Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

A concealed tunnel.

Sam’s mind tracked past the tunnel. Behind it there would be tunnel-like bunkers dug into the side of the bank, the outworks of a defensive system of tunnels going down into the valley.

‘This is it,’ he thought. ‘We’ve found the outer defensive perimeter of the enemy base.’

Sam heard Hempel coming up beside him. Hempel took one look at George and the pit of decomposing bodies and, next moment, was turning and retching and —

Stop him, Sarge , George signed. The whole place is booby-trapped.

It was too late.

‘Oh shit —’

A hole opened up under Hempel. The grass was falling into it. With a gesture of resignation, Hempel fell.

Silence.

When Sam went to look he saw Hempel in the middle of a carefully laid tiger pit. It was lined with metre-high punji stakes of fire-hardened bamboo, sharpened to a point and smeared with human faeces. Hempel lay skewered. One stake had pierced his throat. Another punctured his left shoulder. Still another was protruding from his stomach. The wounds were spilling with blood. His eyes looked up at Sam, bewildered, like a fawn’s. Then they rolled up into white. Hempel opened his mouth and blood fountained out.

‘Oh no,’ Sam thought. ‘Not one of my virgins —’

Quickly Sam helped George out of the tiger pit and then down to Hempel.

‘He’s dead. Sarge, the sonofabitch is dead.’

George was shivering and shaking as Sam let down a rope to pull Hempel’s body up. For a stunned moment both men sat there, looking at him.

‘Jeez, Sarge, close his eyes willya?’

And, oh, Hempel’s body was still warm and the blood was still so red, so red.

More minutes went by. ‘I’ve lost a man. I’m a man down.’

Then Sam motioned to George: ‘Come on.’

‘Are we taking Hempel back?’

Sam’s face was grim but determined. ‘Let’s find the enemy base first, for Hempel’s sake. He’s not going to die for nothing.’

George helped Sam lift Hempel’s body into the low branches where pigs couldn’t reach him. They entered the concealed tunnel and followed it as it sloped underground. All of a sudden there was an opening ahead. When Sam crept up to the opening the dirt started to crumble and he almost fell.

He was at the top of a cliff. Below was a hidden valley, and towering above it were the twin horns of the mountain. In the middle of the valley was the enemy base.

‘This is for you, Hempel.’

Sam took down the details — the sitings of defence positions, possible minefields, gun emplacements, concealed bunkers interconnected with tunnels, camouflaged fighting pits and spider holes. He looked for the likely command post. Then, once it was done, Sam signed to George that they should return to the patrol. When Quincey saw Hempel’s blood-stained body he began to sob.

‘Quincey,’ Sam said through gritted teeth. ‘Stop it man.’

‘It’s all right for you, you bastard,’ Quincey said, ‘but Hempel was my mate.’

‘Well Hempel’s gone, and we’re here, and the best thing you can do as his mate is to do your job.’

Sam turned to Flanagan: ‘Get me Lieutenant Haapu on the radio.’

The radio clicked and buzzed.

‘Sir, we’ve found it.’

The platoon returned to the village. The battalion had begun to reposition there and gunship convoys were landing men and military supplies.

Sam stood alone in the field behind the village where his men had buried the old woman and her husband.

The sun slipped away. The sky turned shades of purple, pink and gold. The trees of the jungle rapidly darkened into shadow. The moon, pale and round, had come up, although it was still not yet dark. Sam had heard that in Vietnam the moon was very beautiful, but he had not expected it to be so wan and luminous. Wild dogs were baying and, in that time between light and darkness, Sam could hear the spirits moving, whispering in the rivers and washing in the sea. They were sighing all around him in the stones and whistling in the trees, as if glad to have dominion. This was the time when Maori believed that the spirits of the dead began their long voyage to Te Reinga. There, at the northernmost tip of Aotearoa, they waited for the sun to go down. Already, perhaps, the old father had reached that promontory overlooking the sea where the spirits leapt from this world into the next. Had the old mother reached him in time?

Sam’s eyes prickled with tears.

‘I hope you caught up with your husband, old mother.’

Then he turned on his heel and returned to his men. They were waiting at the landing zone. All around them choppers were spinning, darting, their blades glistening like the wings of iridescent fireflies. Hempel’s body lay waiting to be flown back to Nui Dat.

‘Are you all set, Sergeant?’ Lieutenant Haapu asked.

Sam nodded. He saw that Major Worsnop, Captain Fellowes and all Victor Company had mustered. He also saw Cliff Harper was there. In the rush and the roar of the world —

Hello , Sam . Cliff signed.

Sam lifted his face. God, I feel so alone —

I’m here for you.

Major Worsnop turned to the platoon.

‘It is never easy to lose a friend,’ he said. ‘It is never easy to lose a good soldier. We ask the Lord to take John Hempel into his care. Hempel, you are going home now.’

Major Worsnop led the salute. A guard of honour let off a rifle volley as Sam, George, Quincey, Brooks, Jones and Starr picked up Hempel’s poor broken body and lifted it into the chopper. Harper slipped into the pilot’s seat. The engine started up, the rotors whined. All the ihi, the mana, the wehi and sorrow flooded into Sam and before he knew it he was leading George and Turei in a haka to Hempel.

‘Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora, ka ora —’

Feet stamping. Eyes bulging. Crouched and slapping thighs with hands.

‘It is death, it is death, it is life, it is life —’

Spittle arcing out, sweat far flung into the air.

Harper felt the grief of the moment.

‘Ker-rist! Why am I crying for some soldier I don’t even know.’

Harper looked down at Sam and saluted. The chopper lifted, turning the landing zone into a place of whirlwinds.

Day Four

By sun-up the battalion was in position for the attack on the enemy base. They had deployed on the ridge facing the twin horns, looking down into the valley. Major Worsnop looked at his watch. Okay, let’s get the show underway. He ordered the two-battery artillery barrage assault to soften up the enemy before his boys went in.

‘Box grid and column fire,’ he commanded.

There was half a minute’s silence as the message was radioed. Then:

‘On the way over.’

Overhead, Sam heard the rounds approaching. The barrage hit the south side of the enemy base in one big twelve-round orange crruump . More rounds followed, whistling overhead, working from south to north, the shells impacting on the enemy position. A few seconds later the detonations reached Sam and the ground lurched.

‘How can the enemy survive all this?’

The barrage was devastating to watch. It seemed to go on for hours. Then the last rounds impacted. The roar of the detonations receded. The smoke drifted away from the killing ground.

Suddenly there was a lull. The sun burnt off the clouds — an astonishing interlude of beauty and radiance. And Sam remembered when he had a chorus part in a high school musical put on by those Mormon elders from Brigham Young University:

Mine eyes have seen the glory

of the coming of the Lord,

he is trampling out the vintage

where the grapes of wrath are stored!

As if they had been waiting in the wings to join the chorus, an air strike of F-4 Phantom jets descended, whistling down on the wind.