Monsoon (18 page)

The officer beamed when Tom was escorted in to the office. ‘Welcome to Saigon. You're my first customer. Major Harry Brown . . . Call me Harry. Now, how can I help?'

‘Accreditation for the Australian base is at the top of my shopping list. Picking up the Viet and Yank tickets from the bureaucracy later today.'

Major Brown shrugged. ‘No can do, mate. We're not issuing accreditation cards. The others you mentioned will get you through most of the barricades you'll run into.'

Tom was taken aback. ‘You're not accrediting journos? Why not? It's a bureaucrat's dream scene for controlling who goes where, and when.'

‘Well, mate, it's like this, but don't quote me. According to the brass, who listen to the pollies back home, we aren't at war so we don't have war correspondents.'

‘We're not at war? Hell, I saw it last night.'

Major Brown was unperturbed. ‘Care for a cuppa? The pot boiled just before you arrived. Bushells tea from back home. And some Scotch Fingers.' He went to the sideboard and busied himself. ‘No, you see, we're involved in a pacification campaign, not a war. We're helping the local lads maintain the peace. Guerrillas don't represent an invading army, if you get my drift.'

Tom groaned. ‘I'd love that cup of tea. Hope it's a strong brew.'

‘Yes, just give me a bell or drop in whenever you want to get down to where our boys are in action or holding the fort. Working alongside the American airborne lads at the moment, as you know, but we'll soon have our own little pad of operations. Can't say more. Sugar?'

At the five o'clock follies a couple of hours later Tom waved his new American and Vietnamese accreditation passes at the guards standing by the door to the hotel auditorium. There were a couple of hundred correspondents gathered for the daily briefing by officers on what had been happening across the country. It was a controlled and sanitised briefing, as one of his dinner pals had described it the previous night, with emphasis on wins and limited information about setbacks. A young Australian from Reuters at the table had added that the fun started when Question Time gave the reporters a chance to get behind the glossy façade and barrage of ‘utter bullshit'.

Before Tom could get inside, one of the American guards tapped him on the shoulder. ‘That pack you're carrying, can I please have a look inside? Can't be too careful, sir.'

Tom nodded agreement and plonked it on a desk by the door. The Marine sergeant unlaced the flap and did a double-take. With raised eyebrows he tried to make sense of the weird collection of ammunition.

‘I'd like to donate it to the war effort,' said Tom, straightfaced, when their eyes met.

The guard picked up a handful of bullets and there was a pregnant pause. ‘Could you please explain, sir?' Another Marine guard moved towards them to see what was going on.

‘Look, I'm sorry, I was just making a joke. I found them in the wardrobe at my room in the Caravelle. Seems the last occupant, another correspondent, liked to go into the field well armed. He's been given another assignment and moved on . . . left this behind and, well, it's just not me.'

‘You're not going to carry a weapon, sir?'

‘Oh yes . . . a pen and pencil or two.'

There was another blank look from the guard, who did not look amused.

‘I thought it'd be best if I turned it all in here. You'd know what to do with it,' Tom said affably.

‘Thank you, sir, we'll look after it. Do you want the bag?'

‘No, thanks.'

The follies lived up to their reputation. Poker-faced American officers read out summaries of briefing papers distributed to the newsmen as they arrived, sometimes adding details of updated enemy casualty figures, or giving a verbal report of a recent engagement. It was an overwhelmingly ‘good news' scene. It demonstrated to Tom that the only way to get a realistic picture of what was happening was to get out in the field, get around the country, and see first hand just what was being achieved in the conflict, which was unlike any war he'd read about. There just wasn't a defined front line. The ‘front' could be anywhere in the city, or the country . . . and the insurgents called the tune.

The highlight of the follies show came at the end of Question Time, when a reporter from a New York paper rose to a little round of applause and chuckles. The correspondent beside Tom explained, ‘Joe is a star act every day. Always fires a good shot to end the show.'

‘Captain, is it true that there's a tense situation developing in relations between men of the one seventy-third Airborne and the Australians operating alongside them? Something to do with the Australians being able to drink beer when they're in camp, but the Americans being forced to drink Coke or water?'

There was a burst of laughter.

The briefing officer stayed straightfaced. ‘I'm not across that issue, Joe. I will certainly make inquiries.'

More applause, a clatter of seats and a wave of conversation signalled the show was over. Tom caught up with the senior briefing officer who was still gathering up his files.

‘What're the chances of getting down round Bien Hoa where the Aussies are operating with your men?'

‘I'm sure something can be arranged,' he drawled.

It was easier than Tom could have imagined. A lift in a supply helicopter was arranged for the next day.

He quickly observed that defending the huge air base being developed at Bien Hoa during the massive round-the-clock build-up of American strength involved a lot more than having a strong perimeter. The allied forces mounted frequent assault missions against suspected Viet Cong bases in the nearby jungle and swampland. Strikes were made even further out in a prime target area known as War Zone D. The zone was subject to heavy blanket bombing but the enemy wouldn't go away. They just bunkered down and kept digging tunnels and an underground network that housed barracks for thousands of fighters.

Tom spent a couple of days getting to know the officers of the Australian First Battalion and their neighbours, the American paratroopers. Despite Tom's lack of combat experience, the Americans offered to take him on an operation to find an enemy base they had identified by monitoring radio transmissions. The force included a company of Australian troops so Tom joined a chopper carrying some of the Aussies into the swampy jungle at dawn.

Dressed in a mix of American and Australian army uniforms and feeling a little foolish in the American-style helmet, Tom shut his eyes for the first few moments as he made his inaugural jump into the war from a helicopter that hovered low over an abandoned rice field. He promptly fell over and sank into a mire of stinking mud.

An Australian corporal assigned to keep an eye on him grabbed his arm and pulled him up. ‘Come on, mate, run like hell for that line of rubber trees. And keep as low as you can.'

They made it without a shot being fired.

‘Thank you, Victor Charlie,' panted Tom as he flopped down beside the corporal on the edge of the rubber plantation.

‘Yeah, the bastards must have slept in.'

Then, slowly and very carefully, the troops fanned out and began to move forward, looking for any sign on the ground that might indicate the underground target. The plantation yielded nothing and they moved into the jungle nearby.

‘Keep your mouth shut,' whispered the corporal, ‘and try not to touch anything that looks a bit out of the ordinary. Could be a booby-trap.'

They crept forward. Tom started to sweat profusely, not just from the heat, and began shaking with fear. Suddenly firing broke out far to the left and everyone threw themselves to the ground.

‘VC machine gun,' snapped the corporal. ‘They've hit the Yanks out on the far flank, I reckon. Keep your head down.'

Almost immediately the Americans began retaliatory fire, but Tom couldn't see any enemy. The Australians held their fire until suddenly a few men in black pyjamas were seen scurrying through a thicket of jungle. A deafening roar of automatic rifle fire from all around him made Tom squirm. Bullets whined overhead. ‘Oh shit,' he gasped. Then as suddenly as all hell had broken loose, it was quiet. The shooting stopped.

‘I think we got 'em,' said the corporal. ‘Stay low.'

There was a shouted call for medics from the American lines. Along the Australian line there was a silent hand signal from man to man that confirmed no one had been hit.

A sergeant crawled up to Tom. ‘You stay put. A few of us are going out to see what we hit up there. Okay?'

Tom nodded vigorously.

The Australians moved forward with trigger fingers ready to fire, covering each other in carefully prepared tactics so well drilled into them that they didn't have to think about what they were doing. Simply keep eyes open and keep moving. They soon came across the bodies of three Viet Cong. Nearby they found the entrance to a short tunnel from which the VC had fled. It wasn't the complex they were hoping to find, only the beginning of another hideout. The force that had hit the American flank had disappeared into the jungle and were probably already back in well-concealed underground bunkers. They left behind fifteen dead comrades. Five Americans were dead, six wounded.

Tom stood and watched the body bags and wounded on stretchers lifted into a Chinook helicopter.

The corporal quickly shook Tom's hand. ‘Hop aboard; they'll drop you back at base.'

Tom nodded. Words for once seemed inadequate. All he managed was, ‘Good luck, mate. And thanks.'

The corporal gave him a thumbs up as the rotors roared to life.

Tom found it hard to reconcile the casual chaos of the military in Saigon with its blackmarket, gung-ho mentality, compared with the life and death reality being played out in the paddy fields.

Now Tom had his story.

6

A
FTER JUST A COUPLE
of days in Hoi An, Anna had become intrigued with the village next to the River Resort. There was a young waiter who walked from the village to work in the terrace restaurant overlooking the river each morning. In the evening he returned to his small garden.

‘Do you think we could go through the village, pretend we're taking a shortcut?' Anna asked Sandy.

‘What for? It's only ten little houses and a sort of communal area at most,' she said.

‘I know it's not a tourist thing, but it gives a better idea of what this place is about rather than the buzzy market and the shopping area where all the hotels are, or even the Ancient Town – which is lovely but touristy now. Ask Trung, our breakfast waiter. He lives there. It's right next door.'

Sandy had seen Anna taking photos from their balcony and thought it a great idea to experience some local life. So when she next spotted the young man, she chatted to him in Vietnamese and discovered he was a student saving money to go to classes at night. He agreed to take them to see his family in the small commune next door.

At sunset the girls walked with Trung along the sandy path beneath the palm and frangipani trees at the rear of the resort. He stopped by the pig in its outdoor pen and threw in a bag of scraps from the hotel kitchen. Sandy and Anna followed him past several houses where men wearing sarongs relaxed in doorways or squatted together under a tree, smoking and talking, but fell silent and stared with frank curiosity as the two foreign women passed by.

At Trung's small house his mother, sister and an aunty were gossiping and preparing the evening meal. They shyly welcomed the unexpected visitors, but relaxed as Sandy chatted to them in Vietnamese and Anna handed over the small gift of French chocolates they'd brought. Children, smiling but shy, edged closer.

The women turned to Anna asking questions of the Viet Kieu, which Sandy answered. They were curious about Anna's story and nodded sympathetically as Sandy related what she knew of Anna's family.

Anna immediately won their interest by asking about the dish they were cooking and so the women made space for her in their circle around the low plastic table outside the house where a gas ring burned beneath a large wok.

Sandy explained they'd been to a cooking school and the women laughed, saying they'd show them how to make fried noodles and spring rolls for free.

Trung, now wearing old shorts and a T-shirt, asked the two friends if they would like to go down the river with him to check his father's crab pot and fishing net.

‘I would,' said Sandy.

‘I'll stay here and watch the way they make these dishes,' said Anna. ‘I'll manage with sign language.'

‘You're really into this cooking thing, aren't you? There could be fish for the main course if Trung has any in the trap.' Sandy had a sudden thought. ‘Hey, you could do some of the cooking at Barney's!'

‘I don't think so,' laughed Anna. ‘But at least I'll have an idea of what people are ordering!'

Sandy followed Trung to the edge of the river, where his wooden long boat was drawn up to the bank. She sat in the middle and when comfortable gave a thumbs-up signal. Trung pushed off and from near the stern began poling them down the river. They glided past several rice paddies, a few thatched houses and then some more solid homes that faced the river with their small landings on the river bank. There was a bicycle path alongside the river and an occasional food stall. Around a bend in the river a small fish pond was staked out. Overlooking it were sizeable homes with tiled roofs, balconies and high fences. These houses had ornate trimmings and smart gardens complete with altars next to the river-bank landings. Obviously it was a new and expensive neighbourhood.