Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘You think you can do a better job than me?’ Dad asked. ‘If you can tame the horse I will give him to you.’

The next morning, when Sam awoke, he looked up to a mackerel sky. He walked out to the yard where the palomino was corralled.

‘You are king of all stallions,’ Sam said. ‘The world should be your kingdom.’

The stallion’s eyes bulged with anger, and it reared as Sam approached. Its mouth was bloodied from the bit. Its back was still moist from the cuts of the whip.

‘There, there,’ Sam whispered. For over two hours he rubbed ointment into the palomino’s wounds. He talked and talked.

The night before, he had twisted an old bed sheet into a soft rope, to use as reins. He wasn’t planning to use a saddle. Now he placed the rope in the stallion’s mouth and, with a fast leap, mounted.

Dad, Mum, Patty and Monty came to watch the contest.

‘Open the gate, Patty,’ Sam called.

‘What are you doing!’ Dad called. ‘That horse will have you off its back and be away before you get out.’ He tried to stop the gate from opening, but the palomino saw the space, reared, slashing the air with its hooves — and Arapeta cried out and twisted to one side.

With a whinny of passion the stallion charged into the open country. It tried to buck and twist Sam off its back and reach him with its teeth. On and on it ran, thundering across the landscape, making for the hills it so loved. Up the hills it sped, seeking its freedom.

Before Sam knew it, they reached the place where the hills cut sharply into the blue. There in front of them was the mackerel sky.

‘Yes, do it,’ Sam said.

With a hoarse cry the palomino leapt — and was falling into a sky teeming with silvered fish.

Two hours later, Patty saw Sam returning to the farm.

‘Sam’s back! He’s back.’

Sam was walking along the road. He was leading the palomino after him. Arapeta greeted him with pride and delight.

‘You did it, son. You did it.’

Arapeta walked out to reclaim the stallion.

With a sudden yell, Sam lashed at the horse.

‘ Go . Get away from here as fast as you can.’

The stallion reared. Turned. Was off and away.

‘What did you do that for!’ Dad asked.

‘You said the horse was mine if I tamed it. Well, I tamed it. I owned it. I let it go.’

Dad had thought he gave the palomino its freedom out of some boyish gesture. Mum, however, knew better. She began to laugh softly.

‘The boy’s soft in the head, Florence,’ Arapeta said. ‘Like you.’

The silvered shoal dived into the sky. The memory fell away.

‘Time to go find Charlie,’ Lieutenant Haapu said.

Sam nodded. Whatever would be would be. He saw that the platoon was ready to move out. The signaller, Zel Flanagan, made a last-minute check on the radio.

‘The Americans didn’t get any sleep, poor bastards. Twenty casualties from the enemy counter-offensive. The Vietcong were hitting them all night.’

‘Nobody said this was going to be a picnic,’ Lieutenant Haapu said.

An hour later he nodded to Sam:

‘You all know what your job is. Go and do it.’

Sam unrolled the map and showed his men their assigned patrol area, at the farthest extreme of the map.

‘All happy? Everybody know what we’re doing? From now on we restrict our talking and adopt hand signals as communication. Agreed? Then let’s go.’

The patrol drills took over. Scouting in front, George and Red Fleming began to work in tandem, moving and covering each other a short distance ahead of the patrol. Sam followed with Flanagan, the signaller. Mandy Manderson, carrying the M60 machine-gun, and Jock Johanssen came next. Bringing up the rear was Turei, the designated M79-equipped grenadier, and five riflemen under his control — Hempel, Brooks, Jones, Starr and Quincey.

The patrol moved in dispersed formation, five metres or more apart. Three kilometres out, the terrain became close jungle. The temperature rose like an oven. Sunlight pooled and dappled the darkness. The camouflage battledress blended well into the surroundings. Sam checked his map: There should be a track somewhere here. He signalled to George: Here it is.

One up.

The patrol slowed and adjusted itself to the new formation. George and Red Fleming moved ahead. The infantrymen split into two groups, three men on either side of the track. They carried their rifles pointed downwards — no jungle ever had right angles.

We’re here.

The serious business of searching began. Sam did it all by the book. Patrolling to a specific point, stopping, sweeping the area with his binoculars. Setting the next point to patrol to, stopping, using his binoculars, patrolling again to a third point. He kept a tight grid. Forced himself to be patient, not to rush. Took everything easy, 400 metres an hour, looking for any signs of the enemy.

Around three o’clock in the afternoon, George gave a sign:

Something ahead.

The section went to ground. Sam crept up to George’s side, and took out his binoculars. George pointed above the grass. Sam scanned the area.

Across a sunlit clearing was an old graveyard.

Go and look? George signed.

Yes.

One minute George was there, next minute he was gone, crawling through the long grass, into the sun, along the southern side of the graveyard and in .

Five minutes later, George was back.

Bingo. A very intuh-resting and very busy cemetery, boss.

Sam consulted his map. Yes, a village a few kilometres away.

But two recent graves like I’ve never seen before, Sir.

Sam signed for the section to wait, and went with George to investigate.

George’s instincts were right. When Sam pushed his hands into the loose dirt of the first grave, his fingers went right through a corpse liquifying in a nest of seething maggots. But in the second:

‘Hello, hello, what have we here?’ He pulled and saw the edge of a canvas sheet. Scrabbling deeper in the dirt: a munitions cache. Grenades, mines, rockets and explosives.

Pull back.

Sam and George rejoined the men. The adrenalin was pumping hard.

‘Chuck’s bound to come back to re-supply from this little lot,’ Manderson said.

‘We’ll be ready for them,’ Sam answered. ‘Which way will they come?’

‘From the hills by the north track.’

‘Cover?’

‘Optimum. Good elevation above the track. Good concealment. Good sightlines down the track to the next bend. No cover for the enemy.’

Sam took a deep breath. Made the decision.

‘Tell the men to rest. At four we go down and set up the ambush.’

Two hours before trigger time. Sam settled the men.

George was lying on his back when Sam came by.

‘Thinking about the owl?’ Sam asked.

George nodded. His face was shadowed as if by a dark spread of wing.

‘Don’t let it get you down. We’re your mates. We’ll cover your arse.’

George jerked his head to the riflemen. ‘You’ve got a bigger problem,’ he said. ‘We’ve got virgins.’

Sam swore. Shit. He should have thought about it before.

‘Call the men together,’ Sam said.

The section assembled. Brooks and Quincey were shivering.

How do you tell a boy how to kill a man? How do you tell a boy whose only experience of killing is shooting rabbits that war makes killing a man all right? How do you get him to pull the trigger and feel okay about it?

‘Boys, I’ve never had to talk about this before, so you’re going to have to forgive me if I get it wrong. When you signed up, you knew that at some point you might be posted to Vietnam. While you’ve been in the Army you’ve had practice on the range aiming at a target. But this is the real thing, not target practice. This time the bullet won’t splinter the wood. Wherever it hits it will make an impact, wound and kill. If you aim for the centre of the bullseye, your bullet will go through a man’s heart and he will die.’