by Derek Hansen
‘Ramon is right,’ said Lucio. ‘I can see that you’ve obviously thought a great deal about what happened, but no offence was intended. Milos may have exaggerated to make a point and we backed him because it was clear that, for some reason, he was targeting you. But, Neil, it was just a game. Our comments were made in the spirit of the game.’
‘Oh, I accept it was a game, one of your precious, elitist, European games. What pisses me off most is that you’re not even aware that you’re doing it. I don’t know why you just don’t come out and admit it, admit that Australia is not good enough for you. I know it has its appeal and comforts but, in your hearts, Australia is just not sophisticated enough. You flaunt your culture in the face of our football, your café society in the face of our backyard barbecues, your urbanity in the face of our mateship.’
‘Neil, your audience has extended far beyond this table,’ said Milos quietly. ‘Did you intend humiliation to be part of your retribution?’
Neil paused to compose himself and lower his voice. There was too much anger, too much aggression. It was time to pull back and Milos had provided him with the opportunity. He adopted the tactic of the man on the soapbox in the park who deliberately speaks softly so that people have to gather in close to hear what he has to say.
‘I’ve thought long and hard about what story to tell. I have had many ideas but, in the final analysis, they all seemed too trite. This is not a time for fiction.’
‘Neil, what are you saying?’ Concern was etched into Lucio’s face. He glanced at his companions but their expressions were no different to his and brought him no comfort. Neil’s about-face was the last thing they’d expected.
‘We no longer have any conventions,’ said Neil. ‘Our lunches are no longer a venue to exchange clever fictions. Ramon changed all that when he decided to air his sordid past. You, Lucio, compounded the error with the story of your aunt. All Milos did was continue down a path already established, but it was he who drove the nails into the coffin. These last nine weeks have not been unsatisfying just because the currency was short stories but because we were dealing once more with fiction. Fiction can never carry the weight of truth nor the substance. Milos, you brought Gabi to our lunches, not so that we could imagine her pain as we would if she were an invention, but so that we could feel her pain. So we could look her in the eye and see how she suffered. Ramon summed it up perfectly, as he always does, when he said that the presence of Gabi, and having Gabi share the storytelling, added an extra dimension to your tale. It did. My God, did it ever. Now, tell me, how can fiction compete with that?’
Neil looked around the table at each man in turn. He’d never seen them so uncomfortable. He’d fired his arrows and not one had missed its target.
‘You disadvantage me and my preference for fiction. You leave me no choice but to do what I pleaded with you not to do or to face relegation to the second division. Lucio, you asked where my story was taking you, so I’ll tell you. It’s taking you to Australia, this country you treat so lightly. It’s taking you into my past, a place you have no damn right to go. It is a story which, at times, will be as dramatic as any of your European epics and, yes, even as painful. It is a true story and one I never dreamed I’d tell.’
Neil paused. He had his friends’ attention like never before. There was curiosity tinged with guilt, but, more importantly, he saw fear. They were scared of what he would say next. He smiled grimly to himself.
‘My story is the story of my brother. He was a fabulous kid, younger than me but as gutsy as they come. He was my best mate. He was irrepressible. You couldn’t knock the smile off his face with a hammer in each hand.’ Neil’s voice faltered at the memory and he stared down at the table so he wouldn’t have to meet his friends’ eyes. He was momentarily lost for words. When they finally came, his companions had to strain to hear them. ‘His story has never been told. It is my family’s darkest secret. If the secret is to be revealed, unfortunately, I am the one obliged to do it.’
‘Why? Why you?’ asked Lucio.
‘Because I took my brother’s life.’ Neil’s voice trembled with the admission. ‘I took his life.’
His friends sat, shocked speechless, as they absorbed the implications. In all the years they had been meeting, Neil had told them nothing about himself, other than his occupation and the fact that he was single. Now he was preparing to lift the curtain on who he was and, worse, what he had done. They were intrigued, of course, but also wary. Ramon had once told a story that had threatened to break up the group and put an end to any future lunches. Neil’s story had the potential to do the same. It was a risk Lucio was not prepared to take.
‘Neil, you can stop now. You don’t have to tell us this. We don’t ask it of you. Please, my friend, stop now before it’s too late.’
‘But it’s already too late,’ said Ramon. ‘Your story has already started, hasn’t it, Neil?’ A slow smile spread across the blind man’s face.
Chapter Two
The tunnel was supposed to be cold. The engagement the previous day, plus the relentless air and artillery barrage, had forced the enemy to withdraw. The smell of cordite and scorched trees still lingered among the other smells: the earthy, rotting, fecund smell of jungle; the sticky, sweet smell of shattered palms; and the unmistakeable smell of death. The bloodied bodies of the two Vietcong lying in the dugout firing post was clear evidence of the speed of the enemy’s forced withdrawal. The VC were zealous in their efforts to recover and conceal their dead. The fact that two precious AK-47 assault rifles lay with the corpses and had not been reclaimed was taken as another good sign, a clear indicator that the tunnel was cold.
The artillery shell that had killed the two Vietcong had landed just centimetres to the side of the trench, giving them no chance at all. Ironically, if the shell had made a direct hit on top of the metre-and-a-half-thick roof protecting the trench, both men would have probably survived. A soldier ignored the flies to inspect the two AK-47s for booby-traps. He did it more as good practice than precaution. All the evidence suggested the withdrawal had been too hasty and he was well aware that the Vietcong could ill-afford to lose the weapons. Nevertheless, he attached wires to both rifles and took cover outside the trench before hauling them clear. He repeated the procedure with the bodies using ropes. There were no nasty surprises. The tunnel was cold.
Billy ‘Barb’ Dwyer had already taken off his shirt and was practising tying his torch to the end of a half-metre-long stick. He tied it at an angle of around seventy degrees so that it shone away to the side of the direction he pointed the stick. The tunnels zigzagged and Barb liked his torch to look around the corners before he did in the event that the tunnel was hot. He untied the torch and jammed the stick through his belt. The torch, his knife and a 9mm Browning pistol were all he’d take with him into the tunnel. His backup, Costa ‘Motsa’ Peponis, would carry the radio to maintain contact with the rest of the section up top. Barb couldn’t help glancing at the bodies, at the faces of the enemy, an enemy he hoped he’d never meet underground. They looked harmless enough and there was nothing to them except skin and bone. Yet they were the stuff of nightmares: resourceful little men who killed, maimed and crippled without warning, often in ways that didn’t bear thinking about. And they’d made an art of killing underground.
Barb entered the tunnel opening midway up the side of the trench and began the gentle descent towards what he expected would be the main communications tunnel. The stink and staleness of the air intensified the further he descended. He paused to draw a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. His pulse was racing and the pounding in his ears could obscure the sound of the enemy, the clink of a weapon in nervous hands or the more subtle, dreaded sound of breathing, of suddenly realising someone else was down there, waiting, waiting for him. This was Barb’s fifth tunnel and they didn’t get any easier. He took two big sucks of the putrid air as he tried to convince himself that the tunnel was cold; how all the signs pointed to the fact that the t
unnel was cold. He felt Motsa’s hand touch his right boot. A gentle reassuring tap, a she’ll-be-right-mate. As if he’d know.
Four metres in, the shaft met with the communications tunnel. Barb paused, flicked his torch on and searched for trip wires or cord that could be rigged to a grenade. It was a tense moment. If Charlie was waiting for them and pulled out the pin, Barb could count the rest of his life in seconds. There were no wires or cords and no decision to make over which direction to turn. The firing post was at the furthermost reach of the communications tunnel. Barb took his time examining the tunnel ahead. It was barely point-eight of a metre wide and no more than one-point-three metres high. He guessed the roof was not more than a metre and a half below ground. There was nothing to suggest this tunnel was anything special.
Despite the tension he couldn’t help checking out the walls and roof: laterite clay, dull red by the light of his torch, betraying the presence of iron. It was good tunnelling soil and dried as hard as brick, not unlike the off-white shin-cracker he’d grown up playing amongst. Even the cold feel of it reminded him of the sandstone roof of the worked-out lenses he’d explored with his brother, always hoping to find opals that might somehow have been overlooked. He pushed on into the communications tunnel. The brief distraction had helped ease his jitters and sharpened his concentration. The tunnel ran straight for a good seven metres before angling away, but Barb took his time, running his fingers through the dust of the floor, feeling for wires that would indicate the presence of trapdoors leading to storage areas or a more comprehensive network of tunnels. There were none. The smell grew fouler but he’d learned to ignore it. Smell didn’t kill.
He paused at the bend, turned off his torch and, in the darkness, tied it to the stick. He crept as close to the bend as he dared, flicked his torch back on and extended the stick out in front of him. He braced himself for a burst from an AK-47. There wasn’t one. He withdrew his torch, untied it and jammed the stick back in his belt. Sweat ran down his face and dripped off his nose and the point of his chin. He stank but it was just one more foul smell among the many. He turned the corner, checking first for irregularities in the floor that could indicate someone was watching him from beneath a slightly raised trapdoor, waiting for him to come closer and present a target that could not be missed. There was nothing suspicious that he could see and no shafts in the ceiling leading to tunnel exits. He crawled slowly forward, fingers still probing the dust for telltale wires.
His conviction grew that the tunnel would probably not amount to much, that it did little more than link four or five firing posts. There was a chance that another communications tunnel at a deeper level connected up with other firing posts or a more complex system, but Barb suspected that he’d just find a number of tunnel exits from which the Vietcong could make their escape into the jungle and to a more comprehensive tunnel system. With any luck he’d find a rice cache or a weapons cache, doubtless booby-trapped, but they’d become accustomed to dealing with them and the discovery would be compensation for the risks he was taking.
But a discovery added to the danger. Any storage area would be built below the tunnel he was in and accessing it usually meant dropping feet first down a vertical shaft. He’d heard enough stories to know a Vietcong could be waiting with a bayonet to thrust up into his groin, or with an AK-47 that would blow Big Jim and the twins to buggery and virtually cut him in half, but what was the alternative? Besides destroying anything of value, hand grenades dropped down the shaft also burned up the available oxygen, limiting further exploration. His job was to explore the tunnel and report, not blow it up. That would come later.
He paused again where the tunnel bent back, turned off his torch and reached for his stick. All his observations and instincts confirmed the belief that the tunnel was cold. His breathing was easier now, measured and shallow, and the throbbing in his ears long gone. He expected the next section to reveal a shaft leading up to another firing position or at least a trapdoor covering an exit. Experience had taught the Australians that firing posts tended to be grouped in threes in the shape of a triangle, so each position could lend support to the others. Barb didn’t doubt that the second point of the triangle lay ahead of him, just around the bend. Behind him, Motsa crouched as still as a statue, having stopped when he’d stopped. He finished tying his torch to the stick and paused to listen before switching it back on. In that moment, in that fleeting moment when neither of them moved nor drew breath, Barb heard something. Fear shot through his body, as sudden and as paralysing as an electric shock.
What had he heard?
What had caused it?
Dear God! He stared wide-eyed into the blackness, his ears suddenly as large as an elephant’s, every muscle in his body poised to spring but not knowing which way. His mind raced over possibilities, hoping to identify the sound as something harmless. He’d been frightened before and nearly emptied his pistol on a rat the size of a small cat. Maybe it was another rat. Tunnels were full of them. But he knew instinctively that no rat had made the sound and hoping otherwise changed nothing. The sound had been soft. And muffled. Almost inaudible. But almost certainly human.
Almost certainly human!
Barb had dreaded this moment, feared it with the fear of death itself. His elephant ears heard the sound again and identified it beyond any shadow of doubt. Someone breathing. In that instant, all his fears were realised. Ahead of him, in the darkness around the bend, someone was waiting.
But who? VC, obviously. Waiting in ambush. A wounded, desperate enemy with nothing to lose or why hadn’t he fled? Dear God! Sweet Jesus! Barb slowly backed up as quietly as he could until his boots touched Motsa. He reached behind and patted Motsa’s arm twice in a pre-arranged signal, letting him know he’d made live contact and to back up. Barb wanted Motsa far enough away to be out of range of a hand grenade, but close enough to help him or get help if he got wounded. Motsa didn’t hesitate. He backed away like an engine in a shunting yard.
Barb tried to remember the times he’d been scared before, the scrapes he and his brother had got into and how he’d coped. Nothing compared, not even the time the wild pigs had nailed him. There was no brother he could rely on now, no sense of thrill or excitement that it was all just a dangerous game that would inevitably end happily. There’d be no rolling around on the ground afterwards between the heaps of mullock, laughing off a cave-in and celebrating their immortality. Barb had never felt such overwhelming fear before, would never in a million years have believed he was even capable of it. He lay flat on his belly, pistol and torch poised in front of him, cursing the pounding in his ears, waiting for his shock and fear to ease so that he could act. He knew what he had to do, but first he had to be capable of doing it.
His plan was simple. He’d use his torch to draw a response. If it came in the form of a hand grenade he’d have to hope that the bend in the tunnel shielded him from shrapnel and the worst of the blast. If the response was gunfire, he’d wait until his torch was shot to shit, then reach around the corner and fire three shots blind. If there was return fire, wait five seconds and fire another three rounds. If there was more return fire, he was out of there and Motsa had better not get in his way! He took three deep breaths as quietly as he could but the breaths seemed not to contain the oxygen he needed. He took another breath and held it as he rose back up onto his hands and knees and edged forward. Christ, if only his brother could see him now! His brother loved his recklessness and fearlessness, even boasted about it in front of their father. Oh Christ, let him have the chance to boast about this.
Where was the corner? Why hadn’t he counted his steps? He didn’t want to turn his torch on until the last minute, didn’t want to risk revealing it was only attached to a stick, but, even more, didn’t want to expose himself to the first burst of gunfire. He felt along the wall but it told him nothing. There was no hard edge on the bend, just a gentle curve. He pressed his stick against the wall and felt along it to see if there was a gap at the furthest ti
p. No. He edged forward and repeated the exercise. Yes! He edged forward a little further to make certain. The stick rolled against the wall when he tried to hold it flat. He swallowed. The moment of truth had come.
Barb lay still, his finger poised over the torch switch, all his senses attuned to what his ears would tell him. He heard the breathing again. This time it seemed more rapid, like someone panting but trying to do so silently and all but succeeding. Whoever was there had to be no more than four metres away and, more likely, no more than three. Oh Christ! Would his enemy be crouched down like him, lying down or peeping through the narrow slot of a raised trapdoor? The Browning felt welded to his hand.
He sucked in a deep breath, not caring if his enemy heard him. The time for silence had passed and he knew it was better if his enemy realised he was about to make his move. He flicked on his torch and pushed it along the floor of the tunnel and out around the bend. Barb braced for the shots, hoping like all hell that his hand was outside the line of fire. He closed his eyes, couldn’t help himself.
Nothing happened. No shots, no hand grenade.
Oh God! What now? Maybe the Vietcong pulled the same trick. Maybe his enemy had glimpsed the stick. Barb withdrew his torch, switched it off and detached it from the stick. Out of habit he jammed the stick back in his belt. What now? He knew damn well what now. If his adversary was beneath a trapdoor, firing blindly around the bend would accomplish nothing. With his torch in his left hand and his Browning in his right, he inched his way forward flat on his belly so that he, his torch and his pistol had a clear sight along the tunnel. It was like the war games he’d played with his brother, using rubber bands stretched between finger and thumb to propel rolled paper pellets bound tight with sticky tape. Whoever had the fastest reactions and steadiest hand always won.