‘The Hmong tribe.’
‘Good choice, they hate the Pathet Lao.’
‘We’re putting together a team of people, Colonel Deschamps and we very much want you to be involved. Your record is hardcore. Some of the ops you’ve co-ordinated since you left the Legion place you perfectly for the role we have in mind.’
‘How do you know about me?’
‘We have our ways. You were in the last tranche of men dropped behind enemy lines at Dien Bien Phu. Not many soldiers survived to tell the story. I guess that makes you something of a legend. And we make it our business to know people – we got eyes everywhere.’
How good are your eyes? Wondered Jacques.
‘On this mission you’d be answerable to the CIA in Bangkok, and to your superior, Colonel Carabas. We’d like you both to start in the highlands on the border, move into Laos and train an army of Hmong. I’d also like you to be our liaison point with the king of Laos. He’s a fracophile.’
Knowles handed him a dossier marked: Carabas.
‘Who is he?’ said Jacques.
‘Colonel Carabas could have been anything he wanted… we’re very glad he decided to become a soldier. He has - how shall I put it? - the stamp of greatness about him; three Purple Hearts, two Silver Stars. Although his methods are sometimes unorthodox, he always gets results.’
Deschamps was shaking his head.
Time for the bluff.
‘Mr Knowles, I’m flattered you considered me but I’m leaving Vietnam. I met a woman in Paris, and for the last three years I’ve been promising to make an honest woman of her. We’re going to start a family.’
‘Aren’t mercenaries supposed to be more interested in money?’
‘There’s a saying - you make it out of a country alive you thank whatever hand of fate chose to spare you. But Mr Knowles,‘ he trained his grey eyes on the American, ‘Never test your luck for too long in the same place. Eventually, it runs out.’
Knowles wiped the sweat from his forehead. ‘Before you make your final decision, there’s a couple of points I’d like to float your way. Now, financially we’d pay you more than handsomely for your time. Also - and this answers your need to return to civilian life - we don’t envisage this operation will take any longer than four months.’
Jacques wanted to laugh, he felt it at the base of his back working to his mouth. A gathering of media scribes clapped as the tune finished, the pianist removed his white silk gloves and bowed obsequiously with a nod of the head, a lock of his grease-black hair falling onto his forehead. A bunch of spooks taking an interest in the Embassy girls sat like a drunken golf team in their polo shirts, their heads shaved into flat-tops or combed neatly to the side like freshman students. ‘So, you’re going to full-scale war with North Vietnam?’ he said.
Knowles looked uncomfortable, ‘Eisenhower’s Domino theory, Jacques. Ho won’t stop until Vietnam is under one umbrella.’
‘A red umbrella?’
‘You said it.’
Jacques played with the liquid in his glass… he could taste the woods of the Vietnamese Highlands, ghosts howling in the dead villages of montagnards. They whispered to him in rebuke, taunting his return to the West. ‘Mr Knowles, these people are not like us, they have different morals. It’s not politics for them; this war is about land and their ancestors buried on that land. How do you fight someone without a uniform, do you kill every one of them?’
Knowles tried to interject, but Deschamps held up a hand, ‘I think your victory will take longer than you imagine, and as I said I’m not interested.’
Before he got up to leave, he opened the dossier and looked at the b & w picture on the front page, beside it the name: Carabas/Mason. On his head the white-peaked marine hat, his blue jacket tipped in stars stretched around the bulk of his shoulders. Despite the stone-cast face and formality of the uniform it was the irreverence of his eyes that caught Jacques’ attention; a subversive humour within them as if being a soldier was a matter of dressing up, as if he was somehow independent of the machinery he worked for. Jacques pulled a roll of piasters from his pocket and got up to leave.
‘Will you at least give it some thought Colonel Deschamps?’…
Later that day six of them gathered in a sparse room at the base in Da Nang: two Koreans, an Australian, a South African, Jacques and Carabas. On the blackboard was a map of the surrounding highlands, criss-crossed in dotted red lines with names like Charley Hill and Hill 327.
Carabas had a long cane that looked thin and puny in his huge hands. ‘Some of you will be travelling upcountry beyond the DMZ to Hanoi; others will drop into Laos and northern Cambodia. I doubt after next week we’ll meet again as a group. This is an experiment, Uncle Sam’s initiative to unite a few nations with common causes and see if we can make things a little more difficult for Charlie.’
The Colonel set himself down in a chair and surveyed his audience. Outside, the crickets had begun their evening song. Carabas pointed to the Australian and South African mercenaries. ‘These are your codenames: Cockroach and Bobcat. You’re in charge of a group of Tunnel Rats around Cu Chi. Cockroach has worked with us before – he’s one of the few guys save the wetbacks who can get himself into a gook tunnel and move around with enough speed to last more than ten minutes. We may need you yet in Laos, Cockroach, on the Ho Chi Minh trail.’
Jacques looked at the Australian ranger; he was unshaven, the skin around his face so tight the cartilage of his jaw flexed each time he swallowed. But his eyes were a little too soft for a soldier’s. Perhaps war funk had descended on him already.
‘Lynx and Puma will be heading up North. That leaves me and Scarecrow, we’ll be heading into Laos.’ said Carabas, pointing at Jacques. ‘He was there with the Foreign Legion and knows more about montagnards and tribespeople than anyone in this room.’
So, that’s what I’m to be called, Scarecrow.
The meeting over, the soldiers filed from the room. Outside, the light swiftly faded from dusk to twilight. Jacques remained seated in the room, his hands clasped together as if in prayer. He heard the door shut and looked up to see the Colonel smiling at him. Carabas was at least two inches taller, but the size of the man lay not in his unusual bulk but rather his presence.
‘Seems you were something of value to the Legion, your record‘s pretty impressive. And I see you can box, champion light heavyweight.’
‘I don’t box anymore, it’s a young man’s game.’
Something odd occurred to Jacques, Colonel Carabas seemed old, as if perhaps he’d been around longer than his thirty-five years. ‘Hope I can be of use to you.’ He said.
‘I don’t doubt it. Your French will also be useful when it comes to liaising with the Royal Lao Army and the king himself.’
‘So, when do we go?’ asked Jacques.
‘In about a week, we’ll meet some of my people out there.’
‘The Hmong?
‘Yeah. They hate Communists. Also, they control the opium, that’s important to us - we need a handle on their supply.’
‘Who’ll be signing the cheques?’ asked Jacques.
‘Anything we need, we ask ‘The Bubble’ in Bangkok.’
The Frenchman moved as if ready to leave, Carabas intercepted him. ‘I know you was in De Gaulle’s bodyguard unit for six months after you left the Legion, as well as Algeria and Rwanda, but when was the last time you saw action in the field?’
‘Six months ago. Beirut.’
‘You’re fit? I mean Jungle fit? Pardon my saying so but you look a little soft around the edges.’
Deschamps felt his stomach clench. He didn’t like the man.
‘Not chasing the dragon or anything?’ The Colonel said playfully.
‘The Dragon?’
‘Opium. You colonials were partial to it, an
d you’ve been in Saigon for a while, right?’
‘I’m fit.’ said the Frenchman, stopping in the doorway. ‘You have a codename Colonel. What is it?’
Those peculiar tar-black eyes with little whites to them; even among the criminals who found cover in the Legion, Jaques had never met a specimen as cold as the man before him.
‘Lizard.’ Answered Carabas.
Outside, the twilight deepened to an inky blue, silhouetting bare-chested marines, their lovingly shined M16s held in their arms like erections. Cockroach the Australian was lingering in the corridor, he looked tired as he held out a bony hand, ‘My real name’s Maybury, glad to meet you.’
‘Deschamps, enchanté.’
‘Colonel doesn’t say much, does he?’
That night the chosen men drank in a bar as the rain fell hard on the port of Da Nang. On the roadside, children hawked bottles of Schlitz to packs of GIs on liberty run. Opposite them a mean looking pair of MPs stalked the rain-washed street, black batons slapping against their thighs as they walked. Deschamps pulled on a smoke, ordered another beer and tried not to think of the opium house. Over the road a little boy ran though the rain trailing a sodden green kite.
‘When you’re all done eating I’ll take you to the boom-boom house… mamasan there’s a friend of mine.’ Amid the clap of agreement Carabas looked over to Jacques and smiled his dead smile. ‘Unless ofcourse any of you soldiers are saving yourself for someone special back home.’
- 4 -
Bangkok, air so close and infernal you could almost clasp it in your hand. I listened to the scream of evening traffic and decided I wasn’t yet ready for its madness. Nor was Skip, or maybe he was just tired after chewing the ear off the person next to him for thirteen hours and watching every film they showed on the plane.
Khaki-clad airport policemen walked by, the whites of their eyes accentuated by their walnut-brown skin. I watched a Thai girl I’d noticed on the flight run to the awaiting car of her boyfriend and drive away. I felt suddenly alone, despite Skip’s presence, my London life and mum seemed a million miles away, my reason for being here something of a farce; a book to be written about a man I barely knew, a list of old veterans who’d probably died or moved back to the States. Oh, and a map of some place in the middle of nowhere, a key and a book of matches from Vientiane, Laos. Hardly seemed enough to warrant a trip to Southeast Asia. Just for a moment, maybe it was the jaundice of jet lag, something in my gut told me being here was a bad thing and that I’d regret it.
Nana’s will had been read by an English firm before I’d left. She’d been smart enough to employ an English firm to save the bother of translations. It shamed me to think of it, the trouble she’d taken for relations who barely visited her. Her flat’s sale would go to Mme Raffelle – quite right after all the support she’d given - her jewellery set and flat’s contents went to my mother; and finally her savings, eight thousand pounds sterling, went to me. Not much perhaps, but right then it was a boon. I owed about three grand on credit cards and my bank was getting sniffy about my being constantly overdrawn. That left me with four grand clear once I’d settled all my finances. I owed it to Nana to get this book written.
Curiously, the will left strict instructions that the contents of a ‘box’ were to be left to me - specifically a key and map. The solicitor regretfully informed Mum that although the tin box had been located as instructed in the will, its contents were not to be found. As she recounted this I’d kept quiet. Better to let her think of it as an old woman’s folly, a fictional key and map. Stuck in a pocket at the bottom of my rucksack that’s all they were for now, I’d brought them along in the event Dad’s trail took me to Laos.
We went for a coffee in the airport Starbucks. Everything felt alien from the shops to the Oriental faces, I couldn’t kick that feeling of strangeness. I was a travel writer for god’s sake, what was wrong with me? I spent my life in airports. I knew one person at least, Sam Casbaron. It’d been almost a month since we’d met and I’d had a little time to digest some of the things he said. Skip thought he sounded like a character from a war film and wanted to meet him. Me? I couldn’t have cared less if I never saw him again, he and his promised night of chasing whores. I’m no good with cheap sex, or old men’s stories. Especially racists. If we called him, Casabaron would probably take charge of our trip like a military campaign, marching us through the whorehouses of Pat Pong.
The Starbucks on the second floor of Suvarnabhumi Airport was like a last piece of home, a momentary portal that could zap us back to all that was safe and familiar, except it wasn’t. The milk tasted weird and there were no brownies. Skip tucked into an iced latte, blue-grey bags under his eyes. ‘Al, we’re here mate. We’re fucking here. Feels like a dream!’
‘In a Galaxy, far, far away…’ I said sleepily, clinking my cup against his. Maybe I was just tired, maybe the last week had taken it out of me, renting my flat and then being burgled, literally days before my departure. It wasn’t really a burglary - not even my credit card that had been left on the kitchen table after I paid it off was gone. A few clothes were strewn on the floor, books leafed through and the desk in the sitting room with its drawers vultured and emptied… but nothing stolen.
‘You jus arrived sah?’ A waiter hovered over us.
‘Yes, fresh in.’ said Skip.
‘You go Ko Phangnan, Full Moon party!’
A little bit yesterday, and we looked a bit old to be reading The Beach. I smiled at him. ‘No, we’re going to Vietnam.’
He opened his eyes wide. ‘You crazee, why you go there, buddy?’
Time to get moving. I looked at Skip, noticing for the first time a few grey hairs around his temples. Even without sleep he still looked as if he’d just wandered off a film set. But time was catching up with us, two ‘forty-somethings’ without partners - never mind families - on what could only be described as an ill-conceived research trip. I felt ragged and spent… a loser.
‘Skippy, you ready to paint Bangkok?’
He grinned back at me.
The waiter wagged a finger. ‘You go Banglamphu tonight, traveller place, Khao San Road, many cheap hotel, many traveller, farang like you, cheap, cheap, cheap.’ He was nodding and wai-ing with his hands clasped together in prayer as he spoke.
Farang, Thai for stranger. Ironic it was the only word I knew.
‘We go Banglamphu, cheap, cheap, cheap!’ mimicked Skip. I picked up my sack and said thank you, then the waiter scampered off.
Outside, horns howled across an orange skyline. We got in line for a cab and each smoked a Salem. It was baking hot.
‘Menthols taste like polos Al, plus they make you sterile!’ He had on a Travis Bickle t-shirt, it was creased and dirty and his chin had turned golden with a day’s stubble. Finally, we were at the front of the queue. ‘All part of a ritual, I always smoke menthols when I’m away.’
‘Why?’
‘I dunno. What do you do before you go on stage?’ I asked.
‘You don’t want to know, it’s OCD overdrive.’
‘Maybe on some screwed up level I think smoking a menthol and having a glass of Coke gives me protection in a strange place.’
‘Does it?’
I laughed, ‘Well, it’s worked so far.’ A cab drew up too close to the kerb and knocked me with its wing mirror. ‘Khao San Rd, please.’ I said to the taxi driver.
‘Six hunred baht.’ He muttered, his fat lips in a snarl. I couldn’t blame him, most Thai men saw their girls in pursuit of aged Western tourists, so in his eyes we were probably just a couple of boys looking for boom-boom.
‘Four hundred, or we go with the authorized taxi firm.’ I said. He shrugged and we climbed in. My rucksack felt like it had a dead body stowed in it.
‘You busy tonight?’ asked Skip harmlessly. The cabbie ignored him. ‘I thought you said T
hais were friendly,’ he whispered to me.
We glided down the toll route past the Skytrain track towering above us, huge posters of the King emblazoned down the side of skyscrapers as we passed the business district. Tuk-tuks festooned with pendants and fairy lights whizzed by us. At one point we passed a protest march against the exile of the Prime Minister, then on we drove into the guts of the city, wide boulevards bordered in tall trees and the high walls of temples. As I dropped off to sleep I noticed their high-arched roofs tiled in gold and wooden curlicues like the wings of dragons. It was dark now, the cabbie merged into a blob of shadow softly lit by the green light of the dash.
I woke to the bright lights of Khao San Rd. The cabbie stood on his brakes and my daypack rolled onto the floor. He was arguing out of the window with a man in a tuk-tuk. Skip was fast asleep. I gave the driver the exact money and he looked at me with the same disgust as when we’d first climbed into his car,
‘American, cheap, cheap, no tip for me and my family.’
‘Up yours.’ I muttered, pinching Skip and climbing into the oven of Banglamphu district. It was nice not being on assignment, I could be as rude as I liked with impunity.
‘What was his problem?’ said Skip.
A spectrum of skin colours was walking the traveller catwalk under the neons of Khao San Road - bleached, beaded, braided travellers; pierced, pissed and parlous, tattoos across sun-kissed frames thin as matchsticks - it was like a human representation of Noah’s Ark. Every bar was a hotel and every hotel seemed to be full of travellers collapsed watching movies on giant flatscreens. Is this what they do, fly half way around the world to watch a cheap bootleg? I wondered.
Skip disagreed. ‘This is heaven! Look, Bladerunner in that one, Apocalypse Now in this one. Let’s find a hotel and come back and chill out!’
Trouble was I didn’t feel like chilling out, all I wanted was a cool glass of beer chased down with a double shot. I couldn’t get the thirst for it from the back of my throat and I wasn’t sure why. I just felt uneasy, hot, tired and in a foul mood. My idea or perfection is not always climbing on a plane to somewhere sticky.
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