Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

Lieutenant Haapu looked at Sam. His eyes told Sam that he already knew what had happened. He signalled to George:

Take Hempel and Brooks. Go forward, investigate and secure village.

Sam saw images he didn’t really want to think about. He started to stand, but Lieutenant Haapu pulled him back. His face was grim.

Not you, Sergeant Mahana. You stay.

Helpless, Sam watched as George melted away to the right and up in the direction of the village. The sky filled with dragonflies, their glittering wings whirring like silver knives. They cut the air with foreboding.

Half an hour later, George reported in:

Come in. Village secured.

No sooner was Sam in sight of the village than he knew it had been visited by the Vietcong. Even from the small bridge leading to the square, he could smell that some of the hootches had been torched. The paths between some of the huts were strewn with litter, as if each hut had been searched and vandalised. The most chilling aspect, however, was the silence and stillness. Nothing moved. Not even a chicken scratching the dust.

Ahead, George was waiting. His face was waxen. Hempel was retching. Brooks was sitting on the ground, staring at nothing.

‘I’ll have your report,’ Lieutenant Haapu said.

‘The villagers are dead, Sir. Men, women and the children. Even the animals have been slaughtered. It must have happened either last night or this morning. They were beaten and then shot. Their bodies are all in a field at the back.’

‘Nobody left at all?’

George looked at Sam — and in that moment, Sam knew .

‘Two, Sir, but —’

In the distance, Sam saw that the platoon’s medic, Vickers, was ministering to two old people, who sat opposite each other, tied to two stakes under the hot sun.

‘No, merciful God —’

George tried to stop him: ‘Sam, matey, they’re not a pretty sight.’

‘Take your hands off me.’

Sam ran across the sunlight. As he ran he saw the old woman lifting her head to him. He fell on his knees before her. In one horrifying second he saw her blood splattered dress and knew what the enemy had done to her. They had cut her stomach open. Her intestines had spilled out and every time she breathed or swallowed they flipped and moved around like earthworms. Black flies buzzed angrily around her head. They swooped at Sam, angry that he had interrupted their feasting. Already, their eggs were pupating, hatching in the raw slit of her skin.

Even so, it was not her own condition the old woman was worried about. She motioned to her husband. He, also, had been gutted. Vickers had tried as best he could to minimise the pain, and was wrapping triangular bandages around the old man’s stomach to contain the guts. As he moved to help the woman she whimpered and motioned to Sam.

Look what they did to my husband.

‘I’ve given them both shots against the pain,’ Vickers said. ‘How they’ve endured so long I do not know. The old woman wanted me to work on her husband first. But she’s the one whose condition is worst. There’s nothing much I can do except make them as comfortable as I can. God, I wish they’d just die . But, apparently, they’ve been arguing over who should go first.’

Vickers’s lips creased into a sad grin. Sam could see he was simply at a loss as to what to do. He kept looking at the woman’s entrails.

‘It’s no use,’ Vickers said.

The old woman must have understood. Her face was laced with the fine cobwebs of pain. She put a hand on the medic’s left arm to comfort him and thank him. Sam began to moan, rocking backwards and forwards. Spittle formed on his lips.

‘It’s my fault, oh Jesus,’ he cried.

‘How did this happen?’ Lieutenant Haapu asked.

He motioned to Flanagan to speak with her.

‘The old mother says the Vietcong came this morning,’ Flanagan said. They were angry that we had ambushed their men and killed them. They set fire to the whole village. They shot everything that moved. They took the villagers out the back and executed them. The Vietcong were told that the old mother and her husband had given us a meal. For this, they made the old couple watch the executions. Then they did this to them. This is the slow way of dying. Not so easy and as painless as a bullet through the head. The enemy wanted them to really suffer for having offered us food.’

The old woman lapsed into silence. The effort of talking had exhausted her. She looked at her husband and murmured to Flanagan.

‘She wants me to tell her husband to hurry up and die.’

The old mother started to cough. Her intestines danced in the dust. Sam ran to an urn, cupped his hands in the water and returned with it. He smeared the water on the old woman’s lips. She opened her mouth and sucked on his fingers.

Ah, rainwater. It is always so cool.

Sam dripped water over the old woman’s forehead. She lifted her face gratefully to the sparkling drops.

‘I caused this,’ Sam said. ‘I caused this to happen. Your village to be destroyed. You and your husband to die —’

‘No, it was me,’ Lieutenant Haapu said.

The old woman looked at them both.

You must bear your pain. I must bear mine.

She motioned to Sam to come closer. Their noses and foreheads touched. The blue mist of age edged her eyes. She whispered to him.

‘She is telling you not to be sad,’ Flanagan said. ‘The day before we entered the village she consulted her lunar calendar and it told her that that day would be unlucky, the next would be unlucky but — ah — the third day would be a lucky day.’

‘Why lucky?’

‘Can’t you see? Today is the day on which she will die.’

At that moment the woman’s husband began to shout and yell.

‘The old father wants us to shoot them,’ Flanagan told Lieutenant Haapu. ‘He’s asking us why we’re waiting. Do we relish their pain? Why can’t we be merciful and rid them of this miserable existence. He wants us to shoot the old mother first.’

The old woman started yelling back. Flanagan’s lips creased with the humour of it.

‘The old mother is saying “Oh no you don’t!” to her husband. She doesn’t trust him one bit. For all she knows he might recover once she’s dead and he’ll go over to his old girlfriend’s village and set up house with her. And now he ’ s saying he just wants to make sure she’s dead because he’s sick and tired of always listening to her.’

Lieutenant Haapu turned to Sam. ‘I want you to take the platoon out of the village. Wait for me by the bridge.’

‘No.’

‘That’s an order, Sergeant.’

Sam felt tears spring to his eyes. ‘No, Lieutenant. I am responsible for this. Let me do the job.’

Lieutenant Haapu hesitated, then nodded.

‘Before you go, the old mother wants to leave you two gifts,’ Flanagan told Lieutenant Haapu. ‘The first is the whereabouts of the enemy base. It is up there between the twin peaks. They have tunnelled into the mountain. The second gift is to tell you that to live you need two things — rice and clean water. But if you want to live well you need three more — a garden, a pigsty and a fishpond.’

Lieutenant Haapu saluted the old woman and moved toward the waiting platoon. ‘Okay, everybody, grab your shit. We’re out of here.’

Sam watched as the men retreated. The seconds passed. He took out his pistol. The old woman saw it and sighed with gladness. She asserted her strength, indicating with an insistent motion towards her husband:

Him first, do you hear? He is not as strong as I am. It would be easier for me to look upon his face in death than for him to look on mine in death. It would break his heart.