Sam saw the rest of his men dropping to the ground. The chopper rocked forward. It picked up speed, climbing out over the tree line and away. Attempting to fool the enemy into thinking that a landing hadn’t been made. Laying a false trail to some other part of the region.
For the next fifteen minutes, Victor Company kept position as the remaining fleet poured in. At each landing, more troops and supplies. Then it was done — the entire battalion was on the ground.
Everything was quiet. As the last chopper lifted away Sam felt a frightening sense of isolation.
‘Holy Hone Hika,’ he said to himself. ‘This is it. This is really it.’
He was in the killing zone.
Day One
‘Let’s get the men moving,’ Major Worsnop said.
The landing completed, each company of ANZAC Battalion headed out to its assigned operational sector. Sam passed a young Aussie soldier.
‘Makes a change from beating up each other at base, eh?’ the soldier said. ‘Go get ’em, Kiwi.’
‘You too, digger.’
Victor Company’s destination was two hours’ march away in the south-west quadrant. The main distinguishing landmark was Two Horn mountain. The route took them through thick bamboo, then secondary jungle, and finally tall primary jungle. Over to the east, muffled detonations, like distant thunder, indicated that the Americans in Operation Bucephalus hadn’t been so lucky in their landing.
By early afternoon, Victor Company reached its position — Two Horn mountain loomed above them — and set up its base camp. Platoons were sent out to clear the area of enemy. By mid-afternoon the base camp’s defences had been primed: M60 machine-guns and claymore mines were positioned to ensure interlocking fields of fire. Sentries were posted.
At sundown, Major Worsnop called the company together.
‘I have opened our orders and can now tell you why we are here. As you may know, there has been increased enemy activity throughout Phuoc Tuy province. Command have been monitoring it for some time, but our intelligence information has now been able to confirm that enemy activity is being coordinated from a new logistic supply base somewhere here in the vicinity of Two Horn mountain. This base has been supplying Vietcong forces in Long Khanh, Bien Hoa, and Binh Tuy in addition to those in Phuoc Tuy province.
‘Up until now, we have been hitting at the enemy wherever they surface. Operation Bucephalus has been mounted to stop them at the source. In particular, the Americans have had intelligence reports that the enemy buildup is preparatory to an attack on the American airbase at Bien Hoa. Our mission is to stop the Vietcong before this happens. Once their base has been located, joint command will manoeuvre to destroy it.’
He handed over to Captain Fellowes, who gave his lieutenants an area of sweep. Lieutenant Haapu’s was a delta at the heart of an extended river system. A village further up one of the valleys. A whole system of tracks pushing further into the clouds and up into the mountain.
Lieutenant Haapu turned to Sam:
‘You begin patrolling in the morning.’
Sam did not sleep well that night. In this, his platoon’s first field action in Vietnam, the pressure was on him to perform. Could he deliver? Could he lead his men into battle and out? When the dawn flared, Sam saw that the sky was like a sea of opalescent waves, tinged with red and stretching to the end of forever. Within it, from east to west, stretched a broad band of cloud, broken into long, thin parallel masses, as if shoals of fish were seething just below its surface.
‘The mackerel sky,’ Sam whispered.
And he realised that the sky was like a sign — whatever was going to be would be, and whatever was going to happen would happen — and a sense of extraordinary calm came over him. In particular, he remembered the wild-eyed palomino on that day, years ago, when he was in his late teens. Dad and other horsebreakers had mustered a herd of wild mustangs from out of the Rimutaka Ranges. Arapeta was given first pick, and had chosen the palomino. For days he tried to break the stallion in. He used all his resources of wisdom and cunning but, in the end, resorted to the whip. Sam ran out and pulled the whip from him.
‘You think you can do a better job than me?’ Dad asked. ‘If you can tame the horse I will give him to you.’
The next morning, when Sam awoke, he looked up to a mackerel sky. He walked out to the yard where the palomino was corralled.
‘You are king of all stallions,’ Sam said. ‘The world should be your kingdom.’
The stallion’s eyes bulged with anger, and it reared as Sam approached. Its mouth was bloodied from the bit. Its back was still moist from the cuts of the whip.
‘There, there,’ Sam whispered. For over two hours he rubbed ointment into the palomino’s wounds. He talked and talked.
The night before, he had twisted an old bed sheet into a soft rope, to use as reins. He wasn’t planning to use a saddle. Now he placed the rope in the stallion’s mouth and, with a fast leap, mounted.
Dad, Mum, Patty and Monty came to watch the contest.
‘Open the gate, Patty,’ Sam called.
‘What are you doing!’ Dad called. ‘That horse will have you off its back and be away before you get out.’ He tried to stop the gate from opening, but the palomino saw the space, reared, slashing the air with its hooves — and Arapeta cried out and twisted to one side.
With a whinny of passion the stallion charged into the open country. It tried to buck and twist Sam off its back and reach him with its teeth. On and on it ran, thundering across the landscape, making for the hills it so loved. Up the hills it sped, seeking its freedom.
Before Sam knew it, they reached the place where the hills cut sharply into the blue. There in front of them was the mackerel sky.
‘Yes, do it,’ Sam said.
With a hoarse cry the palomino leapt — and was falling into a sky teeming with silvered fish.
Two hours later, Patty saw Sam returning to the farm.
‘Sam’s back! He’s back.’
Sam was walking along the road. He was leading the palomino after him. Arapeta greeted him with pride and delight.
‘You did it, son. You did it.’
Arapeta walked out to reclaim the stallion.
With a sudden yell, Sam lashed at the horse.
‘Go. Get away from here as fast as you can.’
The stallion reared. Turned. Was off and away.
‘What did you do that for!’ Dad asked.
‘You said the horse was mine if I tamed it. Well, I tamed it. I owned it. I let it go.’
Dad had thought he gave the palomino its freedom out of some boyish gesture. Mum, however, knew better. She began to laugh softly.
‘The boy’s soft in the head, Florence,’ Arapeta said. ‘Like you.’
The silvered shoal dived into the sky. The memory fell away.
‘Time to go find Charlie,’ Lieutenant Haapu said.
Sam nodded. Whatever would be would be. He saw that the platoon was ready to move out. The signaller, Zel Flanagan, made a last-minute check on the radio.
‘The Americans didn’t get any sleep, poor bastards. Twenty casualties from the enemy counter-offensive. The Vietcong were hitting them all night.’
‘Nobody said this was going to be a picnic,’ Lieutenant Haapu said.
An hour later he nodded to Sam:
‘You all know what your job is. Go and do it.’
Sam unrolled the map and showed his men their assigned patrol area, at the farthest extreme of the map.
‘All happy? Everybody know what we’re doing? From now on we restrict our talking and adopt hand signals as communication. Agreed? Then let’s go.’