even in this hell, the camp was rapidly taking shape. Styled after a jungle FOB of the kind used in Malaya, it was roughly circular in shape with defensive trenches in the middle and sentry positions and hedgehogs: fortified sangars for twenty-five-pound guns and a nest of 7.62mm GPMGs. This circular base was surrounded by a perimeter of barbed wire and claymore mines. Shagger and Red knew the mines were in place because at least once a day one of them would explode, tripped by the VC probing the perimeter defences with reconnaissance patrols. Still the Aussies kept working.
‘Now I know why the Yanks fucked off,’ Shagger told Red as they huddled up in their ponchos, feet and backside in the water, trying vainly to smoke cigarettes as the rain drenched them. ‘They couldn’t stand this bloody place. Two minutes of rain, a single sniper shot, and those bastards would take to the hills, looking for all the comforts of home and a fortified concrete bunker to hide in. A bunch of soft twats, those Yanks are.’
‘They have their virtues,’ Red replied. ‘They just appreciate the good things in life and know how to provide them. I mean, you take our camps: they’re pretty basic, right? But their camps have air-conditioners, jukeboxes and even honky-tonk bars complete with Vietnamese waiters. Those bastards are organized, all right.’
‘We’ve got jukeboxes,’ Shagger reminded him.
‘We had to buy them off the Yanks.’
‘Those bastards make money out of everything.’
‘I wish I could’, Red said.
‘Well, we’re not doing so badly,’ said Shagger. ‘This camp’s coming on well.’
It was true. Already, the initial foxholes and pup tents had been replaced by an assortment of larger tents and timber huts with corrugated-iron roofs. Determined to enjoy themselves as best they could, even in the midst of this squalor, the Aussies, once having raised huts and tents for headquarters, administration, communications, first aid, accommodation, ablutions, transport, supplies, weapons and fuel, then turned others into bars, some of which boasted the jukeboxes they’d bought from the Yanks. There were also four helicopter landing zones and a single parking area for trucks, jeeps, armoured cars and tanks.
While they were waiting for the other members of 3 Squadron to arrive, Shagger and Red between them supervised the raising of a large tent to house the SAS supplies already there. The tent was erected in one day with the help of Vietnamese labourers stripped to the waist and soaked by the constant rain. When it was securely pegged down, the two SAS men used the same labourers to move in the supplies: PRC 64 and A510 radio sets, PRC 47 high-frequency radio transceivers, batteries, dehydrated ration packs, US-pattern jungle boots, mosquito nets and a variety of weapons, including SLRs, F1 Carbines and 7.62mm Armalite assault rifles with twenty-round box magazines. Shagger then inveigled 1 ALSG’s warrant-officer into giving him a regular rotation of conscript guards to look after what was, in effect, 3 Squadron’s SAS’s quartermaster’s store.
‘I thought you bastards were supposed to be self-sufficient,’ the warrant officer said.
‘Bloody right,’ Shagger replied.
‘So how come you can’t send enough men in advance to look after your own kit?’
‘They’re still mopping up in Borneo,’ Shagger said, ‘so they couldn’t fly straight here.’
‘And my name’s Ned Kelly,’ the warrant officer replied, then rolled his eyes and sighed. ‘OK, you can have the guards.’
‘I’ve got that prick in my pocket,’ Shagger told Red when they were out of earshot of the warrant officer.
‘You’ll have him up your backside,’ Red replied, ‘if you ask for anything else.’
When construction of the camp had been completed, five days after Shagger and Red had arrived, the two men were called to a briefing in the large HQ tent. By this time the rest of 3 Squadron had arrived by plane from Perth and were crowding out the tent, which was humid after recent rain and filled with whining, buzzing flies and mosquitoes. As the men swotted the insects away, wiped sweat from their faces, and muttered a wide variety of oaths, 1 ALSG’s CO filled them in on the details of the forthcoming campaign against the Viet Cong.
‘The first step,’ he said, ‘is to dominate an area surrounding the base out to 4000 yards, putting the base beyond enemy mortar range. We will do this with aggressive patrolling. The new perimeter will be designated Line Alpha. The second step is to secure the area out to the field artillery range – a distance of about 11,000 yards. Part of this process…’ – he paused uncomfortably before continuing – ‘is the resettlement of Vietnamese living within the area.’
‘You mean we torch or blow up their villages and then shift them elsewhere?’ Shagger said with his customary bluntness.
The CO sighed. ‘That, Sergeant, is substantially correct. I appreciate that some of you may find this kind of work rather tasteless. Unfortunately it can’t be avoided.’
‘Why? It seems unnecessarily brutal – and not exactly designed to win hearts and minds.’
The CO smiled bleakly, not being fond of the SAS’s reputation for straight talking and the so-called ‘Chinese parliament’, an informal talk between officers, NCOs and other ranks in which all opinions were given equal consideration. ‘The advantage of resettling the villagers is that whereas the VC aren’t averse to using villagers as human shields, we can, in the event of an attack, deploy our considerable fire-power without endangering them – another way of winning their hearts and minds.’
‘Good thinking,’ Shagger admitted.
‘I’m pleased that you’re pleased,’ the CO said, wishing the outspoken SAS sergeant would sink into the muddy earth and disappear, but unable to show his disapproval for fear that his own men would think him a fool. ‘So one of our first tasks will be to finish the destruction of a previously fortified village located approximately a mile and a quarter south-east of this base. Huts and other buildings will be torched or blown up and crops destroyed. This we will do over a period of days. Unpleasant though this may seem to you, it’s part of the vitally necessary process of reopening the province’s north-south military supply route, and eventually driving the enemy back until they’re isolated in their jungle bases.’
‘So what’s the SAS’s role in all this?’ Shagger asked him.
‘Your task is to pass on the skills you picked up in Borneo to the ARVN troops and to engage in jungle bashing – patrolling after the VC who’ve turned this camp into their private firing range. Eventually, when Line Alpha has been pushed back to beyond the limits of field artillery, you’ll be given the task of clearing out a VC stronghold in a bunker-and-tunnel complex. The location will be given to you when the time comes.’
‘Why not give us the location now?’ Red asked.
‘Because the less you know the better,’ the CO replied.
‘You mean if we’re captured by Charlie, we’ll be tortured for information,’ Red replied.
‘Yes. And Charlie’s good at that. Now, there’s another important aspect to this operation. You’ll be advised and assisted – though I should stress that the collaboration should be mutually beneficial – by a three-man team from Britain’s 22 SAS. They’ll be arriving from the old country in four days’ time.’
A
