Dead-eye and Jimbo stood up and left the briefing room, carrying their top-secret folders. When they had gone, Callaghan turned to the map behind him and studied it thoughtfully. Eventually, nodding to himself, he unpinned and folded it, then went to prepare for his flight the next day.
Though it was still early in the morning, the sun was up and the light was brilliant, with the Long Hai hills clearly visible from the deck of the carrier HMAS Sydney, where the troops were waiting for the landing-craft. Most were National Servicemen, young and inexperienced, their suntans gained from three months of recruit training in the Australian heat. As the 5th Battalion advance party, they had come alone, with only a sprinkling of Australian SAS NCOs in their midst, but they would be joined by the remainder of their battalion in a few days, then by 6th Battalion, with whom they would form the 1st Australian Task Force in Vietnam. Right now, apart from being weary after the tedious twelve-day voyage from Australia, they were tense with expectation, wondering if they could manage to get to shore without either hurting themselves getting in and out of the landing-craft or, even worse, being shot at by the enemy.
‘Minh Dam secret zone,’ Shagger said to Red as they stood together at the railing of the carrier. ‘And there,’ he continued, pointing north-west to the jungle-covered hills beyond the peninsula of Vung Tau, ‘is the Rung Sat swamps. They’re as bad as those swamps in Malaya, so let’s hope we avoid them. We can do without that shit.’
Grinning, Red adjusted his soft cap and studied the conscript troops as they scrambled from the deck into the landing-craft, to be lowered to the sea. Hardly more than schoolboys, they were wearing jungle greens, rubber-soled canvas boots and soft jungle hats. Getting into the landing-craft was neither easy nor safe, as they had to scramble across from gates in the railing, then over the steel sides of the dangling boats. This necessitated a hair-raising few seconds in mid-air, high above the sea, while laden with a tightly packed bergen and personal weapons. These included the 7.62mm L1A1 SLR, the 5.56mm M16A1 automatic rifle with the 40mm M203 grenade launcher, the 9mm L9A1 Browning semi-automatic pistol and, for those unlucky few, the 7.62mm M60 GPMG with either a steel bipod or the even heavier tripod. Also, their webbing bulged with spare ammunition and M26 high-explosive hand-grenades. Thus burdened, they moved awkwardly and in most cases nervously from the swaying deck of the ship to the landing-craft dangling high above the water in the morning’s fierce heat and dazzling light.
‘Shitting their pants, most of them,’ Red said as he watched the conscripts clambering into the vessel.
‘It’ll be diarrhoea as thin as water,’ Shagger replied, leaning against the railing and spitting over the side, ‘if the VC guns open up from those hills. They’ll smell the stench back in Sydney.’
‘I don’t doubt it at all, Sarge. Still, I’m sure they’ll do good when the time comes to kick ass for the Yanks. All the way with LBJ, eh?’
‘I wouldn’t trust LBJ with my grandmother’s corpse,’ Shagger replied. ‘But if our PM says it’s all the way with him, then that’s where we’ll go – once we get off this ship, that is.’
Shagger and Red were the only two Australian SAS men aboard HMAS Sydney, present to take charge of the stores and vehicles of 3 Squadron, which were being brought in on this ship. The rest of the squadron was to be flown in on one plane directly from the SAS base at Campbell Barracks, Swanbourne, once they’d completed their special training in New Guinea in a few days’ time. Meanwhile Shagger had been placed temporarily in charge of this troop of regular army conscripts and was responsible for getting them from ship to shore. Once there, he and Red would split from them and go their own way.
‘Whoops! Here she comes!’
The landing-craft for Shagger’s men was released from the davits and lowered to deck level, where it hung in mid-air, bouncing lightly against the hull with a dull, monotonous drumming sound. When Red had opened the gate in the railing, Shagger slapped the first man on the shoulder and said, ‘Over you go, lad.’
The young trooper, eighteen at the most, glanced down the dizzying depths to the sea and gulped, but then, at a second slap on the shoulder, gripped his SLR more firmly in his left hand and, with his other, reached out to take hold of the rising, falling side of the landing-craft, and pulled himself over and into it. When he had done so, the other men, relieved to see that it was possible, likewise began dropping into the swaying, creaking vessel one after the other. When everyone was in, Shagger and Red followed suit.
‘Hold on to your weapons,’ the sergeant told the men packed tightly together. ‘This drop could be rough.’
And it was. With the chains screeching against the davits, the landing-craft was lowered in a series of swooping drops and sudden stops, jerking back up a little and swinging from side to side. The drop did not take long, though to some of the men it seemed like an eternity and they were immensely relieved when, with a deafening roaring, pounding sound, the boat plunged into the sea, drenching them in the waves that poured in over the sides. The engine roared into life, water boiled up behind it, and it moved away from the towering side of the ship, heading for shore.
‘Fix bayonets!’ Shagger bawled above the combined roar of the many landing-craft now in the water.
As the bayonets were clicked into place, Shagger and Red grinned at each other, fully aware that as the VC guns had not already fired, they would not be firing; and that the men would be disembarking on to the concrete loading ramp in the middle of the busy Vung Tau port area rather than into a murderous hail of VC gunfire. In fact, the reason for making the men fix bayonets was not the possibility of attack as the landing-craft went in, but to instil in them the need to take thorough precautions in all circumstances from this point on. Nevertheless, when, a few minutes later, the landing-craft had ground to a halt, the ramp was lowered, and the men marched out on to the concrete loading ramp with fixed bayonets, the American and Vietnamese dock workers burst into mocking applause and wolf whistles.
‘Eyes straight ahead!’ Shagger bawled. ‘Keep marching, men!’
Marching up ahead, Shagger and Red led the conscript troops to the reception area of the Task Force base, which had been set up on a deserted stretch of beach on the eastern side of the Vung Tau peninsula. The Task Force consisted of two battalions with supporting arms and logistic backup, a headquarters staff, an armoured personnel carrier squadron, an artillery regiment, an SAS squadron, plus signals, engineer and supply units, totalling 4500 men – so it was scattered across a broad expanse of beach.
‘Sergeant Bannerman reporting, sir,’ Shagger said to the 1st Australian Logistic Support Group (1 ALSG) warrant officer in charge of new arrivals. ‘Three Squadron SAS. In temporary charge of this bunch of turnip-heads and now glad to get rid of them.’
‘They all look seasick,’ the warrant officer observed.
‘That and a touch of nerves. They’re National Servicemen, after all.’
‘Not tough bastards like the SAS, right?’
‘You said it.’
‘Now piss off back to your SAS mates, Sarge, and let me deal with this lot. I’ll soon knock them into shape.’
‘Good on you, sir. Now where would the supplies for 3 Squadron be?’
‘I’m regular army, not SAS. I look after my own. You’ve only been here five minutes and you’re confessing that you’ve already lost your supplies? With friends like you, who needs enemies?’
‘Thanks for that vote of confidence, sir. I think I’ll be on my way.’
‘As long as you’re not in my way, Sarge. Now take to the hills.’
‘Yes, sir!’ Shagger snapped, then hurried away, grinning at Red, to look for his missing supplies. In the event, they had to