Four Fires (97 page)

One gone, he topples backwards, not even a sound. Two gone, he didn't even have time to move. Three looks surprised but his brain doesn't work fast enough as he's hit. The fourth is on his way down to take cover as I readjust my aim slightly and he spins as the bullets knock him off his feet.

There is silence for a moment then a machine gun opens up. There's two or three soldiers left, which is what I supposed, and they're moving to get a better shot at me. I return fire. There's tracer from the machine gun whizzing above my head, knocking chunks out of the tree and getting closer, more accurate.

I reckon with only three of them I can hold them off for a while, but it's a machine gun against a rifle and the odds don't stack up, three to one and the machine gun, it's only a matter of time.

Then I hear more rifles firing. Shit, that's it, there's more of the bastards coming. At least I've seen a bit of action before I die, I think. But it's not the enemy, it's the Montagnard. The rest of the choppers must have come in and, with the whole company together, the Montagnard have been persuaded to head down the ridge. Then I hear Combustible Jones calling out through the gunfire, 'If you is there, don't despair, I've come to save your soul, brother Mole!'

Almost at once the enemy machine gun goes silent, they've taken it out. I'm pretty whacked, and shaking like a leaf after the adrenalin is out of my system. But as they carry us out, I can't help thinking what Nancy's going to say when I tell her the story of Murray Templeton's rescue.

She won't say anything, of course, because she'll know in her heart that I've done the right thing.

But they'll probably give me some sort of commendation. The army's pretty big on pieces of paper. Suddenly I know exactly what she'll do. She'll tear the bottoms-wiping certificate they give me down the centre and then into four pieces, stick them into an envelope and send it by registered letter to Mr & Mrs Philip Templeton. As Nancy says, 'If you wait long enough it all comes round, the good and the bad.'

EPILOGUE

1989-1999

I recall the day in 1989 when the phone rang for two reasons. I was marking my first set of
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mid-term papers at my new university. The writing standard of the first-year students wasn't exactly blistering and I recall wondering whether I had done the right thing leaving America. The second reason was that the weather outside was blowing a gale and had been doing so for three days.

I picked the phone up with some impatience, it hadn't stopped ringing all day. 'Hello?'

'Michael Proctor here, Professor Lessing. Come over right away, we've got a bit of a crisis on.' It was the deputy vice-chancellor being his usual abrupt self. No first name, no initial greeting, no polite request, nothing except a short, sharp instruction that just naturally sounded as though it contained a liberal dose of invective as a part of its hidden meaning. Without waiting for a reply from me, I heard the clatter of the receiver being replaced.

A visit to Mike Proctor was the last thing I needed on a day like this one. You sometimes wonder where some men learn their manners or what it is in their childhood that makes them so bloody rude as adults. I'd known him at Edinburgh, though not well enough to call him a friend, if indeed he had any friends. He'd been in part instrumental in recruiting me to my new position, so I suppose I was under some sort of obligation.

His office was an eight-minute walk across the campus, normally nothing to be concerned about except for the gale outside. So, cursing the man under my breath, I put on my raincoat. 'Must get a new raincoat/ I reminded myself. I'd been reminding myself to get a new raincoat every time it'd rained for the past ten years. My raincoat was never exactly smart or, for that matter, ever new. It had been bequeathed to me second-hand when I'd arrived in England from Australia twenty-eight years ago. Too big for me then and still was. I recall being embarrassed that I had to roll up the sleeves and that the hem came down almost to my ankles in a city where the miniskirt was becoming all the rage.

Still, in a country where the rainy days outnumber the ones that contain a modicum of sunlight, it was an essential item and after a while it didn't seem to matter. The raincoat was a discard back then and I dare say even a pervert would turn his nose up at it now. I'll go into the city to David Jones and get a new one, a posh one, maybe an Aquascutum, to make up for all the shabby years, but I knew I was kidding myself, and the next time I needed to wear a raincoat I'd be going through the same silly litany whilst pushing my arms through the broken lining of this one.

Though there aren't that many of them, I was discovering that a foul day in Sydney could be just as bad as a miserable one in London or Santa Monica, California, for that matter. Fighting the weather, I was annoyed with myself for not showing my independence with the deputy vice-chancellor by delaying my departure for at least fifteen or twenty minutes before venturing out into this windblown, rain-torn, miserable dog's day afternoon.

'You're weak, that's what you are, too willing to please everyone, time you stood up for yourself, you let people like Mike Proctor walk all over you.' I knew this wasn't true, but I was feeling sorry for myself. We're all allowed occasionally to indulge in that sort of specious analysis, particularly if one is a psychiatrist and so can dismiss it as a perfectly normal bout of self-castigation, positive proof that, unlike most of your profession, you are still perfectly normal.

Perhaps I should explain myself. I took my initial medical degree at Edinburgh and then my postgraduate training at the Maudsley in London, where I did my thesis on the effects of the concentration-camp

experiences of victims of the Holocaust. Here I received tuition on desensitisation programs and relaxation therapy.

After that I spent eight years as a research fellow at Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital in West Los Angeles near Santa Monica. In conjunction with my work at the hospital, I was an assistant professor at UCLA, which has its campus practically next door and where I completed my doctorate. My patients at first were soldiers returning from Vietnam. Treatment, which
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included counselling, consisted mostly of group therapy and training in relaxation with some form of medication added, the most popular being Valium.

Then later, when Vietnam veterans started being admitted with unexpected complications, we realised that we needed to develop new forms of treatment and that a great deal of research was required in the trauma area. We simply did not understand much of what appeared to be happening with these post-war patients. Though I must say the US government was less than interested in our gaining any further knowledge into what would become known as PTSD or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. The grants that enabled us to continue researching had essentially come from private sources and from the university itself.

The offer of a full professorship meant I could come home, back to Australia, after many years abroad. The States had seen my marriage come and go with all the bitter recriminations and acrimony not unusual in a man who had been badly spoilt by a doting and interfering mother and a family loath to part with a cent in a divorce settlement, even though Californian law allowed for me to receive half of our joint assets.

My desire was to continue to work in the same field, that is in the new area of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and in particular with Vietnam War veterans. Australia had participated in the Vietnam War and so I was anxious to continue my research here amongst my own people. I quickly enough discovered that the Australian government's attitude to the problems experienced by Vietnam veterans, like that of the US, could best be described as one of white-hot apathy.

Even the RSL was rubbishing the symptoms we were increasingly beginning to see in outpatients. They called the vets 'a bunch of

whingers who never fought in a proper war'. As well, the students in my lectures would constantly question me. Their attitude to Vietnam and its post-war effects, which they'd largely learned from the media and the movies, was that Vietnam veterans were baby-killers. The famous picture of the little girl torched by napalm running down the road had fixed this notion in their minds and they'd transferred it to every Vietnam veteran. Public sympathy hardly existed, the vets were seen as an embarrassment, almost un-Australian.

I tapped on Proctors door, only to hear a single 'Come!'

'Your usual charming self, I see, Deputy Vice-chancellor.' I was determined to start with the advantage this time around. I hung my coat on the stand next to the door.

He didn't appear to hear the gibe, looked up and said again, 'We've got a crisis.'

'Yes, so you said on the phone.'

'One of my senior lecturers has walked out in the middle of a lecture and handed in his resignation. Sit down, Professor,' he pointed in the direction of a well-worn, comfortable-looking leather couch and its matching club chair, the leather rubbed dull at its arms from constant use. Both the couch and the chair contrasted strangely with the aluminium and glass office interior with its battleship-grey carpet and strong sense of indifferent government architecture. It was as if a couple of bushies from the country had happened into the city for a day wearing their working clothes. I chose to sit in the old chair, it seemed a less female thing to do.

'I imagine that's happened before, it's not unusual in academic institutions,' I replied.

'Of course, but not with this man. He's one of the most popular lecturers at the university. His lectures are always packed. You're right, some academics just wear out, but not this chap, he loves his job, he's popular with the faculty, students love him and he's active on a number of the university committees and his papers are widely respected/

I'm not sure I know what you expect me to do as a clinical psychiatrist.'

'Well, you're a specialist in trauma, aren't you? That's the fancy name they're giving to a bit of stress these days, isn't it?'

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I don't bite. 'Depends on what caused it. Stress and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder are not the same thing. My clinical work is mostly in PTSD. Your lecturer may, as you've said, be under a great deal of stress and needs a break because it's all become rather too much for him. There are others on campus who might do a better job with him than me.'

'He's been working pretty hard. That's probably it.'

'Has he shown any previous incidents of erratic behaviour?'

'On the contrary, he's a pretty easygoing sort of chap. Relaxed. As I said, he's a charismatic teacher and a well-liked member of the faculty. Always seems to be in complete control.'

'Always?' I didn't like the sound of this affirmation. People who are always in control are, well, to put it simply seldom in control.

'Yes, very together sort of chap. I've already told you that.'

'Married?'

'No, he's a bachelor.'

'Homosexual?'

'Not that I know, certainly doesn't give that impression.'

'Any past drinking problems?'

Proctor shrugged. 'Nothing unusual, he likes an occasional drink like most of us, though I've never seen him under the weather. Now I want you to have a word with him, get to the bottom of this incident. Get him to withdraw his resignation. A quiet chat is all I think will be necessary.'

'If, in your opinion, that's all he needs, why haven't you talked to him yourself?'

'I have, woman!' he roared, annoyed at my persistent questioning. 'He wasn't very responsive. I suggested he calm down and then come and see me again. But then I thought of you. You know, a softer touch/

'You mean someone who doesn't go at things with a sledge hammer?'

He looked surprised but said nothing, it was one infinitely small blow for the female of the species. 'Has he always been an academic?'

'Interesting you should ask that. No, as a matter of fact he spent part of his working life in the army, permanent army that is. Quite a remarkable story, he rose from the ranks, all the way from private to

fear of rejection to seek help, or even having the ability to admit to his condition, he often resorts to self-medication, with the use of alcohol and, in earlier times, barbiturates and now drugs, legal or otherwise. The result often leads to disastrous consequences for the veteran's family and for the veteran himself. Wives end up living lives of quiet desperation. Unable to unburden themselves, their world becomes one of fear and a sense of deep obligation and is completely determined by the moods, needs and demands of the veteran. Their children suffer and continue to suffer from the results of their father's behaviour. Children often develop a love-hate relationship with him, deeply felt ambivalence. They also feel guilty for resenting, even hating him, a guilt that lasts throughout their lives because in spite of the pain and emotional abuse they continue to love him.

Putting it into lay terms, I believe that Dr Maloney has received a double dose of PTSD. In a great many respects, he could be said to be in an even worse predicament than that of his surrogate father. Although there seems to be some evidence that the notorious 'Mr Baloney', Tommy's father, a veteran of the Boer War, may have manifested many of the same symptoms.

PTSD, shell-shock, combat fatigue or whatever name it has been given in the past, has been going on for a long time. There is even some historical evidence that it was present in the male population after the Peloponnesian Wars in ancient Greece. However, the recent experience of veterans in Vietnam contains an extra ingredient not present in the return of most heroes. It is the first time in history that a population has physically spat on returning veterans as happened on numerous occasions to Vietnam vets. The concept of 'the war hero' always present in a returning army has been rejected by the general population for these returned Vietnam soldiers and, instead, replaced with vilification and a sense of disgust never experienced before by any
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Australian soldier returning to his homeland.

Returning veterans were psychologically tortured by their own people, who largely came to regard them in a deeply hostile manner. Their subsequent medical and psychiatric problems have been ignored or disparaged, and their rightful place in society as the men believed they had defended freedom has been denied to them.

has had a deeply negative effect which has exacerbated their sense of alienation from the community at large.

As a matter of possible interest, you will note that as Mole delivers the commentary on his childhood years, 'the narrative voice', while always being delivered by an adult and often containing adult conceits, sometimes shifts in emphasis and syntax into a childlike way of observing the world around him.

Usually this behaviour comes from a greater degree of pathology than PTSD and occurs when a child has been sexually abused or suffered extensively at the hands of a parent or adult, such as being beaten or punished unfairly.

When I first questioned Dr Maloney, he denied any such abusive treatment in childhood. Finally he admitted to several occasions when, as a very small child, Tommy had locked him in the garden shed for several hours. Nancy, his mother, had eventually discovered this and the problem had ceased. However, these episodes, and the extreme fear associated with them, almost forgotten by Mole Maloney, could have triggered the episodes of age regression as seen in his therapy.

In psychiatric terms, this is known simply enough as regression and is an attempt by the subject to dissociate himself from the painful present and to retreat to a place of greater comfort. It is more likely to be the 'shed incidents', when taken in combination with his PTSD, that explain Dr Maloney's inconsistency of voice, both his naivety and sophistication, during some parts of his narrative. Put simply, there are two Maloneys speaking, Dr Maloney and the Mole Maloney still within him, the Voice' of either can appear at any moment during the commentary.

I have also excluded the logical time sequences and day-by-day routines of Dr Maloneys second and third tour in Vietnam, initially as a warrant officer and later as a captain and company commander. This is because the primary concern to us is his post-Vietnam psychological and medical experience. Though, of course, some of his three Vietnam episodes, known in army vernacular as 'tours', inevitably appear in his own narrative as an explanation of one or another incident of importance to him. Signed: Professor A. Lessing, MB BS(Edin) FRC Psych.