Smoky Joe's Cafe (11 page)

‘But it isn't, it's 12 Platoon who've been trying to find us and have taken a hiding themselves. Thirteen of our platoon finally make it back to them. We don't even have time for a fag when the VC come at us again. We get the hell out of there, fighting as we go, and eventually link up with D Company who've been fighting pretty hard themselves. The rain is still pissing down.

‘Twelve Platoon tell us the company is two hundred yards to the north and they're going to try to join them. We leave a rear party of seven blokes behind to cover us and taking 12 Platoon's dead and wounded with us we get the hell out of there. We get to the company position with the rear party making it soon after. We're home and hosed, but as it turns out it is more like out of the frying pan into the fire. The rest of D Company have been fighting pretty hard and, like us, they're just about out of ammunition. But at least we're back together again. There's a bit of a lull in the battle and we can only hope that the next Charlie assault can be contained.

‘But then the VC stop to regroup and something wonderful happens, a Huey helicopter arrives and drops boxes and boxes of ammunition. Even in the rain it must have been seen and heard by the enemy and the miracle is that it wasn't shot out of the air.

Yet the VC come again, we've got plenty of ammo but we're outnumbered ten to one and they're good soldiers one and all. Again, it's only a matter of time.

‘But just like a John Wayne movie when it's all over bar the shouting, the cavalry arrive, A Company in armoured personnel carriers equipped with 50-calibre machine guns and they come straight into the attack. Then some of B Company come in from the west. By the time darkness comes we've driven the enemy off. It's still coming down in buckets.

‘Eventually the whole group moves back to the edge of the plantation and deploys to defend a piece of ground big enough and clear enough for the dustoffs to land. We form a defensive square around it with the APCs at each corner armed with their 50-calibre machine guns.

‘The dustoff choppers come in, it's a night operation and very risky but the fly-boys do the job, taking all the wounded and dead out, that is all except those who were left behind from our platoon. There's no going back into that battlefield in the dark and finding our dead will have to wait until morning when, I tell myself, I'm gunna go back and fetch Mo Jacka.

‘About 1 a.m. the last dustoff leaves and we get the chance to settle down and wait out the night, all of us
are pretty certain the Viet Cong and the NVA are gunna be back. But at least there's time for a brew-up and then, if we're lucky and our nerves will allow us, an hour or so of shut-eye.

‘It's still raining.

‘Next morning the battalion advances in the rubber plantation again, but we're riding on tracks. The tracks advance real slow, expecting enemy contact any moment. All the boys want to do is reach our platoon dead and I want to get to Mo's body and cover him with my hutchie before anyone else sees he's got no head. There's far worse sights among the enemy dead, but it don't seem decent somehow for them to see a mate and a member of our platoon like that. I know it's stupid to say, but it would have embarrassed Mo.

‘We're coming up to our platoon battlefield when we see Ocker Barrett leaning against a tree and in bad shape, he's got his hands in his lap and from the waist down he's soaked in blood. His hands look like two lumps of raw meat. “What took you so fucking long?” he asks. I had to fight back the tears but when we reach the platoon battlefield I lose it completely, the other blokes as well. There they are, our dead brothers, lying in an arc, still facing the enemy, most of them holding
their rifles in a firing position. They've been washed clean by the rain and they look as though an order from Shorty would bring them back to instant life. I pull myself together and then lose it again as I come across Bongface, he's badly wounded but he's alive. God's given us two of our boys back. I call the MO over. “You okay, mate?” I say to Bongface, still crying. It's a stupid question, but he half opens his eyes and his big smile comes on and I know I love him. The MO takes over and gives him a shot of morphine.

‘Then I run ahead, I've got my hutchie out and it's flapping as I run, I can see where Mo is lying and come up to him and spread the hutchie on the ground beside him and roll him onto it. Rigor mortis has set in and one leg sticks out and I take off my webbing belt and wrap it around both legs and pull the stiff leg against the other and tie it down. I wrap Mo up and tie him tight and now only I know what's underneath as the chopper lands to take him away forever. I'm bawling like a kid now. I can hear the dustoff coming in to take our dead and wounded. It's right above me. It's going to land in the same clearing as Mo and me. A single yellow bamboo leaf, shaped like the head of a Zulu spear, was stuck to the heel of Mo's left boot. I rushed forward as the dustoff lifted him up from the ground,
the chopper blades above my head a wind-rush of cool air in the humidity, and grabbed the leaf off his heel and shoved it into the pocket of my greens.'

Wendy is hugging me and comforting me. ‘It's okay, mate, it's okay, let it all come out,' she soothes me. She's kissing me and I can feel her soft lips on my wet cheeks.

After a while I pull myself together and go on. ‘D Company lost seventeen men, thirteen from our platoon. But Charlie paid a bigger price, we buried 245 of their dead on the battlefield and we captured three wounded. Later VC records taken by the US Forces showed that the total enemy losses at Long Tan were 500 dead and 750 wounded.'

I look at Wendy, ‘Which, I admit, is a long way around to get to the story of the little Vietnamese doll.'

‘No, Thommo, you've no idea how much it helps. Do you want to talk about Mo?' Wendy asks gently.

‘Nah, I've said all I can. No sense goin' further.' I point to Anna's medal, ‘Now, about the doll.'

‘Yes, the doll,' Wendy smiles, encouraging me, ‘Tell me the story again.'

I'm on a bit of a roll and I want to get all the shit off my liver in one go. ‘Are you sure? I mean, I've told you the doll bit before?'

‘Never like today, Thommo. The doll is now a part of the whole story. I see it quite differently to before.'

I laugh at the thought of the doll. ‘Righto, then.' I blow my nose and take a breath to get started again, crying is no good for a bloke's self-respect. ‘Lemme see now. Okay, we've done a pretty good battle and the South Vietnamese government want to give some of us who fought at Long Tan one of their medals for gallantry. So back at Nui Dat a medal parade is organised with all the top brass to be in attendance. Then, at the last minute, the Australian government puts the kybosh on the medal. They point out that no Australian combat soldier may receive a foreign military decoration without approval from the Queen. Bloody stupid I know, but there you go.

‘Now it seems because of this decision the South Vietnamese government are about to lose face, which, in Asia, is a very big deal and to be avoided at all cost. It's your classic Mexican stand-off. The parade can't be cancelled and the medal ceremony can't be conducted.

‘Then someone in their government comes up with the dolls, the Vietnamese dolls. Buggered if I can see the logic, but then who knows how the Asian mind works. We're to get one of these dolls instead of a medal, though some of the heroes got cigar and cigarette cases.
We discover there's some sort of pecking order goin' on here. The medal we're supposed to receive is called The Cross of Gallantry, which, it turns out, has three orders, Palm, Silver Star and Gold Star. The palms get a cigar case, the silvers get a doll and the golds get a cigarette case. We're expected to take all this dead serious, like it's a huge honour, a group of warriors back from hell, most of them clutching a child's doll. Then Animal shouts from the back. “The least you lousy buggers could've done was make it a blow-up!”'

Wendy and me have a bit of a laugh together. Then she's dead serious. ‘Thommo, you're to take the doll with you, take Anna's medal today. Tell Shorty you've got a female in your presence, whether the boys like it or not, that she's been with them since after Long Tan. Then hold up Anna's medal for them to see. If they say no to The Baker's Dozen, to me coming in, then don't bring the doll back.' Wendy stops and looks directly at me. ‘And don't come back yourself, you hear, because that will mean you're married to the wrong doll.'

N
ow I can't exactly say the excrement hit the rotating blades when I attend Shorty's preliminary meeting. The hangover factor comes into play and I don't think the audience can take in the implications all that well. Shorty, as usual, opens the proceedings without too much pre-chat.

‘Thommo wants his wife, Wendy, in on the act,' he announces.

This is followed by total silence. It is not what you'd call ‘stunned silence', more like the fact that the information they have just received is sinking in very bloody slowly.

From the look of the bloodshot eyes surrounding me, the combined drumming going on in their heads would put a hard rock concert to shame. All except Bongface of course. Even Nam Tran looks a little under
the weather, though it's hard to tell looking into your basic Nog face.

Willy McGregor has given us the upstairs sitting room and put out chairs from the dining room downstairs. I guess he reckons we've paid our way and he's well ahead on the cash register, after which a bit of old-fashioned courtesy can't do no permanent damage.

‘Huh? Say again?' Ocker Barrett finally grunts and shakes his head, then realises this is a big mistake and holds his head in both hands, groaning.

Animal is the first to speak properly. ‘Shit, I need to throw up,' he says and leaves the room in a half crouch, one hand on his belly. I hope to Christ he knows where the upstairs Gents is or Willy ain't gunna let me forget this day for the rest of me flamin' life.

Then Killer Kowolski says very slowly, ‘I don't believe I've heard what I've just heard, have I?'

Even Flow Murray, who'll agree to anything, is silent.

It takes Bongface to make the first bit of sense. ‘Thommo, I ain't got nuthin' against your woman, mate. I ain't even met her, but there's things men does and things sheilas does. This is . . .'

‘Secret men's business?' I say, repeating Wendy's earlier crack.

Bongface gives me a look, ‘You sendin' me up, Thommo?' I can see he's not too happy, thinking I'm having a go at him being an Abo.

‘Naw, mate, it's just what Wendy, me wife, said when I told her the boys ain't gunna buy the proposition.'

Bongface relaxes and gives me his big smile. There's definitely something to be said for staying off the piss.

‘Well then, that's it, ain't it, mate?' Spags Belgiovani says, relieved and obviously pleased the unpleasant business is over. ‘'Cause your wife's dead right, it is men's business.'

‘It's not that easy,' Shorty cuts in. ‘If we don't let her in, Thommo's out. She's told him to piss off out of her life if we don't agree.'

‘Shit, hey?' Macca says. I can see he's impressed. ‘She don't bugger around, do she?' The others look a bit shocked but don't say nothing.

It's then that I remember the Vietnamese doll. I've put it into a plastic bag and placed it at my feet. I pick the bag up and get up off my chair. ‘Look, fellas, gimme a break, will ya? I'm between a rock and a hard place, it's not my idea. Wendy says there's always been a woman looking after us. That is, since Long Tan.' I take the doll out of the bag and hold it up for all to see. ‘It's sort of our, you know, good-luck symbol.'

‘Talisman?' Lawsy says.

‘Yeah, that also.'

Then they all begin to laugh.

‘Fuckin' doll,' Animal says, re-entering the room. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and points at the Vietnamese doll. Though I don't know whether he means it's good or bad or even knows what we've been talking about. Probably not.

‘Wendy says to ask you blokes, by the way, she's a school teacher, she says to ask you to put up your hands if you've kept your doll?' I raise the little doll above me head again and give it a bit of a shake.

Nothing happens for a moment then slowly everyone's hand goes up, ‘cept Bongface's and Shorty's.

‘I got a fag box,' Bongface says, and you can tell he's disappointed, even though it's the highest of the three decorations. Shorty don't say nothing, though I now remember he got a cigarette case as well.

‘There you go!' I say, not quite knowing what I mean. Except I feel suddenly that the situation's not entirely hopeless. Though with my grog-addled brain, it's not one I care to trust all that much.

Well, there's a lot of toing and froing and up and downing and chewing the fat and private conversations going on with the bloke in the chair next to you. Then
Shorty finally shouts the room to silence. ‘Righto, we ain't getting nowhere, gentlemen. Thommo, do you think Wendy would come around and address this meeting? Tell us why she reckons we should count her in on the scam?'

To everyone's surprise Nam Tran now stands up to speak. Nobody's stood up ‘cept me. They've all just stayed put and talked from their chairs. ‘Women very important Viet Cong,' he says and then promptly sits down again.

I look over at Shorty and nod, ‘Yeah, I reckon she'd come.'

‘It doesn't mean she's in, you understand?' Shorty says, anxious to get it straight. ‘Just that she'll know she's had a fair hearing an' all.' He looks around and then back at me, ‘Okay, mate?'

The boys all nod and mumble their approval. I can see they don't want to upset me by coming straight out and refusing. It's like Shorty's rescued them from an embarrassing situation and they're grateful.