Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘Ka tuwhera te tawaha o te riri, kaore e titiro ki te ao marama. When the gates of war have been flung open, no man takes notice of the light of reason. This ancient proverb comes alive again today with the decision our three boys have made to fight in Vietnam. It is good to see three of this generation carrying on the tradition of their forebears from the Maori Battalion. Boys, we who are left of the Maori Battalion salute you for your courage and your valour. You, my own son, will maintain the fighting spirit that will ensure that the Maori does not become as weak as women.’

Arapeta held the assembly in the palm of his hand. He encompassed the whole marae in his gaze.

‘War parties, before setting off to war, were always made sacred to their mission. I bring you three boys under the tapu of Tumatauenga, the God of War. Fight for the honour of your tribe! Fight until there is no enemy left standing! Go to battle! Go! Go! Go!’

The words barked across the marae and echoed around the surrounding hills. They pulled the storm clouds closer.

With a rhetorical flourish, Arapeta leapt into the air. His eyeballs protruded. Spittle foamed from his mouth. He began a haka, the fierce declamation of Maori men.

‘Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora ka ora!’

Immediately, old soldiers leapt to their feet and joined him. Old joints fused. Blood that had been slowed by beer and easy living fired again. The sparks ran like flames, boiling the veins.

‘Ka mate, ka mate, ka ora ka ora!’

Sam took his place beside Arapeta and the crowd roared its approval. They believed Sam was supporting his father. He may have been, but he was also asserting his independence from the man who had ruled his life since the day he was born. His fists were bunched. The veins of his neck were taut. His eyes bulged as he looked at Arapeta.

And Arapeta knew . He sensed Sam’s anger. He roared with laughter.

‘So you think you’re better than me, son? You’ll never be better.’

The two men turned to each other, doing the haka as if they were opponents.

‘Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru nana nei whakawhiti te ra!’

The crowd was on its feet, roaring and cheering its approval and, at that moment, the storm burst overhead.

‘Aa, haupane, kaupane, haupane kaupane whiti te ra —’

The God of War himself had come to join the haka.

And then the RNZAF Bristol freighter was flying out of Te Kore, The Void, and descending through Te Po, the many gradations of The Night. The night began to be streaked with light, speckled, mottled, fusing and coalescing one pool of light with another. All of a sudden a blinding flash irradiated the darkness. The sun was there, leaping like an ignited match to burn a hole in the seam between sea and sky.

‘Ara! Ki te ao marama,’ Sam whispered to himself. ‘Look, the day is coming.’

No matter how many times he had seen the coming of light, Sam still felt awed by its relentless majesty. As a young boy, he often sat on the sacred mountain, Hikurangi, the first place on the earth to be lit by the sun. There he would raise his face to the sun’s, filled with wonder that all its energy was coming from a molten orb of fire far on the other side of the universe. He knew that this sun had already skimmed Hikurangi, its beams refracted like a laser to burn its way toward Vietnam.

Other men of Victor Company had woken too, and were looking below at the South China Sea. The water shimmered vermilion, then purple, then cerulean blue tinged with crimson until, with a rush, from out of opalescence came the daylight.

Tuia i runga, tuia i raro.

The world was being constructed again.

Tuia i roto, tuia i waho.

The top and bottom, bound together by the light.

Tuia i te here tangata ka rongo te Ao.

Now the outer framework and inner framework. Fixed firmly, the knots soldered by the shafts of the sun.

The promise of life, the impulse of history, was reborn.

Sam woke George and Turei.

‘Sarge, I was having such a great dream,’ George said. ‘She was six foot, a red hot mamma and —’

Turei looked at Sam and yawned. ‘Yes, thank you, Sarge, I’ll have the chicken not the beef selection, if I may, and could you give me the wine they’re serving in First Class?’

Below, like a swimmer rising out of the sea, Vietnam. Ahead, Phuoc Tuy Province, east of Saigon.

The forward doors of the Bristol Freighter opened and the heat of Vietnam poured in. The assault distended veins, popped sweat glands and licked up all the moisture from your skin surfaces. Sam felt his body trying to defend itself: shutting his eyelids, making him hold his breath, sealing itself off. But the heat was patient. It knew that some time he would have to breathe in. When, at last, Sam let out the last cool breath remaining and took another, Vietnam rushed in. Sucked him dry. Propelled its molten pain through every vessel and vein in his body, shredded his eyes and slithered into his scrotum until he was completely possessed.

‘From now on,’ the heat said, ‘you’re mine. I’ll be in every breath you take and you will never escape from me. Never.’

‘Get the men out, Sergeant Mahana,’ Lieutenant Haapu ordered.

‘You heard the lieutenant,’ Sam called.

The company began to disembark, disgorging like fish to flap in the sun.

Sam put a hand up against the glare. The sun was a baleful eye that never blinked. The heat, like the glare, owned him also. His feet touched the tarmac of Vung Tau airbase.

‘Holy Hone Hika,’ he whispered.

US combat and military aircraft were everywhere. They loomed all around and above him. On either side were serried ranks of the fighter bombers. Armament experts were loading them with Thud missiles. On another runway were F-4C Phantom MiG combat air patrol fighters. Elsewhere, helicopter squadrons, cargo and transport planes and spotter craft glinted in the sun.

Turei whistled under his breath.

‘This must be Vietnam the movie . So where’s John Wayne?’

At that moment Sam’s ears were split by the high-pitched whine of turbines as two Iroquois helicopter gunship convoys took off from the field. One by one the pilots pulled pitch. The choppers shuddered, the noses dropped down then, tails up, began pulling away from the ground. Sam saw a machine-gunner, hunched over his weapon, sitting at an open door, still strapping himself in.

The blades of the gunship slapped the air hard. Pop pop pop .

But there was no time to enjoy the view. Immigration procedures had been set up at the American Transit Camp, where companies of Yanks and Aussies were also waiting to go forward into the war zone.

Sam was struck by the sudden quiet. The American boys were confused, disoriented, shit scared. Unlike the Kiwis and Aussies, most of the Americans were conscripts who had been drafted in, straight from civvy street via six weeks of basic training. The US Army made conscripts four promises. They would shave your head, give you a rifle, and send you to Vietnam. The rest was up to you. How you fitted yourself into the infrastructure of your unit was your responsibility. Which part of the battle zone, who you ended up fighting next to and whether or not your relationships would be happy was not part of the contract. Like as not your dope-smoking section commander was somebody who got to that position not because of his abilities but because he had been there a little bit longer than you. Who knows? At some point he might be struck by a bullet through the cranium and you might have to take over from him. Whatever, your experience of Vietnam, its boredom, horror and impact, was in the lap of wilful gods. They might send you out on a patrol that would lead you to My Lai. Or they might send some other bastard on patrol to My Lai.