Tunneling through Fear

Horrified I watch as the guy in front of me disappears – first his legs, then torso and finally with a grin in my direction, his head. “God help me,” I pray as I step forward my heart beating wildly. My guide’s lips are moving, he’s talking to me but I’ve lost the ability to hear beyond the blood pumping in my ears. I stumble forward and into the chasm below.

Now underground I take a tentative step toward the next tunnel. It’s much smaller than the space I stand in and leads to deeper horrors, but I can’t turn back pride overrides my senses. How on earth did the Vietnamese guerrillas survive the suffocating tunnels of Cu Chi? Raised in the sweeping bushland of Southwest Australia the very idea of small spaces terrifies me.

Further down, my head hits the roof as instinct tells me to stand. I gasp, paralysed with fear as the darkness engulfs me. My senses are on overdrive, muffled voices echo and as they grow distant I know I need to move. “You can do this,” I coach myself, “Just one hand in front of the other.” My progress is slow. The dirt clings to my palms and knees and plant roots brush my face as I battle through this hellish hole.

The Cu Chi Tunnels were an intricate network of rooms and tunnels stretching for kilometres during the Vietnam War. Unbeknown to the Americans, part of the tunnels ran underneath an army base. It took them months to discover how the Vietnamese were invading the base before disappearing into the night. I travel eighty metres of what remains of the tunnels today, this small glimpse is enough to appreciate the mental toughness they must have had to last months cramped underground without a glimpse of daylight.

The tunnel curves to the right and panic threatens to overwhelm me at the thought of losing myself forever in the dark bowels of Cu Chi. I speed up, stumbling over myself. My shoulders squeeze between the walls and my head knocks against the roof as my desperation pushes me further and faster along. My breath is shallow, the smell of earth in my nostrils overwhelming. “If hell exists,” I think to myself, “This has to be it.”

Voices emerge from the dark and I crawl headlong into something solid. “Hey!” the body in front of me cries. Relief! I’ve caught up with the group. As we shuffle along, I realise the ordeal hasn’t ended. The tunnels have three levels and the last is twenty metres deep. I take an early exit and welcome the daylight that blinds me. Covered from head to toe in soil and greedily gulping in the fresh air I feel as though I’ve run a marathon. I greet my group as they emerge from the ground and graciously accept their sledging for leaving early. There are no cowards here today – I fought my own war in the Cu Chi tunnels and won.