Four Fires (94 page)

'Yes, Corporal.'

And he proves to be right. What we've learned up to now is practically nothing. If this is what Tommy did when they put his battalion through jungle training then I can see why they were so much better than the British garrison troops who'd spurned such training.

The thing is silence. Everything is based on silence, getting somewhere by not being seen or heard. Everything is done by hand signals, then you learn to anticipate changes in section formation, how to look through bushes and not at them, how to recognise ground that might be
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the killing ground of an enemy ambush. And how to silently and quickly set our own ambush if the scout signals 'enemy approaching'.

There's squillions of things to learn, some of them seem small, but turn out to be critical. Like taking off your boots when things are safe to air and dry your feet. Also, your feet's worst enemy is socks that don't fit. If the socks bunch up, they'll wear the skin off your feet.

Towards the end of the exercise, Jake Tingle signals me to take over as forward scout. I'm exhilarated but also shitting meself. If I screw it up, I'll never be able to lift my head up again. So off we go through the bushes, careful as all get-out. Then I stop and see the underside of a leaf on a bush facing up the wrong way. I look more closely and see there's a couple of tiny twigs fresh broken, a bit of trodden-down grass and two small stones kicked out of their original positions. I signal for the corporal. He comes up and agrees a small group of 'exercise enemy'

has taken a right-angle turn from where we were heading. He looks at his map and sees there's a little creek nearby and reasons they've made for the creek, maybe to fill their water bottles. So we lay an ambush and wait for them to return. They do and we've got them. We get a few brownie points for that. Corporal Jake Tingle now calls me Mole and expects me to call him Jake. It's the sign that he'd trust me in the jungle as a forward scout.

After what Tommy told me, I have a healthy respect for the tropical jungle, but also a fascination. That I know about the Australian bush, I now want to know about the jungle. Of course, that's impossible, it would take a lifetime, but there's a good few things you can learn if you keep your eyes peeled and ask questions, like I've always done since I was a little kid. Nancy used to say when she didn't want to answer, 'Curiosity killed the cat i'Ve often wondered how that saying came about, but nobody has ever been able to give me an answer when I've asked.

See what I mean?

I was always fascinated about the big tree at Sandakan and how Tommy, when he escaped and thought he was going to die, wanted to die safe in the buttress of a big tree he'd seen while carrying rice.

Thank God, he never found it or he may have given up. But the reason those big jungle trees have buttresses is because the soil is very poor and so jungle trees don't have deep roots and nature's developed these buttresses to hold them up.

There's lots that's new to find out about the big old blokes and how so much takes advantage of them. The vines in particular use them to grow up the trunks so they can reach the sunlight on the canopy. That's another thing, the canopy is so thick with vines and leaves that even in a fierce storm the wind doesn't get down to the ground, the rain will come down in buckets but the ground is otherwise quite calm. It's also reasonably easy to walk in the jungle because all the action is happening up top, everything stretching for the sun. Orchids, Tommy would always call them epiphytes, ferns and some other small plants simply grow on the tree, doing it no harm.

But there's a group of villains as well, take the aerial herniparasite for instance, it's a leathery green-leafed vine with white berries, don't know why but it looks a bit evil too, well, it hooks its roots into the trunk or a branch of the tree and feeds from it. It can sometimes kill the tree outright. There's mistletoe, you know, the stuff they hang up at Christmas parties where, if you can catch a girl under it, you can kiss her, it's here in the jungle. I always thought it would be growing in the snow in England or something. I liked the rattan vine, because of what it does for mankind. I suppose you wouldn't strictly call it a vine because it's actually a sort of pine, only for jungles. Its trunk is long and very thin and has hooks in it that latch on to the tree trunk and up she goes all the way to the canopy to get its share of sunlight.

Rattan is the stuff they use to make wicker chairs and baskets and it's a generally useful sort of plant. Many's the time Bozo and me have rescued a wicker couch or chair and then got some rattan and mended it and sold it in Wang. Tommy, sometimes when he was hungry, would say, Tm that hungry I could eat a baby's bum through a wicker chair!

There's lots to learn that isn't just jungle-fighting tactics and I reckon the more you know, the
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easier it is to survive. Just one more tiny thing. I'm standing next to this tree, my section's just returned from a patrol into the protection of the platoon harbour and we've having a bit of a smoko. I count, in one square yard, eight hundred or so ants belonging to fifty different species. One of the blokes asks me what I'm doing. 'Counting ants,' I tell him. He signals the others to come have a look, 'Hey, Mole's finally gone troppo, now he's counting the fucking ants in the jungle. He's already up to a hundred billion!' The point is that everywhere you go in the jungle there's ants.

You've got to have a bit of luck to progress quickly in the permanent army, it's like the public service, you've got to have done the hard vards and put in the time before promotion comes. It's different when there's a war on, of course. Well, I get lucky, and the skipper calls me in and says they like what they've seen of me and I'm going to Kota Tingui Jungle Warfare School. Later my platoon sergeant, who's on his second tour of duty, says he's never seen it happen before, I've been in the jungle less than six months and I'm going to learn from the legendary Blue Johnston.

'Private Maloney, if I'm still around when you come back, I want you back in my platoon, you understand?' I guess it's a compliment.

Blue Johnston, an Australian, is the chief instructor at the Tracking Wing. There was nobody like him in the army that was a white bloke anyway. He could look at and smell a disused campfire and tell you how long ago, up to five years or five minutes, it was used. He could tell to a startling degree of accuracy when a cut had been made in a tree or a twig snapped, or a branch used to construct a shelter had been broken off and so tell you when the camp site was active.

He could follow a trail picking up clues that were invisible to all but the legendary Eban trackers from Sabah. In fact, it was rumoured he had learned his tracking from living with the Eban deep in the jungles of Borneo, although he never said.

Well, you don't get someone like that every day of your life, do you? And I'm asking him a heap of questions whenever it seems appropriate. He is surprised I know about the jungle plants and insects and have a bit of general knowledge and he doesn't put me down, but explains things.

Sometimes the other blokes are looking up at the ceiling, impatiently rolling their eyes, even though, like me, they're handpicked for extra jungle training. But I can't help myself, like I said, I never grew out of asking questions.

Anyhow, I learn later that Blue Johnston gives me a commendation in my pass, which again is something he's never done before. But, of course, he doesn't say anything to me. Except when we leave the course, he comes up and shakes my hand, 'You done good, Private Maloney. Good luck, son,' is all he said.

When I got back to the battalion, maybe because of what Blue Johnston had said in my report, I'm sent to a Junior NCO course. Again it's a bit on the quick side, I should have had another year in the army before that happened. Next thing I know, I'm a lance corporal and because the corporal section commander on our platoon goes down with malaria and there are no senior soldiers in our platoon, one of whom would automatically have got the job, it's given to me.

After I get back from Blue Johnston's training camp, the battalion does the best part of a year on the Thai border chasing the die-hards in Ching Peng's army. I suppose all this training and endless tracking and setting ambushes for these few ever-elusive terrorists is a bit boring, but it's important, because it means I'll know what I'm doing when I eventually get to Vietnam.

The battalion is sent home from Malaya in August 1963 and when we get back I'm sent on the Senior NCO course. After that I'm promoted to sergeant and posted as an instructor to the Battle Wing of the Infantry Centre at Ingleburn again and now I'm one of those bastards who made my life a misery when I joined up, I'm a Corps Training Instructor.

I'm the first to admit, it's not me that's made such rapid progress in the army, it's what Tommy taught me. If it hadn't been for him teaching me everything as a kid, I reckon I'd just be your average army shit-kicker and would have stayed a private all my life.

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At the end of 1964, they tell me to pack my kit, I'm off overseas again, going to Vietnam where I'm posted to the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam, shortened to AATT or just 'the Team'.

It's a Qantas flight to Singapore and overnight at Nee Soon barracks, then on a Pan Am flight to Saigon. All of this is done in civilian dress as our presence in Vietnam is hush-hush. It's impossible to pack an Australian slouch hat for fear it will get out of shape. (In fact, it is forbidden in this man's army.) I can't help wondering what the people at Singapore airport must have thought about a civilian carrying

an army hat, sporting an army haircut and carrying a civilian suitcase, lining up to fly to Vietnam.

It wouldn't have taken a master spy to figure it out.

Half an hour out of Saigon I do as required and go into the toilet to change into my uniform.

I've left my run too late and I'm just about ready when I'm knocked arse over tit in the toilet as the Pan Am jet makes a steep spiralling descent over Tan Son Nhut airfield, so as to be less exposed to any enemy fire aimed at it from the nearby swamplands. Back in my seat, I see the sun reflecting off the rice paddies that seem to stretch out forever from the airfield.

As we taxi in, I get a whiff of what the Yanks mean by war and I can't help wondering, even in a guerilla war, how an enemy with almost no resources will be able to stand up to this lot. We pass planes parked seemingly everywhere, Phantom jets, Caribou and Hercules C130 Transports, helicopters, dozens and dozens in clusters and, in the distance, the huge, lumbering B52

bombers that carry racks of 1000-pound bombs. Then I see one of them trundling along a runway and I think of a pelican back home. Pelicans don't look like they can fly, they almost can't walk, each step in slow motion and they really seem to battle to get into the air, but once airborne they are one of the mightiest fliers of them all, graceful and beautiful to behold in flight.

The B52 miraculously rises into the air, so slowly I think it must fall out of the sky any moment, but it doesn't, and like a pelican, once up, it appears to fly effortlessly.

I've seen a few airports since going to Malaya, but I've never seen one where there's almost only military, with US soldiers in combat greens filing in and out of Hercules CISOs carrying their packs, weapons and other equipment. There seem to be a lot of black blokes among them.

An Australian warrant officer is there to meet me. 'John Dean, mate, 'ow yer goin'?' he says.

'Mole Maloney,' I reply, shaking his hand, 'pleased ter meetcha, John.'

'Mole, that a nickname?'he asks right off.

'Yeah, but I can hardly remember what my rightful christened name is, always been Mole.'

I wouldn't prefer, a Foster's will do me great, and I get the impression that he wouldn't have liked me to have asked for a Yank beer. I pop the can, he does the same. I lift the can. 'Cheers!'

I'm still hot and sticky from the short ride in from the airport and the first long, sharp swallow is nectar from the gods. I'm not a big drinker, but there are times nothing else but cold, foaming lager will fit the bill.

Then the RSM explains that he and his staff look after the Australian members of the Team in 1

Corps. This is where my personal gear will be stowed, my records kept and my mail collected.

On the wall behind the bar is this plaque, Nuoc Mam Hall, Home of The Expendables, Da Nang, Vietnam.

The RSM sees me looking at it and I can sense he's waiting for the question. I suppose he's explained it every time a newcomer arrives, so I don't ask him. For once in his life Mole doesn't ask a question, which for me must be a world record. But afterwards, I can't help wondering what's meant by 'Expendables'. It will probably drive me mad. If you ask me, it doesn't sound all that promising.

Just then the warrant officer who drove me over from the airbase comes in and excuses himself to the RSM and says to me, 'Your new C.O. wants to see you immediately, I'll take you over in the jeep.' 'Christ, I'll smell of beer!' I say.

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'You're Australian, what could be more natural?' the RSM laughs. I reckon he's a bit cranky because I didn't ask him about the 'Expendable'

plaque.

I've got a bit of gum in my pocket so I pop it into my mouth, hoping the spearmint will kill the grog on my breath. I've only had a couple of good sips, but it would be a crook way to start my Vietnam career if my new C.O. comes out and says, 'You smell of beer, Warrant Officer

Maloney!'

We race across the airbase and I'm dropped at the door of a building, called 'C Detachment, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne)'. Christ, what's the hurry, could have let me finish the beer, I think to myself as I take the gum out of my mouth and hurl it. But I know enough about the army and officers to know that their time ain't your time.

To my surprise this American lieutenant colonel meets me at the front door. I jump to attention and salute him. Bring the right arm hy

the longest way smartly to the salute position, keeping the hand in line with the arm and square to the front. I've got it so perfect I'm practically