Elianne (28 page)

‘Luck, Bobbo, that’s all.’

‘Balls. You’re the best marksman we’ve got. Bloody good bloke to have on side when there are three of them coming at you . . . Geez, mate, if it hadn’t been for you . . .’

Bobbo’s manner was suddenly urgent. He seemed to want to talk about it, so Neil let him rave on, giving a nod from time to time. Bobbo had the jitters: he could see that. Little wonder, he thought. The battle alone had been enough, but Bobbo had gone through a whole other form of hell.

The Australians, after consolidating their position, had evacuated a number of wounded during the night using the lights from their APCs to guide in the helicopters. But some of those less fortunate who had fallen in a peripheral area of battle had been forced to lie there throughout the whole terrifying night while all about them the Viet Cong had crept, whispering as they gathered their dead. Bobbo, like the others, had lain doggo.

‘I just did my best to look dead, mate, nothing else for it,’ he said, unable to stop talking, the words coming out in bursts as images flashed through his mind like a speeded-up film. ‘Geez, Neil, they collected the three blokes we shot. I could hear them. I could see them even though my eyes were closed. What do you reckon those bastards would have done to me if they’d known I was alive?’ Another shaky grin. ‘I tell you mate, I’m fucking lucky to be here.’

Bobbo was a different man. His nerves were shattered. Already Neil had seen others like him, and there would no doubt be many more. A tiny element in Neil wondered why he wasn’t that way himself. But he had weathered the storm of battle, and he knew he would again. Perhaps he was tougher than he’d thought.

T
he conflict in Vietnam had become suddenly real. It was already dubbed ‘The Television War’, and those back home did not have to wait for news from the battlefront as they had in past conflicts. As though it were a soap opera, disturbing images were beamed into households across the world, and for Australians the first great shock in this television saga was the Battle of Long Tan. Eighteen dead and twenty-four wounded in just one afternoon! Over the ensuing weeks, the anti-war movement gained momentum as the voice of activism became more readily heard.

‘The VAC’s planning a demonstration for Johnson’s visit,’ Jeremy announced to Kate and the other students gathered at the Empress in Redfern, a pub favoured by university activists. ‘They’re going to mass at Hyde Park corner for the start of the motorcade procession and they’re calling on all protest groups to join them – it’s going to be massive. We’ll show bloody Holt that we’re not all the way with LB bloody J,’ he scoffed. ‘Christ alive, not content with selling us down the river the sycophantic bastard can’t even come up with something original.’

‘Go Venner!’ Larry punched the air with closed fist and grinned at his girlfriend Sylvia as he urged his mate on. They both knew Venner couldn’t stand Harold Holt, and Larry so loved to stir.

Jeremy Venecourt had joined the Vietnam Action Campaign and true to form was deeply passionate about the new cause he’d embraced. He was enraged that Prime Minister Harold Holt, upon taking over the leadership after Robert Menzies’s retirement, had strengthened American ties with the declaration that Australia would go ‘all the way with LBJ’ – Lyndon Baines Johnson’s US presidential campaign slogan.

Kate watched in silence as Jeremy and the half dozen or so set about discussing their strategy. It was decided to call a meeting with fellow radical students at the university’s Wallace Hall during lunchtime the following Tuesday. They would inform the others, a plan of action would be adopted and word spread about the campus. Then a day or so before the American President’s arrival a full demonstration would be mounted on the front lawn to rally the troops in preparation.

As the group moved on to the subject of placards, avidly jotting down in notebooks the most effective protest slogans they could come up with, Kate remained silent. She was as much against the war as the rest of them, but she felt she had little to offer. Jeremy had chastised her on a number of occasions for not lending her voice to the anti-war campaign.

‘Why aren’t you more vocal, Kate?’ he’d demanded. ‘You’re a fighter, why aren’t you making yourself heard? We need people to speak out.’

She’d tried to explain. ‘My brother’s in Vietnam,’ she’d said. ‘It doesn’t seem right. I feel disloyal . . .’

But he hadn’t listened. Or rather he’d chosen not to hear her, which to Kate was subtly different, so she hadn’t attempted to explain further. ‘All the more reason to speak up,’ he’d insisted. ‘All the more reason to pull out of Vietnam, to bring our boys home. This is not our war, they shouldn’t be there . . .’

She’d let him rave on, knowing he wouldn’t understand. How can I expect him to understand anyway, she’d thought, when I don’t understand myself?

Living in constant fear as she did for her brother’s safety, Kate had become uncharacteristically superstitious. Neil had survived the Battle of Long Tan, but for how much longer would he be spared? She loathed and detested the Vietnam War, just as she loathed and detested all wars, but her brother, like so many others, was risking his life upon the orders of his government. It seemed disloyal and disrespectful not to acknowledge that fact, but of far greater importance it seemed somehow to court disaster. She was prepared to demonstrate against the war itself, but she could not bring herself to condemn the troops by saying they shouldn’t be there.

‘No, no,’ Larry interrupted Jeremy’s flow, disagreeing with the suggestion they should include the conscription issue. ‘We must keep the protest aimed solely at LBJ and America’s involvement in Vietnam. Make it a direct attack on American policy; conscription’s a local concern. Don’t you agree, Syl?’ He looked to his girlfriend for back-up.

‘Absolutely,’ she said, ‘and besides the SOS is bound to be there – they’ll make their presence felt.’ Formed by the mothers of young conscripted soldiers, the Save Our Sons campaign, now steadily growing in numbers, called for the immediate abolition of conscription.

‘All right, I take your point.’ The rest of the group was clearly in agreement and Jeremy was forced to defer to majority opinion, although he did so reluctantly. ‘But in rallying the troops it’s imperative we push the moral issue of conscription,’ he insisted. ‘Bill White was arrested for refusing to kill people for God’s sake! That’s a powerful message to students. Conscientious objectors are destined to become a major symbol in the anti-war campaign. The voice of youth! We can’t afford to ignore that.’

As always his argument was persuasive and the others were quickly convinced. The drive of the demonstration on the front lawn at university must strongly incorporate the wrong perpetrated upon William White for his moral stance. It would rouse the students into action.

Kate watched Jeremy, again feeling a sense of disloyalty, but this time to him. She knew him very well: Jeremy would love to have been Bill White. The newspaper image of the young man dragged from his home by three burly policemen had become the potent symbol of youthful revolt. How Jeremy wished that image could have been his. And the moral reasons Bill White had given for refusing to report to an army induction centre had been stirring, erudite – how Jeremy longed to have written those words.

Young Sydney schoolteacher, William White, in rebelling against his government’s orders, had become the country’s first conscientious objector, setting the example for others to follow. And there’ll no doubt be many who will, Kate thought. But sadly Jeremy would not be one of them as he so yearned to be. The bizarre truth was, Jeremy Venecourt regretted having been one year too old to qualify for the conscription lottery. He’d told her so in no uncertain terms.

‘I’d have shown those bastards,’ he’d said. ‘I’d have gone to gaol at the drop of a hat rather than agree to fight in this filthy bloody war that’s none of our concern. Every conscript should have stood up to the government as Bill White has. The National Service Act is morally wrong . . .’

He’d ranted on at some length, several of his quotes sounding suspiciously like William White’s, although Kate supposed it was a little unjust of her to be critical, for his views were the same as White’s. But she couldn’t help feeling, as she had on occasion lately, that the radical way Jeremy switched causes and with such passion denoted more a craving for personal excitement than the achievement of change so fiercely fought for by other activists. He’d all but forgotten the campaign for a referendum on Aboriginal rights, a cause that had been of great concern to them both and one to which Kate remained intensely committed. These days Jeremy seemed to revel more in the drama that attended the anti-Vietnam war campaign, particularly since the arrest of William White, and although he remained as charismatic as ever an awful suspicion was dawning on Kate. Over the year and a half of their affair, had lust blinded her to the fact that Jeremy Venecourt was perhaps a little shallow?

The stars at night – are big and bright

Deep in the heart of Texas.

The prairie sky – is wide and high

Deep in the heart of Texas . . .

Aided by a powerful amplification system, the voices of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rang out across the park offering a robust and friendly greeting to the Texan president. As yet the motorcade was nowhere in sight, but the idea was to create atmosphere and whip up excitement amongst the massive crowd gathered at Hyde Park Corner. Here the motorcade, having travelled from the airport, would come to a brief halt for an official welcome before starting on its slow procession through the maze of cordoned-off city streets to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, where a state reception would be held in the president’s honour.

The whirlwind three-day, five-city Australian tour by Lyndon Baines Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, was a ‘thank you’ for Australia’s ardent support of the US-led war in Vietnam. The official visit had been warmly embraced by Prime Minister Holt, who was only too keen to host an occasion of such historic significance as the first presidential trip to Australia, and the general public had been urged to show its appreciation of the honour bestowed upon the nation.

The big day had now arrived and all was in readiness. Countless thousands of specially designed ‘Welcome LBJ’ flags had been distributed for the populace to wave at the passing motorcade; schoolchildren had been marshalled from their classrooms to line the streets; the young, the old, and family groups had taken up their places alongside the multitudes whose employers had been harangued into giving their workers time off, and now, as the final minutes ticked by, close to a million people thronged the pavements of the procession route, jostling for position, eager to witness the momentous event.

The sage in bloom – is like perfume

Deep in the heart of Texas.

Reminds me of – the one I love . . .

At Hyde Park Corner, where media had massed to capture the precious moment of the motorcade’s arrival, excitement mounted. But there was a sudden hitch. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s full-voiced rendition petered out to almost nothing. The singers continued, but ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’ had dropped so drastically in volume it could barely be heard over the noise of the crowd. Activists had cut the power line to the amplifier and it was now the cries of the protestors that could be heard above all else.

Word of the demonstration had spread throughout the entire city and a total of around ten thousand protestors of all ages and from all walks of life had congregated at Hyde Park Corner. Militant Vietnam Action Campaigners together with left-wing student activists, trade unionists, women from Save Our Sons, and ordinary suburban middle-class citizens affiliated with no particular action group at all had gathered with the intention of making their presence felt in whatever way they could. There was even a bunch of elderly female pensioners, organised by the Communist Party of Australia, who had arrived at the site early enough to take possession of a number of the seats that had been officially laid out for groups welcoming the president.

There’s a yellow rose in Texas that I am gonna see,
Nobody else could miss her not half as much as me . . .

The resilient members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, having managed to repair their power line, were now giving hearty and defiant voice to the ever-popular Mitch Miller version of another of LBJ’s favourites.

‘The Yellow Rose of Texas’ did not last long, however, the activists cutting the power line at another point and once again taking up their chant. Even before the appearance of the motorcade, Hyde Park Corner was becoming the scene of a battle for vocal supremacy.

She’s the sweetest little rose bud that Texas ever knew,
Her eyes are bright as diamonds they sparkle like the dew . . .

The choir refused to admit defeat. Five minutes later they’d repaired the line and were again singing out in full amplified force.

Having rounded the corner at Taylor Square, the presidential motorcade finally came into view, making its way down Oxford Street towards the park, presenting even from some distance a splendid sight. Limousines with Australian and American national flags fluttering were flanked on all sides by a police motorcycle escort, while bringing up the rear were further police mounted on horseback. A buzz of excitement ran through the crowd. Children were hoisted onto shoulders and myriad flags started frantically waving as the procession drew nearer.

The stars at night – are big and bright . . .

The choir had segued back to ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’, deeming it the appropriate choice for the official welcome, but their triumph was short-lived as an activist went to work for the third time with a set of pliers. At the crucial moment, just as the motorcade approached Hyde Park all that could be heard above the general noise of the crowd was the angry chant of anti-war protestors.

‘Johnson – murderer! Johnson – murderer! Johnson – murderer!’

The mood was contagious and others took up the chant. Even those who’d intended to demonstrate in relative silence, to wave their placards demanding an end to the Vietnam War, were compelled to join the activists in voicing their anger.