Page 31 - 1966

BUILDINGS, AND BLOCKS, AND BATTLE RUINS
A FIELD TRIP
THE HERO
"THIS MOST EXCELLENT CANOPY, THE AIR" -H et
country as an extension of Britain situated in the South Paci c. Yet New Zealand and this world of the Paci c 1,mst come to an understanding and a mutua_ l appre­ ciation of one another, as in Kipling·s poem:-
Then came the white phosphorus searing the area until it was almost extinct of life. And now the sur­ vivors were coming together.
Oh East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
A blob of phosphorus had caught his face and wiped out all his features.
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment seat;
He was only nineteen.
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
Hink paused by a groaning man on the ground who had a wooden stake through his stomach.
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth."
"Poor man," thought the major as he opened the soldier's veins.
-G.J.S., U6B
(This was the School's entry in the N.Z. Insurance Company's nationwide essay competition.)
An investigation into the ugliness of life.
All of a sudden the elephant grass bristled with steel helmets and the clatter of small arms rang out. The others of the party had no chance and were wiped out almost immediately.
Massive Monumental Structures,
Then an o cer walked by and Hink sprang out. He clutched the man even as bullets entered into his body. But, he waited until the Viet Cong were closer, even
Now ferruginous remnants of the past,
though he knew he was a dying man.
Lifeless images of unimaginable form, Unresponsive dummies set in stone. Some metalliferous forms representing
-A.P., 3A
Taking the rod I preached a little, Correcting a course, or directing a thought, Tempting capacity to the full
In manner geograohic.
An interest here lacked or lost,
One gained-a spark
Where least the wood was dry.
Yet quickness of the brain the villain shows And not the fool:
Ages of bronze and iron:
We drifted south for Horistic gain, Swiftly we were transported,
Some carboniferous: huge blocks of wood,
And stone, and brick; all petri ed by years
Of unsought care. Are they more than hinderance, These vast skyscraping relics of history?
But oh! What they convey to the agrestic mind, These blocks are something of inspired distinction, Far greater than the art of modern sculpture.
To look upon them and to see descriptions
To seek the sum of nature,
Suggests to them unfathomable culture.
Finding always surprises:
Names carved on stone and wood,
Delinquency for countless generations:
People look, as if these bold inscriptions Showed the Ha e of colourful invention.
Oceans and seas could rise in tumult,
Wars could throw huge structures into dust, Science could impede all careless art:
Beauty found where cause was gone.
But these impassive blocks spreading in the sky
Then from the wood came roaring res And tumult conquered ignorance,
Will never be destroyed.
-R.B.,U6B
Surpassing all that's learned by hand:
The bomb spun dizzily and slowly out of the sky, hit the ground and exploded in a burst of red Ha e. More followed it, devastating the area of jungle, burning the vegetation everywhere, leaving the area as a charred mess dotted with twisted, blackened bodies.
This " science " of the land has me dismayed:
Major Nhu Van Hink of the South Vietnamese 23rd Regiment began hunting for the remnants of his battalion in this mess. Here and there he came upon a dazed or burnt or wounded soldier who plodded along with him.
-L.R. W., U6A
More often he didn't nd the men-only their bodies.
All week-end the skies had been ominously cloudy and Monday morning was no exception. The whole of lnvercargill was blanketed in a mist such as only New Zealand's southernmost sector can provide.
By the swift running stream he found a group of them lying side by side, disembowelled by the ruthless enemy. By this time the party following the major had risen
The 1966 Otaki scholar, David Pittendreigh, spent 35 minutes speaking to the assembled school and then, after a hurried lunch, he, the Head Prefect (Ciel Wal­ lace) and I found ourselves on the way to the airport at the beginning of what promised to be the most interesting and educating school afternoon I had ever encountered. Through the generosity of the School we were to accompany the Otaki scholar on a two-and-a­ half-hour Hight over most of Southland in order to see as much of the province in as short a time as possible.
to twenty, but Hink did not expect any more.
His battalion, on a search and destroy operation in the Central Highlands, had been attacked by a North Vietnamese Division-5,000 troops.
In no time the enemy had overrun the battalion, so the major gave a ruthless order: "Bomb in amongst us! " The aeroplanes had come dropping napalm during the night. Too often had the major seen his own men clutched by the jelly-like blobs of napalm and burnt
away.
The boy at the end of the group was a raving idiot.
The major dived into a hollow, pulling a pin out of a grenade, and waited. Several Viet Cong ran past him, not noticing the hidden gure.
Then he dropped the grenade .
Not in numbers, nor estimations;
But in vague generalisations.
For hands can falsify the eyes And plain words the sight deceive.
And thus has with its master fallen.
True SCIENCE as true ART is beauty sought Though lead they must be lea ed and never taught.
Twenty-one