THE BEGINNING
Bluey, Snowy and Mick were fishing down where the
river took a sweeping bend around some rocky outcrops. It was Saturday
afternoon in late summer, the sun was hot, the slight breeze was hot, the beer
was getting too warm and they had caught absolutely nothing.
Bluey, who with much swearing, had finally put a new
sinker and hook on his line after he had snagged a floating log, picked up his
rod, stood up and prepared to cast his line out into a deep spot close to the
opposite bank. He looked behind him and said to Snowy, who was sitting on a
large boulder directly behind him, ‘Keep your head down Snow or you’ll get
hit.’ He swung his rod over his head in a perfect cast and his line snaked out
true and straight and he sat back down.
Snowy moved down to sit beside Bluey and said to
him, ‘Blue do you remember the first time you said that to me?’
It was a completely different scene. It was cold,
very cold; the freezing wind blew the snow showers almost horizontally. Lance
corporal Mick Molloy blew on his freezing fingers and placed them back on the
butt and the trigger of the Bren gun. Trying to remain as still as possible so
as to not attract the attention of an enemy sniper, he blinked the snowflakes
from his eyes and concentrated on the line of trees from where the last attack
had come. Beside him, below the top of the pit, private Snowy Black was busy
filling the empty magazines for the light machine gun with fresh rounds; his
rifle propped beside him. He counted as he slid the bullets into position; just
thirteen left. He knew that another sustained attack and they would very
quickly be out of ammunition.
They had met just two days before when Mick’s
original loader had been wounded and Snowy had been delegated to replace him.
During this time they had not had time to properly get to know each other as
they had been in constant action. Mick yelling, ‘Load’ and Snowy responding
with a new magazine for the Bren had been nearly their only communication.
They had been sitting in this small pit that they
had scraped out of the snow and rocky ground for nearly twenty four hours now
and they were hungry and desperately tired. The first push by the North Koreans
supported by hordes of Communist Chinese had dislodged their battalion from the
valley that they had held close to the northern border. They had fallen back
just five hundred metres to their rear positions close to battalion
headquarters and dug in. Here they had repelled repeated attacks whilst on
either side of them troops of other nationalities had retreated in total
disarray.
It had been a surprise when the Communist Chinese
had attacked as the rumour amongst the troops was that the North Koreans were
defeated and they would soon be going home. Now the battalion was strung out
along the ridge in whatever shelter they could find. They had suffered many casualties
but had held their positions.
Mick and Snowy heard the slight noise behind them
at exactly the same time. Mick tried to swing the Bren gun around and Snowy
reached for his rifle. A muffled voice cried out, ‘Take it easy you blokes.
It’s just us poor sods from the reserve area here to save your bacon. Now more
over and let some real soldiers in.’
A silent figure slid forward and rolled into their
pit. He pushed his scarf back grinned and said, ‘Bluey Jones at your service
and I come bearing gifts.’ With that he pulled two full magazines of ammunition
from one pocket and from the other three clips of rounds for Snowy’s 303 and
two tins of bully beef.
Snowy stood up and went to take the ammunition but
Bluey pulled him down just as a snipers bullet clipped the side of his helmet
and sent it spinning into the pit. Bluey picked it up placed it back over
Snowy’s blond head and said, ‘Keep your head down cobber or you will get hit.’
The fishing forgotten the three mates swapped
memories of that time when they had first met. They never talked to other
people about their experiences in Korea but on rare occasions like this they
shared a few yarns and mostly happy memories. They had remained together through
some of the worst fighting experienced by the Australian troops on the Korean
Peninsula. Many times they had been tested to the limits of their courage and
endurance. They became a single unit that instinctively knew how each other
would react and many times this bond and trust had saved their lives. Their
friendship became strong and enduring.
Mick stood up and stretched and said, ‘There’s a
lot of fish in that bloody river but also too much water for the blighters to
swim around in. Now, talking about liquid, a nice cold schooner of beer has my
name on it at the pub. So, as the senior rank, due to my lance corporal stripe,
get a bloody move on.’
