Monsoon (27 page)

A man stepped forward as Tom approached. Stocky, tanned, silver-haired, but trim and fit in shorts and a T-shirt. He was in his fifties, Tom guessed.

‘Tom Ahearn? I'm Barry Malden. Baz. We spoke on the phone. You're the journo?'

‘Right. Good to meet you. Thanks for taking time to fill me in on the Long Tan ceremony and the background.' They shook hands and Tom looked around. ‘This must be the local hang-out. Nice that it's away from town. I thought the cab was headed up country.'

‘Yeah, we all live around this area. This bar is the base for a lot of the oil workers, local blokes who come in and out on a regular basis. It's safe for the kids. Friday night is barbecue night – hope you'll stay on. Now, who'd you like to meet? I asked a few of the regulars to come and yarn to you.'

‘That's good of you. No rush – can I talk to you for a bit?'

‘Sure. What'll you have to drink?' Baz signalled to one of the girls behind the bar.

Tom sensed that the easy-going Australian wielded some influence. A beer and a refill for Baz were swiftly handed over, the crush at the bar parting for him to reach over for the drinks. Baz had an air of authority; he was a man used to getting his way. Tom wondered what rank he'd held and assumed he'd been an officer.

Suddenly a little boy, about nine, nudged Baz, holding up a coloured picture. ‘Dad, lookit, my picture.'

Baz ruffled the boy's hair. ‘That's terrific. Todd, this is Mr Ahearn, visiting from Australia.'

The boy shook hands and Tom smiled. ‘Pleased to meet you, Todd. Are you a budding artist?'

‘Project for school.'

‘Where's Ky? She looking after you, mate?' Baz glanced around and then smiled at someone across the room. ‘Off you go, finish your work and we'll have some tucker. I'm talking to Mr Ahearn.' Baz added a phrase in Vietnamese and the boy nodded.

‘Good looking boy,' said Tom.

‘Yeah, he's a great kid. I'm enjoying being a dad this time around,' said Baz.

‘How long you been here?'

‘Came back ten years ago. My first marriage busted up when the kids were in high school. I wasn't much of a father, or a husband. Coming over here turned my life around. At first not for the best. I met a local Viet girl and she wanted to get married and go to Australia. So we did. She had relatives there so I thought she'd adjust. Boy, did she ever – she had everything sorted out quick smart. Todd arrived and she moved in with her family and before I knew it, I was out on my ear. She'd fleeced me for the lot. I stuck around because of him, but two years later she had a boyfriend, handed Todd over to me and took off. So I brought him back to Vietnam and stayed here.'

‘Does he see his mother?'

‘Yeah, she's re-married so he goes back to Perth to visit a couple of times a year. But this is home now.' He nodded at a pretty young Vietnamese girl sitting with his son. ‘That's Ky; I teamed up with her two years ago. Very sweet girl.' He watched Tom glance at Ky who looked barely twenty-one, and he gave a wry smile. ‘Don't know how long she'll stick with me. As long as I keep doling out money . . .' He gave a small grin. ‘There simply aren't available mature women around here. All married and settled.'

‘So what's the story with the Aussie veterans here?' asked Tom, steering away from Baz's personal life.

‘There're half a dozen of us who live here permanently. We have a nice lifestyle. Most of us have second families, informally or legally. My mate Cranky married a Viet girl and he's been embraced by her whole family – even old Uncle who was a VC.'

‘Do they talk about being on opposite sides in the war?' asked Tom.

‘Hell, yes. They've gone over every inch of where they were when, and what they did. They've concluded they must have taken a shot at each other somewhere along the line.' Baz chuckled, then added, ‘The Vietnamese are amazing people. The war was never going to be won by the US, no matter what the Americans poured in. The Vietnamese were fighting for their country, their families, their future. Yet they're very forgiving. They've had enough – seven hundred years of wars. They've moved on, not like some of us poor bastards.'

‘Do you mind if I make notes?' Tom pulled his notepad and pencil from his pocket. ‘So, have you blokes here moved on, as you put it?'

‘A lot of us have. Most Vietnam vets have come to terms with their experiences. They were young and resilient. But some of them haven't.'

‘Even after all this time?'

‘Pain's pain. Fresh as yesterday. I've met some blokes who haven't had a decent night's sleep since the war. They live in waking nightmares. Trouble is, they don't, can't, share it with their families.'

Tom nodded. ‘I was a correspondent and the war was a pretty scary place. At one point, in ninety days I made sixty-two ‘hazardous' flights. Insane flights if you ask me. In twenty different types of aircraft. I was shot at, forced to land with engine trouble, helped to load wounded and dead, and, once, was three feet off touching down in a minefield.'

Baz nodded. ‘Yeah, we admired you blokes who didn't have to be there, who tried to tell it like it was, when you could. For us the experience was compounded by the way we were treated by the Australian government.'

‘As we now know,' said Tom.

‘It soon enough became an unpopular war, especially when they brought in conscription. It was a bloody lottery – literally. Your birthday coming out of a barrel, for chrissake. Some go, some stay. Crazy. We flew out of Amberley at midnight and were made to wear civvies and the next day we're in a war zone. Then, one day, our time is up but even the government didn't want to know us when we came home. I was shoved on a Qantas plane to Sydney and asked where I lived. I said my mum was in Melbourne. And they told me I'd be on a train the next day so they'd put me up in some motel for the night. Bugger that, I said, I'd hitch if I had to. I was going home. One minute I'm knee deep in mud on a battlefield; twenty-four hours later I'm sitting at home having a baked dinner. My head was scrambled.'

‘I s'pose the blokes sent home by sea had a bit more time to adjust,' said Tom quietly.

‘Not everyone adjusted, mate. Not after what we saw. In a way it was worse coming back here, even after decades, and seeing what we did to these people, to the country.' He drained his glass. ‘I was pretty shocked. What the hell was it all for? And yet we were made welcome. That's when I decided to try to do something. At least in our neck of the woods. The rural areas were badly affected by the war, as well as by the years of isolation from the west. So I approached the People's Committee to see what kind of help could be given and how to go about it.'

‘Must have been a slow process. Was it welcomed?'

Baz grinned. ‘Yeah, it took a while, but once I decided to base myself here and they realised I was genuine and I was getting help from Aussie vets and organisations, then our group was made official, in 1994.'

‘So what are you doing?'

‘Fundraising, first up. Now we get government help from Australia as well. Essentially we try to provide practical aid and assistance. We built a school, put toilets in houses, set up agricultural projects, medical facilities and a kindergarten. Where we see a need we try to help. Our objective is to improve relations between the peoples of Vietnam and Australia.'

And you're back in command, running things, and doing a good job too, thought Tom. ‘And on a personal level?'

‘I think all the blokes who come here agree – we want to make some restitution for what we did to this country. Payback time. It helps us too.'

‘And Long Tan?'

‘That's been another battle. A cross was raised at the site on the third anniversary of the battle and stayed there while Aussies were stationed in the province. Then it was moved to the local museum. For twenty years servicemen have been coming back and the Long Tan cross was the focal point. So in 2002 we got the cross renovated, raised funds and, with the co-operation of the Vietnamese, we unveiled the memorial. We also raised funds to improve the local roads and make it easier to visit.'

‘I assume there are certain protocols to be observed by visitors?' said Tom.

‘Yeah. You've got to have a permit, medals are not to be worn, and they like to keep groups small. The plaque is kept in the local police station and brought out by the guides for visitors with the permit to pay respects and then it's put back. To keep it safe. Anyway, we're knee deep in negotiations for this fortieth anniversary.' He sighed. ‘Everyone from the pollies, bureaucrats, business people, locals, veterans' organisations – everyone wants to have a say in the ceremony. Naturally the vets feel they should have the main say. We want to start the service at three-forty when the battle started. So we'll see.'

‘Long Tan is finally getting recognition back home,' said Tom.

They were joined by two other veterans, Cranky and Ed, who sat down with their beers and talked of their own experiences of fighting in Vietnam and how it had affected their lives.

‘Bloody dreadful when I look back on how miserable I was and how it affected my family,' said Cranky. ‘That's how I got my nickname. By the time I'd lost my wife, my house and quit my job I had nothing to lose so I agreed to come over here.' He shook his head. ‘It was cathartic. So I stayed.'

‘We see blokes who come over here release a lot of bottled-up agony and go back new men. Many don't want to ever come back again; others get a different perspective and want to encourage other mates, bring their families over,' added Ed. ‘I'm a widower; my kids are all happy and settled back home; they don't need me. So I retired over here and I have a little boat. I live on my own – it's a good life. I see enough of these blokes each week to appreciate my peaceful life.'

‘So do you see your role as encouraging veterans to come back? To make this pilgrimage?' asked Tom.

‘It's a good way to honour your mates and if some vets are having problems they can talk to us,' said Cranky.

‘There is a mob back home who've been helping blokes deal with the trauma. Not the professional service people, but a group of fellow vets,' said Baz. ‘They go bush and talk. It's run by blokes who know what they're doing. Seems to help.'

‘Some blokes I know just couldn't cope with city life after the war so they got jobs up north in isolated areas where they didn't have to see people very often,' said Ed. ‘Being with nature and animals rather than crowds of people made it easier.'

They all fell silent for a moment, each reflecting on their own experiences till Baz spoke up.

‘Hey, barbie's going. Grab a plate and some food, Tom.'

They settled at a table, Baz's young son, Todd, squeezing in beside his father, who handed him a sausage wrapped in bread.

With another round of drinks, the men began exchanging stories with Tom, asking where he'd been during the war. They all talked about the girls they'd met, the escapades, the characters, the narrow escapes. The bleak and fearful times were not mentioned.

For Tom it was a memorable evening. He was a good raconteur with a fund of stories that went down well with an appreciative audience. In the taxi going back to The Grand he knew he'd have a headache the next morning, but it had been a long time since he'd been able to share an evening with men who'd been in the same place at this particular time in their lives. The memories had come pouring back.

He debated about going to the Long Tan memorial on his own, but decided to wait until he came back and went to the anniversary commemoration, and write about the impact of the event by sharing it with the men who'd fought there on 18th August 1966. He wondered if entertainer Col Joye would be there and then he remembered the soldier he'd interviewed in the hospital the day after the battle. Phil Donaldson. Could that be Sandy's father? Tom began to see another angle to his unfolding story on the return to Long Tan.

Settled on the back verandah with a pot of tea after touring his garden, Tom took a biscuit and munched it thoughtfully. His wife, pleased to have him home, watched him chew slowly.

‘C'mon, Tom, out with it all. Your trip to Vietnam: what was your biggest impression?' asked Meryl eagerly.

Tom finished his biscuit and downed a mouthful of tea. He'd already told Meryl about Hanoi and Saigon, of his adventures with Sandy and Anna in Halong Bay and of the veterans in Vung Tau. Now, sitting in the sunshine of his quiet suburban backyard, Vietnam seemed far away. And yet, he didn't feel he had totally left it behind; nor did he feel completely back at home since arriving in Australia the day before.

‘It seems as if I could just step outside and order a bowl of noodles in the street. I keep listening for the jangle of bicycle bells. Everything here smells strangely clean. I think I'm still in transit.' He smiled. ‘Lots of impressions. Biggest I s'pose are the changes. I kept flashing back to how it used to look. Lots of memories of people and places I knew then.'

‘And how is it today?'

‘Terrific. You'd love it. For a tourist, for anyone, it's great.'

‘So you're definitely going back? There's a good story there?' asked Meryl. While it had taken Tom hours to get back into the rhythm of their lives and onto Sydney time, he seemed to have more get up and go than she'd seen in a long time.

‘Yeah. Several stories, though I guess they're all entwined. Met some beaut people. In fact, I had an idea.' He grinned at her. ‘I thought you might like to go back with me – as a birthday present.'

‘To Vietnam! For my sixtieth! Gosh, yes. How wonderful. It's quite safe, isn't it?' she added. ‘I mean from a health point of view?'

‘Look at me. Didn't get a tummy bug or feel crook the entire time. The food is even better than I remembered. Seriously good tucker – and some very upmarket places to eat. Not to mention the shopping. I can guarantee that you won't be bored while I'm trailing around doing my thing.'