At first glance, Charlie Smith is just another Brit freshly returned from his summer break. There’s the holiday tan, the hand-crafted souvenir necklace, the ‘I went to Vietnam and all I got was this lousy T-shirt’ T-shirt. But, really, these things only serve to mask the unspeakable horrors and harrowing episodes he’s had to face.
Even now, days after his safe return, everything still reminds Charlie of his time in ‘Nam.
‘I’d just got back home, late. The plane was delayed, the food was poor and the in-flight film was “Sister Act II: Back in the Habit”. I’d caught a cab to my house and all I wanted now was to get indoors and crawl into bed. But as I laid my hand on the door handle, I froze, the hairs on the back of my neck pricked up, my heart began to pound. Suddenly I was back there – thousands of miles away, somewhere I never wanted to be again – in the shabby hotel room I’d stayed in during my two-week get-away to Vietnam, with its stiff bed, hard-wearing carpet and unpredictable en suite shower.
‘They’d told me the hotel had four stars. But, like so many veteran holidaymakers, I’d been lied to. This wasn’t even a three-star hotel...
‘I didn’t sleep well that first night back in the UK. Again and again I awoke covered in sweat, my mind a whirl of garish images from my time in ‘Nam: restaurants, theatres, souvenir stalls. Mercifully, I didn’t remember what I dreamed. By 3am I was wide awake and knew I wouldn’t sleep again. I flicked on the TV, desperate for anything that would divert me from my recent experiences. I was relieved when I saw there was an old war film on, showing soldiers trekking in single file through a jungle. Perhaps this would take my mind off everything that had happened.
‘And it did. For a few minutes I could relax, shielded from my memories, and begin to rebuild my life. But then came the sound of gunfire from the TV as the troops stumbled upon a Viet Cong enclosure. Suddenly, there I was again, back in ‘Nam – standing in front of Hanoi’s famous One-Pillar Pagoda in the sweltering heat, in a crowd of other tourists. Each gunshot I heard brought back the unbearable clicking of the camera shutters all around me. Even the soldiers on the screen, flailing and dying in the mud, took on a more sinister aspect: they became seedy-looking guides, reaching out and desperately trying to flog me an overpriced tour of the more picturesque parts of the city. Finally, as I saw the napalm sweeping through the jungle, destroying everything in its path, I had a brief, agonising flashback to my last meal in an upmarket restaurant in Hanoi: a horribly overcooked steak, which I had asked for rare. It’s an image I’ll probably never be able to erase from my mind.
‘But it’s getting better, day by day. Sometimes, now, I can go for hours at a time without thinking of that unhelpful shopkeeper, or the daft map that was only labelled in Vietnamese, or the disappointing luggage allowance that meant I had to leave three of my souvenirs behind.
‘It’s never long, though, before someone asks me how my holiday went. I suppose it’s my fault for leaving my photos lying around – they give people completely the wrong impression. Visitors will see me scuba diving off the coast or bungee jumping with the group of Canadians I met out there, and they’ll always feel obliged to say how fun it must have been.
