by Adam Hall
The ocean of leaves swung beneath us, the horizon tilting, flattening out again as the compass spun and settled. At three minutes to zero Khay turned his head again. 'We will be moving into earshot quite soon now.'
I gave him a nod and shot another dozen frames, watched the counter, released the button.
'It is okay?'
'Perfect.'
'Two minutes.' He checked his bearings again and changed course by a degree, brought the Sikorsky back, dropped it a hundred feet, two hundred, until the heads of the palms showed up in clusters with a gap here and there where some of them had died off, their trunks leaning.
'We have one minute to go,' Khay said, raising his voice now, wanting to make sure I heard and understood.
'Roger.' I watched the jungle ahead. 'Give me thirty seconds, will you?'
He nodded, and I was aware of the environment suddenly, sharply aware as the senses became fine-tuned, aware of the vibration of the seat under me, of the floor under my feet, of the steady beat of the rotor and its deep and incessant throbbing, aware of the dry mouth and the adrenalin flush and the need to breathe slowly, keep still, keep patient as we settled again by fifty feet, settled again until the leaves were streaming below us, dark, rushing –
'Thirty seconds.'
I hit the button and swung the camera down a degree at a time as we moved into the target area, seeing gaps in the trees, a small lake, but nothing that looked like –
'Zero.'
Felt the slight vibration in the body of the Hartmann-Zeiss, swung it lower, lower again by another degree, keeping my eyes on the leaves below in case there were anything I could pick out, a truck, a half-track, huts, whatever was there, moving the camera to the base end of its travel and then up again as Khay banked the Sikorsky and brought it round in a tight turn and dropped and levelled out and began a second run in and a faint rattling began and I hunched into myself and concentrated on the camera as something hit the Sikorsky, nothing big yet, they needed time to roll out of their sleeping bags and lurch to the guns and swing them into the aim and fire, the Sikorsky lifting now, my knees pressing into the floor as a longer burst came this time, heavier, the flash of its detonation flickering among the leaves.
Khay jerked a look at my face. 'We go in again?'
'Yes.'
There wasn't any choice: with only a twenty-five degree angle on the camera there was no point in circling the target; all we'd get on film would be the camp's perimeter.
Medium turn this time at the end of the lift, then we dropped again and Khay brought the speed up and I tilted the Hartmann-Zeiss to maximum high and pressed the button and started bringing it down by degrees as we ran in and fetched a barrage and the cabin roof took on a glare and the fuselage felt the shock and Khay half-turned his head to listen and then dismissed it, concentrating on the controls as another barrage crackled from the trees and I released the button and looked at him.
'We cannot go in again,' he called above the noise. 'But I will turn and stand off for a moment in maybe a mile, for you to take more pictures. Do you agree?'
'Sure, let's do that.'
The jungle was booming behind us as they brought their tank guns into the barrage and I saw tracers reflected in the Perspex panel, then the horizon swung again with the moon curving across the darkness as Khay made his turn and vibration came in under the g-load and I started the camera running, the sky threaded with tracers now and the sound of the guns slapping at the cabin and the surface of the jungle down there boiling as the shells ripped through the leaves.
'We go now,' Khay called, then there was something else I couldn't catch because a shell hit the tail of the Sikorsky with a lot of noise and he was nursing the controls as we went into a slow horizontal spin and the horizon began tilting and vibration came in very badly now, shaking the whole cabin as Khay shifted the controls and shouted something in Khmer and I hit the flap on the camera and started taking out the cassette, but the cabin was shuddering now and we were losing height, the Sikorsky spinning faster all the time until the centrifugal force dragged me against the instrument panel and Khay's hands were wrenched away from the controls and his eyes made contact with mine just once as he was flung against the bulkhead with his boots flying up and we went into the trees with the rotor whipping and slashing, the sound volume exploding into a roar as the deceleration forces hurled me away from the instrument panel and across the cabin, saw Khay's face again for an instant as he was flung head-first between the seats towards the storage section, saw just his feet now, his boots, as the roaring blocked out all other sounds and I was aware of the final impact but couldn't analyze it, see or feel details, only knew that we'd crashed and that I was going under.
Chapter 19
SMOKE
I looked at Khay's boots.
They didn't move. The feet in them didn't move.
We hadn't been here long: I could hear the gyro still winding down behind the instrument panel. They would look for us.
On this thought I moved, though carefully. It had been a head blow, knocked me out for a minute. Moonlight was in the cabin, but I couldn't see any blood blackening the bulkhead where I was lying. The Sikorsky was on its side, and I could smell fuel, but there was no flamelight anywhere that I could see.
I went on moving, because they would look for us, be here soon; we were within a mile, two miles of the camp.
'Khay?'
Bruise on my shoulder, felt it when I got up, just as far as a crouch, testing for anything broken that might be still blacked-out under the endorphins. Everything articulated well enough, hands, feet, hips, neck.
'Khay?'
The boots didn't move. The feet in the boots didn't move. There wasn't enough space between the two rear seats to let me through, because the Hartmann-Zeiss had come unshipped and was wedged there. I had to climb over it to talk to Khay, find out if he was all right.
'Khay?'
The loading flap at the side of the camera was still hanging open, just as I'd left it. The cassette would have to be salvaged but that didn't have priority.
'Khay?'
I could see his shoulders now, and his head. He was face-down, and his head was at a bad angle from his shoulders, a very bad angle; there wasn't, for instance, any point in calling his name again. I felt for the pulse in his throat and found it still there, but weak, rapid but weak. Blood was caking his skull in the occipital area: that was where his head had smashed into the storage door and broken his neck.
A night bird called, disturbed by the noise the Sikorsky had made coming down through the leaves, its rotor threshing among them; I could hear monkeys, also awakened and alarmed. There were no more shots from the Khmer Rouge camp; they would have seen us going down, heard the impact, would have sent out a search party immediately. It was on its way here now.
There was a holstered gun at Khay's belt but I couldn't use that: they would hear the shot. I used my hands instead, talking to him in my mind, wishing him well, speeding him on his journey, asking Buddha to receive his spirit and be mindful of the honour this man had brought upon himself in giving his life for his people. Then, when there was no pulse any more, I went to pull the cassette out of the Hartmann-Zeiss, but found it was jammed: the camera had been wrenched away from its bracket on impact and the shock had buckled the panels.
I could take the whole thing with me, but it was cumbersome, would slow me down a great deal, critically: if I were going to get clear of this mess I would need to be light on my feet. They should be within gunshot range by now, the people in the search party; all they would need to do was catch sight of me through the trunks of the palm trees, when I left the Sikorsky and began trekking.
A thought came: they might have orders to take any survivors alive, and I didn't want to confront the barking man again, Colonel Choen. This time he would put me through interrogation to the point of attrition.
I went on tugging at the cassette and got it halfway out, but it was jammed worse now because o
f the angle and I hit it back and started again, listening for voices as the gyro wound down to silence at last. The people in the search party would also be listening, guided by the sharp chittering sounds of the monkeys in the trees above the crash site.
I had to get this bloody thing out and take it with me: there was no choice. Take a letter, Miss Fortescue, to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon. Dear General, the Khmer Rouge base camp is in fact located at 12°3W x 10301 OE, as I have now established personally. A massive artillery barrage was fired as our helicopter twice made a run across the area. I trust this will leave you convinced.
Use the sheath knife on Khay's belt, prize the bloody thing out, come on, for Christ's sake, come on.
I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but this has just come in from a British intelligence agent in Cambodia.
What the hell, he trusts it'll leave me convinced? Who is this guy?
I don't know, sir, but he could have gone loco, you know, jungle fever, it's pretty hot there right now.
Get this fucking thing out you've got one more fucking minute before they're here.
Sure. But there may be something in it. Tell him we gotta have photographs, okay? Tell him to get pictures.
Not coming out so I kicked the side of the camera to stress the frame back to a rectangle, parallelogram now, shit shaped, the sweat running off me because listen, those bastards are close, have to be very close, and I can't - I cannot leave here without this cassette, without the photographs for the general, Khay died to get me this bloody thing, kick, a precision kick and the cassette came out with a rush and I stuffed it inside my jump suit and we have to move rather quickly now, my good friend, do we not, feeling in Khay's pocket for his lighter, not finding it, try the other one, he's - he was left-handed, I should have remembered, wasting so much time, found it now and clambered onto the seats to reach the door above my head but it was stuck, the whole cabin was distorted just like that fucking camera, hit it with your shoulder, harder than that, could see a light, I could see some kind of light through the jungle, firefly, just joking, a soldier with a torch, the first of them, the nearest, hit it and we got it right this time and the door swung open and I clambered through and slid down the outside of the cabin, would need a fuse, the belt of the jump suit was all we had so use that.
Twisted the cap of the fuel tank open and made sure none of the stuff spilled onto me, dipped the belt in and pulled it out again and flicked the wheel of the lighter and flung myself clear and hit the jungle floor and burrowed through the undergrowth as the Sikorsky blew like a sunrise, kept on burrowing through the cool darkness of the leaves, the monkeys screaming now.
I suppose I had come three or four miles, burrowing at first and then getting onto my feet and stumbling through the dark entangling undergrowth, tripping many times on creeper, going down and smelling the fibrous soil against my face, rich and moist from the recent rain.
Now I was leaning against a palm trunk, watching the glow in the distance as Khay's funeral pyre burned low. He would have wanted cremation, according to Buddhist custom, and would have enjoyed the fact that torching the Sikorsky had given them something to focus on, the men in battledress, to hold their attention while I got clear. He would have left nothing for them in the ashes, no metal badge or insignia; he had known our sortie would perhaps bring us into direct contact with the Khmer Rouge.
Black smoke hung in a cloud above the trees, sometimes smothering the moon and then clearing again as the night air flowed, drawing out the smoke in skeins. I still listened for voices, for the clink of weaponry, but heard nothing, saw nothing of any light.
After a while I moved on again, heading east towards the nearest bullock track, and it was when I was tripped again by jungle creeper and went down with my hands spread out in front of me to break the fall that I felt a squirming beneath one of them, the left one if I remember, and then the rapid and repeated shock of the strike against my wrist, and when I hit the thing away I saw a long thin trickle of green against the jungle floor, and remembered what Gabrielle had said.
Chapter 20
SKULLS
There are snakes in the river.
My spine arched again to a spasm and I lay like that, curved against the earth with my face to the sky, lay like that for I didn't know how long, the sweat pouring from me.
They swim across at night - the light attracts them, and the rats.
I slumped again like a drawn bow snapping, and the fever began. I had been expecting it.
Especially the hanuman - do you know it? The bright green one, quite small but more deadly than a cobra, even the king cobra.
Another spasm struck and I became arched, drawn taut, powerless to move, to relax the muscles. It was beginning to be difficult now to breathe, so I dragged at the air, sucked at it, but nothing happened. If the voluntary muscles were to be affected, so would the involuntary muscles, including those of the heart. I waited, with the moon swimming in the slits between my lids, and then the drawn nerves snapped again and my shoulders hit the earth.
Were there more of those things here? Did that one have a mate, and if so, how far was it from where I was lying? I couldn't do with more, with more than one. They are more deadly than the cobra.
One simply has to relax. Khay, the late Captain Khay. Western people drink whole bottle of whisky, sometimes works. Meditation best.
Soon after this - hours? I didn't know - the shaking began, and the delirium.
There were nine moons when the storm came roaring into the jungle and I counted them as the trees bent low under the force of the whipping wind, nine in a circle, circling, a giddy-go-round of white-lit moons, spinning in the night as the head rolled, lolled, shaking itself, was shaken by the fever as the sweat sprang and I shouted something, shouted at the storm, shuddering, hands, fingers clawing at the soft moist fibres, bringing them to the mouth to eat, hungering for remembered motions, eating, running - staggering up and lurching and then crashing down again, singing like a drunk as the storm howled through the leaves and blew away the circle of moons and there was just the dark and I lay blinded, whirled in the deep spinning vortex of the night.
Pain was there, and this comforted me: the nerves were not yet numbed, could still serve the organism. The pain was in the left hand, wrist, arm, burning, as if I'd plunged them into fire. I got onto my feet again and flayed my arm around, filling the dark with flames, touching the trees until they too took fire and the storm sent sparks flying, seized the flames and hurled them in hot bright banners as I stood dazzled, reeling under the heat, the eyes seared, the mouth open and filled with coals, roaring like a dragon, bellowing flames.
Meditate, he, the man with the unremembered name, had said.
Crashing to the earth with the legs buckling, lying across a creeper, a long thin - oh Jesus Christ I can't do with more of - a thin, unmoving creeper, let go then, and meditate, fear nothing and fear not fear, reach for the silence, the stillness, the domain of the unified field, of universal consciousness and love, let go, let go, and drift into the void where everything is nothing, and nothing everything, let go.
But this halcyon respite has not been for long, has it, our good friend, for we are running again - running? - lurching, we mean, lurching and staggering and hitting trees, pitching down and crawling until the thought of the thin green hanuman catapults us to our feet again and we reel onward through the crashing dark, the moon down now, the nine moons down, is this venom always lethal? tell us, pray, are we a goner, done for, is this the Styx we're drowning in as we goad ourselves through the jungle night? Then for what purpose, for God's sake?
To find the bullock track.
A ray of sanity there, my masters, there's thought left somewhere in the fevered brain, squealing like a rat on fire for attention, the bullock track, yea, verily, in the name of the salamander: the bullock track and the road to Pouthisat and London, you must be out of your bloody mind, the veins are full of that thing's venom and the nerve
s are running riot, never mind the salamander, the first thing is to perpetuate life, carry this charred and ember-bright organism through the burning dark, east by the polar star glimpsed here and there through the endless canopy of leaves; listen to the thoughts still left in the smouldering consciousness and let them be thy guide, world without end as we fall again, fall down again, and this time we do not, we cannot get up, so destroyed are we in this unholy fire, a shred of blackened bone and gristle and hollow, echoing despair, God rest ye here, my most unmerry gentleman, and offer the relics of thy substance to the earth.
Skulls grinning at me, into my face as the cold light creeps through the sugar palms. Skulls, lined up in orderly rows, in serried ranks of bone-white laughter.
But these are real.
I know this.
And then there is darkness again, and in the darkness movement, a lifting, a bearing away, and in the wan light of morning a face leans over mine, smiling. An arm raises my shoulders, and a voice sounds.
'Drink.'
Chapter 21
KHENG
'What were those skulls?'
The monk closed his eyes, opened them. 'They were my brothers.'
I remembered stone columns, ancient, laced with creeper. 'It was a temple?'
'Yes.'
Sometimes he spoke French, sometimes English, his language scholarly in both.
'That was a long time ago,' I said, more as an exercise than anything, testing the memory, finding it sound.
'It was yesterday.'
He meant it still seemed like yesterday. It would have been twenty years ago, when the Khmer Rouge were scouring the countryside, hunting for intellectuals, monks, school-teachers, village scribes.
I finished the bowl of soup or whatever it was, perhaps herbs; it had tasted brackish, of roots.