19
“Mother, tell your children, Not to
do what I have done,
Spend your life in sin and misery,
In the house at Seven Dang Dung.”
- House Of The Rising Sun
Apologies to Eric Burdon & The Animals
Important things to remember, of course,
were; if a taxi driver gets out of the cab, you get out too because it usually
means that he has left a bomb in the cab. The first time that this happened to
our three heroes, we panicked and nearly broke our necks trying to get out,
only to find out that he had stopped to buy a packet of cigarettes. To our
dismay, we soon found that hailing a cab just before
Another time, our taxi driver was stopped by
Vietnamese MPs and our driver was wrenched out and thrown up against the wall.
As they put a gun to his head, an American MP appeared and said, “Listen, if
they shoot this guy, don’t interfere.” Jon and I quickly high-tailed it up to
Driving around was sometimes a risky business
but we seemed to get the hang of it after a while. Reports of American officers
in motorised cyclos being purposely run into buses didn’t help any. It was
frightening enough to ride in one of those things as it was. There were also
reports of taxi drivers being paid a bounty on certain ranks of officers if
they delivered them to Viet Cong headquarters. It wasn’t until about twelve
months later that they found where one of the VC headquarters was. Yes folks,
just around the corner from number Seven Dang Dung, the new abode for Lucky
Starr and the Rajahs.
Our white French villa had a nice little
courtyard and the whole place was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. There to
meet us at the front gate were our two smiling Vietnamese maids Ti Ba and Ti
To. Ti Ba was the elder one, very matronly with a kind round face. She was the
Mama San. The skinny one who was always blushing and giggling was Ti To. Jack
Edwards, our Texan organiser from Special Services introduced us and they both
bowed.
“Bonjour Messieurs,” they said in
unison. We were surprised to learn that they only spoke French and Vietnamese.
Here was our first chance to try out our schoolboy French. We all failed
miserably. My French contribution of “My aunt has a red pencil box” didn’t come
up much in conversation. Communication was going to be difficult to say the
least.
Mama San couldn’t pronounce our names, so we
were about to take on new identities according to which bed we slept in. Lucky
was Un (1), Leon was Deux (2), Michael was Trois (3), and
Jon was Quatre (4). All our clothes were promptly stitched with our
appropriate numbers. The maids’ quarters were situated at the back of the
villa. Part of the room was open to the sky with a stone floor, fuel stove and washing
tubs. And did they love to wash! Every time they saw clothes, they washed them.
Mr. Muckle put a suit out to wear while he was having a shower. By the time he
had finished his shower, he looked for his suit and found it was hanging on the
line, dripping wet. Michael gave them a verbal blast and they just smiled at
him. They couldn’t understand a word he was saying. They thought we were all
incredibly funny. Mama San was a great cook and she cooked us all sorts of
wondrous food that we had never tasted before. However, for the first few days
our stomachs were still a little delicate after our bout of the ‘Saigons’.
“How are we going to explain to her that we don’t like rice for breakfast?” grumbled Michael as we sat at the breakfast table, feeling sick and staring at a great mountain of steaming rice in the middle of the table. “Tell her it’s number ten,” piped up Clever Jon, “They understand that. Everything in this country is either number one or number ten.” A dreadful hurt look came over Mama San’s face and we didn’t get any rice for days. Finally, Lucky came up with the solution.
“You silly bastards, you’ve got to explain
that rice is only number ten for le petite déjeuner. The rest of the
time it’s number one.” A smile came back to Mama San’s face and the rice
started flowing again. The next morning at breakfast, there it was again, a
huge mountain of rice! So much for Lucky’s French! This time Michael horrified
Mama San and Ti To by pouring milk and sugar on the rice and eating it with a
banana.
For the first week Mama San’s Nuoc mam
(rotten fish sauce) was given a number ten rating and things were improving in
the culinary department until we were surprised by the discovery of some
monkey’s brains in the fridge. We didn’t say anything to Mama San but after a
couple of days they disappeared. We must have eaten them! Yuk!
Meanwhile, we started our first few nights at
the Plaza Hotel BOQ (Bachelor Officers’ Quarters) and the Rex Hotel. The clubs
were packed with Yanks and Aussies and we got a standing ovation in both
places. If this was any indication we were going to enjoy playing these places
very much. By the end of the week, we were Jack Edwards’ golden Aussie boys. He
couldn’t believe the fantastic reception we were getting. We told the gullible
Texan so much about Australia that he arranged to take a week’s R&R in
Sydney. He was a bit nervous about landing at Mascot because we told him that
the airport was surrounded by barbed wire to stop the Aborigines from throwing
spears at the planes. He was, however, looking forward to seeing all the
kangaroos come into town at 5pm. “That’s why the shops have to close at five,
because the kangaroos kick the shit out of the place,” someone added with a
perfectly straight face.
It was on Friday, October 29, on the way back
to the Rex in the Navy truck after waving goodbye to Jack, that my so-so
Vietnamese nearly got us into big trouble. Our Vietnamese driver was a little
confused when Commander “Bozo” King told him to take us to the Rex Hotel. By
that time I knew the way, so I screamed out from the back, “Di thang!”
“(Straight ahead!)”. The driver took me literally and roared straight through a
Korean roadblock. The Koreans aren’t known for their sense of humour and they
started firing at us. We ducked down in the back with bullets whizzing over our
heads, still laughing at the dopey driver. It didn’t occur to us until later
that we had almost been killed.
It’s funny how you are not always frightened
while something is actually happening. Fear seems to be greater when you are
expecting something terrible to happen and bravery is really just carrying on
in spite of it. We certainly weren’t brave; a little stupid perhaps. We were
laughing too much to notice! Poor old Bozo nearly had a heart attack.
The dangers of being caught out after curfew
were alleviated when the Australian Army came to the rescue and provided us
with transport to and from the gigs. Each night, an Army Combi would pick us up
from the villa with a driver and another Aussie soldier in the front riding
‘shotgun’; the ‘shotgun’ being a 50-calibre machine-gun. And at the end of the
night, there they were again, waiting to drive us home. We became fast friends
with the drivers who were usually Bob, Churchie, Andy or Irish. One night Irish
was missing and we found out that he had been wounded at Bien Hoa. This was
another reminder that you could be laughing one day and deadly serious the
next.
Our little villa at number Seven Dang Dung
was starting to feel like home. Every afternoon, Mama San would serve us coffee
and little spring rolls (Cha Gio) on the porch. We were beginning to
feel like Humphrey Bogart in white suits, surrounded by overhead fans and
louvre windows. It was like a scene out of a tropical B grade movie. Mama San
and Ti To were always there, looking after us every day, even though we found
out later that they were only hired by the Americans to come separately every
alternate day. Through an interpreter, we were told that they loved to come
every day because, “Everybody happy and laugh all the time.”
By this time, we had learnt a new military
word called ‘requisition’. You didn’t have to ask for anything. If you needed
something, you just requisitioned it. We decided that Mama San and Ti To
should have a real iron and maybe even a real bed. We noticed that they had an
ancient-looking iron that they heated up on the fuel stove. Also, to our
horror, they were sleeping in the maid’s quarters on a wooden bed with no
mattress or a piece of cardboard on the stone floor. We weren’t too sure if the
requisition was going to work, especially when Jon decided that we may as well
make it a good one and throw in a crate of Budweiser. But, sure enough, that
very same day an American Navy truck arrived all the goodies we requested as
well as a crate of Coke, some cheese and a lot of baloney. “No, That’s not
bullshit. It’s the American equivalent of Devon sausage,” said Jon as he sucked
on a can of Budweiser. Mama San was absolutely beside herself with her new
electric steam iron. Every time it shot out some steam, she would burst into
laughter as she squatted on her haunches in the ironing position. The beds,
however, were another matter. We checked on them that night, through the
iron-gate that separated the maids’ quarters. And there they were, sleeping on
the cardboard as usual. And loving it!
Our work load was proving to be quite
exhausting and we always looked forward to our Tuesday rest day, so we decided
to have a little party at the villa on November 2 and invite some our new
Australian and American friends, plus one Canadian, appropriately named,
Canada. This must have been about the time that Mr. Muckle entered his ‘Ronald
Colman Suave’ period. He did a great job ordering all the food and setting up
the music, dressed in his new Chinese smoking jacket. The only thing missing
was some female company to decorate this gala event. We all threw in some money
and went up to a local bar in Hai Ba Trung Street called the Flamingo Bar and
‘bought’ about seven or eight girls out of the bar for the night.
Things were looking great as Michael served
out the munchies and drinks while we waited for the girls to arrive. This was
going to be a class evening - an elegant night of joie de vivre. No
sooner had the girls arrived when they started to take their clothes off. “No,
not yet,” Michael protested, “I haven’t even finished serving the drinks.” Mr.
Muckle’s protests fell on deaf ears. These girls weren’t here for socialising.
They wanted to get straight down to business. Our attempts to convince them
that they didn’t have to take their clothes off didn’t seem to be working and I
noticed a strange look coming over Canada. He couldn’t restrain himself any
longer. “I hope this one’s mine,” he slobbered as he swept one of the now naked
girls into his arms.
From then on, the whole party seemed to
degenerate into a sex orgy of giant proportions. Nobody was safe from the
incumbent lust, which seemed to go on for hours. Amidst roars of delight, the
party careered on into the bathroom. The bargirls were fascinated by the
opulence of a real luxury bathroom. They kept taking it in turns, jumping up on
the sink for a quick douche, until somebody showed them that we had a real
shower that sprayed water. They were amazed. Mr. Muckle was disgusted when one
of them peed on the tiled floor. “Hey, you can’t do that!” he cried. He then
proceeded to squirt her with shaving cream. At first they thought it was ice
cream and tried to eat it. Then a huge shaving cream fight ensued with
hilarious results. Everyone looked like they were wearing grotesque white
bikinis and Santa Claus beards. Suddenly, without warning, most of the girls
put their clothes on and left. We were dumbfounded until someone explained that
they were probably trying to get back to the Flamingo Bar to make some more
money before curfew.
The next morning at breakfast, Mama San was wearing an exaggerated
frown. “Méchant, méchant,” she cried, shaking her index finger at Jon.
She didn’t look very happy. “What does ‘meshont’ mean, Drummer?” said Jon,
turning to me in bewilderment. “I dunno, ask Lucky, he’s the French expert,”
Lucky shook his head. Mama San returned carrying some towels. “Méchant,
méchant!” This time it seemed to be directed at all of us. We sat there
like puzzled schoolboys, and then she ran a couple of towels under her nose.
“Pooh,” she winced, “Mademoiselle Hai Ba Trung.” Then came the menacing
finger, “Méchant!” “I don’t think she’s too happy about last night’s
party,” Lucky concluded wisely.
Two more days of “Méchant” finally
drove me crazy. When I made the next perilous trip by motorised cyclo to the
American PX store, I found a French-English dictionary. “Mauvais, Mechanician…
ah, here we are Méchant translated, ‘Naughty’.” We should have guessed.
The American PX store was just like a giant supermarket for servicemen
with everything from American ice cream, to Japanese tape recorders at less
than half the price. Michael bought a two-track Akai tape recorder and we took
it home and tried it out on Mama San and Ti To. We recorded ourselves asking for
four cups of coffee and a sandwich (in French, of course) on one track. Then we
placed the tape recorder under the bed, pressed playback and record and turned
it up loud. We called out for Mama san and Ti To and then hid in the next room.
They both rushed in and started bowing to the tape recorder, “Oui, monsieur,
café pour quatre, oui monsieur.” When we finally played their own voices
back they laughed and giggled for hours. They still didn’t fully understand but
we didn’t hear anymore ‘méchants’ for a while.
Our villa soon became a convenient place for entertaining as well as
putting the odd soldier up for the night when they were caught out after
curfew. Mama San did all the shopping for the local food, so that we wouldn’t
get overcharged. The Vietnamese had one price for the locals and another for
the Americans; otherwise it would have been difficult for them to compete
against the free-spending Yanks. The US price was anything from double to ten
times as much as the norm. There was also another price for the Cheap Charlies
from Uc Dai Loi (Australia). Even though we were becoming quite adept in
the bargaining department, we still couldn’t do as well as Mama San. Besides,
she knew what to buy. Every week she would present us with a bill and a list of
items that she had purchased and, as we were teaching her to speak English, we
would go through the items with her. Mama San would point to a banana, say the
word in Vietnamese and we would follow with the English. She would then reply,
“Oui monsieur, banana!” and so on.
The English lessons were going fine until Mama San fumbled through the
cupboard to find some sugar to point to, so she could get the English word.
“Oh, shit!” Jon exclaimed, “She means sugar!” Mama San nodded gleefully, “Oui
monsieur, shit!” From that moment on, Mama San’s English word for sugar was
shit. We couldn’t convince her otherwise.
This was all very well until we had the Australian Cultural Attaché and
his daughter around for afternoon tea. Ti Ba
was on her best behaviour. “Café monsieur?” “Yes, thank you Mama San,”
replied the Attaché. “Shit, monsieur?” said Mama San proudly showing off
her grasp of the Australian language. “Err, no thank you,” he politely
declined. Ti To topped the afternoon off, by
bowing and saying. “Bloody good! Don’t be a galah!” It took Michael days to
teach her that one.
At the end of October, Lucky played his last week with us at the Five
Oceans Club and the Hong Kong BOQ Club, before he left for his lucrative tour
of nightclubs in Manila and other parts of the Far East. The Americans were
absolutely fascinated every time Lucky sang his big hit I’ve Been Everywhere.
They all recognised it as a Hank Snow hit and marvelled at how fast Lucky could
sing the words. They were puzzled, however, with the opening lines of the song,
where Lucky sings, “Well I was humpin’ my bluey on a dusty Oodnadatta road
when along came a semi…” This didn’t translate to American very well as
‘humping’ in American meant ‘screwing’ and a ‘bluey’ was a ‘dog’. This prompted
a few Yank comments like “Hey Lucky, sing that Hank Snow song, where you’re
fuckin’ a dog on a dusty road!”
Much later, on our second trip Vietnam tour in 1966, we had the pleasure
of meeting Hank Snow and his band at the Meyerkord Hotel. Lucky introduced
himself as the guy who originally sent I’ve Been Everywhere to him in
the States. Lucky had gone to the trouble of writing an American version, which
Hank Snow subsequently ripped off and recorded. Hank stepped back, looking a
little surprised, and as he shook Lucky’s hand he said, “Well, I’d really like
to thank you, son. That song made me a million dollars. If you’ve got any more
like that, you just send ‘em right over.” Poor Lucky. I thought he was going to
throw up on the spot.
Visitors to our humble abode at Seven Dang Dung were many and varied. It
was not unusual to wake in the morning and find an American Negro or an
Australian officer flaked out in the lounge room from the previous night. We
always found it unnerving to introduce two people that we had befriended, only
to find them snapping out salutes when one of them turned out to be a Colonel
and the other a Sergeant or some other different rank. Even a friendly game of
Monopoly or Stockmarket had its drawbacks when the ranks were not compatible.
“I’m sorry sir but I am going to have to bankrupt you,” said one apologetic
Corporal to our visiting Major.
Our play money that we used for Monopoly came in handy when some
transient Septic Tank challenged us to a game of Craps. “You Aussies saved my
father’s ass during the last war. Let me show y’all how to play Craps.” Besides
not understanding the game, we didn’t understand a word he was saying, so every
time he put his money down we covered it with Monopoly money. The silly bugger
thought it was Australian money. Our play money didn’t look much worse than the
military money that everybody used anyway. American ‘green’ dollars were
illegal in case they fell into the enemy’s hands. As the Crap game wore on, Mr.
Muckle pretended to do a quick calculation of converting American dollars into
our so-called Australian money, consisting of “Wombats”, “Galahs” and
“Wallabies. “Now let’s see,” said Michael thoughtfully, “There are five Galahs
in a Wombat which is equal to two Wallabies. Right! That ought to cover it!”
The poor Septic finally left the villa a happy man, his pockets bulging with
Wombats and Wallabies. We never saw him again.
Just as we were getting used to the American military money (MPC), a
directive came down from the American Navy on November 16, not to pay any more
civilians with MPC. When I went to Bozo’s office to pick up our money for the
week, I was given what almost amounted to a wheel barrowful of Vietnamese
money. One dollar was equal to 120P. This meant we had to run around all over
the place to change it back to American money, which was highly illegal.
It eventually led Jon and me down a back alley where we tried to do a
deal with a Vietnamese moneychanger. This was our first mistake. Our second
mistake was to think that we were getting a good exchange rate. As it turned
out, the moneychanger’s assistant was a bit of an amateur magician. Every time
the moneychanger counted the money into his hands, he palmed a few dollars into
his pocket. When I caught him out, he pulled a knife so I instinctively grabbed
him by the throat. They both dropped the money and the knife and ran like hell,
babbling something in Vietnamese that roughly translated as “You can’t be too
sure about those Uc Dai Loi; some of them are crazy!” Nevertheless it
was a stupid situation for us to get in to. Luckily, the following week we went
back to being paid in MPC again. They still hadn’t figured out how to classify
us. We didn’t seem to be soldiers or civilians.
That week, we were called into Australian Headquarters to receive a
commendation from Brigadier Jackson who congratulated us on the fine job we
were doing, entertaining the Australian Troops in Vietnam. We also received
word that the Australian Forces Overseas Fund, AFOF, looked like getting off
the ground and Bill Watson had planned a whole lot of shows for next year,
including the Delltones and Dig Richards. Bill was also sending another band to
relieve us, called the Beaumarks. They were due to arrive in a couple of weeks.
After all, we couldn’t stay in this place forever!
The Rajahs were the toast of the town for a week at the Capitol Hotel
(BEQ) in Cholon. This was followed by a week at the Townhouse BOQ, which included
a special night of pressed turkey for Thanks-giving with the Yanks on November
25. Even with all of this, we still found time to fit in the occasional free
show in the field.
One memorable Rajah show was held at a place they called The Old Rice
Mill. We gave them everything we had from Shout to Sh’Boom. The
short bursts of gunfire in the distance didn’t seem to worry us anymore. We
must have been getting used to it. I nearly passed out at the end of the show.
The heat was starting to get to me and I had forgotten to keep up my salt
in-take. What with - “Take Malaria pills every Friday. Take extra salt. Don’t
eat this, don’t eat that – and if you drink the water, you’re dead!” No wonder
I was confused.
“Here, y’all give him one of these. That’ll fix him good,” said an
American GI with a Southern drawl and laden with cans of Shlitz. “You Aussies
are okay!” “Yeah thanks, you Yanks are okay too,” I replied.
The smile disappeared from his face. “I ain’t no YANKEE!”
Well, how were we to know that they were still fighting the Civil War?
From then on, every time we played a short burst of Yankee Doodle, it
had to be immediately followed by Dixie or it would cause a mild riot.
It was always good for a stir, anyway.
We had to admit, that most of the Americans we met always behaved like
thorough gentlemen, especially in the officer’s clubs. Mr. Muckle had a
captain’s hat and he was saluted about four times while we were at the Tan Son
Nhut swimming pool. We were limbering up for our night at the Tan Son Nhut
Playboy Club. There wasn’t a round-eyed bunny in sight.
Meanwhile, the guerrilla war was stepping up around town and we kept
getting letters from the Australian Embassy, advising us that it was no longer
safe for civilians to stay in Saigon. They must have known something. Every
second day, there was a bombing of some sort. About an hour after we finished
our gig at the Hung Dao BEQ, the hotel directly across the road from us was
blown up. It was the Metropole Hotel, a large billet for a lot of American
servicemen. The Viet Cong shot the guard on duty and ran a truck crammed with
explosives into the ground floor.
The next morning Jon and I went into town to check out the damage and
who should be amongst the horrified spectators but our esteemed manager and
mentor, Bill Watson, just arrived in Saigon. I crept up behind him. “Another
fine mess you’ve got us into, Bill.” Watson jumped back a little startled and
ignored my Laurel & Hardy joke. “Jesus, this place is a lot more dangerous
than I thought. Where were you guys playing last night?” We pointed across the
road to the Hung Dao which now had the front door half-caved in from the blast.
“Welcome to Saigon, Bill,” said Jon with a cynical grin.
MY
COUNTRY IS CRYING
JON: “These things are sent to try us
boys,” said Bill laconically, “I have to meet someone at Commander King’s
office. You may as well come with me and we’ll fix up your pay.”
We were ushered into Commander King’s office
by an Ensign called Chuck. King was affectionately and otherwise known as “Bozo
the Clown” by his staff. He was definitely Saigon’s answer to Captain
Binghamton”; I could imagine him saying, “What! What! What! McHale?” plus he
had an Ensign called Chuck (as in Ensign Parker)! “Come on in guys, sit down.
Chuck, bring us some carfee, will ya?” said Bozo as he shuffled some papers on
his desk.
“Now, down to business with you guys. There seems to be some trouble
regards paying you.” Just then the phone rang. “Need some food? Of course we
need food. We got us about 100,000 troops on the way and I have to feed ‘em!
Waal for a start you can give me thirty tons of baloney sausage and…” Chuck
reappeared with the ‘carfee’. “Excuse me sir, but there’s a young lady from the
Philippines outside, who says she can sing.” “Okay, sign her up Chuck mah boy,
1,000 bucks a week.” “B-B-But sir, you haven’t even seen her!” “No buts, boy.
If she looks good, sign her up!” $1,000 a week and they were having trouble
paying us?
“Now, back to you guys. We’re going to have
to pay you in Piastres again. MPC is getting scarce.” An audible sigh of relief
came from the three of us. For a moment there we thought we were getting
nothing. “That’s fine, Commander,” said Bill in his sucking-up voice. With
Watson’s commission, we had to collect quite a bundle. There was also an extra
bundle for Lucky. “Excuse me sir,” said Leon, “You’ve given us Lucky’s money as
well and he’s not with us anymore.” “That’s no sweat son. You can still play
without him,” said Bozo. Before the money could be passed over the desk, Bill
quickly interrupted with, “Err, I’ll take care of that, Leon.” At 120 Piastres
to the dollar, it came to a lot of paper by the time Bozo had dealt it out on
his desk like so much Monopoly money. We would probably need another
wheelbarrow to take it away.
“See you guys later. Have a good one!” said
the jolly Bozo. We left with many 500 Piastre notes bulging in our pockets;
Watson left with an even bigger bulge; the Filipino left with stars and dollar
signs in her eyes. With business concluded, Bozo presumably went back to making
paper hats out of requisition forms. Such is life at the US Navy Special
Services Office!
Leon and I decided to relieve our straining
pockets of some of the Piastres with some shopping on Nguyen Hue, The Street of
Flowers. It was a wide and beautiful street; each side lined with parked
bicycles and little shops and stalls that sold everything you could want and
more. At some of the stalls they would grab you and yell, “Hey GI, you want to
buy forty-foot-uncle-frightener?” or some other useless artefact. “We no GI, We
Uc Da Loi!” we would reply. “Ahh! Uc Da Loi, Cheap Charlie!” This
would assure us of many bargains, as they would not think we were Americans
about to shower them with dollars.
One of our favourite places to play was the
Capitol Hotel BEQ in Cholon, the twin city to Saigon. The Yank enlisted men
were always friendly and loved our music and there were plenty of bars to
frequent as we always finished early. There were The Nancy Bar, The Ritz Bar,
The Black Cat Bar and The Grand Exalted Poo bah!
For a couple of nights at the Capitol, we had
a guest artist named Vestre Roxas, a trumpet player of unknown origin and
dubious talent. His agent was none other than Bang Phan Dinh, a pleasant little
Vietnamese guy we’d met at the Hung Dao. “You boys like to do some job for me?”
asked Bang. “Sure, we could do with some extra piastres,” said the
business-like Drummer. “Okay, I get you some work. I will come and see you
tomorrow. Where you live?” “Dang Dung, Sobye (7),” said Leon.
“Okay, see you tomorrow,” said Bang cheerily. “Seems like a nice little guy,”
said the Muckle. “Yeah, I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” I said warily.
As promised, Mr. Bang arrived at the villa the next day, Tuesday, December 7. He was driving a huge pillar box red Oldsmobile – the 1964 model with the slanted headlights. Very appropriate! Mr. Bang looked very prosperous which could be either good or bad for us. Tea on the porch was in order, so Ti To and Ti Ba obliged with much giggling and bowing. “I have some work, not much, but you busy anyway. Some you find interesting,” said the smiling Bang. We worked out an itinerary of BOQs and BEQs – some we were already doing and some new ones for three times the money Watson was paying. When business was taken care of, Bang said, “Come, I take you for drive now, see some scenery.”
We piled joyfully into the red slanty-eyed
Olds’ and drove out along Bien Hoa Highway. What a fine machine this was. With
big armchair seats and air-conditioned comfort, it went like a fucking rocket
ship! Much more yer officer’s transport! “We stop and have drink now,” said our
genial little host. We stopped at a small kiosk in a village. Livestock were
aimlessly roaming the street and people were going about their usual daily
routine of haggling prices, putting ducks and chickens in boxes, chasing pigs,
until they saw us. You can imagine what a sight this was – the huge Oldsmobile,
plus our round eyes, long hair and tight pants. It was all a bit much for your
simple peasant villager. They gathered round and stared at us, jabbering
excitedly while Bang bought soft drinks from a bewildered shopkeeper. Seven Up
was my fave-rave Yankee soft drink. The local ones were pretty disgusting and,
as for the American grape juice, forget it!
“Tonight I take you for dinner. I know many
good restaurant.” As we were starting to draw a rather large audience I said,
“Let’s go, Bang, we’re severely outnumbered here!” “They no hurt you. You just
look very strange to them.” The feeling was mutual. True to his word, the diminutive
Asia’s answer-to-Bill Watson arrived at 6.30pm in the Olds’ to take us to
dinner. I was beginning to like this little fella. He seemed very sincere,
almost trustworthy. None of yer “Have a nice day” bullshit!
Dinner was at a restaurant, aptly named The
Two Crabs (Hai Cua). Crabs were roaming around and entangling themselves
in a huge tank. After many courses of crab this-and-that (surely there’s
nothing left but crab ice cream!), the waiter appeared with gigantic whole
crabs, one for each of us! “Ahh, here is main course!” said Bang excitedly. We,
naturally, had pigged out on the other courses, not knowing of this surprise.
We forced ourselves anyway. We left the Hai Cai absolutely stuffed with crab. A
bad dose of the crabs, one might say – or maybe that was yet to come?
“Okay, now we have scientific massage,” said
Bang. “Scientific what?!” exclaimed Michael. “Massage, make you feel good,”
said Bang proudly. “First steam bath, then massage,” he said as we walked into
a place that looked like a cross between a hospital and a garbage dump. A big
sign over the door read: SCIENTIFIC MASSAGE. Bang jabbered a little to the
proprietor, presumably haggling, and then we went into the steam room.
“Take off clothes and give to me,” said a
girl. We obliged. Jockettes were left on. The steam bath was enjoyed by
everyone but me. I can’t stand humidity. “Now come in room and lie on table,” a
girl said to me. What could I say? I must admit, I was thinking of all the
stories I’d heard about servicemen being bumped off in these situations but I
wasn’t a serviceman, was I? I lay on the table and off came the Jockettes. The
girl was giving me one of the best head-jobs I’d ever had, with the possible
exception of Helen from The Board of Directors. Half way through, some
little boys who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, came in and said,
“Boy much better. Only charge 200P. Girl charge 500P.” “Dee Dee Mau!
(Piss off!) I said, and I heard the same from the Muckle in the cubicle next
door, then from an irate Drummer somewhere off in the distance. In Asia it was
nothing to sell children into prostitution but to us it was a bit off! Speaking
of “bit off”, the girl was getting a bit rough. “Take it easy,” I said. “Okay,”
she mumbled. After she had finished, that was the end of the “scientific
massage”; not very scientific but most enjoyable!
Our clothes were brought in to signal the end of this event and I went straight for my wallet. Everything was there, even the money – amazing! How distrusting of me! We offered to pay for these services but our little mate, Bang, insisted on picking up the tab. It was his night out. He was a thorough gentleman. Bang came in for coffee when he dropped us at Seven Dang Dung. We got into a rather in-depth rave about the war. I wanted to know what the Vietnamese thought about it. Bang said simply, “Jon, My country is crying.”
This hit me like a ton of bricks. Of course he was right. It had been crying for five hundred years, under the Chinese, Japanese, the dreaded Frogs and now us. This was the first niggling doubt in my mind about our presence here. Why even the magnificent Post Office in all its Gallic glory with a ceiling to rival the Sistine Chapel, reposing in John F. Kennedy Square, in South East Asia was a contradiction in itself! As our friend Mr. Bang left, I thought, “I can’t worry about these things now. We’re over here helping our boys and our friends the Yanks fight to save this country from the red menace. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”
A couple of nights later, we were in the lounge room playing ‘Stockmarket’, a capitalist board game invented by the reactionary Leon and consequently ripped off by a leading game distributor. Muckle had been ‘liquidated’ by some imperialist dog and decided to have a shower to try and ease the heat. Suddenly, the Drummer and I heard a blood-curdling yell from the bathroom. “Christ,” said Leon, “He’s probably touched one of those stupid French power points.” The French were not noted for the smooth working of the utilities in their colonies. We ran to the bathroom to see the Muckle jumping up and down like a Fijian firewalker.
“Look, look at the floor!” he screamed. The floor of the shower recess was black with very large cockroaches. Sensible shoes were donned and we proceeded to jump up and down on them, squirt them with shaving cream or anything else handy. Mama San ran in with an ancient pump spray full of Moa Tien, all to no avail. They just kept coming like an advancing army. After much dancing up and down, squirting and spraying, the last cockroach was dead. This was one of the most decisive encounters of the Vietnam War: “The Battle Of Dang Dung”.
Muckle and Leon retired to the lounge room, puffing and panting. I cornered Mama San at the bathroom door, pointed to the carnage and said, “Cockroach, number ten.” Then pointing at her, said, “Méchant, méchant!” Ti Ba bowed her head and retired in shame to her quarters. You see, I had to get my own back for all the méchants I received after the incident of “Les Mademoiselles de Hai Ba Trung”!
The next time we saw Mr. Bang, he was very excited. “I have Vietnamese shows for you at Olympic Theatre and Thu Do Theatre. Many teenager. Singers, dancers. They will love you!” “I sincerely hope so Bang. If they don’t we could be in big trouble.” “No trouble. Trust me. It is afternoon show. I pick you up midday Sunday.”
Sure enough, the red slant-eyed monster was at the villa at twelve noon precisely on December 12. As we approached the theatre, we saw this huge sign at least fifteen feet high, a colour painting of one of the Rajahs publicity photos, but we all had slanted eyes. As I looked up at a slant-eyed Nosmo, I couldn’t help but miss him. He would have enjoyed this so much. Underneath our Beatle boots, it said, “BAN THE RAJAHS”. “What’s this ‘Ban The Rajahs’ shit, Bang?” I said, expecting to see a picket line of placard carrying Vietnamese at any minute.
“That mean, ‘Band – The Rajahs’, not ‘ban’!” explained Bang. “The other writing say, ‘The Number One Enemy of Beatle in World’!” Will we never live it down? Another fine pickle, I thought as we pulled around to the back of the theatre. It was very old and run down.
Some Vietnamese singers and dancers went on first doing traditional songs and dances, very educational but not what this audience had come for: ‘No 1 Enemy of Beatle in World!’ During interval, I practised the opening lines that Bang had taught me, “King chow quivvy (Hello everybody)”. When the curtains opened my heart froze. The joint was packed! They were a little tentative at first; in fact, you could hear crickets chirping after the first number. They were dumbfounded. They’d never seen a rock band before. I stammered something else that Bang had taught me in Vietnamese about “clapping along with us in the next song”. They misunderstood (or I said it wrong) and instead, they applauded!
“Mot, hai, ba, bong! (1,2,3,4!)” We launched into I saw Her Standing There and they got the message and started to clap along. Not only that but they crowded around the front of the stage. They were back, our beloved kids, slant-eyes and all! Rock’n’roll was a universal language. Adoring faces looking up, hands reaching out, - it felt like coming home. There was not one European face, except ours, in the whole theatre. After about forty minutes, we thought they’d had enough and started to leave the stage. “PIST, PIST, PIST!” they all cried.
“Pissed, what is this pissed? Go and shit in yer hat!” I yelled, knowing they couldn’t understand. Then I noticed Bang waving from the wings. “Pist mean MORE, MORE! One more song!” he yelled excitedly. We decided to try some audience participation and finally got them singing along with Oop Oop Pa Doo. Three encores later, we finally got off the stage. I could have played for these lovely people for hours but we had to work that night. Duty called and an officer must do his duty!
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