? Maybe, maybe not. Feeling exposed, he moved to a handy rock, squatted, and lit a smoke, pondering.

  So many people wandered the paths of his memory, piling experience on experience until he felt he was going to suffocate under an avalanche of images, noise, and echoes. No wonder his old self, who really did seem like a good, honest, Disneyland kid, had gone away. The old Johnny Shoebridge had never really liked thinking too much or too deeply, so it was always going to be problematic now that he had no choice, that in attempting to fix his head, he had to think all the bloody time.

  Johnny imagined the comfort of having his SLR, fully loaded, across his knees. It wasn’t that he wanted to shoot anyone. The last thing he wanted to hear was the head-smack of large-calibre gunfire or feel the mind-numbing sting of bullets whipping pa
st his eyes. No, he would’ve just liked to have that weapon, the power it had to protect and defend, a trusty companion from the past, a reminder of what had been demanded from him and the price he’d paid.

  What could replace it?

  Well, he was looking for something, a key, a fact, a person, to help him away from the wreckage of himself and towards some kind of recovery. And perhaps that he was looking was the main thing because he reckoned if he gave up, everything would fall in a heap. And that was being polite.

  Off a cliff was more like it.

  Twenty

  Shoey knelt in the milky tropical water, looking towards the beach with only his eyes showing, like a crocodile. He could see two diggers sitting on deckchairs. They wore jungle greens and were armed with M16s that shone like black snakes in the hot sun. The sea was like dishwater. Germy, his mum would’ve called it. Behind him Lex floated on his back and Barry stood belly-deep, tattoos on his arms shining as he sipped from a can of Vic Bitter.

  On the beach Aussies and Yanks smoked and drank as Vietnamese women, some in bikinis, some in traditional shirts and trousers, engaged in one sort of business or another. There were trinkets and souvenirs for sale. Food and drinks were set out on mats. Flimsy bars lined the street and unidentifiable music only added to the stinking headache Johnny had from drinking the evening before.

  ‘So, Barry,’ Lex said. ‘How’d you rate the ladies from last night? On a scale of one to ten.’

  Barry sipped beer. Didn’t look at Lex. Didn’t move, didn’t blink.

  ‘Five,’ he said, never taking his eyes off the beach.

  Johnny laughed, knew himself to be one corner of a triangle, the strongest shape of all. He knew Lex and he knew Barry like he knew no one else on the planet. He’d been with them in action and owed them his life. It didn’t matter where they came from or how smart or dumb they were. Or what they said or knew. It only mattered what they did; that they were deadly serious about killing VC who were trying to kill him, or any other Australian. Three lives he had now, Shoey thought, and a share in many others.

  ‘Yeah, they were all right.’ Johnny’s guilt over paying for the girls was outweighed by the brutal nature of what he was involved in. ‘Value for money,’ he added, which was what was expected. ‘What’d you think, Lex? Any of ’em suit the arty-farty type?’

  Lex floated on his back like a long bumpy island, concentrating as if it was his life’s work.

  ‘Well, I don’t think Mother would be too pleased if I turned up for Christmas dinner with the two or three who didn’t seem overly keen on underwear. But they did have the skills, John-boy, you can’t argue with that. Anyway, let’s go get a beer.’ Lex righted himself, stood. ‘I’m in danger of sobering up.’

  Johnny wanted the talk to go on. It linked them like lights illuminating the dark place they were in, had come from, and would have to go to. He breathed deep, knowing that whatever happened, for however long he lived, he would never be totally alone.

  Johnny wondered what it had been like for the D555 fighters living deep under the granite skulls of the Long Hai Hills. He pictured Khan sitting on his bedding, looking at the rough stone walls. Was he thinking of his chances of survival? Was he thinking of Phuong? Was he thinking of home? Or did he only think about killing the enemy? Did those Viet Cong ever think like Aussies?

  Probably not. Charlie lived closer to the earth than the diggers. He was also fighting an invading force, survived on air and dew, and lived with a history of bloody invasion and appalling atrocities. Khan and his comrades knew what it took to drive foreigners out of Vietnam. They’d been doing it for thousands of years, according to Lex, who knew that kind of shit. And there was no reason to think they would stop now.

  Johnny decided that Khan, like most Charlie, would look to the spirit world more than the diggers because statistically, that was very well where he was likely to end up. If this happened, Khan would see his sacrifice as necessary, if and when his ancestors demanded it. Johnny also imagined his enemy praying for Phuong, the missing girl, hoping that she may have survived as the flood of fighters inundated the south, the living replacing the dead like new leaves, endlessly.

  Who knew what lay ahead for anyone, good guy or bad? Not me, thought Johnny, although he had a fair idea he was never going to be napalmed by Phantoms or carpet-bombed by B-52s, just as Khan would not fall into a pit of spikes or step on a mine. Life in wartime was the ultimate game of chance. The only outcome guaranteed was that you would never want to play the game again.

  We are born in bad times. Johnny could imagine Khan saying that because it was true for the Vietnamese. Any time three or four countries turned up to bomb you off the face of the earth you knew it was going to be a rough couple of decades. Johnny could also see that the Charlie battalions viewed themselves very differently to the Aussies: the Australian view was to survive, get home, get back to real life, and try to forget the bloody war – where Charlie accepted his fighting unit as a stepping stone to victory in a fight to the death for his country. And that even if D555 were wiped out, they paved the way for the brothers and sisters that followed. The North Vietnamese would fight to the last man or woman to win and everybody in that country knew it.

  Johnny glimpsed Khan watching thoughtfully over his sleeping mates, Thang and Trung. It was clear he loved his friends, his country, and he loved Phuong, as all soldiers needed comrades, a home, and women in some way. Johnny also knew Khan was truly courageous. And in war, no matter whose side you were on, to have courage was the most important thing of all.

  How did things really end up for the bastard? Johnny thought about this a lot. Did Khan survive? Did he cop it? What did his gods have in store for him? Did they sacrifice him? Did they spare him? How did the universe, finally, treat him?

  Shoey, Barry, and Lex climbed up into an open truck for the ride back to Nui Dat. Two armed diggers, as sober as the boys were drunk, sat with weapons pointed skywards. Studiously they ignored the men they were escorting. Johnny simply watched the world go by, the smell so strong it was as if someone was holding used toilet paper to his face. The heat clung like steam and ramshackle houses and ravaged land tumbled in and out of his vision. By the road the people watched the passing truck as if hypnotised.

  ‘Now, you see, Barry—’ Lex drew lines through the air with his cigarette, ‘what the words foreign land mean.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Barry glanced at a pile of burning garbage, dismissing what he saw as if he was leaving the country within the hour. ‘Shithole.’

  Johnny wished he was sober. He could not meet the eyes of the Viets. He wished he was on a ship, a plane, a bloody rowboat out of here. It was worse to be unarmed, wearing a stupid flowery shirt, and no hat. Rattling along in the truck, he felt like a tourist gawping at the people standing in stinking poverty – poverty that was probably only going to get worse, the whole place possibly turning into a slaughterhouse when the Aussies left.

  Were the diggers winning hearts and minds, let alone the war? Were they helping or hindering by simply being here?

  The answer wasn’t obvious. Twenty metres away he saw a roadside concrete house like a bunker. A sick-looking pig stood behind a wooden fence in green mud and a little boy sat on a rock. Johnny saw the kid staring as if he could see the future, and there was nothing there.

  ‘Poor bastards,’ he muttered, hoping it might be good karma for somebody that he recognised what he was seeing was wrong. ‘God help ’em.’

  It’d be a relief, he thought, to be back at camp. He would be with Aussies only and have his weapon. He would also be surrounded by miles of barbed wire and artillery ready to fire.

  ‘If anybody should protest against the war,’ Lex said, watching an old woman carrying a towering load of firewood, ‘it’s the bloody locals. Barry? Your thoughts. Feel free to mention the French occupation. Fifty words or less. In your own time. Normally I’d ask for coloured pictures, but I do believe you don’t have your Derwent pencils.’

  B
arry shook out a smoke and lit up. He didn’t look at the people or the wandering dogs or the ragged palm trees. He appeared unmoved by the smell of sewage, rotting vegetables, and burning rubber.

  ‘This place,’ he flicked a match, as if he had spread petrol, and was going to torch the joint, ‘is rooted.’

  One of the armed Australian guards turned his head.

  ‘Jesus, mate,’ he said. ‘Language. We have National Servicemen on board, soldier. Some have even been to university.’

  The boys laughed and Lex appeared to perk up.

  ‘Yes, thank you, sir.’ He nodded enthusiastically. ‘I myself was studying Arts at Monash University until the government volunteered my services. So if you’d like a short presentation on early European settlement in Australia, I think the chaps might see it has certain similarities with what we’re involved in here. It’d only take twenty minutes or so.’

  The guard sucked in a breath and shook his head as if hard-pressed for time, or a suitable answer.

  ‘Mate, personally, I’d fuckin’ love to hear it. But someone else might shoot you in the face.’

  Barry glanced. ‘Gimme yer rifle.’

  Johnny had to smile. The situation was so ridiculous that it was funny – not all the time was it funny, and not in every way was it funny. But at the moment it was like being on stage in some sort of long and elaborate practical joke. Eventually, though, when the curtain did come down, everyone would see that what they had been involved in was no laughing matter whatsoever.

  The truck rattled on, Johnny with it.

  Twenty-one

  Johnny moved down the rocky slope spraying blackberries, pumping the hand lever. Something about the work disgusted him. The smell of the chemical mist made his skin crawl. He’d had enough of this shit in Vietnam; inhaled any number of mysterious soups sprayed out of low-flying planes, all in the good cause of denying Charlie cover, and killing his rice.