Jim took a long draw on his cigarette.
‘All this while the Vietcong are watching from the hills. Sure, the ARVN are probably right that there is a Commie cell here. When we finally leave, flying our pretty little flags and returning to the safety of our own fucken fortress on the hill, you think it’s over for these people? No wonder they’ve been looking at the hills. After we leave and the twilight comes, the hills start to move and, sure enough, in come the Vietcong and it’s their turn to fuck these people. With the help of their spies they round everybody up again. You had a conversation with the Australians? Bang, you’re dead. You were seen passing something to one of the soldiers. Bang. You smiled? Bang, bang, bang. You say the ARVN took one of your sons to join them? Okay, we take your next son to join us. You haven’t got another son? Okay, your daughter will do. Say goodbye to your papa, little girl, we’re your family now. And, just to teach you villagers all a lesson, we gonna take your head man out into the fields. Oh, look, old man, is that your little granddaughter running towards us to save you? Up comes the rifle and bang. But it’s not the head man who falls down dead, it’s his granddaughter. That’s the lesson. Old man better make sure his village behaves better next time or other grandchildren get the chop.
‘On top of all this, all sides are dropping bombs and dumping defoliants on their paddy fields. It’s a no-win situation for these villagers, and they know it. That’s what we’re fighting. A sick, rotten, mean son-of-a-bitch war.’
A few days later, Sam’s platoon was assigned another mission, to patrol the ‘Fence’, a large minefield which ran from Dat Do to the sea, designed to keep the Vietcong away from the population centres and possible sources of weapons supply. It seemed the minefield had also become the source of mines for the Vietcong. They dug them up and sneaked away with them under cover of darkness.
On his second morning there, just before light, Sam came across Jim again. Both men were at the end of their patrol.
‘Gidday, Kiwi. How goes it?’
‘Fine. And you?’
‘Me, I’m on the countdown to return to Australia. Only a coupla weeks to go and I’m out of here, mate. Back to the missus and the kids.’
Jim’s face wrinkled into a grin. Down by the shore children were playing just beyond the perimeter of the minefield.
‘You’re one of them Horis, aren’t you?’ Jim asked. ‘If I came up on you in the dark, and if you weren’t in uniform, I’d probably mistake you for one of them locals.’
‘How would you know I wasn’t,’ Sam answered. ‘The uniform wouldn’t guarantee you anything, would it.’
‘You have learnt fast. That’s the trouble with this war. You can’t be sure of anything. What the enemy looks like. Who the enemy is —’ Jim took out his cigarettes. ‘As soon as I get home I’m giving these up.’
Suddenly, there was a small scream. One of the children had fallen.
‘Bloody kids! Dong lai! Halt. Get outta here!’
Jim flapped his arms and walked over to where the children were playing. As he approached, they ran away like small black animals scurrying into the dawn. The fallen one remained on the ground, and Sam shouted: ‘Jim, no.’
He saw that the children hadn’t been playing at all. They had been trying to lift mines from the field. One of them, the kid lying on the ground, had messed up.
‘Oh, shit,’ Jim said.
The mine the kid dropped was only seconds away from detonation. There was nothing else to do except get between him and the mine, and hope he survived the blast.
‘There, there, son.’
The mine fragmented, cutting Jim and the kid to shreds.
The senselessness of it all. Jim’s death put Sam into a tailspin. The Aussie veteran was the first soldier Sam had known to die in Vietnam. Now he had dreams about the mine exploding. He had been near enough to see the way in which Jim and the child suddenly disintegrated. One minute they were standing there, silhouetted against the dawn. The next moment they were gone. Chunks of meat and scattered bone on the beach. And he was still standing, in a state of shock, with Jim and the kid’s blood falling like rain on his face. What kind of enemy would send kids out to lift their mines for them?
‘It could have been me instead of Jim,’ Sam realised.
On this occasion death had brushed Sam by. But he had felt the eddy of wind as death passed. The next time he might not be so lucky.
So how did you recover from the death of a friend? You got through it minute by minute, day by day. You tried to put it behind you. You got on with the job. You went forward and before you knew it you were in the clear.
One afternoon, Sam, George and Turei came across some men playing half court basketball at the base: the blond American chopper pilot, his co-pilot and another American airman. The Yanks were making a lot of noise asking for the ball and directing the play, and something about the game made Sam pause — the banter and laughter seemed to come from another world. Just as the three Kiwis were about to pass by, the blond pilot saw Sam, remembered a profile illuminated by tracers and, in a moment of spontaneity, sent the ball spinning over to him. The pilot’s grin was free and as wide as Illinois. Somehow it closed the door on Sam’s sadness.
‘Feel like a game?’ the blond pilot asked.
‘Us against you? Gee, I dunno.’
‘Come on,’ the pilot said, ‘I know you want to say yes. Don’t give me such a hard time. Me, Fox and Seymour could do with some guys to play against.’
Sam pretended to play coy and innocent. In on the pretence, George and Turei tried to keep their faces straight.
‘Isn’t basketball your national game?’ Sam asked, kicking at the dust. ‘We don’t play much basketball where we come from. We’re small town boys and you guys are American city folks.’
‘We’ll make it fair,’ the blond pilot said. ‘How about our putting 10 points on the board for you.’
‘Make it 14.’
‘Twelve.’
‘Done,’ Sam said, spitting on his hands. He took off his shirt and the greenstone pendant he wore around his neck.
The Americans laughed with surprise but winked at each other. This was going to be a massacre. The blond pilot shook Sam’s hand.