Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

The dark fell quickly, darkness and rain. The jungle closed in, and Sam felt fear setting in. The ambush had been primed and an hour had passed. Although the men were only ten metres apart, all had been swallowed up into the maw of the night.

Sam knew that George was to his left and Flanagan to his right. One second he had seen George raising a hand in a wave and the next second he was gone. Sam strained his eyes to see George again.

‘How long have I been lying here?’

He began to feel disoriented. His imagination started to play tricks. Maybe he was alone, lying there all by himself and everybody else had gone somewhere else. Or perhaps, right at this very moment, an enemy soldier was sliding snakelike upon George, slitting his throat, and would soon be on his way to despatch Sam. He saw Charlie rearing up out of the wet bushes, bayonet in hand, plunging the bayonet down —

Get a grip on yourself, man.

Sam closed his eyes tightly. He thought of Hempel, Brooks, Jones, Starr and Quincey, all filled with the same fears and hallucinations. He felt ashamed of himself. And he hoped that Lieutenant Haapu was wrong about putting the old woman and her husband at risk of reprisals from the Vietcong. He hugged himself tightly, praying for himself and for the old couple.

‘Please God, please God, fix the world firmly again, the top with the bottom, tuia i runga, tuia i raro. Bind it so that it returns to the way it was, tuia i roto, tuia i waho. Let the old mother and her husband be woven within the frame of your protection, please, God, please.’

Then Sam saw Charlie was coming down the track. The prayer remained unfinished, the frame was burst apart.

Sam’s body flooded with adrenalin. He felt as if he was drowning. He lifted his head above the waves, gulped for air and reached for his rifle. Lieutenant Haapu had guessed right. The enemy, thinking they had the jungle to themselves, were talking and laughing as they came. Their torchlights stabbed through the darkness. And now the enemy were passing. Some in pairs. Rifles pointing down. Relaxed. Smoking.

A pencil beam flashed in Sam’s eyes and he was temporarily blinded.

Sam slipped off the safety catch. The enemy had already passed George to his right, and Sam realised that it was up to Lieutenant Haapu, further down the track, to his left, to spring the ambush.

‘Damn, I should be counting. How many have passed?’

Two Charlie, four Charlie, six Charlie, eight Charlie, ten Charlie, twelve Charlie, fourteen Charlie. Hell, how many more before the bag is full?

Come on, Lieutenant, fire the fucken flare.

A distinctive pop and sudden flash, and there it was. The flare turned the jungle a ghastly white. In the blinding light, the enemy were caught like opossums in the headlights of a truck. Caught in mid-stride, grinning. Trapped in mid-conversation, talking of life, love and the whole damn universe. As the flare blossomed around them, they froze in surprise and bewilderment. All hell broke loose as, from Lundigan’s direction, heavy firing shattered the night. In the split second that followed, Sam grabbed the claymore clacker, pulled the safety wire, pressed the tit and fired. Crump . The jungle erupted in a blinding orange flash and a pall of jet-black smoke. The sudden crash of the exploding claymore mines sprayed the killing zone with thousands of ball bearings . The ground shook with the impact. The air was filled with screaming voices.

Another flare went up. Sam heard Manderson and Johanssen begin their deadly work. Their machine-gun hammered out a steady stream of tracer bullets, and six Vietcong were cut down, throwing up their arms, opening their mouths to take their last breath before falling through the rain. All around him, Sam could hear the dunk dunk dunk as Hempel, Brooks, Jones, Starr and Quincey joined the battle.

‘We’ve got ’em,’ Sam thought. ‘They’re right in the middle of the killing area.’

Sam felt an absurd sense of joy and relief, almost as if he could laugh at the triumph of the attack. But the enemy were reacting now, fighting back, yelling orders to get off the track. They became shadows dancing in and out of the flashfire, taking up positions and returning fire. Somewhere a rocket launcher began its rain of fire.

‘Wait for the telltale flash in the darkness’, Sam thought. ‘Sight it. Squeeze.’

A crack , the bullet was on its way, taking an enemy soldier in his face, right behind his left eye, shredding the cornea, coming through the roof of his mouth, the hard palate, through the tongue, hitting the right side of the jaw and blowing it out. The soldier fell, choking.

But Sam had been targeted. Across the track, an enemy soldier stood and screamed, and threw a grenade. Sam watched it as it tumbled towards him — but the grenade fell short, bounced against a tree and fell back on the track. Shrapnel flew; after it came the enemy soldier, bayonet at the ready.

Fuck fire control.

Sam let off one, two, three, four, five shots in quick succession. His rifle recoiled at each delivery. The first shot took the soldier in the arm, spinning him off balance. The second whizzed under his armpit. The third went through his right lung and exited through the right side of his back, blowing out a huge hole. The soldier staggered back. The fourth shot caught him in the face and he spun to the ground.

‘Spare me a death like that,’ Sam prayed. ‘When I go, spare my face. Make it fast and through the heart.’

The enemy was in full retreat. An enemy machine gunner gave covering fire. The tracer bullets, green and white dots in the blackness, floated towards Sam, hypnotising, beautiful. Then with chilling speed they were flashing about him with a crack , a thump . He hit the mud. Panic overpowered him as green tracers crossed over his face and chest, not more than a few centimetres above him. He breathed in as deep as he could and thought:

‘This would be a bad time to get a boner.’

As suddenly as it had begun, the ambush was over. The jungle settled into silence. Sam was panting and dripping with sweat. The area smelt of cordite and burned powder, the sweet copper smell of blood.

Sam heard Flanagan come up beside him. Lieutenant Haapu had radioed:

‘Break contact. Secure the area.’

The mop-up was completed by midnight. The platoon had suffered no casualties. Fifteen Vietcong were dead, three had been captured. It was obvious that many more had been wounded but Charlie had managed to carry all except one whose brains had been half shot out.

‘When do you think he’s going to die?’

‘What do you think, Medic?’ Lieutenant Haapu asked.

‘He’s not going to last, Sir.’

Lieutenant Haapu nodded. He gave orders for George to lead the platoon out of the area. He and Sam would stay behind with the dying soldier and catch up.

Sam watched the platoon disappear into the darkness and the rain. The Vietcong soldier knew what was coming and he began to whimper. Lieutenant Haapu knelt beside him and cradled him.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said.

The soldier tried to sit up, as if to convince Lieutenant Haapu that he was not dying, but he collapsed again. Blood was forming bubbles of foam at his mouth as he breathed. His eyes started to glass over.

‘Hold him tight,’ Lieutenant Haapu ordered Sam.

Sam knelt in front of the soldier and embraced him. The soldier looked deeply at Sam — why should he die — and tears spilled from his eyes. He cried for a long time and, then, he sighed and let his head loll against Sam’s chest like a lover. One of his hands found Sam’s hei tiki and gripped it.

‘Yes, that’s right. Hold tight.’

Lieutenant Haapu moved behind the soldier. He took out his Bowie knife and said a prayer. He thought back to times when he had been lead man on the chain at the Whakatu Freezing Works. The sheep would come into the killing pens, and he and his mates would walk among them and —