Don't Cry For the Brave Read online

  The soldiers, spectres floating amongst the vines, silently reformed and moved back towards the bunker. We were approaching from the rear, inching forward to detect trip wires and landmines. The bunker, a hasty improvisation, was eventually more or less in sight through the trees at thirty yards. I thought we could go no further without attracting fire. The only tactic was to charge, regardless of mines, and try to overwhelm the position.

  A moment later a heavy blast of machine-gun fire ripped through the trees near us spraying leaves and moisture from them in the air; it seemed to be a speculative shot. Charlie hadn’t seen us.

  Blake yelled, “Let them have it, guys! Charge!” and our thin line of men abandoned caution and tore through the foliage towards the bunker in desperation, Blake well in the lead, yelling like a cowboy at a rodeo, a 45 in one hand and a fragmentation grenade in the other. I lurched forward ahead of my men, branches tearing at me. Where the clearing opened out there was nobody to oppose us. I blasted the space with my M16. The VC machine gunner was silent, evidently cut down by our shots. Two Viet Cong rushed from the shelter with their AK47s to forestall the grenades, but were no match for the concentrated fire of our automatic rifles; they hardly had time to raise their weapons. The bunker imploded with a massive shock under our feet as the grenades tossed in by Blake and his corporal exploded.

  Opposition suddenly ceased. A striking silence, amid gunsmoke and the acrid smell of exhaust from firearms, a silence again, more profound than before our attack. For a few moments we crouched flat on our bellies in the clearing or in the shelter of the trees, listening, waiting to see whether there would be a counter-attack by hidden VC. Blake crept forward alone. He poked around the bunker. He decided the area was clear. We all got to our feet cautiously, marvelling that we were intact in every limb.

  “It was a con trick,” he said, as we came forward.

  “The loudspeaker made me think there must be at least a platoon of them,” I said.

  “Three guys! You gotta give them credit,” Blake said, admiringly.

  I moved the bodies of the pair who had fled the bunker to get a clear sight of them. Young men. Quite handsome. They looked victorious, their cheeks hot and copper smooth, jewels in their eyes. I wondered which one had the American accent.

  I turned away, looking above the trees to a few daubs of blue in the sky. I was acutely tired, at the edge of consciousness. I tried to reach back in my mind to all that had happened to us that day. I could remember the grey-green morning hills, with tall moving columns of rain above them. I thought not of the brave men dead at our feet, but of the captives, buried alive in the tunnel, earth in their mouths and blood from their wounds seeping into the dirt.

  10

  Blake and I moved away from our men while we waited on Route 34 for the truck the US infantry major, who was in charge of the observation post, promised.

  “We’ve had a successful few days, Bob,” Blake mused, bright with adrenalin. “Useful intelligence. You’re a good officer.”

  I winced. He was being extravagantly kind. I was a passenger. He didn’t mention the dead villagers or VC, if that’s what they were, and I hadn’t the guts to say, “What are we going to do about this?”

  A GMC truck halted. The men gathered round the tailboard, loaded their packs and rifles and clambered aboard. The driver latched the tailboard and climbed into the cab. Blake and I sat up front with him. As we began to bump along the road rutted by rain and traffic, I leaned against Blake’s reassuring shoulder. So everything was really in order.

  I was jolted out of the haze I had felt since we crossed into our lines. The driver, who looked more like a druggist’s assistant with his rimless glasses, drove with verve, throwing the GMC into bends and running up and down the gears to keep the motor screaming. At times the truck slewed, its drive wheels spinning. The most this elicited from the druggist’s man was “Whoa girl!” or “Steady baby!”

  I turned my attention positively away from the road. To the south, the land levelled out. Many roads had been formed. Bulldozers had scraped away the vegetation. I could see from the windscreen the beginnings of war civilisation. The roads became increasingly busy as we progressed: staff cars, motorcycles, Jeeps, armoured cars, tanks and convoys of tractors towing gun carriages. The roadsides were piled with oil drums. Soldiers laboured over poles and girders. There were fenced vehicle parks, piles of packing cases, cranes, fire tenders, portable bridges. Lines of poles carrying wires followed the roads. Observation towers like oil derricks overlooked the scene. The complicated impedimenta of an army was expanding, creeping forward like mechanical ivy, taking possession of the landscape, leaving raw red dust, tar macadam, concrete blocks, and wire fences.

  When we reached our regimental lines, we found that the Regiment had moved to Camp Dakota. We heard that before retiring they had been overrun in a guerilla attack by VC and lost several men. We drove on to Camp Dakota; it was situated several miles from Hoi An on a tract of level land. The bulldozers which had levelled the earth were lined up on the outskirts, rusting. The camp was enclosed in veils of barbed wire which contained a mined space around the perimeter. Inside the wire, the clusters of prefabricated huts were dwarfed by infinite flatness. Few irregularities met the eye at horizon level: a water tower, an observation post, a wireless aerial. The camp gave the impression of being almost unoccupied. A few tiny, isolated soldiers could be seen, and a few vehicles, like beetles, moved over a widely spread network of roads.

  At our bunkroom (which I was allocated to share with Blake and Jack Boyd, the quartermaster, as a late arrival) I filled my mouth with white, round, hard candies, crushing them as the sweetness flowed down my throat. I lit a Lucky Strike and tasted the bitterness of the tobacco on my lips. I took a swig of whiskey from the open bottle by the bed, which Boyd had produced for our welcome, and let my mind float freely. I had a quick shower, a shave and changed my stinking clothes.

  The Adjutant who had walked up and down the shower room, prodding us along, now put his head in the doorway, sensing our exhaustion. I didn’t know about Blake, but I had been on my feet for the best part of seven days. “The General’s going to be at the briefing and it’s happening now. Transport’s waiting. Move your asses, gentlemen!”

  As we drove down the road to headquarters, we passed two trucks unloading chairs outside the drill hall.

  “Women!” Blake said, appreciatively.

  A girl in white shorts with high heels and long lightly tanned legs, a red shirt and a red band around her hair, was standing near the tail of one truck directing operations. The image, so colourful and alien, swamped my grim thoughts.

  “Concert tonight. Party from Hawaii,” Weston said.

  Blake and I followed Weston into the HQ. A female member of the concert party was talking to a clerk. She had her back to me, a long body in thin slacks and a cotton T-shirt. I could see the impression of her G-string panties on her bottom.

  I waited with Blake to be called into the briefing room, still damp from the shower, untidy, half-dirty and slightly drunk. The girl was talking to the clerk about trouble with the audio equipment in the hall. Her low, imploring voice made me tingle.

  Blake and I were summoned into Colonel Vaughan’s office. He introduced Major General Mason from Far East Forces Command. We already knew Major Stuart, the intelligence officer from 21st Div HQ. I pushed my aching feet under the long table, whiskey singing in my head. Blake’s mission was the one the General wanted to hear about; mine would be taken in writing as usual, and would be pure fiction, when I had time to produce it. Blake produced his map and made markings on the wall map. He began to explain. Major Stuart made notes, commenting enthusiastically, as though he was a football coach discussing a game. I caught the rich whiff of the General’s cigar. Blake described the capture of the tunnel complex and its occupiers as a dramatic enemy engagement. He mentioned only the six or so who were interrogated and said they died of wounds. Nobody inquired further about the deaths. He gave
an account of the enemy strengths in the area and their movements, and concluded with a rousing account of our rout of the machine-gun nest.

  *

  I walked along the road alone after I left the HQ. I would have to dress later for the scheduled parade, and then I assumed that we would go to the mess for drinks and later the concert and dinner. I wished that I could go to bed. It was cool now; there was a faint breeze. The colours were deepening. The sun no longer burned. The sky was an even yellow. In the direction of the coast I could see grey lumps of rain cloud. I walked past the drill hall. A collection of stage props were piled by the main doors. The dark-haired girl was there.

  A soldier was kneeling over a loudspeaker, microphones, amplifiers and wires all round him; it was Trask. He had a screwdriver between his teeth. I set a course to pass close to the girl. She didn’t look up at the crunch of my boots on the gravel. Her attention was on Trask’s bare back, his curling golden hair newly washed, the dorsal muscles swelling up from a taut waist.

  “Haven’t you earned a rest?” I said to Trask.

  Trask, one hand locked inside a speaker, didn’t answer, but swore and groped deeper. The girl headed up the steps for the cool of the hall.

  I followed. “All ready for the performance?” I asked.

  “Not quite, but come the hour we’ll be there,” the girl replied in a harsh voice.

  “Are you here for long?”

  “Just tonight. We’re doing all the camps.”

  “What made you come up here? It’s no picnic.”

  “The money,” she laughed coarsely, as though the question was stupid.

  I nevertheless felt myself stirring as I talked to her. She had thin lips and tight lines around her mouth, but… “What do you do?” I asked.

  “Sing in a nightclub in Hawaii.”

  “It’s just a few nurses here, well mostly.”

  “Nursing? Not for me, that one. Night duty. Blood.”

  I gave up probing her for a selfless motive. Trask was now watching me pointedly. “We’ll maybe see you after the show,” I said.

  Trask overheard me. “Oh, sure!” he said. As usual, the officers were homing in on the women.

  I walked away unaccountably embarrassed by the encounter. I knew it was trivial, meaningless really. I walked back to my billet and rested on my bunk. I was weak and aching. I seemed to be in the hut at Kam Sung. Outside, the vegetation steamed; inside, the stench and the flies hummed…

  I had another shower when I awoke, first hot then cold. I began to dress. The dark-haired woman would be dressing for the concert. Gail would be handling trays of bloody instruments. Maggots would be gnawing the corpse of the woman who complained about the unjust war.

  *

  I marched with my platoon to the parade ground. The ranks were opened for inspection. General Mason had long legs bowed inside the narrow blue breeches of a cavalryman. He was tall and passed along the ranks with silent blue lips at scalp level, his head hung benevolently forward. He gave no sign that he noticed the shirt buttons undone, or the lieutenant with one epaulette. He touched his ceremonial sword and moustache alternately with the same hand as he shuffled along. Colonel Vaughan and Adjutant Weston followed the General, but they noted every irregularity, every loose buckle and dirty boot.

  Colonel Vaughan barked out the regimental notices, and the Padre said a prayer and a few words about the glorious dead. I was swaying with fatigue. The band began to play the Retreat. The Regiment held a long salute while the flag was lowered. The band massed its noise in the last battle, the last cannon shot of the day; the bagpipes called the soldiers back across the fields with their dead for burial, and their wounded. A drummer, more skilful than the rest, fitted many small pulses into the melancholy beat. The old ceremony of retreat evoked images of broken gun carriages in the mud, and still ribbons of battle smoke in the silence at the end of a day of war. It was an incongruous ceremony, utterly unmoving to me because no modern army stopped fighting at sundown or respected the truce of the Tet; it was the romance of war.

  The silver ball of cloud above us cracked open and fat globs of rain began to pound the parade ground. The members of the command group flicked their heads around like cockerels. The Adjutant shouted. The Colonel interrupted. The ranks broke. The men were splashing for shelter in all directions. Colonel Vaughan, seen through a lattice of rain, was standing at attention while others fled. The officers crowded into their mess hut, excited and good-humoured at the sudden relief of tension.

  *

  Pfc Trask was waiting, sheltering beneath the eaves of the officers’ mess hut, and he moved forward to intercept me, his blade-like face pale and his eyes staring.

  “What is it?” I said impatiently, never pleased to see Trask. We sought a place away from the busy doorway.

  “This, sir,” Trask said, producing folded papers from his pocket.

  Without knowing more, I said, “Can’t this wait, surely?” But I took the papers and opened a page of childish handwriting under the heading of Trask’s name, number and unit.

  I glanced down the page: On patrol… we joined Capt Blake’s patrol… he had taken prisoners including a woman and children…

  “What the hell are you going to do with this?”

  “I’m reporting it to you and Colonel Vaughan.”

  I felt two intermingling plumes of anger and shame rise in me. “What the fuck for, man? I can’t do anything. It’s over now. For God’s sake, forget it!”

  I had assured myself that I was still considering what the correct action, if any, might be, but I still told Trask to forget it. I wanted time to get my own head straight. It was true; I was searching for reasons which might justify what I had seen with a mind that was feeble. I was confronted with the prospect of reporting Jim Blake’s involvement in a slaughter; it was virtually unthinkable.

  “What happened was a crime. Sadistic violence.” Trask’s voice was flat, nasal, unfeeling.

  I flinched under his contemptuous stare. “I’ll read this more carefully tonight and see you tomorrow.”

  “Very well, sir,” Trask said, saluting. “I won’t forget sir. What happened can’t be forgotten. And I suppose you’ll be making your own similar report, sir. You know what happened.”

  “I’ll discuss it with you in the morning.”

  11

  I couldn’t clear my mind and I gave up trying as I pushed through the mess room doors. First, drinks and the pleasant haze of alcohol, then a concert, followed by dinner. Wine. A taste of peace.

  Long trestle tables were laid with white cloths. A Regimental shield had been hastily fixed over the bar. The officers milled around the bar talking loudly, their uniforms stained by the rain. Vietnamese mess boys in white jackets carried trays of drinks and oily canapés. There were guests from other units in the camp and ARVN officers. I drifted around the fringes of various groups filling up on pastries and whiskey. When it was time for the show, the rain had stopped and I walked to the hall with Jim Blake and Jack Boyd. An orange moon rested on a silhouette of the jungle like a poster for South Pacific. The papers Trask had given me were acid in my pocket. I stopped Blake after a few paces and let Boyd walk on. “I want to show you something.” I steered him near to the light coming from the windows of a store, and produced the pages.

  “What’s this, Bob? Not now surely?”

  “You better see this now.”

  Blake reluctantly eyed the papers. I thought I saw a look of unease, but when he raised his head to the light his expression showed a smudge of amusement.

  “This man’s an idiot,” he said. “He can’t take it any further. There’s only one way out of here and that’s through Vaughan. Vaughan won’t listen to this sort of shit.”

  “I think we should tell Vaughan about it ourselves. Get it squared away.”

  “There’s no need, Mr McDade. Tear it up.” He walked on.

  On the rare occasions when Jim Blake addressed me as Mr McDade it was either meant as an order or
a sign that I was being a fool.

  “Suppose he writes… ” I said, catching up with him.

  “All letters are censored.”

  “Suppose he does somehow manage to make a complaint outside the Regiment? Wouldn’t we be best placed if… we had our story straight inside?” I said, hearing my own conspiratorial approach as though I was listening to another person.

  Blake smiled slightly, undisturbed. “Alright. If you insist. You’re scared, aren’t you? An anarchic little scumball private has you by the balls.”

  Scared? Was I actually scared? I was scared, but I had nothing to be scared of. I’d done no wrong. Well, not positively. I’d let things happen… What could I have done? What should I have done? Or to be more accurate, because the issue hadn’t disappeared, what should I do?

  Inside the hall, under the unshaded electric bulbs the officers pushed their way along rows of chairs to get the best view. I sat with Boyd beside me on one side, Blake on the other. Shadows passed behind the curtains, furniture scraped, spotlights flashed, female voices gave inaudible directions.

  I saw the dark-haired girl slip out between the curtains to speak to the musicians who were tuning up; double bass, keyboards, guitar, clarinet and drums. She seemed to notice me as she tripped back up the steps and re-entered the curtains, followed by the odd wolf whistle.