Smoky Joe's Cafe by Bryce Courtenay

bush, most of it below knee height.
    â€˜We’re on our bellies, there’s no moving forward or, matter of fact, in any direction, anything more vertical than a leopard crawl and you’re dead meat. We’re taking casualties as we try to move to find the best cover. We’ve never been in anything like this before. But I’ve got to say it, the blokes are still identifying targets and yelling out the location. The noise is becoming deafening, even to be heard by the bloke next to you, you have to shout. It’s amazing how much shouting goes on in a battle like this and I’m doin’ me best to try to follow it and to direct the fire accordingly.’
    I glance up, Wendy is looking at me, her eyes real soft and smoky. She looks like she’s about to cry.
    â€˜It’s about this time that Mr Blunt, our platoon commander, is killed while putting his head up to see where the artillery is landing so that we can call it in closer to us.
    â€˜Shorty takes over. I’m not aware of this at the time, I’m too busy trying to keep me own section intact, fighting the battle and attending to our casualties. It’s the Australian way, you don’t let a mate bleed to death for lack of attention, even in the heat of a battle.
    â€˜Then quite suddenly the rain comes, the way it does
in Vietnam. Nothing, then everything, the full monsoon. The sudden roar of the water even drowns the sounds of the fighting. It’s coming down in solid sheets so we can’t see more than about sixty or seventy yards. There’s Noggies, dark shapes in the downpour, still spread out, in extended line and comin’ for us. There’s no way we can hold ‘em, half our blokes are out of action and we’re running dangerously low on ammo. It’s all over, Red Rover.
    â€˜But then, as Lawsy once put it, “Cometh hope from the Heavens”. We’re stuffed five different ways and crucified twice over and our artillery, which seems to have taken forever to find its range, now hits spot on. They’re dropping salvos just ahead of us. Even with the rain and the noise of battle we can hear the beautiful whistle of the shells. Then the ripping sound, like the air being torn apart, is followed by a blue flash.
Kerboom
! Suddenly there are Noggies being blown sky high, limbs hurled through the air, screams, headless, armless, legless torsos rolling, flying, somersaulting, bouncing, sliding in the mud. Talk about just in time!
    â€˜But the bastards only stop for a moment.
    â€˜By now the rubber plantation is just mud and tracer bullets kicking up same, with the rain competing for attention. The VC are yelling blue murder. It’s weird,
but you can hear the human voice through just about anything. They’re going ape-shit as they come at us, jumping over low bushes, running straight, keeping formation, firing from the hip. Who was it trained these bastards?
    â€˜Our artillery is now coming in real heavy and real close. There’s wholesale slaughter in Charlie’s ranks, but you could’ve fooled me, they’re still advancing, the bastards must be high on something.
    â€˜We’ve been going about an hour and a half and finally, we, I mean, our artillery, get the better of them and we bring them to a halt, but the enemy fire is still heavy. By this time, I reckon half our platoon is dead or seriously wounded.
    â€˜With the frontal assault halted for the moment I now see a Noggie machine gunner’s got our range. In the heat of the battle I should’ve seen him, but I didn’t. I only see him when he takes out Maloney, who has moved to help out McKenzie, who’s wounded. I crawl over, they’re both dead.
    â€˜The VC machine gunner puts a line of tracers no more than eighteen inches ahead of Mo and me, the mud the bullets kick up splattering our greens. I have a rough idea where the firing is coming from, I try to get what’s left of the section