Chapter 3
To those of us who had seen her she was a curiosity, an occasional conversation piece, the object even of a few regrettable fantasies. And then I met her, and she became a person.
The couple of weeks leading up to that meeting went by uneventfully, our unit’s operations as much about routine as anything else. Except for one unusual order from base command, an order to which I responded as apathetically as any other driver, and an order that would, eventually, have more to do with all that happened to the American girl and me than I could have imagined at the time.
“We need a volunteer,” our company 2IC, Captain O’Brien told us at morning assembly. “Just one. To march in a parade.”
He watched us for a moment, gauging reaction, with no sign of optimism. We hadn’t marched since basic training and didn’t want to start again now. Except for one driver whose interest in the job had nothing to do with marching.
“The parade’s being held in Saigon,” the captain went on. “To commemorate South Vietnam’s national day. It’ll be made up mostly of American and South Vietnamese troops, but there’ll be contingents from other allies as well, including Australia. Certain Vung Tau units will be volunteering one soldier each to make up our marching party and we have been chosen. Command must have noticed how soldierly we look.”
There were grins, bored but wary, from some of the thirty odd, mostly shirtless, mostly shaven soldiers before him. But the captain was not smiling. “It’s an assignment that any digger should be proud to participate in because he’ll be representing his country.” All smiles had stopped and nobody moved. In the growing heat a churlish cynicism descended and multiplied.
O’Brien continued, referring to orders as he did. “Command would prefer a soldier that would, in appearance at least,” he read from a paper, “do the lean and legendary digger proud. We already have one volunteer. Unfortunately, while he might be legendary enough, Private Daniels leaves a bit to be desired in the leanness department.”
The few sniggers stopped when the captain began scanning his men, looking for a hint of interest, and the required leanness.
“Now don’t be shy.” His usual smirk turned to a sneer. “You’ll get a few days in Saigon, to practise with the squad before the parade takes place.” At this Bushfire Daniels raised his hand. The captain looked at him. “Not that you should make much of that. You’ll be there to march.” Daniels slowly lowered his hand. “Anyone?” Still no one else moved. “Private O’Malley. See me after parade.”
There was an audible sigh of relief. Lyle O’Malley was our best driver and our best volunteer. We could always rely on Lyle to take on the more difficult and unpopular tasks. Escaped again, so I thought, if I thought at all, from another crappy job nobody
wanted. Marching and things military were put happily behind us as we headed out on convoy duties.
We spent our days assisting the construction of roads and other infrastructure in Phuoc Tuy Province, an activity which Crazy Al Stanley, our resident socialist, said was probably aiding the enemy. If Al was right we didn’t care. Anything to keep out of harm’s way.
For us the war was there more in atmosphere and potential than in active violence. We were shot at once, but it seemed the perpetrators were most likely local police, when a truck passed through a check-point without stopping. Watching helicopter gunships spitting fire into the Long Hai Hills along the road to the coastal town of Phuoc Hai reminded us of how close the action was and land mines kept us edgy. But the last time one of our trucks had hit a mine I was still in Australia and there always seemed to be someone else ready to lead whenever we left the bitumen.
And so the days rolled by, in heat and dust and rain and mud, but then after-work beer, laughter, genuine and perverse. And in bravado, and a rough kind of mateship, presumed and understated, expressed in all the cursing, inverted terms of endearment that Aussies understand.
As a personal part of the routine, each night I crossed off the day’s date on my calendar on the wall beside my bunk. Until, late one morning some two weeks from when I had last seen the American girl, our admin corporal, Joe Bartolino came into my hut, sat on Tony’s chair and looked at me ominously.
We all liked Joe. He did his job with such low-key efficiency that nobody bothered to call him wog, and he had a slight accent. But just then I didn’t want to see him. I was enjoying a day off, a luxury we were granted once a month. I had almost finished a letter to my niece who had recently started school; a three sentence account of my life, centred on the weather which was hot, the food which was bad and trucks that were big.
“You must be mistaken, Corporal,” I said to Joe. “This is my day off.”
“It’s an emergency. A drive to Saigon. It may even be an overnighter. And yes, Captain O’Brien said you can have a day off tomorrow. Or the day after, if it’s an overnighter.”
Saigon. Our town times one hundred. The big capital had a reputation for danger, thoughoutweighed by the attractions. The job was some sort of medical emergency and the hospital ambulances were apparently all busy. Joe had scant details but our company commanding officer, Major Collins, wanted two civilian personnel delivered, one to Saigon, the American Embassy, the other to be dropped off along the way at the village of Muc Thap, in Bien Hoa province.
“Do I get a shot-gun rider?”
Joe’s sad brown eyes blinked patiently. Slowly, painfully, he tapped the top of his left shoulder with his right for finger. I swore. It was a signal we all knew, referring to our platoon’s junior officer, Second Lieutenant Jefferies. Where Captain O’Brien was a gruff, rugby-player type of officer with a ruddy complexion and a sarcastic turn of phrase, his 2IC, Jefferies, was nicknamed ‘The Prefect’. He looked younger than many of the drivers and never seemed relaxed in our company, always at pains to emphasise his authority, pulling us up for minor rules transgressions, even dress, which Captain O’Brien and the NCOs seemed to see as more or less pointless in the heat and the wet.
The shoulder-tap signal arose out of an incident months earlier when the young lieutenant, confronted with a show of insubordination that was both minor and inadvertent, felt it necessary to remind us of his rank by pointing to the officer’s pip on his shoulder. An afternoon in a Land Rover with The Prefect, shoulder-tapping Second-Lieutenant Jefferies, was not my idea of a day off. I told Joe.
He nodded understandingly. “You’re to be down at admin, in uniform - and that means clean, long greens, with shirt - in half an hour.” He looked at his watch. “Better make that twenty minutes.” He stood up. “And you’d better pack your bag for an overnighter, just in case.”
At the doorway he stopped and turned. “Don’t you want to know about the civilians? One local and one American.” He observed me for a moment and then turned again to go. “Both female,” he called.
In the few stunned seconds that took to compute, Joe was gone before I could call him back for details. I pondered as I went for a shower, brushed my teeth, shaved, closer and cleaner than I had in at least six months. An American. Our girl from the compound next to ours perhaps. I hadn’t seen another western female since Singapore Airport.
Back in the hut I changed into clean greens, packed my bag with a set of civilian clothes and basic toiletries and even combed my hair, what there was of it. I was so concerned with looking my best that it didn’t occur to me, until I was standing at the admin door, bag over shoulder and M16 in one hand, just how unusual it all was. The Americans had thousands of their own vehicles and drivers in this country and in any case helicopters were used for emergencies.
Joe was talking to the admin typist. “Wakin’ up beside my wife. That’s the thing I miss most. ‘Cept of course watchin’ Collingwood beat Carlton.” He looked at me. “Well, have a go at the new scrubbed up Private Ross. Hair combed! Sean Connery. In a lanky, lopsided,kinda’ way.”
“Nah,” said the typist. “Gomer Pyle, I reckon.”
Joe ignored him. “Well done, that s
oldier. You’ve done everything but polish your belt buckle. Even Lieutenant Jefferies will be impressed.”
“What’s the emergency, Joe?”
He stepped out from behind the desk and came over, handing me a couple of magazines for my weapon. “All I know is the bloke in charge of petrol supply down the American compound wanted to know if we had a convoy goin’ to Saigon, to give these two women a lift, as if we go there every day. But we’ve got the job anyway, and you’re the lucky malingerer. Right place at the right time and all that.”
Joe lowered his voice. “Take your time if you can. You’ll get a night at headquarters, the Canberra, if it’s too late to come back. I could have waited for Blowfly but he’s probably the only driver in the whole bloody company that wouldn’t want the chance of a night in Saigon. Go on. The lieutenant’s over at the vehicles getting the Land Rover ready. Relax. Enjoy yourself. And here.” He went back to his desk and rummaged in a drawer. “Lots of bad girls in Saigon.” He threw me a packet of condoms.
“Do you know how old the American is?”
“No. They didn’t give me her date of birth.” He looked at me. “Yes. I think it must be the one you blokes’ve been perving at on garbage duty. So drive carefully. Any woman comes to this country to work must be crazy.”
I presumed Lieutenant Jefferies was a couple of years older than I was, though he didn’t look it, especially on that day. I hadn’t seen anybody looking so spotlessly military since basic.
He flashed me a condescending smile. “Private Ross.” He looked up from where he was putting a cover over the vehicle’s back seat. “Put your pack and rifle in the back. And I want you to know, this is not some day-off jaunt. We’re on an important mission here. Let’s make sure we’re on our best behaviour.”
I felt like promising not to spit, swear or tell any rude jokes and I realised the lieutenant was as excited as I had been, perhaps more so, since he was in charge. I imagined a young officer like Jefferies would have preferred giving orders to seventeen or eighteen year-old regulars, soldiers who had joined up voluntarily the way he did. But this war had meant conscription and here I was, a twenty-two year old insurance clerk, and uni drop-out, now a private soldier at his disposal. With a more capable and enthusiastic performance at basic training, I might have been offered a place in the conscripts’ officer training course at Scheyville. But education was just one prerequisite. I presume the officers assessing recruits’ aptitudes judged me as more a follower than a leader. Certainly my platoon commander was unimpressed. ‘Has completed all tasks satisfactorily,’ he wrote in his final report. And added, ‘with extra supervision.’
“And how’s the cricket going?” The lieutenant asked me.
I had been able to show off my modest ability with a cricket ball by bowling out a couple of dubious Ordnance batsmen in an inter-unit cricket match some weeks earlier. (Such was the war at Vung Tau!) The lieutenant had played as well, so we had that in common. That, our age and our present engagement with our country’s armed forces. But that was about all.
“Well,” he was placing his rifle and a spare water bottle on the passenger-side floor. “Let’s go over and fill ’er up. We’re due shortly.”
While I filled the fuel tank, he checked water and oil, kicked tyres and made a routine check of the vehicle’s exterior. The sun blazed down on the open vehicle but he showed no signs of sweat. He looked pleased with himself.
On our way out of the compound as I passed the mechanics’ workshops he turned to me with further briefing. Our major was a personal friend of Mr Jake Klein, a civilian in charge of the oil company office at the American compound. The young American woman we were taking to Saigon was his daughter and the local woman an important employee of the same oil company.
“So it’s quite an honour that he should want us to look after them. Keep your wits about you. Major Collins said Mr Klein is anxious that his daughter and the other woman get to their respective destinations as soon as possible, which is understandable.”
I wondered where that left our chances of a night in the big city.