Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  I’ve seen a few airports since going to Malaya, but I’ve never seen one where there’s almost only military, with US soldiers in combat greens filing in and out of Hercules C130s carrying their packs, weapons and other equip ment. There seem to be a lot of black blokes among them.

  An Australian warrant officer is there to meet me. ‘John Dean, mate, ’ow yer goin’?’ he says.

  ‘Mole Maloney,’ I reply, shaking his hand, ‘pleased ter meetcha, John.’

  ‘Mole, that a nickname?’ he asks right off.

  ‘Yeah, but I can hardly remember what my rightful christened name is, always been Mole.’ ‘Fair enough,’ he says. ‘Welcome to Vietnam, Mole.’ Oh, I forgot to say, LBJ wanted more Australian advisers in Vietnam so the Yanks wouldn’t look as though they were going it alone as the big bully and it’s put a bit of a strain on the Australian system. Instead of only officers and warrant officers being sent, quite a bunch of us sergeants are going too. But to better fit the US Army administration system we’re all getting temporary promotion. So, say hello to temporary Warrant Officer Mole Maloney.

  John Dean puts me in the front seat of a small bus with him and I notice the windows are covered with chicken wire as a defence against a lobbed grenade. I realise for the first time that the enemy is probably everywhere and that this one doesn’t necessarily wear a uniform or hide in the jungle. It’s Malaya and the terrorists all over again, but these cats aren’t ending a guerilla war, they’ve been fighting one for years and if the defeat of the French is any indication, they’re bloody good at it.

  As we drive along the busy airport road and then into the city, it’s as if we’re driving in a sea of bicycles, twostroke motorbikes and Vespa scooters. The French influence is still here on the road, in the wide boulevards and some of the beautiful colonial buildings. The noise of all the bicycle bells and the angry, ripppppping sound of two-stroke exhausts and scooters is almost deafening. Busy is the word. Everyone is going someplace and anxious to get there.

  What I notice most is the white. The men all wear white shirts and black pants. But the shirts are not just white, they’re Persil-white and look crisp like they’ve just been ironed and put on. Already I’m sweating like a pig in the tropical heat and these buggers look cool as a cucumber. The women too are dressed in white ao dais, it’s the national costume of long pants and a long fitted dress with a mandarin collar. We pass a bunch of young girls and I gasp at how beautiful they are, elegant too. I should take an ao dais home for Sarah, I reckon it would be a good thing for a doctor to wear. Even the cops wear white, white trousers, coats, caps, gloves and the warrant officer tells me they’re called ‘White Mice’ and have a pretty bad reputation for shooting first and asking questions later.

  I’m dropped off at a fleapit hotel to spend the night. I don’t mind because I’ll probably spend half the night looking around the town. The warrant officer apologises and says hotel accommodation in Saigon is at a premium and the Australian government is reluctant to put warrant officers up at the Inter-Continental.

  Next morning I’m collected by John Dean and driven back to the airport and I board a Hercules for Da Nang. Next to Tan Son Nhut airbase in Saigon, it’s the biggest US airbase in South Vietnam. It’s also the headquarters of the US Special Forces, the mob I’ll be working with.

  In downtown Da Nang, as the Yanks refer to it, even though it is almost next door to the airbase perimeter, is Australia House, a modest white bungalow with an iron picket fence, shaped not unlike a barracks, with a tiled roof. I’m taken there in a jeep by the administrative warrant officer of the establishment, where I’m welcomed by the RSM, which stands for Regimental Sergeant Major.

  ‘Welcome to Australia House, Warrant Officer Maloney.’ The RSM extends his hand, which is pretty unusual. Must be a friendly mob, I think. So far so good.

  ‘Thank you, RSM.’

  ‘Good flight?’ he asks, then adds, ‘No, don’t answer that.’

  He’s right, a Hercules flight is always uncomfortable, also bloody cold. You sit on webbing seats along the sides, facing mountains of cargo tied down in the centre of the plane. The noise is dreadful and you have to shout to be heard. If it wasn’t compulsory, nobody would do it.

  ‘You’re right, but we got here,’ I say, laughing. He seems a nice enough bloke.

  ‘Come inside.’ He steps inside to let me pass. ‘I expect you’d like a beer?’

  I’m not sure I should say yes, but it’s hot and a beer would go down well, so I nod. It’s wonderfully cool inside, tiled floor and louvres to allow cross ventilation. He leads me down a corridor to a room with a bar and explains it’s where Australian advisers stationed in I Corps (pronounced ‘eye’) meet to have a beer when they come out of the field for a couple of days every month or two. The RSM goes to the fridge and hands me a can of Foster’s. ‘We’ve got plenty of American beer, a Bud or Coors, if you’d prefer?’he says.

  I wouldn’t prefer, a Foster’s will do me great, and I get the impression that he wouldn’t have liked me to have asked for a Yank beer. I pop the can, he does the same. I lift the can. ‘Cheers!’ I’m still hot and sticky from the short ride in from the airport and the first long, sharp swallow is nectar from the gods. I’m not a big drinker, but there are times nothing else but cold, foaming lager will fit the bill.

  Then the RSM explains that he and his staff look after the Australian members of the Team in I Corps. This is where my personal gear will be stowed, my records kept and my mail collected.

  On the wall behind the bar is this plaque, Nuoc Mam Hall, Home of The Expendables, Da Nang, Vietnam.

  The RSM sees me looking at it and I can sense he’s waiting for the question. I suppose he’s explained it every time a newcomer arrives, so I don’t ask him. For once in his life Mole doesn’t ask a question, which for me must be a world record. But afterwards, I can’t help wondering what’s meant by ‘Expendables’. It will probably drive me mad. If you ask me, it doesn’t sound all that promising.

  Just then the warrant officer who drove me over from the airbase comes in and excuses himself to the RSM and says to me, ‘Your new C.O. wants to see you immediately, I’ll take you over in the jeep.’ ‘Christ, I’ll smell of beer!’ I say.

  ‘You’re Australian, what could be more natural?’ the RSM laughs. I reckon he’s a bit cranky because I didn’t ask him about the ‘Expendable’plaque.

  I’ve got a bit of gum in my pocket so I pop it into my mouth, hoping the spearmint will kill the grog on my breath. I’ve only had a couple of good sips, but it would be a crook way to start my Vietnam career if my new C.O. comes out and says, ‘You smell of beer, Warrant Officer Maloney!’

  We race across the airbase and I’m dropped at the door of a building, called ‘C Detachment, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne)’. Christ, what’s the hurry, could have let me finish the beer, I think to myself as I take the gum out of my mouth and hurl it. But I know enough about the army and officers to know that their time ain’t your time.

  To my surprise this American lieutenant colonel meets me at the front door. I jump to attention and salute him. Bring the right arm by the longest way smartly to the salute position, keeping the hand in line with the arm and square to the front. I’ve got it so perfect I’m practically a parody.

  He doesn’t seem to notice and sort of touches the peak of his cap real lazy. ‘Welcome, nice to have you with us,’ he says and shakes my hand. Jesus, what’s goin’ on here? ‘Follow me please, Mister Maloney,’ he’s even got my name right off without consulting a piece of paper or having it shouted out by the RSM!

  Then he leads me into the command post. It’s not hard to see there’s something going on and that his staff are dealing with an emergency. Most command headquarters are about the same. It doesn’t take long to figure it out, the shit’s hit the fan and they’re running around like chooks with their heads cut off. People always think command
headquarters are quiet with everyone going about their business calm and dispassionate. Not true, they’re in the war same as us all. They may not be frontline, but they’re still fighting men. It’s not like those Pommie movies where everyone’s sucking on pipes and thinking before they speak. Those days are long over, that is if they ever existed in the first place.

  The C.O. briefs me. A company patrol of Vietnamese CIDG (short for Civil Irregular Defence Group) from the Special Forces outpost of Tran Xa is in trouble. It seems they were expecting to find some local Viet Cong and, instead, have run into some North Vietnamese regulars, well-trained soldiers. The company is taking a hiding.

  ‘My Nung reaction force is already deployed, along with most of my advisers, so I can’t send them. I’ve got a Montagnard company just in from training camp at Hoa Cam. They don’t have much experience,’ he says, then not too convincingly adds, ‘but they should be okay.’ He pauses and looks straight at me, ‘Warrant Officer Maloney, I want you to join them.’

  Shit, haven’t seen too much combat myself. Chasing a few CTs around in the Malayan jungle isn’t exactly going into battle with weapons blazing. But, as Morrie would say, ‘My boy, stay stumm, what you don’t say, they don’t know about you already.’ Jesus, I haven’t even had time to have proper jetlag. My stomach starts to churn and my mouth is dry.

  ‘There’ll be a senior adviser with you, Captain Jones, report to him at the airbase.’

  ‘Sir, is the senior adviser an experienced jungle fighter?’ The C.O. looks at me. ‘Warrant Officer Maloney, we’ve learned to respect the Australian jungle training, it’s the best in the world. There’s also an Australian adviser with the company that’s in trouble.’

  I sigh a sigh of relief, it must be a mostly Australian operation. ‘My senior adviser is an Australian, sir?’

  ‘No, Maloney, you’re the Australian. The only other Australian in this operation is with the company you’re going to reinforce. Your senior is Captain Jones, who flew in from Guam three days ago.’He grins but in a tired sort of a way. ‘Before that he was stationed at 29 Palms in Northern California. I’d like you to get over to your company as soon as possible, the Montagnard troops are at this very moment being issued with ammunition and rations, and the choppers are standing by,’ the CO says. ‘I have no other advisers available to accompany them except you and Captain Jones, it’s over to you two. Good luck, there’s a car outside, sort yourself out, soldier.’ I salute him and he gives me another brief touch of his cap brim, losing a maximum of half a calorie from the effort.

  ‘I can’t even drive on the right side of the fucking road!’ is what I immediately think.

  Lucky, I’m a bit of a reader. I’ve read all my briefing notes and anything else I can lay my hands on about Vietnam. Which isn’t a lot. Australia isn’t exactly making a big fuss about our helping hand stretched out in friendship and mutual cooperation to the Yanks. The thing to understand is, the Americans, and that includes us Australians, are not officially at war with either the Viet Cong insurgents in South Vietnam or with the country of North Vietnam. We’re only ‘advisers’ to the South Vietnam army. Sort of international peacekeepers who bring their own weapons along in case the enemy doesn’t want to take our advice.

  I’ve read about two paragraphs on the Montagnard people. I know they’re a mountain people, ethnically different from the regular lowland Vietnamese, good trackers, reliable, but looked down upon by the Vietnamese people as primitives, so they’ve got a bit of a grudge. Whoever wins in Vietnam, they’ll still be a minority with all the usual disadvantages. It seems smart to have them on our side, blokes fighting with a grudge are generally more willing to get stuck into a stoush.

  Later I will learn it was a CIA initiative. The South Vietnamese government was very reluctant to arm and organise the Montagnard tribes because they had ideas about independence. But the CIA feared that unless the Montagnard were brought in on the South Vietnamese side, they may be lured by the Viet Cong. So the CIA recruited the Montagnard and raised the Civil Irregular Defence Group, which eventually included Vietnamese as well. What they developed were these outposts trying to prevent enemy infiltration across the Lao and Cambodian borders. This program was later taken over by the Special Forces, who established more of these isolated outposts.

  I will come to know from bitter experience how unreliable these Vietnamese Civil Irregulars are. The Special Forces tried to recruit Catholics who had fled from the communist north, hoping they would be well motivated, but most of them, the Civil Irregulars, didn’t really give a fuck who won as long as they survived. And worse, there were usually a few Viet Cong plants among them. With the Montagnard, you never knew you would turn up to go on an operation, but once there they usually fought pretty well.

  But none of them got much formal training, it was mostly up to the Special Forces advisers to train the troops in the field, usually much too little much too late. While we were only advisers, in practice it was very different. When a battle started, the Vietnamese commanders of the Civil Irregular soldiers were often nowhere to be seen. It was usual for the advisers to have to take over command and, at great risk to themselves, try to get the troops going. Quite a few copped it in the process.

  And it was not only the Civil Irregulars who were unreliable, it could be pretty hairy working with the Territorial units too. There’s the story of how last year a Vietnamese Territorial battalion outpost was surrounded and taking a pounding. After a few days of this, the Viet Cong set up a loudspeaker to tell the territorial soldiers to desert, that they’re not interested in them. Unless, of course, they’re stupid enough to stay put. All they want are the Imperialist Americans and their running dogs, that is, the advisers. The soldiers are free to leave and walk the ten clicks to the city of Hue.

  It doesn’t take them long to decide. The bastards up and leave, and the advisers get down and man the machine guns, holding the Viet Cong off on their own, though they’re now vastly outnumbered and it’s only a matter of time, they think.

  The Viet Cong allow the territorials to walk about three clicks down the road before they pounce and shoot the shit out of them. Those who survive hot-foot it back to the battalion, frightened and embarrassed, and soon they’re manning the bunkers and going at it hell for leather. The next day the Viet Cong mount an all-out attack and after a pretty fierce battle they are sent packing.

  I mentioned before how you never know who the enemy is. He can be right there amongst you, serving you a Coke or offering to polish your boots in the hotel foyer in Saigon. There is the true story of Bluey Stewart who runs the platoon commander’s course for the Ranger battalions over at Duc My. It’s called the Jungle, Swamp & Mountain School and he’s very good at what he does.

  Anyway, Bluey’s got forty Ranger lieutenants there and he’s putting them through their paces, each student acting out a turn as platoon commander and learning how to respond, with Bluey close behind, watching, correcting and getting them up to scratch. He’s eating with them, sharing a hutchie (tent) and he knows the lingo so they’re all great mates.

  Finally it comes to graduation day when the soldiers parade and get their passing-out certificates. It’s an occasion the young Ranger officers take very seriously and in which they take great pride. Bluey goes down to his letter box first thing in the morning and finds a note from one of the graduates, thanking him for the great course and apologising profusely that he can’t attend the passing-out parade and ceremony but he’s been urgently recalled to his Viet Cong unit.

  There’s another apparently true story of a Yank adviser at Hiep Khanh, only difference is that he received a letter from the whole company, thanking him for the course and regretting that they had to go under the wire as the Viet Cong needed them up north a bit to pass on their knowledge as instructors.

  Of course, I don’t know any of this at the time. What I do know is that I’ve been in the country five minutes and ha
ven’t even unpacked my suitcase and I’m off to war with a company of indigenous mountain people who’ve had little training or operational experience. That I’m under the command of a Yank captain who’s from 29 Palms, a military base in Northern California that’s so dry it’s only got twenty-nine palm trees. I think about how I was after three months’ basic training and the answer I tell myself is that there would have been no way I could have gone into the jungle as an effective soldier. These blokes haven’t done anything like three months.

  I get to the Da Nang airstrip and the whole place is buzzing. My company of Montagnard soldiers in various states of preparedness are being bundled into UH-1B helicopters. There’s an American airforce sergeant supervising their loading and he’s pushing them in like sardines in a can, yelling and cussing, and I’m positive he’s overloading the chopper, pushing them in one side and they’re falling out the other.

  I find Captain Jones, who turns out to be a big black bloke, very white teeth, or maybe it’s just because his face is very dark.

  I salute him, and he responds properly, then says ‘Combustible Jones’, sticking out a hand big as a West Indian fast bowler’s.

  ‘Mole Maloney.’ I’m relieved to see he’s a US Special Forces officer. Whether he’s jungle-trained or not, he’ll be a damn good soldier.