The Wounds of War. Gary Blinco
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walked briskly to the front door, his movements lithe and economical, suggesting fitness and strength. His bright blue eyes flicked to the left and right as he moved, in the manner of one accustomed to taking in every detail around him. He was on his second tour of duty in Vietnam. His first tour had been as an infantry section leader, a good one, and he had not lost the forward scout’s art of constant observation. Section leaders often acted as their own scouts in this strange war, where most Australian field infantry units were sadly undermanned.
Bishop was a National Service conscript, and at just twenty-four, one of the youngest senior NCOs in the regiment. He worked as an ‘in country’ instructor at the reinforcement unit, a sort of holding bay where reserve troops were kept to fill the gaps created by those killed or wounded in action. Some soldiers called the unit the ‘butcher shop’, but the inference in the name did not bother Bishop. His sensitivities to such things had long since been bludgeoned out of him during that first bloody tour.
He fronted the rough desk near the entrance to the building and was greeted by a pimply-faced corporal. ‘Can I help you, mate?’ The corporal asked without looking up from the pile of papers on his desk.
‘You better be able to, and don’t fuckin’ call me mate, Corporal. I busted my guts to get these hooks.’ The corporal looked up from his papers, scrambling to his feet, his face burning as he noted the name tag on Bishop’s shirt. ‘Sorry, Sergeant Bishop’, he stammered. ‘We get so much high brass around here that we get a bit complacent, how can I help you?’
He resented this upstart young sergeant. This place was alive with very senior officers, none of whom required him to stand to address them.
Bishop grinned, suddenly friendly now that he had asserted his position. ‘I’m here for a briefing with Brigadier Jacob’, he said. ‘I’m ten minutes early, but seeing as he is a brigadier, and I’m a baggy-arsed sergeant, I thought I’d play it safe.’
‘Good move’, the corporal agreed, gratefully accepting the change in Bishop’s manner. ‘Follow me and I’ll take you to the meeting room.’ Bishop followed the corporal down the narrow hall of the demountable building and was shown into a small briefing room. ‘If you wait here’, the corporal said, ‘the brigadier will be along shortly. Can I get you a mug of tea of coffee?’ he added, his eyes revealing a desire for the answer to be no.
‘No’, Bishop replied, grinning as the relief washed over the man’s pimply face. ‘I’ll just wait for the action, whatever it proves to be.’
The corporal nodded and left and Bishop looked around the room. It was spartan and sparsely furnished with the usual military fittings of desks and plastic chairs, but spotlessly clean. Maps of the province and beyond festooned the walls, an overhead projector sat on a table and there was a large chalkboard set on the wall above a slightly raised stage area at the front of the room. Two large ceiling fans beat slowly overhead, moving the hot tropical air about the room but providing little cooling effect. The jungle greens clung to Bishop’s skin as the sweat oozed from his pores.
He wondered what this briefing was all about and he felt a tight clutch of apprehension in his gut. His commanding officer had been pretty sketchy with details. ‘I think you’re getting bored with this war, Sergeant’, the CO had growled. ‘You need a new challenge, something to refocus those military skills of yours. Well, as it happens, I’ve been asked to provide a senior NCO with a good track record for a special task.’ He had studied Bishop’s face for a moment, perhaps waiting for some reaction. Bishop’s face remained impassive. ‘I think you’re the man. I should tell you that other commanders within the task force were also asked to nominate a starter. However, you have been chosen as the most appropriate candidate. It is also opportune that your security clearance is to top secret level, a requirement for this job I’m told.’
Bishop raised his eyebrows and made no comment, frankly he did not know what to say. The CO was thoughtful as he watched the young sergeant’s face. ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you what it’s all about, even if I wanted to, because quite simply, I don’t know. But I do know it presents an opportunity for you to make some sort of a name for yourself.’ He looked at Bishop and his eyes narrowed. ‘Which probably also means you have an above average chance of getting yourself killed.’
The CO had stood up then, abruptly signalling an end to the meeting. ‘There is a briefing at task force headquarters tomorrow at zero nine hundred hours. Report to the orderly room and ask for Brigadier Jacob. Just present yourself in normal uniform and carry your pistol, nothing else is required for now. I have been told that, if you accept the task, you will not be coming back here, you’ll leave directly from task force headquarters. Are you game?’
‘Of course’, Bishop said nodding, trying not to sound too enthusiastic and hiding his real need to get back into the thick of the action. ‘And you’re right sir’, he added, ‘I have been getting a bit stale, this second tour has been a bit flat so far’.
His CO slapped him on the back as they walked from the office. ‘Well, this might put some spice into it for you’, he said. He offered his hand to the younger man. ‘If I don’t get to see you again for a while, good luck.’ Bishop shook the offered hand, saluted, then turned and marched from the room.
Deep down he hoped for some real action. He needed to revisit some old experiences to help him clear his head of the uncertainties that had followed him since the last tour. This second tour of duty had so far been a holiday compared to his last stint as a section leader. Training reinforcements or sitting in the senior NCO’s mess drinking booze somehow made the time drag badly; he felt like a seasoned and prepared football player watching the game from the sidelines. And then there was his real reason for coming back, the secret motive he held for choosing to return to this place, the one that could never be satisfied by a base camp role.
His father had died during his first tour, leaving a huge gap in his life; the family unit he had loved so much, and depended upon so completely, was suddenly not the same any more. While his mother still maintained a home with his younger siblings, it was not the warm family base he had known, and Bishop felt his world had somehow changed forever. The fond memories of his simple and unfettered childhood had gone, driven from his heart and mind by the trials of this other life, created in and by war.
Cold recollections now invaded his sleep, stark images of his father’s withered body, his eyes wide in his cancer-shrunken face. Anger, confusion and bitter shock blended with the fear and clouded those eyes, until they looked like the eyes of a frightened child. His father had been a dreamer, oblivious to reality at times, but always focused on the better days that he alone saw in the future. Then suddenly, inexplicably the future was gone and the present loomed with hopeless finality.
The long sleepless nights he had spent listening to his father’s hacking cough as the cancer ate its way through his body now returned to Bishop in his dreams. He remembered those final days before beginning the last tour, how he would leave his bed to go and peer into his parents’ room in the old house. Memories of the vague forms in the bed came back to clutch his heart, ghostly shadows in the soft light of the street lamp that filtered through the window. His father would be semi-conscious, the wasted body convulsed with the deep coughs that rose up through him and burst from his mouth accompanied by phlegm and blood. Scarcely audible moans of pain escaped his dry, cracked lips between the coughs.
His mother’s body would be curled in a dark question mark of love and comfort against her husband’s side as she stroked his face. Her eyes were wide and unblinking in the darkness, two bright, glassy orbs that glistened in the gloom, her head pressed deeply into her tear-soaked pillow. The family watched painfully as the once strong and proud man succumbed to the disease that chewed away at his tissue, poisoned his blood and sapped his strength, leading him down a dark spiral of misery to certain death.
Bishop remembered his mother in the early days on the little farm where he had grown up, and the image was a far cry from the more recent one that loomed in his mind. She had loved the simple, uncomplicated bush life,