Desolation Game

by Greg McLean

  ‘Get away,’ she whimpered.

  Mick was glad to see it was the pretty blonde.

  ‘My, what happened to you?’ he said.

  Mick noticed she had one leg out straight and wasn’t putting any pressure on it. Her ankle appeared to be swollen. ‘Taken a tumble, love?’ He shook his head and clicked his tongue. ‘Ain’t that a shame.’

  He shone the light back and noticed an especially large pothole in the ground. The mine shafts were filled with them, and if you didn’t watch your step, you could easily put your foot in one and twist your ankle.

  He flashed the torch back to her. She’d stopped trying to crawl away, and just sat there looking up at him, tears falling down her grimy face. Her chest heaved, and Mick groaned at the sight of her full breasts through her T-shirt’s wet fabric.

  ‘What did you do with Jewel?’ the girl said, lips quivering.

  ‘Oh, she’s okay. But you’re of greater concern to me right at the moment. Can you walk?’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘Hmm.’ Mick scratched his stubbly chin. ‘You know, when a horse gets injured like this, it gets put down. In the wild, if an animal hurts its leg, the chances of it surviving are very slim. It becomes easy prey for other animals.’ Mick raised his rifle and aimed it squarely between her lovely breasts.

  The girl sobbed.

  ‘What say we put you down, hey?’

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Please, just leave me alone.’

  Mick lowered the rifle. ‘Nah. You’re much too pretty a filly to merely execute. But, if ya can’t walk, then I’m gonna have to carry ya. Lucky for me you’re small. But first, let me ask you: where’s the Yank?’

  The girl choked back tears. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘She wasn’t with you?’

  The girl shook her long blonde mane.

  Mick gazed down the dark mine shaft. He could always leave the blonde here while he continued searching. If she was lying and the Yank was somewhere farther ahead, then he could simply put a bullet in the Yank’s head and be done with her.

  But he didn’t want to spend time traipsing through the shaft for nothing.

  He turned back to the blonde. ‘Are you sure she’s not down there? I’ll find her eventually, regardless of what you tell me now. And if I learn that you were lyin’ to me, I’ll make ya scream twice as loud. Got me?’

  The blonde sobbed. ‘I don’t know where she is. Honest.’

  Mick nodded. ‘Okay. I believe you.’

  He reversed his hold on the gun, said, ‘Goodnight,’ and smacked the girl across the face with the stock.

  She fell to the side, out cold.

  ‘Can’t have you bitchin’ and moaning all the way back,’ Mick muttered. He reached down and scooped her up. He slung her across his back, liking the feel of her soft form against him. ‘Okay, solider: forward, march,’ he said, and started walking back along the mine shaft to the entrance.

  19

  Vietnam

  February 1967

  A few days after Mick and Sarge’s actions in the village, Mick is sitting precariously on a chair on top of a wooden crate. He’s getting his hair cut.

  Tony, E Company’s resident barber, is carefully snipping away at Mick’s scraggy hair. The volunteer takes his job seriously, and even though most of the men don’t care whether they look like Paul Newman or Jerry Lewis, Tony takes great care with cutting the soldiers’ locks.

  Mick takes a drink of beer, flips the page of the Playboy he stole from Herby, and roams his eyes dispassionately over a large-breasted blonde. ‘You’re doing a grand job, Tony. I feel ten pounds lighter already.’

  ‘You have surprisingly good hair,’ Tony says, working the scissors. ‘Thick, not too dry or oily.’

  Mick takes another sip of lukewarm VB. ‘You cracking on to me, Tony? Here, take a gander at these puppies – they’ll turn any poofter.’

  Tony clicks his tongue. ‘I’m no fag, Mick. Shit, why do you guys all think just because —’

  A young digger passing them interrupts. ‘Hey, ya heard the latest?’

  Mick frowns. ‘Huh?’

  The digger from 15 Platoon is new and Mick can’t remember his name.

  ‘Apparently some diggers attacked a group of villagers a couple of days ago. Killed a bunch of ’em, including an old woman. Went nuts, did some real sick shit.’

  Mick shifts in the chair, feels the legs slide on the crate. ‘How’d ya hear about it?’

  ‘All the skippers from each platoon just got a roasting. I was cleaning the officer’s toilets and heard them getting reprimanded. You should have heard the major – thought he was going to bust a vein in his old fellow, the way he was yelling.’ The digger shakes his head. ‘What those soldiers did to those villagers . . . Shit, I just about puked. I can’t believe anyone from this battalion could do something so horrible. I mean, we’re Aussies.’

  The young digger hurries away, presumably to tell anyone who’ll listen about what he just heard.

  Mick sculls the beer, tosses the can to the ground.

  ‘Christ, that’s terrible,’ Tony says, scissors still.

  Mick’s suddenly sweating. He feels edgy.

  He springs to his feet and the chair almost topples off the crate. ‘Thanks, Tony.’

  ‘But I’m not done.’

  Mick jumps to the ground. ‘Doesn’t matter. I like lopsided hair. Here, take this.’ Mick slaps the Playboy into Tony’s hands. ‘If ya are queer and can’t use it, then read it for the articles.’

  Mick picks up his Armalite and storms away from the barber’s tent.

  He walks around E company’s lines, looking for Sarge. It’s a typically hot, dusty day in the Dat – worse than the wet season, in Mick’s opinion. Most of the men complain about the mud and the constant rain, but Mick hates the dust more: it gets in his eyes and throat, and the dry heat gives him headaches.

  A bunch of men are playing cricket in the field beyond E Company’s wire; other blokes are sitting around playing card games or two-up. Mick can’t find Sarge anywhere.

  A few members of his platoon he bumps into ask him whether he’s heard about the attack on the village. Mick nods and asks whether they’ve seen the skipper. None of them have.

  Finally he meets up with Woody, coming back from the PX store, bottle of Bacardi in his hand.

  ‘Yeah, I saw him heading to the pissaphone behind 14 Platoon’s lines.’

  ‘Great, thanks.’

  ‘Ah, Mick, you have any idea about who did all of that stuff to those women?’

  Mick shakes his head.

  Woody looks around, and then steps closer. ‘I know about the root bin and the nearby village. I know you’ve been . . . taking advantage of the local girls. Come on, you can tell me. It wasn’t you, was it?’ He holds up the rum. ‘I’ll share this with ya, no charge, if ya tell me. I won’t spill my guts, you know that.’

  Mick keeps his expression neutral. ‘It wasn’t me. I don’t know anything about it. Honest. I’d love a drop of rum, but sorry, can’t help ya.’

  He walks away.

  At the latrine, he finds Sarge walking out of the well-ventilated toilet block.

  When he sees Mick, his stern face doesn’t flinch. ‘Not now, Mick.’

  Mick steps in front of him. ‘Well, what’s going on? How much do they know?’

  Sarge pushes past Mick. The big man is strong, he’s like a bull charging.

  Mick follows him. He has to walk fast to keep up. ‘Come on, Sarge, tell me what’s goin’ on. What did the major say to you and Patto?’

  Sarge finally stops and looks hard at Mick. He motions with his head for Mick to follow, and leads him into the trees, away from hot ears. The stink from the latrine is still pungent in the air.

  ‘The officers know about the attacks,’ Sarge whispers. ‘They know soldiers from the fifth battalion are responsible.’

  ‘How the fuck did they find out? Did one of those village sluts cry foul?’

 
‘Hell no,’ Sarge says. ‘Think you and I would be standing here if one of ’em did? No, one of the regular rubbish guys noticed the women at the tip were beaten, and they went down to the village. They saw our handiwork. They grilled the women, even got one of the bush scouts to go over to the village and ask them who did it. All the girls would say was that it was two soldiers, two Uc Dai Lois. They were too scared to say any more.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Mick says.

  ‘All platoon commanders and sergeants are to do some serious digging and try to find the culprits. The officers want the guilty party, and they won’t rest until they’re brought to justice.’

  ‘Damn, I guess this means no more root bin, huh?’

  Sarge shoots Mick a look that could scare the devil himself.

  ‘Not a word of this to anyone. Got it?’ Sarge says firmly.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And we’d best not be seen together too much. I have to be seen playing the good sergeant, asking around. We’d just better hope the women at the village don’t decide to talk. If they do, we’re fucked.’

  ‘Should have slit all of their throats,’ Mick mutters.

  ‘Go back and do whatever it was you were doing,’ Sarge says. ‘Don’t act suspiciously and keep your damn mouth shut. We should get through this okay.’

  Before Sarge leaves, he gives Mick a sideways glance, one that comes across as suspicious.

  That look plays on Mick’s mind for the rest of the day.

  Mick’s lying in his cot, hands behind his head, eyes staring up at the khaki ceiling of his tent. He’s sucking on a Marlboro and listening to Woody and Sluggo chatting. Not surprisingly, they’re talking about the village.

  ‘I bet it was someone from C Company,’ Woody says. He’s sitting on a box by his bed, cleaning his rifle. ‘Some of those bushies are wild. I heard one time, during a yippee shoot, they accidentally shot one of their own men. I wouldn’t put killing and cutting up innocent women past them.’

  Mick plucks out his cigarette and blows smoke to the dimly lit interior.

  Like most nights in the dry season, it’s brutally hot, but still. You can hear the crickets and the distant grumble of harassment and interdiction fire over the constant buzzing of the radios and chatter.

  Sluggo has his transistor on and AFVN are playing ‘Paint It Black, as always. Mick’s sick to death of that song.

  ‘Those goons are too stupid to do something like that,’ Sluggo says. He’s sprawled on his bed reading a love letter from his girlfriend, Nancy, for maybe the hundredth time. He has to know the letter off by heart, yet he still holds the two pages and reads the words, every so often bringing the pages to his face and sniffing.

  The perfume has faded by now – the letter is over a month old – but Woody reckons maybe he just likes having the pages close to him, knowing that she touched them. She hasn’t written to him again, and so Sluggo is holding on to the letter like it is the last bit of toilet paper in the camp.

  ‘To get out of the wire and over to the village without arousing suspicion? Nah, can’t see those drongos getting away with that,’ Sluggo finishes.

  ‘Yeah, maybe you’re right,’ Woody says.

  ‘Maybe it was VC and the girls only said it was soldiers,’ Herby says. ‘You know, to save themselves.’

  The new nasho is softly spoken. He has thin sandy hair and deep blue eyes. He looks like an overgrown baby. But he’s a hell of a lot more tolerable than Stretch.

  Mick looks over at the young digger through the gloom of the single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. ‘Yeah, you could be right.’

  Herby is heating up a can of braised steak and onions. The smell is inviting.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ Woody says.

  Sluggo scoffs. ‘Bullshit. It wasn’t Charlie. It’s not their style. They don’t bother with shit-poke nothing villages like the one near the tip. Christ, they had no rice, no pigs, nothing to take. Those women were about as poor as you can get.’

  ‘And how would you know?’ Woody says, grinning.

  Sluggo places his letter under his pillow. ‘Fuck you.’

  He’s been moodier than usual since Stretch’s death. The two were close, and Mick figures the second scout’s death has hit Sluggo hard.

  Woody grips his rifle and starts speaking into it like a microphone. ‘Mr Short, where were you on the morning of February eighth? Inquiring minds want to know . . .’

  Sluggo grimaces and turns around. ‘Screw you.’

  ‘I hear you were an occasional visitor to the village in question. And the ladies remembered you because of your large . . . gun.’

  ‘You don’t shut up I’ll ram my large gun up your arse.’

  ‘Is there any truth to the rumour that you once re-stocked the root bin with the crap from regular bins just so you could have —’

  Sluggo hurls an empty can of Fourex at Woody. ‘Knock it off!’

  Woody ducks, and the can hits his wall of half-naked pin-up girls behind him.

  ‘What’s a root bin?’ Herby asks.

  Woody realises he’s said too much – he’s forgotten that Herby is new and doesn’t know about that little secret. ‘Nothing. I was just having fun.’

  Sluggo gives Woody a venomous look, before turning back over and staring out into the darkness.

  Herby shrugs and takes his pot off the portable stove. He starts spooning the braised steak and onions into his mouth. ‘Anyone want any?’ he mumbles.

  Mick smiles. ‘Nah, that stuff looks like dog’s vomit.’

  ‘Didn’t you eat enough at dinner?’ Woody says.

  Herby shrugs. ‘I don’t like that food,’ he says. ‘I like this. It reminds me . . . well, of home. Sluggo, you hungry?’

  ‘I wouldn’t eat that shit if it was the last meal left in ’Nam.’

  ‘But . . . but my mum sent it over. I like it.’

  Sluggo huffs. ‘Then get a new mum – one who sends ya good stuff.’

  The young nasho looks like he’s about to cry.

  ‘Come on, Sluggo,’ Woody says.

  ‘Yeah, ease up,’ Mick says. ‘Christ, a scorpion sting you on the cock or somethin’?’

  Sluggo looks over his shoulder at Mick. ‘It was going to sting yours, but it couldn’t find it.’

  Mick claps. ‘Funny.’

  Sluggo isn’t smiling.

  Mick has noticed a change in the way Sluggo acts around him: when he isn’t hostile, he’s distant. Mick doesn’t think he knows anything, but he still gets the feeling Sluggo blames him for Stretch’s death.

  ‘This tent is cursed,’ Sluggo mutters. ‘I think we have the highest turnover rate of any tent in the whole camp. First Barry, then Stretch.’

  Woody looks at Mick. ‘I think it was two stings – one on his arse, too.’

  Mick smiles.

  Herby continues eating.

  ‘This whole fucking war is cursed,’ Sluggo spits.

  The tent falls silent. The upbeat soul of ‘Baby, Now That I’ve Found You’ coming from the radio is discordant with the sudden drop in mood, and it stays that way until all four diggers go to sleep.

  20

  Western Australia

  February 1968

  Jewel collapsed against the cool wall of the pit and wiped an arm across her forehead, exhausted.

  It had been hard work climbing back up the ladder, but it had all been for nothing. She’d tried to lift the manhole cover. She had pushed with her hands, had tried lifting it with her back – but it was no use. The cover wouldn’t budge. She was now sure Mick had dragged the wooden bench on top of it, and it was simply too heavy for her to shift.

  It seemed she was stuck in the foul pit, unable to do anything but wait for the maniac to come back.

  She had just resigned herself to this fate when she heard a muffled voice from above.

  ‘Jewel? Are you in here?’

  Jewel gasped. ‘Cindy? Oh Christ, get me out of here!’

  There was a pause. ‘Where’s here? I can’
t see you.’

  ‘Go to the bench! The big wooden bench.’

  Jewel heard footsteps above, fast and light, coming closer.

  ‘Okay. Where are you?’ Cindy’s voice was louder now.

  ‘Underneath, in a pit. There’s a manhole under the bench. I tried to move it, but it wouldn’t budge.’

  ‘Okay, hang on.’

  Jewel’s heart thumped. There were some shuddering sounds as Cindy worked on the bench, then nothing.

  ‘It’s too heavy,’ Cindy puffed after a short spell. ‘I can’t move it.’

  Tears welled in Jewel’s eyes. She’d got a break but maybe it would come to nothing.

  ‘Listen,’ Cindy said. ‘I don’t know how long till Mick gets back. I saw him head into one of the mines after leaving here.’

  Mine? Oh God, Jewel thought, he’s gone for Amber.

  ‘You’ve been watching all this time?’ she called up.

  ‘Yeah. But listen – I have the guns.’

  Jewel frowned. Had she heard Cindy correctly? ‘Did you say you have the guns?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Holy shit. Where’d ya find them?’

  ‘In the Kombi, in a bag behind the front seat. Took me a while. It was well hidden. But there were three handguns.’

  Jewel seized the news as a rare piece of hope. They just might be able to fight back if he wasn’t expecting them to be armed. ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘I’ve got two on me. The other one is still in the Kombi, behind the front passenger seat, as a backup. I unlocked all the side doors, so if for some reason we need to get to it, we don’t have to crawl through the back.’

  That was smart. Jewel breathed with relief. ‘So . . . what’s the plan?’

  ‘I’m gonna hide and wait for the bastard to return. When he does . . . well, we should be able to handle him, then get the hell out of here. I’d better get going. No telling when he’ll be back. Stay calm, okay, Jewel? You’ll be out of here soon. I promise.’

  Jewel wanted to beg Cindy not to leave, but she knew the American was right. ‘Good luck,’ she said, as she heard Cindy’s foot falls fade away.