Four Fires (98 page)

FRANZCP

The continued transcript of Dr Mole Maloneys clinical notes After my chaotic introduction to Vietnam, I was sent to Tran Xa outpost to join US Special Detachment A115. While I was in Tran Xa, the Yank build-up started. Now the US were sending fighting units as well as advisers, and Australia had contributed an infantry battalion and planned to follow. Towards the end of my year-long tour, I found myself relieving besieged outposts with the Montagnard Mobile Strike Force. By this time, Combustible Jones had been sent home in a body bag and I'd had about enough of the Viet Cong, the Vietnamese National Army, the South Vietnamese Irregulars and even my own Montagnard to last me a lifetime.

Then I was posted back to the Jungle Training Centre at Canungra in Queensland to help train the increasing flow of soldiers to the war. It was a tough course. Soldiers returning from Vietnam sometimes remarked only half jokingly that they didn't know if they feared most another tour in Vietnam or another course at Canungra. After almost a year there, I was posted back to Vietnam, this time replacing a 6RAR Company Sergeant Major, or CSM, who'd been evacuated home sick.

This was a different Vietnam to the one where I was always dependent on local troops with a varying sense of loyalty to the cause of peace in the free world. The Australians were a different
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kettle of fish altogether, better trained, well motivated, and quick to learn on the job and acquitted themselves with distinction in Vietnam. There is no question that they were the best-trained troops in Vietnam and the NVA, the highly professional North Vietnamese army, grew to fear and respect them to a very high degree.

I don't want to go into my second tour of Vietnam, suffice to say I felt okay most of the time but there were periods when I couldn't believe I wasn't coming home at the end of it in a black body bag. At times, life had become somewhat meaningless and I believed myself expendable, which was what was meant by the sign I'd read in the bar at Australia House in Da Nang when I'd first arrived. It was very difficult getting myself through those dark periods but I kept it to myself and did my job.

I returned home with 6RAR and walked into the terminal at Mascot with my carry bag and a bottle of duty-free scotch, a commodity which had increasingly become my constant sleeping companion and often enough my most cherished and dependable friend. I was drinking heavily and was secretly ashamed of it. You'd have thought Tommy would have taught me that particular lesson.

Even the Sydney terminal was like a new experience. I'd forgotten what peacetime looked and felt like, it was all so very different to Saigon with its heat and noise and smell of fish sauce and the constant importuning of the local population.

There were no MPs with rifles and pistols, no anti-rocket grenade screens on the windows, no tanks or concrete revetments containing armed F4 fighter bombers, only the bizarre experience of civilian aircraft, their tails painted in bright colours, big and small, bustling about the airport.

Most of all, as we walked across the tarmac, there was no oblong stack of shiny aluminium caskets awaiting the arrival of the C5 Starlifter to freight the fresh killed, that is the grunts who'd died in the past seven days, to destinations where weeping mothers were waiting for them at some lonely small-town airport in the USA with the local Lions or Rotary Club members lined up to pay tribute to a son born and bred in Nowhereville.

We are directed by a corporal from 'the corps of trucks' through a door to a secure area, a large room behind Customs where a captain was waiting to address us.

Then, you're back in civilisation. If you've brought any weapons with you, please leave them in the amnesty bin, the customs officers are waiting outside and I don't have to tell you what the penalty is for bringing in a concealed weapon.'Then he told us that if we became ill with malaria or venereal disease to go straight to the nearest base hospital. It was suggested that after the two days of R & R in Saigon, it wasn't a good idea to have sex with a waiting wife or girlfriend without using a condom for the first two weeks.

After this bit of a talk, we lined up in front of an army pay clerk to draw our money and receive our leave passes. I received a fistful of money, enough ten-dollar notes to choke a horse and 105

days'accrued leave, three and a half months sitting on my arse thinking about nothing in particular before I had to report back to the army. After Vietnam, it seemed like a lifetime of freedom.

A corporal, wearing Vietnam ribbons, yells at us, 'Okay, you heroes, put your ribbons on before yer go out to meet yer family and friends!'

It wasn't something at the forefront of my mind and it must have taken me a good five minutes to find the two of them at the bottom of my carry bag. The two ribbons were on a bar, the Vietnam Medal and the Vietnamese Campaign Medal. I pinned these clumsily to my breast. I must admit, I glanced down to see if the oak leaf was intact orn the Vietnam Medal Ribbon. It indicated that I'd been Mentioned in Despatches, which I'd won on the first tour with the Training Team. I'd received it mainly for when I'd rescued Murray Templeton.

Nancy had been delighted when I told her the story but she wouldn't tear up the Mention in Despatches citation and send it to Mr and Mrs Philip Templeton like I suggested. But she did
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take the bus into Wangaratta and have a photographer make an exact-sized colour copy of this latest bottoms-wiping certificate, then did as I suggested, tearing the photo into four and mailing it to you know who. Though when Vera 'Big Mouth Saggy Tits' Forbes came around and asked if she could photograph the citation for the Gazette, Nancy told her to go to buggery among other things that shouldn't be repeated.

Now here's the lovely thing. I came out of Customs expecting to climb into the green army Bedford bus that the corporal of the 'corps of trucks' told us to look out for and which would take us to Central Station to catch the overnight train to Melbourne. Instead, standing in the arrival lounge, was Nancy, Sarah, Bozo, little Colleen, Templeton, Morrie, Sophie and Mrs Rika Ray. They had this ginormous hand-painted banner which said: mole power!

We're soon hugging and kissing. Nancy and Sarah, Sophie and Mrs Rika Ray are having a big bawl, grabbing a hold of each other and Morrie is off on the side doing the same, bawling. Bozo is pumping my hand and little Colleen and Templeton are jumping up and down and pecking me on the cheeks and grabbing me around the waist, I can't believe how much they've both grown.

Then an RSM in full dress uniform comes up to us, 'Sorry about this, Mr Maloney, but you're to report immediately to Colonel Payne at the Education Centre just inside the gates of the Victoria Barracks.'

'Hey, wait on! What about my family?"' I protest.

The RSM shakes his head. 'We only have one military vehicle, a Holden, it can take four of them, driver's awaiting outside.'

'She'll be right,' Bozo says, 'We've hired a great big Merc, the rest of us will meet you there.' I notice he's put on a bit of weight. 'Oh, Big Jack Donovan sends his best, he'd have come but he's got a police conference on this weekend.'

We get to Victoria Barracks about four in the afternoon and there's a guard of honour standing at the gates.

'We'd better wait, something's happening,' I tell Nancy and Sophie, who take up the back seat, the rest of the mob are in the big black Mercedes following us.

A staff sergeant comes up to the driver. 'Mr Maloney?' he asks. I nod. He instructs the army driver, 'Take the car to the Education Centre and drop the visitors off.'

'There's others following, Staff,' I tell him, 'in a black Mercedes.'

'Righto,' he says, 'Would you mind coming with me, sir?'

Next thing I know I'm being escorted by a guard of honour to a flag pole within Victoria Barracks. The Colonel is waiting for me and he congratulates me in front of my whole family and tells me the Queen has approved the award of the Military Medal for braver}/ whilst serving in the Training Team in Vietnam.

It turns out that Colonel Murray Templeton has been the moving force behind the recommendation and that the US Army has also made a submission to the Australian Army from US Marine Captain Elijah Combustible Jones. It's dated two weeks before the US Airforce mistakenly dropped napalm on their own troops and Captain Jones was included. Born in flames, died in flames.

All I can say, it's a day of tears, though in the end Nancy says, 'It don't mean Murray Templeton is any less a coward and a little shit for not fronting up for what he done to Sarah!'"

Bozo with his right-hand man, Mrs Rika Ray, are going gangbusters with the transport business.

They're talking of opening a depot in Wangaratta. They've got four new second-hand trucks and they're flat out over the Christmas period. So I'm grateful when Bozo asks me if I'd like to drive one of them. It means I'm busy and on my own and don't have to talk to people much. I'm getting a bit short-fused too but managing to keep a lid on it most of the time.

On my return to my teaching job, there's a letter waiting for me from Macquarie University, I've
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been accepted to do a degree. 'Watch out, Sarah, here I come!' I shout out, pleased as punch.

Sarah's working as a GP in Yankalillee. Morrie, who is a gynaecologist in Melbourne because Sophie's business has become so successful, visits Sarah once a month and runs a clinic in her practice for pregnant mothers and women with medical problems. Though she could probably afford to live in a better house, Sarah has extended the one in Bell Street and the family, including Bozo, still live together. Bozo reckons he's too busy to be married even though Sarah tells me every girl in town is after him as the big catch.

It's February 1968 and I'm sitting on my bed in the sergeants' quarters, having just returned from the orientation weekend at the university, where I bought some of the textbooks I'm going to require. I am surrounded by these books and my only reaction is a numb feeling. I pick up Startler's Introduction to Earth Sciences and turn to the back page, it's page 1231, fuck, how can anyone learn all this stuff in one year and this is only one book! But the CI (Chief Instructor), who is a lieutenant colonel, likes the idea of one of his instructors doing a university degree and tells me I can have half a day off each week to attend lectures.

It's not all plain sailing though. I have bad insomnia and when I finally go to sleep, the nightmares take over. It's always pissing down rain in the jungle with Nogs crawling about everywhere, sometimes it's Murray Templeton and sometimes it's me Heeding to death, then, flash and it's months later and the napalm hits the village again and again. I think about seeing a doctor, but I worry that everyone will think me a sheila. Besides, what do I tell the quack? That I'm having bad dreams? Doesn't everyone? So it's carry on, grin and bear it, Dr Scotch will solve the problem. But I figure that if I can't sleep, I might as well use all those extra waking hours studying, so I take on a full-time student's load. I'm gunna try for a full twenty-two credit points.

The only time I stop is occasionally to go into Sydney, to Kings Cross, to pick up a girl. Even this little necessity has its moments, there are long periods when even if I wanted to, I can't get it up. Anyway, all the study pays off and I not only get all the credit points but I score As and Bs.

In January 1969, the chief clerk at Ingleburn Barracks calls me to come down to the Admin Block. He tells me he has a posting order. All I can think is, please God, let it be in Sydney so I can finish my degree.

'Which battalion, Chief?' I ask, fearfully.

'You're to be posted to the Long-Term Students' Unallotted List.' He smiles. 'Clever bastard, aren't you, sir?'

I can't believe my ears, because then he adds that I am also to be a full-time student, paid for by the army with full pay, to do the last two years at Macquarie University. I don't even have to attend pay parade, they'll post it to me!

My farewell is held the following Friday at the Happy Hour in the Infantry Centre where the RSM holds court. 'Well, it's time for the hails and farewells,'he announces. 'Today we welcome a new sergeant, Sergeant David Eck. Will you please raise your glasses in a warm welcome to David.' We do as he says. 'Righto, now we have one to farewell, none other than the student, Mole Maloney. This illustrious warrant officer has been despatched from the duty of proper soldiering and as a gentleman of the infantry to have his mind fully bent by the pinkos and supporters of the Vietnam moratorium at Macquarie University. You will all know this is a highly subversive institution where said infantry gentleman will spend the next two years completing his degree.' He stops and looks around at the gathering. 'Now, gentlemen and madams, a full year I have watched this fine soldier work at his own destruction going to that unmentionable place in North Ryde. I wish to go on record now as saying that I did warn him that he was destroying a fine career. What was a possibility is even more than a probability, it is now, I think, an inevitability. The bastards will turn our Mole into a fucking officer!'

I cannot believe the joy of full-time university, though I still can't sleep. The scotch bottle remains my best friend. I need twenty-three credit points for each year
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but in fact I complete thirty for each of the years. As I've said, when you can't sleep or are afraid of what will happen when you do, you can get through a whole heap of studying, even when half-drunk.

I've always been a bit of a letter writer but now I'm compulsive. I write to Mike in London every week, gathering the news of the family by phone. I'm getting generally more anxious too, which is driving me mad but making me get things done.

Mike's staying in London. He's met a bloke he's living with and says he's really happy. We've all been waiting for it for a long time, his one-night stand with Sally Harris we all knew was a one-off. The bloke's from a posh family, what Mike calls 'County', Eton and Cambridge, and the parents are aristocracy and not one of the poor ones. Mike and his mate, who has a degree from the London School of Economics as well, are starting in business together, Mike the designer and haute couturiere, and his partner doing the business side.