The Beach

∨ The Beach ∧

21

Fng

I covered my eyes with an arm and lay back. Over the sound of the waterfall Étienne’s disembodied voice called to me, saying he was about to jump. From his angle, he wouldn’t have been able to see the man in the trees. I didn’t bother to answer him.

‘You OK?’ I heard the man ask, and the grass rustled as he took a few steps towards me. ‘I’m sorry, I should have…You must be really freaked out.’

‘Freaked out?’ I thought. ‘Not really. I feel quite relaxed.’

Extremely relaxed. Floaty. Between my fingers I could feel the cigarette warming my skin, burning closer to my hand.

‘Who are you calling an FNG?’ I murmured.

A shadow passed across my face as the man bent over to check I hadn’t fainted. ‘Did you say something?’

‘Yeah. I did.’

Étienne shrieked as he fell, and the noise of his splash merged into the pounding of the water, and the pounding of the water sounded like the pounding of a helicopter.

‘I said, who are you calling an FNG?’

The man paused. ‘You’ve been here before? I don’t recognize you.’

I smiled. ‘Sure I’ve been here before,’ I replied. ‘In my dreams.’

♦

Fragging. Bagging. Klicks. Grunts. Gooks. Charlie. MIA. KIA. LZ. DMZ. FNG.

FNG. Someone who’s just starting their first tour in Vietnam. A Fucking New Guy.

Where do I learn these things?

I saw 84 Charlie Mopic in 1989. I saw Platoon in 1986. My friend Tom said, ‘Rich, you want to see Platoon?’

‘OK,’ I said, and he grinned. ‘Then you’d better find someone to go with.’ He was always making jokes like that – it was as natural to him as breathing. We went to see it that night at the Swiss Cottage Odeon, screen one, 1986.

1991, standing in an airport lounge, looking for something to pass the hours over a long flight to Jakarta. ‘Eric Lustbader?’ suggested Sean, and I shook my head. I’d seen Michael Herr sending dispatches. The hours flew by.

Fucking New Guy? Yea, though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherfucker in the valley.

New to what?

♦

We followed the man through the trees. Sometimes we crossed the stream from the pool as it meandered through the jungle, and sometimes we passed glades – one with a smouldering camp-fire and charred fish-heads strewn around it.

We didn’t talk much as we walked. The only thing that the man would tell us was his name – Jed. The rest of our questions he waved aside. ‘Simpler to deal with the talking at the camp,’ he explained. ‘We’ve got as many questions for you as you’ve got for us.’

♦

At first glance the camp was close to how I’d imagined it might be. There was a large, dusty clearing surrounded by the rocket-ship trees and dotted with makeshift bamboo huts. A few canvas tents looked incongruous, but otherwise it was very like the kind of South–East–Asian village I’d seen many times before. At the far end was a larger construction, a longhouse, and beside it the stream from the waterfall re-emerged, bending around to run along the edge of the clearing. From the straightness of its banks, it had obviously been deliberately diverted.

It was only after taking all this in that I noticed there was something strange about the light. The forest had been both dark and bright by turns, but here everything was lit in an unchanging twilight, more like dusk than midday. I looked up, following the trunk of one of the giant trees. The height of the tree alone was breathtaking, accentuated by the fact that the lower branches had been cut away, so it was possible to appreciate its size. Higher up the branches began to grow again, curving upwards across the clearing like gables until they joined with the branches from the other side. But their point of joining seemed too dense and thick, and as I looked harder I began to see that they were coiled around each other, intertwining to form a cavernous ceiling of wood and leaves, hanging with the stalactite vines that now became magically appropriate.

‘Camouflage,’ said Jed, behind me. ‘We don’t want to be seen from the air. Planes sometimes fly over. Not often, but sometimes.’ He pointed upwards. ‘Originally the branches were tied together with ropes but now they just grow that way. Every so often we have to cut them back a bit, or it gets too gloomy. Impressive, huh?’

‘Stunning,’ I agreed, and was so captivated by this sight that I didn’t even register that people had begun to emerge from the longhouse and were walking over the clearing towards us. Three people to be exact. Two women and a man.

‘Sal, Cassie and Bugs,’ said one of the women as they reached us. ‘I’m Sal, but don’t try to remember our names.’ She smiled warmly. ‘You’ll only get confused when you meet the others, and you’ll learn them all eventually.’

I’m not likely to forget Bugs, I thought to myself, just managing to suppress a laugh. I frowned and put a hand up to my temples. Since jumping off the waterfall my head had been feeling increasingly light. Now it had started to feel like it might float off my shoulders.

Françoise stepped up to the woman and said, ‘Françoise, Étienne and Richard.’

‘You’re French! Lovely! We’ve only got one other French person here.’

‘Richard is English.’ Françoise gestured to me and I tried to nod politely, but I overran the motion forwards and the nod turned into a little bow.

‘Lovely!’ exclaimed the woman again, watching me curiously out of the corner of her eye. ‘…Well, let’s get you some food, because I know you’re all hungry.’ She turned to the man. ‘Bugs, you want to fix some stew? Then we can all have a good long chat and get to know each other. Does that sound good?’

‘It sounds great, Sal,’ I said loudly. ‘You know, you’re quite right. I do feel hungry.’ The laugh I’d suppressed before suddenly worked its way out. ‘We’ve only eaten these cold Magi-Noodles and chocolate. We couldn’t take the Calor gas stove…Étienne’s stove…And…’

Jed lunged to catch me as I fainted, but too late. His alarmed face spun out of view as I toppled backwards. The last thing I saw was a blue pinprick of sky through the canopy ceiling, before darkness rushed in and engulfed it.