By now he guessed his best friends would lie in a hole gouged by the Australians, their bodies painfully twisted as if they would writhe forever. Hopefully, the locals would exhume and bury them properly. The boys deserved that, at the very least: to lie peacefully, put to rest with care and prayers.
‘If we are winning the war,’ Khan murmured, ‘I’d hate to see what losing must look like.’
Shoey guessed Khan’s thoughts to be true, or true enough. He had seen Charlie smashed senseless but there was no sign of a white flag and there never would be. Their spirit reached him, entered his life, and demanded his respect – which he grudgingly gave. Otherwise he doubted he would ever find a path leading to any sort of an acceptable resolution. Declaring peace was a long and painful process. Being at peace might prove to be the most difficult journey of all.
Shoey was hauled into the chopper. Gratefully, half-stunned, he sat behind the door gunner, welcoming the buffeting breeze as the Huey lifted and went, nose down like a hunting dog on the run. Skimming broken trees, the aircraft accelerated then rose, banking hard, the fire base spiralling away like a flicked card.
‘My bloody shout,’ said a rifleman called Marco, who reminded Shoey of the freckle-faced kid on Mad magazine. ‘Thank Christ we’re outta that hole. Good luck to the bastards in it.’
Johnny rested his head against vibrating metal, feeling himself bathed in the khaki-green glow of the men around him and the blessedness of the wide-open sky. Below, the country tilted as the pilot strove for altitude, the closest thing to heaven Johnny had ever experienced.
‘A-bloody-men,’ someone said, ‘to that.’
Khan could see the Long Hai Hills in the distance, pale and low, like a winter cloud. Then he found he was no longer walking with the battalion. Instead he was led down a tiny track by a village man, and a tall, silent woman dressed in black.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Where is my AK?’ He plunged around. ‘My rifle? Where is it?’
‘I have it, brother,’ the village man said. ‘Relax. We will look after you.’
The woman’s hand was on his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. We are close now. But please keep quiet.’
Khan accepted this. ‘Of course, sister. I’m sorry.’
Ten minutes later he was taken into a village house, to watch as a wooden chest was pushed aside to reveal a trapdoor built into the dirt floor.
‘You will be looked after.’ The woman in black spoke crisply. ‘There is a doctor, medicine, and an operating theatre. Brother Tan will help you down the ladder.’
Slowly Khan descended into the tunnel. Daylight faded, the smell of dirt filled his nose as he was enveloped by air thick and warm. Into the earth I go, he thought. Again.
You’re one lucky bastard, Khan, Shoey thought, that I knew there were hospitals in those tunnels and medical people to help. Otherwise you might have died in the bush of gangrene – not that it would’ve worried me in the least, at the time.
Forty-three
Johnny hit Melbourne at lunchtime and was lost by one o’clock. By two o’clock he’d asked for directions three times and by four he had arrived in Black Rock. At a service station on the Nepean Highway he put a few bucks worth of juice in the ute then spent ten minutes in the grimy bathroom, the floor littered with used paper towel, sprucing himself up in a dirty mirror.
‘Rough,’ he muttered, sticking a comb in his back pocket. ‘Enough.’
He walked out with clean teeth, a smooth face, and no plan but to find Lex’s place and knock on the door. Standing by the ute, he buttoned up his last clean shirt, and slid a new pack of smokes into his left chest pocket. I have my doubts about this, he thought. Ten times over.
But still he went.
The beautiful young woman in the granary was not the one who might be called Phuong. She was the chief ’s eldest daughter and did not look at Khan, although she did seem shyly interested in Son. The woman supposedly called Phuong was older, heavier, and unremarkable apart from a permanent saintly smile. At first Khan found this disturbing but soon saw it as a blessing. This simple person appeared happy. And that was certainly unusual for anyone who had been anywhere in the vicinity of a B-52 bomb strike. True, Johnny agreed. That is one nail you hit on the head.
‘Good morning.’ Khan bowed to the women. ‘You are working and we do not mean to disturb you. My friend Son and I are looking for a woman from our village who fought in the war. But this sister—’ he inclined his head towards the smiling woman who ground something, perhaps lemongrass, in a small bowl, ‘is not that woman. Please go on with your work. Thank you for caring for her.’
After leaving the granary, Khan was surprised to find that it was the simple woman’s smile he remembered rather than the beautiful woman who had robbed him of his breath.
‘The sister you call Li . . .’ Khan spoke to the chief, who was happily smoking another of Son’s cigarettes, working his leathery cheeks hard. ‘She is happy. Thank you.’
The head man nodded. ‘It’s a miraculous tragedy, I guess.’
Khan nodded. ‘Yes, you are right. A miracle and a tragedy.’
Son lit up. ‘The war is over,’ he said. ‘Thank goodness.’
‘Not for a while yet.’ The village elder poked his cigarette towards the jungle that surrounded them like a hedge. ‘When that hole’s gone we might be getting close. Until then, if you fall in it, you’ll still break your neck.’
There’s always a chance of falling in a hole, Shoey thought. Or falling by the wayside or off a cliff; all could do you in, the only difference being that one way took a fair bit longer than the others.
The house Shoey pulled up at was a low white weatherboard with a white picket fence. It was set in a busy garden of small trees, flowerbeds, and a circle of lawn featuring a birdbath. The sound of a piano reached out through an open window, drawing Johnny on up a curved stone path. As he walked he thought about Lex living here as a kid, a high school surfie, a lazy uni prick, a reluctant army conscript, and finally he could think no further except that it seemed impossible this neat suburban house, and the family who lived in it, could ever be connected to that distant ugly war – but it was, in the worst of ways.
‘Breathe, Shoey-boy, breathe,’ he murmured, and did so deeply, smelling the cool scent of well-watered plants. ‘A smoke as soon as you get this done.’
Johnny knocked, standing on a patio sprinkled with damp white petals that reminded him of paper swans his sister used to fold up out of drawing paper. The piano stopped and footsteps started, heading to the door somewhat indirectly. A shadow passed glass and a key was turned. At first all Shoey saw was a slender arm, bare legs, white sandals, and light green carpet. Then he saw a blonde girl, blue-eyed, maybe nineteen years old, in a white sun frock patterned with dark blue birds.
‘Hey,’ he said, realising she was definitely what his mother would’ve described as lovely. ‘Ah, I hope I’ve got the right house. I’m looking for the, er, Lexingtons.’
The girl was lightly tanned and freckled. She had long hair that brushed her arms and was, Johnny decided, certainly attractive in a gentle, lyrical, musical way.
‘Yes, you’ve got the right house.’ She smiled, perhaps a little puzzled. ‘I’m Francesca.’
It was the right place. Johnny’s throat tightened.
‘I’m Johnny Shoebridge.’ He spoke as if he was quite sure this was the case, and that he knew exactly who he was, and what he was doing here on her doorstep. ‘I knew Lex. We were mates. In the, er – over there. In Vietnam.’
For a long moment the girl searched his face. For what, Johnny didn’t know, but as she was Lex’s sister and Lex was his best mate, he waited and would’ve waited for hours until she was finished.
‘You’re Johnny Shoebridge?’
He inclined his head. ‘I am. Yeah.’ He managed to skim up a fleeting grin. ‘I believe. Yes. At last sighting.’
‘You’ve driven all the way down from the country to here?’ The girl blinked, te
ars building in dark eyelashes until they spilled. And still she held the door, staring at him. ‘That’s wonderful. Thank you so much for coming. I’m so glad to see you.’
‘Well. Good.’ Johnny managed a smile and managed not to reach for his smokes. Just. He didn’t know what to make of the silences, the words spoken, or whether his presence had created a kind of happiness or only more devastation. ‘I wanted to see you. You and your family. Your mum and dad. Tell you things. About Lex. How good he was. What a great bloke. How it kinda was. That sort of thing.’ Did he know how it was? Yes, he did; it was beyond bloody terrible but Lex was far away and above all that stuff now.
Francesca Lexington stepped forward and hugged Johnny, pressing her wet cheek to his shoulder. Johnny felt something steady and settle. He put his arms around her. She understood something and so did he. She knew where he’d been and what he’d been through. Or she understood because she knew the truth – and the truth marooned them, each on some lost lonely island of their own.
Francesca stepped back. She brushed her hair away from her face then opened the door about as wide as it would go. Across a hallway Johnny saw a lounge room with comfortable-looking speckled white chairs, a grey couch, and a gold clock on a white mantelpiece where there were framed photos he knew he did not want to look at.
‘Come in, Johnny.’ Francesca smiled. She was a truly attractive girl. ‘Mum’ll be home soon. She’s just around the corner at school. She’s a music teacher. I’ll make coffee. Or tea, of course.’
Johnny went in. The house was quiet and smelled of flowers. There were small watercolour paintings, some of beaches and boat sheds, on every wall. Lex’s sister stopped in the doorway of a bright kitchen with a black and white lino floor. The blinds were white and there were clean plates in a dish rack. Again Francesca smiled at Johnny, Johnny smiled at her, and somehow it made it all seem just a whole lot worse.
Khan existed in a world of murmuring shadows and dark, sweating walls. People came and went, silhouetted, like messengers from another world. His arm had been removed and the wound in his side cleaned and closed. Slowly he was recovering, with the help of antibiotics liberated from a doctor’s surgery down south.
‘We are worms,’ a fellow patient said, a fighter who had lost both ears, his blistered face yellow in the weak light. ‘Very lucky worms.’
‘That’s true.’ Khan thought of Trung and Thang. ‘There are worse holes to be in, that’s for sure.’ He looked at the ceiling and the hand-sawn timber supports. ‘So what happens to us next?’
The burned fighter’s glance slowly climbed the ladder that led to the upper levels of the tunnel system.
‘That’s the question, brother,’ he said. ‘That is the question.’
It’s quite possible you get the hell bombed out of you, Johnny thought, because there’s nothing we liked more than turning your underground refuges into cities of the dead with a few tons of high-powered explosive.
Johnny drove away from Lex’s house as he’d driven away from Barry’s, feeling as if he’d escaped but promising to return. He also knew that when he did return, it was because he’d agreed to shoulder a two-way responsibility of love for the rest of his life. Just like that bastard Khan, he thought, because we are probably more alike than anybody cares to admit – which is a thought I may just keep to myself, for the sake of national security.
Johnny stopped at an intersection jammed with Holdens, Fords, and Valiants. Left, right, or straight ahead? He had no idea.
‘Not lost,’ he muttered. ‘But close.’
Forty-four
Heat hovered over the jungle like an iron lid as Shoey and the Delta boys laboured up a steep ruined slope. The bombed-out hill reminded him of an exploded cake. Smashed trees leant like broken candles, the churned dirt chocolate-brown. An air of tension hovered. Constantly the skipper was on the radio as he scanned the patchy country below. The sound of a light plane, unseen, buzzed like a mosquito that would not leave.
‘Somethin’s cookin’.’ Young Pete stopped to wipe his glasses. ‘Just hope it ain’t us. Rice-a-Riso with little Pete for puddin’.’
Word was passed along to take cover on the brow of the hill. M60s were to be deployed. There was to be no smoking or brew-ups. Johnny ploughed on through the mud. His shirt was plastered to his back. A smell of decay held close to the ground. Insects hummed. A corporal pointed to a log that oozed sap like blood, Shoey and Pete settling behind it, resting their rifles. The sound of the Cessna Bird Dog had been replaced by an ominous, distant, heavy-duty rumble.
‘See that little village down there?’ The skipper pointed. Johnny could see a cluster of thatched houses set among trees. A muddy water buffalo stood in a muddy pen. ‘Intel confirms a bunker system. It’s about to get a belting from the space cowboys from Steelhorse.’
The rumble intensified. Like everyone else, Shoey looked to the east. In seconds, a pair of Phantoms, arrow-like, passed low over the hill, thundering, obliterating every other sound. Continuing on, they released black sticks that tumbled harmlessly towards the ground. For a few seconds nothing happened. Then the hill shook and a fireball engulfed the huts and jungle. The boys cheered.
Clouds of oily black smoke shot through with bright orange fire climbed lazily. The Phantoms circled, untouchable.
‘More.’ Pete inclined his head. ‘Look.’
Two more fighter-bombers circled, set themselves then completed bombing-runs and again the broken, smoking ground bucked and jolted. More noise. More fire. More smoke. More cheers.
‘Cop that.’ Johnny felt a sinister sense of elation, a measure of revenge that would never be enough. ‘Our mates are bigger than yours.’ He watched the Phantoms climb away. ‘Good luck down there, Charlie. You’re gunna need it.’
Khan sensed the jets. Or maybe he heard them. Or felt them through the bedrock. Or perhaps the terror preceded the bombs on a shockwave of Johnny’s intent. The raid was beyond belief. Perhaps people screamed but there was nothing Khan could hear within a noise so great it tossed him into a wall. Sections of the ceiling gave way. Supports fell across the beds and the air disappeared. Then – nothing.
Now – something.
Khan was elsewhere. Framed in the broken sky was the armour-plated belly of a gunship. He could see mini-guns spitting and all he could do was lie like a grub in an open nest. With his face hidden in the crook of his elbow he waited until time re-established itself, and the crushing noise miraculously lifted. He looked up, wondering if he might be the last Vietnamese alive on earth. Or already dead.
Nearly gotcha, Shoey thought. Again, you’re lucky I know how these things work; that not everyone who should die, does. And that you have as much right to live as me, if the truth be told, which is what I am here for – because I have no time for lies or liars.
Forty-five
Shoey peered hard through a wet windscreen as he tried to navigate the rainy Carlton streets. Was it Cardigan Place, Street, Road, or Lane that he was looking for? At every intersection, people crossed the road as riskily as rabbits, and trams passed through his peripheral vision like green whales. The place was awash. There were sheets of water wherever he looked.
‘Holy hell,’ he muttered, swinging around corners, caught in evening peak hour like a leaf in a stream. ‘This is bloody madness.’
He gave it another ten minutes before pulling over into a tight parking space between two trees. Killing the motor, he sat, letting the windscreen fog up and the world go by. All he could see were brick cottages with verandas cluttered with bicycles, loaded washing lines, and broken couches. Girls passed wearing duffel coats and black stockings, the sight of them stirring him enough to pull the keys out of the ignition. If he was going to find Jilly then he’d better get to a phone box and make the call.
Without any great confidence, Johnny set off towards a wide road that thumped with traffic. Within fifty yards he saw there were more cafes than in the whole of Taralia, but not one public phone. The place was filled with
damp students and lorded over by Italians and Greeks wearing tight daks and gold chains. In his army shirt, a southerly wind riffling his crew cut, Johnny felt gawky, way out of place, and aware that he was creating an undercurrent of silent disapproval. He decided to take a break and selected a café big enough where he hoped he might go unnoticed.
‘Coffee, signore?’ A short bloke tucked in behind a red coffee machine lifted a stubbly chin. ‘Best in Lygon Street.’
Johnny ran the tape measure over the guy and was given the once-over in return.
‘Yeah, why not?’ He needed a moment to think. ‘Where do I sit?’
The guy laughed, cupping a stainless steel jug in hairy hands.
‘As close to the best-lookin’ girl you can get.’ He flicked loose a handle and bashed out coffee grounds as if he was using a hammer. ‘Bloody hell, mate. Where you been?’
‘Deep in the jungle,’ Johnny said easily. ‘Deep in the jungle.’ He spotted a table. ‘I’ll be over there.’ He dragged out his wallet. The man ignored it.
‘Pay later, signore. Pay later.’
Shoey sat at a small table. Five minutes later a girl with sooty eye make-up delivered him a creamy-looking coffee that, with two sugars added, he enjoyed. Poking a couple of fingers down beside his smokes, searching for Jilly’s number, he came up with nothing but sand. I am now, he figured, even more stuffed than I was ten minutes ago.
As it got dark, Johnny ordered spaghetti and a carafe of the red wine everyone else was drinking. The pasta was rich, hot, and strange but it hit the spot. The wine he judged as shithouse but downed it anyway. Then he ordered more wine, accepting the fact that finding Jill, Jill’s street, house, or phone number was impossible at this time.
Dreaming the Enemy Page 19