Yamagishi and Jason, aided by the interpreter, conferred shortly after the mortars were ordered to cease firing. Jason suggested a platoon attack on the enemy position but was respectfully asked if he would mind if Yamagishi could have his permission to send a section. Jason gave it – having not much option – and was intrigued to see ten men, commanded by a Second Lieutenant armed only with a sword, disappear down the slope a few minutes later. After a short while they appeared some way up on the far side, below the rubber plantation. On reaching the high ground, the Second Lieutenant turned and waved. How so very different from only two months ago!

  The main body advanced in extended line. At the top of the hill were two casualties, both badly wounded by large mortar fragment penetrating near the top of the thigh and making a nasty hole in the neck. One was a young man, armed with a rifle; the other, an unconscious lad of about twelve, with a catapult in his hand. Had, Jason wondered, the Japanese mortar fire only wounded those two? If not, why were the other wounded taken away and not those two? Leave it: theoretical.

  Yamagishi Butai had a medical officer with it. He examined the wounded and gave his decision. ‘Death will come soon’, he told Yamagishi. ‘I’ll give them a jab of morphine, bind their wounds and leave them. Knowing these Viets as I do, I expect their comrades will watch us and, if they see we do not take them with us, come and rescue them.’

  Yamagishi agreed. ‘I’ll have to get permission of the English officer. He won’t like leaving them.’

  Nor did he but under the circumstances there was little else to be done. Through the interpreter Yamagishi pointed out that there was only about another half an hour before the road they were aiming for was reached and the villagers would be told to go back and rescue the wounded – or attend to the corpses. ‘We must move on quickly as we are behind time.’

  About twenty yards away a section of Japanese soldiers were going through some sort of dumb pantomime. They were excitedly pointing down to something Jason could not see.

  ‘Stop them fooling about,’ Jason said to the interpreter, angry with himself about the decision to abandon the wounded.

  The interpreter went to speak to the soldiers and, on his return, said, ‘Respected sir, they are afraid.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They have seen an arm,’ was the enigmatic reply.

  So Jason went to see for himself. The bank, maybe three feet high, had a ditch on the other side. Rubber trees were planted on the bank and the ditch was to hold water to help their growth. But now it was full of dry leaves and a skinny brown arm was waving about, palm upwards.

  ‘Pull it,’ Jason ordered abruptly.

  ‘They are afraid to,’ answered the interpreter.

  Jason, normally placid, felt his temper about to snap and this was noticed by the interpreter. Sensing that valour was the better part of discretion, the soldiers were quickly ordered to pull the hand. One man, braver than the rest, bent down ready to grasp it. A second man caught him round the waist and a third the second likewise. In one movement the leading soldier grasped the hand and all three pulled. Jason watched, fascinated, as a small man, dressed in a strange, sloppy, green uniform, whose eyebrows were uneven and his face malevolent – a face not easy to forget – was jerked upwards, carrying a brand new machine-gun of curious shape that had a tray-like magazine. Almost in one movement he wriggled free of his captors, looked up at the near-cloudless sky, crouched low and bent both ends of the magazine down, so jamming the weapon. He jumped up and down, shrieking. The Japanese were on him in a flash even before one of Jason’s Gurkha escort brought his kukri out of his scabbard as though to decapitate him. He ceased his shouting and looked sullen. The left sleeve of his shirt had been torn, revealing the star of Tonkin tattooed on his left shoulder.

  ‘Why the pantomime?’ asked Jason, before realising that the interpreter would not understand. ‘Can you explain this?’

  ‘Respected sir, the soldiers were in micturition’ – some quick overtime with his dictionary there – ‘on the leaves when the arm appeared.’

  Then only did Jason understand why the man had looked at the sky on being so unexpectedly pulled out. When he felt the sudden surges of liquid wetting him he had put his hand up to see how heavily it was raining! The two casualties were decoys and his task was to shoot some of the attackers, Jason himself probably, being the tallest by far, as they moved off burdened with the wounded. On seeing that there was scarcely a cloud in the sky, he was furious at having disclosed his position.

  ‘Fancy being saved by Japanese secret weapons,’ murmured one of the Gurkha bodyguards. ‘Yes,’ said another, ‘so different from the recent war in Burma.’

  Jason Rance, feeling hot, took off his hat and stared at the unusual spectacle. As the prisoner’s hands were being tied behind his back he took a long look at the Englishman: tall, a taut, lean body, and the indefinable air of a natural commander. He had strikingly blue eyes, fair hair, almost hawk-like features. The three men with him, certainly not Japanese, looked at him with respect as he spoke with them. Who are they? They talk in a tongue unknown to me.

  He was led away with the advancing forces, his now useless weapon carried by a Japanese soldier.

  I hope the Politburo never hears of my failure. Somehow I’ll escape and, anyway, the time is, in fact, nowhere ripe. Another thirty years. Our watchword is Perseverance. I’ll never forget that arrogant imperialist’s face. Order those feudalist Japanese to piss on me, did he?

  Captain Jason Percival Vere Rance never thought he’d see the man again, but he did, many years later …

  January 1946. Somewhere north of Bangkok, Thailand: Major David Law, scion of an old Huguenot family, commissioned in the last batch of regular officers in 1939 into the Somerset Light Infantry, had spent most of the war in India and Burma, attached to a Punjabi regiment. He had gone on a month’s leave in England to marry his childhood sweetheart but had had to hurry back to Thailand to be Brigade Major of 33 Brigade, 7 Indian Infantry Division. One of his tasks was to reconnoitre the area near the bridge over the River Kwai which the desperately unlucky prisoners-of-war in Japanese hands had built at such an appalling cost in casualties. His task was to recommend which area a permanent site could be purchased from, or given by, the Royal Thai government as a fitting memorial and war grave cemetery.

  On his way back a Thai woman stepped out from the side of the road, her small boy trailing behind her, and, not looking where she was going, Major Law’s jeep knocked her down. The vehicle slewed to a halt. David Law jumped out. The woman died as he was binding a broken leg. The law concerning such a death was explicit: the last person to touch a person before he or she died was responsible for looking after that person’s family. There was no escaping it.

  The police soon arrived and the necessary formalities were undertaken. In this case the family was a small one; an elder boy of about seven, he would have been when last seen, said a neighbour, taken north by his father, a soldier in the Royal Thai Army, who had disappeared somewhere to the northeast it was thought even before the war had come to an end. No news had ever come back of either. No, the name the father had registered for military service was not known: it would certainly be different as it was so much easier to desert and not be caught when using another name. His wife, now his widow, had been Khun – Mrs, the police explained – Xuto, so the neighbours confirmed, and her small son said that his name was Xutiati.

  In the fullness of time, Major Law managed to get Xutiati Xuto over to England and educate him along with the rest of his children. During his schooling he was mildly teased about his name but he took it graciously and the kidding soon wore off. Family and friends knew him as Charlie. David was well off, having inherited a fortune, so the burden of one extra in the family was more that of conscious than of capital. Nevertheless burden it was. Luckily the lad became part of the family and took full advantage of his English education. Nor did he ever forget that he was a Thai.

  1

  New Year’s Day 2515, BE (Year of the Rat) / 5 April 1972. Northern Laos: This was the day people had been looking forward to, when everybody would enjoy themselves in a prolonged boun, as the Lao people called their holy days and celebrations. The fervent hope was that the King would announce a date for his long-delayed coronation and surely a crowned King would act as a shield against those troublesome Communists and the Lao People’s Liberation Army, known to the Western world as the Pathet Lao or PL. Excitement and expectation were intense, almost palpably, in the royal capital, Luang Prabang, situated on the left bank of the River Mekong.

  Before dawn His Majesty the King, as Head of the Buddhist Church in Laos, had gone to worship at the royal wat, surrounded by elderly, shaven-pated bonzes, who, in turn, were flanked by similarly clad and shorn youths. Here the scriptures were read and prayers intoned for a speedy end to the twenty-seven-year-long war which had split the country so tragically in two, for a return to their home for the refugees and to their family of the many men under arms with, finally, in confirmation that Laos was an independent, sovereign state, the coronation of His Majesty, King Savang Vatthana.

  The King, a tall and dignified man in his late sixties, was worried, though he tried hard never to show it. His father’s sovereign power, the last gift of the defeated Japanese at the end of the Second World War, had been revoked by the returning French soon after. On every New Year’s Day since his father had died, thirteen years before, the scriptures had been read and the divinations foretold to him by the senior abbot, Phannyana Maha Thera, now stiff-backed and a little hard of hearing, but renowned for his knowledge of omens. He had been of great value to the royal family ever since he had moved to Luang Prabang from Sam Neua twenty-seven years before, when he had become the Chief Bonze of Laos. Every year he had had the same sad message which he always interpreted to his royal master in the same quiet, measured tones: ‘The King who is crowned when the wild buffaloes are trampling the grasses of Laos will be the last crowned ruler of Laos.’ Thus it was that the King was still uncrowned and had, as yet, no plans for his coronation, for the war still raged in his kingdom.

  Before walking back to his palace, His Majesty offered sticky rice and fruit to the senior bonzes while outside, in the town, spectators gathered for the processions of virgins, hoping to catch more than just a passing glimpse of them.

  By now it was hot and the early morning mist had cleared so the small T-28 fighter-bombers of the Royal Lao Air Force had started to fly their routine missions to warn the Royal Lao Army of any Communist advances from their positions in the hills a few kilometres to the northeast of the town where the Pathet Lao forces were dug in. In previous years there had been shelling and mortar attacks during public holidays, with the Communists patrolling even as far as the King’s orange groves to the Southeast of the town, and nobody wanted their boun spoilt yet again.

  The processions started off as numerous individual trickles of virgins, bonzes, jokers and musicians from the many wats scattered around the town. First would come eight pretty girls walking in front of a ninth, and prettiest, who sat on a large model of a rat, carried by four stalwart youths with glistening, rippling torsos. Behind the girl on the rat came the virgins, six abreast and maybe four or five rows deep. The heat, the noise, the excitement, the water that was thrown around seemed to have no effect on them as they walked demurely along with heads held high, tantalisingly nubile. Their long jet-black hair was put into a bun on the right-hand side of their head, signifying virginity, and a thin gold chain and a comb kept the shiny tresses in place. They wore a silk blouse of peacock blue, emerald green and damson red, each trim little figure scarcely discernible. A silver belt around their waist held up their skirt, more subdued in colour than the louder tones of the blouses, but each had a strip of brightly coloured, intricately designed needlework round the base. Bare-legged, they wore sandals with low heels. Each oval face had high cheek bones, each nose deliciously and delicately snub. Their brown eyes gazed with unfocussed indifference – almost disdain – as they passed through the ever-thickening crowds of spectators with their raucous applause and ribald comments.

  Behind the virgins came the bonzes, shaven heads darkly stubbled, walking bare-footed, with saffron robes girdled and folded over left shoulders. In their midst, carried aloft under a large orange umbrella, came the head monk of each group. Behind him came the musicians playing flutes, drums and giant xylophones carried on a stretcher with the player between the end two carriers.

  In the rear came the jokers, some stripped to the waist, covered in yellow dust, others with soot-covered faces, dressed any old how. They sang and danced, twirled and pirouetted, veered and shuffled their way, carrying buckets and throwing the water over the crowd who joyously responded by trying to tear the jokers’ clothes. At predestined places, the jokers’ buckets were refilled. As the last of the jokers passed, some of the crowd joined them while others waited for another procession to pass, replenishing the water supply for their buckets.

  In the middle of the town is a sacred hill, on the top of which is a golden wat named Phou Si, after a mythical giant. A wide avenue runs round the hill and, on one side, a steep path from the wat joins it in front of the King’s palace. The royal wat that the King had visited earlier on was the destination of all the little processions from various wats which were so routed that the trickle became a stream, then a torrent and finally a flood of moving, pulsating, tramping, dancing, singing, banging, happy, torn, wet people with their own quiet patches of virgins and bonzes making the rest of the commotion more concentrated.

  One and all they squeezed into the courtyard of the royal wat, the earlier ones being forced against the walls where there were intricately carved fabulous beasts, gold-leafed pillars and large bells, a wonderful riot of bright colours. Finally there was no more room for anybody else to come and gradually silence fell, with even the jokers restrained.

  The hushed crowd heard the heartfelt and vibrant chants of prayer from inside the wat, ‘… peace in the land … a return to the farms … menfolk back home … our King crowned on his throne …’ The praying became subdued then ceased and the pent-up emotion of the crowd welled out with a long audible sigh and excitedly they spoke among themselves, ‘… peace in the land … and the King crowned on the throne …’

  But to nobody’s real surprise yet to everybody’s real disappointment, no announcement of His Majesty’s coronation was made.

  By early afternoon all was quiet again and the crowds of the morning had dispersed. It was stinkingly hot and humid, with a few low clouds. The rains proper were still some weeks away and the ground was parched and dusty.

  Suddenly at about half past four there was a sharp clap of thunder and a short but violent dust storm. As it died away a single rifle shot was heard, then another and a third. Within a few minutes shooting was heard all over the town, rifles and machine-guns. Traffic and pedestrians vanished and Royal Lao Army troops appeared at street corners in the town and on the outskirts. Tension mounted while, in their hotel rooms, little groups of diplomats counselled among themselves, feeling a tinge of induced heroism, composing telegrams for their ministries at home. The firing died away and life slowly returned to normal.

  By sundown no enemy attack had materialised so, at 7 o’clock, dressed in ceremonial uniform, members of the Royal Lao Government, local dignitaries, senior members of the Royal Lao Army and the foreign diplomatic community started to arrive at the palace for the culminating ceremonies, when they would be presented to Their Majesties before a banquet was served and a long drawn-out presentation of Lao classical dancing, based on the ancient Ramayanas.

  On foot or by car guests converged on the gates of the palace. Those in cars got out and joined those on foot, leaving the police to sort out the traffic chaos. They passed two young sentries of the King’s bodyguard, dressed in red coats and white trousers, and armed with long, old-fashioned rifles nearly as tall as themselves, and went in through the gates into the ornate palace grounds. Members of the Protocol Department then guided people to their rightful places. The majority of the guests went to one side where there were chairs and tables set out in the open ready for the evening’s entertainment. Only those privileged few to be presented to the King and Queen went to the palace itself.

  Once at the palace the diplomats were confined to the verandah flanking the large reception room. There they moved slowly around, with the polished ease and insincere shallowness of their profession. Accompanied by their womenfolk, they smiled, bobbed, bowed, shook hands and passed empty pleasantries or veiled and cryptic comments – Ambassador to Ambassador, First Secretary to First Secretary and Defence Attaché to Defence Attaché. A close observer would have seen the pointed ignoring of Soviet and Chinese, the hauteur of the French, the cockiness of the Australians, the brashness of the Americans and the diffidence of the British, with only their Ambassador and the Defence Attaché the odd men out. The Ambassador was shunned by those the British would normally deem their allies and was sycophantically made much of by those not immediately considered in that category. The Defence Attaché was a thick-skinned little man with a misplaced sense of humour whom the rest of his colleagues found difficult to stomach, despite the military freemasonry of the soldiers that allowed for less constrained and more sincere conversation than enjoyed by other diplomats. He approached his Soviet colleague, a Russian, and cornered him.

  ‘As military representative for the British Co-Chairman of the 1962 Geneva Accords for Laos and the 1954 Geneva Accords for Indo-China,’ he began pompously and long-windedly, ‘can you tell me what the firing this afternoon was all about?’

  The Russian eyed him speculatively through thick glasses, wondering what this petty little man was aiming at. As a member of the Soviet Intelligence Service, the KGB, he should have known the answer and indeed his Ambassador, a more senior KGB official, had earlier upbraided him for not knowing; but then, in Laos, so often the inexplicable had a deceptively simple explanation.

 

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