Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘No, Mum,’ Sam answered. ‘Just tonight. George and I return to Vietnam tomorrow.’

‘Did you bring me a present?’ Patty asked.

Sam gave her a smile. ‘Yes, one for you and one for Monty.’

Sam’s heart was aching, but the ceremony was almost over. The clouds were lowering.

The wind brought the promise of rain. As Turei was laid to rest, Lilly came forward and threw the first handful of dirt upon his coffin.

‘Farewell, son! Go to the threshold of the Pleiades. To Antares, farewell —’

In the evening, Sam sat with his father on the verandah of the homestead. The silence between them was forbidding, punitive. When Arapeta spoke, his voice curled out of Te Kore, The Void.

‘I promised Lilly that Turei would come back alive. Instead, he came back in a coffin. It was up to you to ensure that my promise was kept. You should have looked after him. You didn’t. The sperm that was in him from his father has died with him, and there will be no further issue. The whakapapa from his father to him is now terminated. Because of this, I have lost mana. You have let me down. The only way you can redeem yourself is to avenge his death. When you return to Vietnam, you must take utu against those who killed him.’

Back in Vietnam, Sam immediately went to Captain Fellowes to ask him when the next company manoeuvre might be ordered.

‘There’s nothing planned right now,’ Captain Fellowes said. ‘What’s the rush, Sergeant?’

‘I’ve gotta get back in there. For Turei —’

Captain Fellowes understood. ‘Listen, your mate’s gone and nothing will bring him back.’ But Sam wasn’t listening. ‘Okay,’ Captain Fellowes continued. ‘The best I can do is to put you on the roster whenever a spare man is required by the Aussies or the Yanks.’

‘Sir,’ Sam saluted. ‘I’ll take anything you can get.’

He wanted to get out, find some action, go anywhere — and hope the guilt of Turei’s death wouldn’t follow him.

The guilt was everywhere. Worse, it lay between Sam and George like a living thing. Instead of bringing them closer together, it pushed them apart.

‘Has he guessed?’ Sam wondered, ‘that I’m to blame?’

But George was on another track altogether, blaming himself and ashamed to look at Sam.

Over the next weeks Sam was called to complement an Aussie patrol on perimeter duty of the horseshoe minefield. An attachment to a local ARVN South Vietnamese unit followed. Then came a mission to search a village reported to be hostile to the Allied command. Exhausted by his grief and driven by his need for some kind of release, Sam was already juiced up and trigger happy. The hot sun was burning his skin off and the heat was like a hot oven coil frying his guts. He lost all perspective, all sense of who was the enemy and who wasn’t. When he glimpsed a movement at the corner of his eyes he was already swinging his rifle, his finger pressing the trigger — and the only thing that stopped him was hearing a baby cry as the young girl he had aimed at fell to the ground, protecting the baby as she fell. Sam remembered Jim, the Australian veteran:

‘Before you know it, the whole platoon is shooting up the village, setting it on fire, killing whatever happens to be in the way.’

The incident sounded warning bells for Sam. ‘What’s happening to me?’

The only person who got anywhere near explaining it to him was Cliff Harper when he happened across Sam at the base. Harper was still in his flying kit, having just come back from a mission. He was battle weary but:

‘That last time we talked was bad timing, right? I didn’t know then about your pal. I know what it’s like —’

‘You know nothing about what it’s like.’

‘Hey,’ said Harper. ‘I lost Fox, remember?’

Harper took a deep breath and spelt it out again.

‘I’m in trouble here, Sam. Doing my nut —’

Sam gave Harper an angry stare.

‘But I’ve been thinking this through,’ Harper continued. ‘Maybe you’re not just another guy. You’re Sam. People make these other categories, but maybe you and I don’t fit, maybe they don’t apply to us.’

Sam was in turmoil.

‘I’m a soldier, you’re a flier,’ Sam said. ‘I’m a Maori, you’re a Yank. We come from different places, different cultures. Let’s keep it that way.’

Harper’s face grew still. Then, ‘Okay, you arsehole,’ he said. ‘I’ve admitted I’m wide open for you but you can’t do that for me. I could have been the best thing for you but you haven’t got the guts to admit it. Somebody should give you a medal for being the chickenshit coward you are.’

They split up, and Sam wanted to say: ‘No don’t go away.’ He went back to his tent and for a long while lay on his bunk staring at nothing.

Meanwhile, drama was unfolding in the skies above him.

Deep into enemy territory an American bombing strike was on its way to Hanoi. The bombers were escorted by a Phantom F-4 defence wing. One of the F-4s was being piloted by the two-man crew of Riccardo ‘Speedy’ Gonzalez and Johnny Johnson. They were keeping a look-out for enemy aircraft above and any surface-to-air missiles from below. Gonzalez heard Adams in an F-4 to the left of him:

‘Two MiGs at ten o’clock, another two bogies at six o’clock high. Okay, fellas, intercept and engage —’

With that, Gonzalez put his F-4 into a turn — and was into a dogfight with one of the enemy MiGs. The dual was a hair-raising series of spins, loops and other acrobatics in which each craft tried to get the other into their firing envelope. Gonzalez had a lucky break. He was on the MiG’s tail, trying to outguess the enemy pilot, when the MIG broke left. Gonzalez had chosen to go left also — and the MiG was right there in the middle of his sights. He got a rocket away and, next moment, the MiG exploded. However, Bailey was calling:

‘Gonzalez, another bogey coming at ya.’

It was a classic attack straight out of the sun. In a matter of seconds the MiG had Gonzalez in the middle of his firing envelope and had sent his missile, tracking it for a hit. Over the radio, Gonzalez heard Bailey yelling out, ‘Break right and roll,’ so he pressed the F-4 into an escape maneuvre to shake the MiG off his arse. The missile exploded just above the F-4 and the concussion threw the aircraft into a wild spin. Gonzalez corrected and managed to put the F-4 into a descending seven-G turn. Before he knew it, the MiG had the F-4 in its sights again. Its cannons raked the F-4’s underbelly. There was a sickening lurch, the red warning lights started to flash — and Gonzalez heard the telltale warbling sound which warned that the F-4 was on fire. Next moment, black smoke started to fill the cockpit and they were flaming down like a torch.

Gonzalez tried to get the F-4 backup flight control system operational. But the MiG had done its stuff and the F-4 fell through 2500 metres, through 1800 metres and all of a sudden they were at 1200 metres.

Gonzalez yelled to Johnny Johnson: ‘Eject, bail out now. ’

There was no answer. Johnson was dead, peppered with enemy cannon shots.

Gonzalez realised he was getting pretty close to riding the F-4 into the ground. He pulled the ejection ring. The canopy flew off and the ejection sequence kicked in — and he was clear. His chute opened at under 600 metres and before he could utter a prayer he was hurtling into the jungle canopy, crashing through the branches like a rag doll. The ground hit him and he felt every bone in his body jolt and crack. But he was alive and, although dazed, had his wits about him. He remembered his training and activated the beeper which would let his buddies know he was still alive and where to find him — and waited.