LITMIR.BIZ

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were the centre of her world. They had been dirt poor, but having no basis for comparison, blissfully happy. His mother was always full of life — an impish smile about her mouth and amusement in her eyes — these were the images he had of her. Somehow she managed to make her husband and her nine children feel as if each of them was the only one in her care at times, and they all had a special bond of love with her.

      Then the cancer came to visit the household, infecting her husband but affecting them all at the same time. Slowly the spring ebbed from her step, the light drained from her eyes and the colour was bleached from her hair. Her face became haggard, her eyes dull and flat within the lines of grief and care that appeared, almost over night, on her face. Bishop knew that every single day his father managed to add to his own life; somehow struck several days off the end of hers. But she never complained, withdrawing into herself to suffer, emerging bravely when she was needed to nurture and support her brood, steeling her heart and mind to a future she feared, but could not change.

      Bishop felt hot tears well up in his eyes as he remembered those final days, how he was relieved to go off to war rather than face the hopelessness he saw in his father’s face every day. The guilt of his cowardice was hidden from others who admired his apparent courage in going off to war at such a time, but he knew the truth.

      Then there was the first tour of duty and the experiences that spawned new nightmares, vivid and terrifying experiences that somehow joined with his personal pain to romp over him, to tease and taunt him as he fought for sleep each night. The Australians had what appeared to be a small role to play in the war, at least compared to the heavy fighting faced by their American allies to the north. But Bishop’s unit had been involved in a number of major actions and had suffered heavy casualties during the tour. Those bloody actions were seared into his mind, feeding a monotonous cavalcade of disturbing dreams that invaded his sleep and plagued his waking mind.

      The nightmares followed a regular pattern, one that rolled through his head with a certainty that eventually made bed a place to fear. As the scenes of his dying father faded from his subconscious memories, they were replaced with a new image, that of a routine creek crossing during a monsoonal downpour in the dark brooding jungle. Bishop had argued with the officer about the folly of wading across a swollen stream without first securing the far bank, but he had been warned about his insubordination and then ordered to take his squad across first.

      They were halfway across the creek when the Vietcong sprung the ambush. Secure in their bunkers along the far bank of the stream they poured fire down on the Australians, picking them off as easily as shooting fish in a barrel. Bishop took no smug comfort in the fact that he had been right about the need to secure the crossing, but he wished the officer had shared the stream with them to take a just punishment for his folly. The sudden violence of the attack had wiped out half of his squad in just a few seconds; they crumpled like ragdolls as the Vietcong bullets met them in the middle of the swirling waters.

      He watched in helpless frustration as hungry bullets raised little waterspouts across the surface of the stream, dancing after his troops until they found their target; thudding into flesh and bone with a sickening sound, like a butcher chopping up a side of beef. It was an image that was seared into his soul, one that would follow him to his grave.

      Somehow he had found his way under the barrage that cracked over his head, until he made it to the shelter of an overhang on the far bank. He wallowed in the water that swirled under the overhang, clinging to the root of a tree; his breath coming in great sobbing gulps which burned his lungs. But at least the overhang was hidden from the Vietcong and sheltered from the gunfire. He heard again the screams and shouts of frightened men and the deafening rattle of weapons, saw the churning waters foam pink with blood as the dead and wounded were carried downstream by the current.

      One of his men had struggled towards him through the carnage, his eyes wide with fear, his mouth working silently behind the noise of battle. The man reached out his hand for support, Bishop felt the touch of clammy skin, and then hot rounds from an AK47 began hammering into the man’s body. Surprise and confusion suddenly mixed with the fear until the death mask slid across his features. Blood welled from his mouth, eyes and ears; then he slipped under the water and was gone.

      Then the nightmares would shift to a new scene, the bad dreams moving from plot to plot, like the trailers of a movie. Bishop was in an American helicopter, sharing the dawn sky with a dozen other craft as they skimmed across the humid landscape at the level of the treetops. His chopper suddenly swooped on a wide clearing, a disused paddy field somewhere deep in the featureless jungle. The side gunners opened up as the choppers slid below the tree line, saturating the jungle fringe with bullets to ward off any lurking Vietcong. The practice was designed to give some comfort and protection to the infantry soldiers who would soon disgorge from the aircraft and melt into the undergrowth to begin another patrol.

      The chopper was still a foot from the ground when Bishop saw the crewman mouthing the order for them to get out. He signalled to his men and rolled from the hovering craft as the gunfire started up from the tree line. The side gunner was torn apart from the first burst and Bishop saw several of his men get hit and sprawl in the long grass of the paddy field. The stricken chopper somehow struggled form the field like a wounded pelican, with the dead gunner hanging limply from his harness.

      Bishop cursed wildly and began to crawl through the tall grass, praying that it was high enough to cover him as he moved obliquely towards the jungle fringe, away from the torment of the Vietcong fire. Taking his lead, the remains of his men followed, a terrified and bloodied procession under the cracking exchange of bullets from both sides of the battle.

      They left the gunfire behind as the last of the choppers rose away above the treetops, banked and returned with angry, roaring engines and throbbing rotors to pour streams of tracer rounds into the Vietcong position. Then the choppers were gone and silence fell over the jungle with awesome suddenness. Bishop knew their enemies would be leaving the protection of their bunkers and melting in ones and twos into the bush.

      He knew also that some of them would skirt along the jungle fringe to try to pick off any stragglers they could find before slipping away, a parting gesture of defiance against their stronger and better-equipped tormentors. Three of Bishop’s men were now either dead or badly wounded back on the paddy field, the other six slumped together in a small clearing, fear clouding their faces and the breath burning in their lungs as they looked to him for leadership. Bishop sat with his back against a tree as he contemplated his next move, his M16 across his knees. As he looked up at the dense green wall of jungle that frowned down on the little clearing, he saw a Vietcong soldier’s face framed in the leaves. The image looked posed, like a photograph that one might see in a photographer’s window. The man’s face was young, little more than a boy’s face, the skin pale, opaque like a china doll from months, perhaps years, in the shaded permanent twilight of the jungle.

      Bishop met the dark eyes of his sometime enemy; both of them somehow frozen in fear and wonder, then a slight smile played about the mouth of the Vietcong. Suddenly the face exploded in a bloody mess of minced meat as one of Bishop’s men sent a burst of M16 fire into the bushes, tearing the life from the young face and hurling Bishop out his nightmare into a cold awakening.

      He always woke with a start at this point in the dream, his body bolt upright in the bed, his heart pounding and the bed linen wet and musty with his sweat. He would sit quietly in his bed then, waiting for the pounding of his heart and the rasping of his breath to subside, willing his mind to lock out the images forever.

      When he awoke alone in some military bed he could cope with his condition; it was his problem and his alone. But, when he was back in his old bed in the family home, he ached with confusion and embarrassment as his concerned family appeared in his room, their eyes gaping in wonder as he tried to explain the thing away with a joke. Once or twice was easy to explain, but as the dreams continued he began to despair at his lack of control.

      He had learned to cope with the daylight hours, somehow locking the bad experiences away in secret compartments in his mind, like little rooms in a house where one stores unwanted junk. But his mind was becoming crammed

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