Four Fires

by Bryce Courtenay

  He grins. ‘Some day I’ll tell you how I got my name if you’ll tell me how you got yours, Warrant Officer. Meanwhile, let’s get the show on the road, hey, brother Mole.’

  He tells me the first three choppers are my responsibility, my platoon, he’ll follow in one of the six others flying out. He’s looking a bit harassed, but then I guess so am I. I’m wearing US combat greens and equipment and I’m equipped with an M16. I’m not too fussed, it’s a good rifle and I’ve fired one before. I guess when you know how to shoot, it’s only a question of adapting, making minor adjustments.

  I’m jammed into a chopper so tight I can’t get my arms loose from my sides and the whole place has got this smell of fish that’s bloody overwhelming. Later I’ll learn it’s the fish sauce nuoc mam, which the Vietnamese use on everything they eat.

  The chopper gains altitude and fortunately I can see out and there’s a strip of beach bordering the blue ocean, then the rice paddy fields glistening in the sun, stretching inwards forever. We turn slightly and start to fly towards the backdrop of a great green mountain range. In flight, with the air coming in, the smell of fish sauce all but disappears. I think to myself, bloody good thing the Viet Cong also use the stuff or they’d be able to smell us a mile before they reach us. I also wonder if a white bloke might not smell an ambush before he’s caught in one.

  Soon the mountains loom larger as we approach. Now, with nothing much to do but wait for the landing, the true absurdity of my situation hits me, I’m in an overloaded helicopter with troops I haven’t even met, much less trained, going in to fight a battle I know bugger-all about. No briefing, no knowledge of the country or terrain, can’t speak to my troops as there’s no interpreter, or if there is, he’s in one of the other helicopters and I haven’t met him yet.

  A radio-set handpiece is thrust at me by a brown arm pushed between soldiers’ bodies. ‘Lancer, this is Knife Edge, do you hear me, over?’ It is Combustible Jones speaking from one of the following helicopters. He’s got a slow drawling voice like he’s got all the time in the world, but I realise that’s just how he talks because he was the same at Da Nang airstrip. ‘Lancer, loud and clear, over.’

  Jones tells me the situation on the ground has worsened. There are quite a few casualties, including one of the two US Special Forces advisers, which is the one they know about. The other Special Forces adviser with the company is missing and that’s just about the ball game, there ain’t no others and the troops appear to have damn all leadership among themselves. As I’m first to land, I’m in charge the moment I hit the ground until he gets there. I confirm: ‘Lancer, Roger, out.’ I tell myself I’d rather be in charge than taking directions from an officer who’s never seen the jungle. Though, of course, I don’t know this for sure. Weeks later, we’re having a beer and he tells me how he got his name.

  It seems Combustible Jones was born in Chicago, in New Town, it is a black part of town. His daddy’s done the deed and left, and his pregnant mother is living in one room with a single-bar heater in the middle of a Chicago winter, which I gather is pretty awesome. When she’s about eight months pregnant, she wakes up in the middle of the night to find the bedclothes alight. She’s resourceful enough to get the fire under control, whereupon she goes down on her knees to thank the Lord for her deliverance. But the shock is a bit much and the baby starts coming and a neighbour calls the ambulance and she gets her true deliverance in the ambulance. Ever after, his mother insists, the Lord told her to name her son ‘Elijah Combustible Jones’. The ‘Elijah’ is because of the burning bush in the Bible and the ‘Combustible’, because of her personal burning bed which God woke her up in time to save her life and her baby’s. I’ve got to admit, it’s a much better story than me being called Mole.

  Now the door gunner sitting close to me with his machine gun sticking out of the helicopter hands me his earphones and shouts up that the pilot wants a word.

  ‘Eight o’clock your side, two Vietnamese Air Force A-1 Skyraiders, looks like they’re going in to attack the spurline, can you see them?’

  I look down and see the aircraft swoop through an iridescent stream of green tracer bullets coming up from the jungle to meet them. Then, in front of my eyes, the jungle erupts in bright flashes and billowing smoke as bombs explode. I watch as the two aircraft pull up and turn slightly to line up for another run over the target. This time I can’t quite believe what I see, a great fireball engulfs the jungle. I’ve never seen it in action but I know instantly it’s napalm, a mixture of petrol and some sort of jellying agent. We’ve been briefed on napalm, it burns with the same heat as a Red Steer in a bushfire, over 3500 degrees F. It will instantly kill anyone exposed to it, even if they’re in underground bunkers. If the bunkers are under the fireball, they’ll be asphyxiated. I can’t believe how much it looks like the fireball I saw rise out of the eucalyptus growth, the day John Crowe and Whacka Morrissey died. The pilot then draws my attention to a helicopter taking off from a clearing about half a click from the enemy position, ‘That’s the dustoff taking out our wounded,’ he explains. Then says, ‘We’re going in to land. Good luck.’ I hand the earphones back to the door gunner, thinking this time, Mole Maloney, you’re going to need all the luck you’ve ever had bundled up into one. I can’t even take the spoon out of the sink before the tap is turned on because the tap’s already running and the spoon’s there and the shit is hitting the fan overtime, if that’s not mixing my metaphors.

  We arrive over the clearing, or LZ as it is known in army parlance, and quickly descend. The downdraft from the chopper blades flattens the grass and stirs up the dust. The noses of the choppers rise slightly as they no longer move forward although the skids barely touch the ground. It’s standard practice for the pilots to keep the blades whirring at a speed so they can take off instantly should the need arise.

  The troops secure their hats in their webbing or under their shirts. This is because otherwise the updraught would suck them off their heads into the rotors. With the dust blinding us, we jump and make for the edge of the clearing. There’s a mighty explosion not too far off but I can’t see anything because of the trees.

  The Hueys totter for a moment as they build up power and then rise into the air to an even bigger cloud of dust. It’s amazing how quickly a chopper can empty its load and be off, they’re gone before you can scratch your bum, banking away against the trees, engines screaming for quick altitude.

  Then the handset is thrust into my hands again. ‘This is Knife Edge, over.’ ‘Lancer, over,’ I reply.

  ‘That explosion you no doubt heard, that’s a mortar bomb landed four hundred yards to your south-east. It’s coming from the valley and it looks like it’s targeting the LZ. We’ll watch for the primary and organise an air strike. Meanwhile the pilot says no more choppers to land. You’re on your ownsome so don’t be lonesome, over,’ Combustible says.

  ‘Lancer, Roger, out,’ I reply, short and sweet, there ain’t nothing clever I can think to say and I don’t have time to shit my pants.

  Another mortar round lands, but it’s a little further away, which is a good sign. With the choppers gone, the enemy may have lost their line to the target. Maybe I’ll have a few minutes to organise things. I look around me, there’s bunches of Vietnamese Civil Irregulars huddled around the LZ with no sign of anyone in command. I speak almost no Vietnamese, only the very little we’ve learned in training back in Oz and I’m hoping someone speaks a bit of English.

  ‘Who’s in command?’ I shout. ‘Who’s senior?’ The faces stare blankly back at me. Then a soldier comes up to me. ‘Me Hong, in-ter-plet–ta!’ He grabs me by the shirt and I can see he’s panicking. ‘Trung si, trung si! Uc Da Loi dai uy maybe dead,’ he points down the ridge.

  I get the ‘maybe dead’ bit and I reckon he’s not going to be saying it for one of his own kind, he must mean the other US Special Forces adviser, the Australian.

  He confirms this,
‘Captain!’ and he points again down the ridge.

  Then I’m saved. One of the Montagnard soldiers from my own platoon comes up and he speaks a bit of English, maybe not a lot more than the overexcited Hong, but he’s calmer and more importantly he’s the platoon commander.

  I talk to him and he seems to understand, nodding his head. I tell him we’re going in to reconnoitre the battle area and try to recover the ‘maybe dead’ Special Forces adviser.

  He looks doubtful, but translates this and immediately there’s a great deal of yapping going on. My platoon has been talking to the gaggle of dispirited Vietnamese Irregulars waiting around the clearing. Finally the platoon commander turns back to me.

  ‘No go. Viet Minh, Viet Minh,’ he points down the ridgeline. ‘Velly bad! Helicopter bring more soldier, we go, Trung si.’

  I know what he means by Viet Minh. It is their name for the regular troops of the North Vietnamese Army. These are not your local Viet Cong in their black pyjamas and light weapons who are down at the ridgeline, it is the Viet Minh, the legendary troops of Ho Chi Minh, who whipped the best the French could muster, including the Foreign Legion, at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

  I shake my head and indicate that we’re going, like it or not, to pick up their gear. The enemy have been driven back with the napalm and the bombing, but they’ll be back to do their own reconnaissance, so we don’t have a lot of time. I order them again and nobody moves. So much for my forceful leadership. There’s no way they’ll move till the rest of the company lands.

  I can’t think what else to do, but I feel like shooting the lot of them, do the job for the enemy. So I use a few choice words that would land me on my back if I said them to any Australian. Then I walk over to the medical orderly and take a first-aid kit. I move out alone and see the platoon commander is following, about twenty paces behind me. But he’s on his own and his men haven’t been persuaded to follow him.

  I enter the jungle and almost immediately come up to a group of Vietnamese soldiers still manning a 30 cal machine gun that is pointing directly down the ridge. I indicate that I’m going in and I want them to watch for my return. They look at me blankly, and then the platoon commander, who must have understood, comes up and explains and they nod their heads, indicating, I hope, that they know what it is I want them to do. I walk on, then turn to see where my platoon commander is. He’s still standing with the machine-gunners and drops his head, avoiding my eyes. I’m learning this game fast.

  So there I am, heading down the ridgeline, my own forward scout. It doesn’t take a genius to read the battlefield, the telltale signs are there for all to see. I think how different it would be with a jungle-ready Aussie company. Here’s the track made by the company snaking along single file, then the broken stems and fallen leaves verifying the progress they’ve made. After that, on either side of the track, are all the signs of a hasty retreat; vegetation trampled by feet in a panic, foliage indicating the backwards direction of the retreat, though it’s more like running away, there’s no apparent design, these are soldiers moving out of order, every man for himself.

  A while further on I see where one platoon has suddenly broken off and turned sharply to the left, that will be a left hook to attack the enemy’s flank. Moments later, I see where the rear elements of the forward platoon have gone to ground. It will not be far to where the forward troops have engaged the enemy.

  I sense that there’s a clearing ahead, I don’t know how I know, it’s something to do with the light. So I prop and wait on a bit, there’s no sound, that’s unusual, then I pick up the scent of burning tyres. I’ve only read about it, but that’s what napalm is supposed to smell like afterwards. The clearing, if there is one, would be well before where the napalm hit, or the smell would be stronger. I move forward, pausing with each step to listen, then I see the change in the intensity of the light, which must be the clearing. Now there’s piles of spent cartridges everywhere though no sign of the enemy. The air strike and the napalm have driven the enemy back, caused them to withdraw from the immediate area, but I’d be very surprised, with us on the run, if they don’t come back soon enough.

  Then a sound. I’m down on one knee, my M16 to my shoulder, pointing in the direction of the sound, which I now recognise as human. My eyes are straining to see through the undergrowth, trying to adapt to the changing light conditions. Then I see it, the jungle greens are doing what they’re supposed to do, concealing the wearer. It’s the Australian, our bloke.

  I move slowly up to him and kneel down beside him, his wounds are bad but the bleeding has been staunched by shell dressings. He has a broken arm roughly bandaged and wounds to both legs. He is also unconscious but breathing. I learn lesson number two, don’t expect the Vietnamese Civil Irregular to carry out a wounded adviser. Even in withdrawal, there is no question that this man would have been taken along in an Australian outfit. Still and all, at least the medical orderly stopped long enough to staunch his blood and tie his arm. I’ll find out who he is and get him a commendation.

  My first aid is not a strong part of my army knowledge, we all learn it, of course, but you get to depend on the medical orderlies and get on with other things. I struggle to remember what it was about administering morphine, which this bloke is going to need when he comes to.

  Something to do with head wounds. That’s it, never administer morphine unless you have to and never if the casualty has a head wound. It’s got something to do with masking the condition and leading to a misdiagnosis when the man reaches a hospital. Too bad about the pain, eh? I think briefly of Tommy and how he must have felt when the butt of Kawakami’s rifle smashed his face in.

  The first priority seeing the blood is staunched is to splint the arm. I cast about for a stick. Breaking one off would make a noise, so it’s a matter of searching. I find one and bandage it securely to the adviser’s arm. Then I put the arm in a sling. So far I’m not doing too bad. I wrap more shell dressings around his leg wounds. If I have to move him, I don’t want him to lose any more blood.

  He half wakes up and tries to move his arm and gasps with the pain, but doesn’t pass out again. ‘Soldier, it’s bloody good to see you,’ he whispers. His face is crusted with dried blood and I have to check he hasn’t got a bad head wound, I want to give the poor bastard morphine if I can. I take my scarf and wet it from my water bottle and start to clean the blood from his face, from his nose and his scalp where he’s fallen. The blood is superficial. That’s good, I can give him a shot of morph. I wipe his face as clean as I can and then, I can’t believe what I’m looking at, I’m looking straight into Murray Templeton’s face.

  Jesus Christ, how could this happen? Why didn’t I know before? But then how could I have? They wouldn’t have told me in Australia and I’ve been in Vietnam less than twenty-four hours. The shock is too much for me, what with what’s happened in the last few hours and suddenly I know I’m going to throw up. I get up and take a few paces and vomit. I can leave Murray Templeton where I found him, nobody will ever know. I’ll simply return to my troops. Shrug my shoulders, I don’t even have to explain anything to them.

  I’m ashamed, dead ashamed the thought occurs to me. Of course, it’s not on. Never was. Fate has presented me with the perfect murder, the perfect revenge for what he did to my sister, my precious Sarah. I tell myself the bastard’s a coward, the way he wouldn’t face up to things and ran away. I even try to tell myself I’ve got a right to walk away, let him die without me laying a hand on him. It’s all bullshit that’s going on in my mind because it can’t happen. I’m bound in duty to the army brotherhood. I have no choice. I have to save him. Or I have to try, give it my best shot, even if I have to give my own life in the attempt.

  Then I hear a stick breaking. Fuck, what was that? Just the tiny snap more than a hundred yards away brings me out of my shock. The sound came from the direction of the enemy. I was right, they’ve come back, it’s their reconnais
sance patrol returning. I’ve just about finished cleaning Murray Templeton’s face and head when he regains consciousness. I clamp my hand over his mouth, he’s in great pain and he could call out, give us away. He grimaces but remains silent as I remove my hand, poor bugger, but he’s holding the pain in. My hand over his mouth alerted him that we’re in danger.

  I reach into the first-aid tin and take out what I’ve always thought looked like an artist’s tube of paint, though I know what it is. The needle is protected by the plastic cap screwed into the top. I’ve done this only once in practice nearly a year ago and I’m trying to remember the procedure. Inserted down the needle’s hollow stem is a piece of wire of the tiniest diameter. I’m supposed to pull that out, or do I press it? Press it, I think. If I get it wrong there isn’t another one. I press down on the wire and the seal breaks on the lead tube. I pull the wire out and press gently on the tube and the needle fills with morphine, a tiny drop escaping from the end. ‘Think, think,’ I urge myself, ‘where is the best vein?’ Then I remember, if there’s too much blood lost, the veins are hard to find, they’ve collapsed. Then another stick cracks, this time closer, maybe eighty yards. I tie a piece of bandage just above the elbow of Murray Templeton’s good arm, making a tourniquet. He’s too weak to make a fist to pump the blood into one of the bigger veins behind his wrist. Morphine can be injected into muscle but its effect is considerably delayed as it tries to get into the bloodstream. I can see a vein, still blue behind his wrist, the big veins I seem to remember are not always the certainties but I have to take a chance. My luck holds, the needle glides in at a shallow angle and instantly the morphine colours red as the blood pumps into the plastic needle. I squeeze the tube slow as I can and the liquid in the needle clears and the morphine enters Templeton’s body.

  I wait, anxious to see what happens. I’ve never seen this in real life. Suddenly a smile crosses Murray’s face, not a smile really, just relief flooding his face. Thank Christ for that. Now he’ll stay stumm.