Highways to a War

by Koch, Christopher J.

  —We keep the shutters closed: tiny white slivers of sun through the louvers. Drifting, on the bed in the heat, the roaring sun and world shut out. We tell each other that we’ll drift away, here in the room.

  —Sary today padding across us as we lay like statues, wet from head to foot, not able to move. Sniffing at our drying foam and suddenly staring, shocked. We laughed, and she ran away offended.

  JUNE 6TH

  —Scents the room never had before.

  —Lime blossom I brought from the markets that she’s put in vases everywhere: her favorite flower. Her scents and cosmetics, standing on the chest of drawers. All of the scents making a kind of rippling in the air, under the slow old fan. Ripples of light as well, reflected on the smudgy blue walls, as though we’re under water.

  —Why did you never marry?

  —I told her. Told her everything.

  —Listening, she sat naked in the middle of the bed, cross-legged; she’s got no self-consciousness. The black silky triangle between her thighs like a figure on a pale ochre vase.

  —Why do you love me? She frowned at me, warning me to make the right answer.

  —I don’t think I loved anyone before, I said. I only loved what I thought was there. With you, I know it’s there.

  —She threw herself on top of me, like a child.

  JUNE 8TH

  —Small things amuse her, even though she’s so much better educated than me. I came in yesterday wearing a monkey mask I bought in the market: a silly joke, but she wouldn’t stop laughing.

  —Today she turned the photograph of Claudine to the wall, pursing her lips and glancing at me sideways. Don’t want to see this Vietnamese-French lady looking at us any more, she said. Time to put her away.

  —She’ll always be a friend, I said. She did a great deal for me, years ago.

  —But she pulled a face. No more lady friends, she said. Not even this aunty.

  JUNE 9TH

  —Keang standing naked by the window, one arm raised to hold a shutter open. She seemed to be thinking about something very far off, lip pulled down. Watched her from the bed. A streak of hot light let in, to touch her body like a flare: her raised arm and one breast glowing apricot, her nipple a dark plum. The fan of black hair hanging to the base of her spine: almost too heavy for her to carry. Naked, she’s quite small, even though her figure’s a full one. To me her body’s perfect, but its proportions are actually irregular: the long slender waist and then the flaring hips; the short legs.

  —When will you give us a baby?

  —I hadn’t really meant to say this; my voice spoke the words, and I heard myself say them with surprise.

  —She came over quickly and sat astride me: fierce, moist, stinging, pinning my wrists.

  —You want us to have one?

  —Very much, I said.

  —When the war stops, she said. When it’s safe. Then I will have your baby.

  —Lying beside me, she explored old battle injuries: tracing them with her finger the way that Claudine used to do.

  —You are really a soldier, she said. When are you going to put down that camera, and take up a gun?

  —Never, I said. I won’t kill people.

  —But you don’t want us to lose Cambodia, she said. You want to stay here. This is your home now, Mike: you said that. You love Cambodia, you said. So you have to fight for what you love, don’t you know that?

  —Not with a gun, I said.

  —She lay down beside me, her head on my shoulder, her voice soft. I know you’ll fight with us when the time comes, she said. You’ll stay and fight with the Khmer Serei. Chandara thinks so too.

  —I’ll go on carrying the wounded, I said. I’ll send out pictures to show what’s happening. But I won’t pick up a gun.

  JUNE 11TH

  —Last night Keang talked about her father. Now I understand why she wants to fight, and for me to fight with her. And I wonder if anger isn’t deeper than love in her.

  —It was around nine o‘clock. We were sitting on the rattan settee in the dark, looking out through the doors. Curfew time: the noise of the traffic stopped; quiet settling on the city. Soldiers blowing their whistles somewhere out of sight, ordering stragglers indoors. The green kiosks in the market putting up their shutters; the street traders packing up their stalls to be away before the soldiers came; the petrol lamps going out.

  —Talked to Keang about the progress of the Khmer Rouge offensive. I’d been out with Bill Wall on Highway 1 today, and it looked bad, I told her. The Communists had launched heavy attacks on both sides of the Mekong, overrunning a lot of Government positions. It looked as though the Mekong-Highway 1 corridor might soon be in their hands. If that happened, I said, I wanted her to let me take her out to Bangkok.

  —But she shook her head, and her eyes got large the way they do when she’s emotional. I won’t go, she said. I’ve made a promise to stay and fight until there’s no hope left—and perhaps even after that.

  —I asked whom she’d promised this to.

  —My father, she said. I promised him in my heart. The Khmer Rouge killed him, and I’ve said I will find some way of fighting them, when the time comes. Never to give in.

  —But your father was a soldier—he died doing his duty, I said. He wouldn’t have expected this of you. He’d want you safe.

  —He didn’t die in action, she said.

  —Suddenly she bent her head like a girl being punished, her voice muffled. I remembered what Chandara had said about her father, and waited.

  —I have never told you this; now I want to tell you, she said. He died five years ago, when I was nineteen. It was the time when there was a peasant uprising in Battambang: the Red Khmer organized it. That was when they were just beginning to form their army in the countryside, and to execute village chiefs. No one knew much about them, then. The uprising was put down by our armed forces under Prince Sihanouk’s orders; very many were killed. My father took an important part as a commander. He was wounded.

  —She stopped for a moment. Still she kept her head down, hands locked in her lap, not looking at me. One night, she said, three men walked into the kitchen of our home in Battambang city, and they shot my father in front of us—my mother, my two small brothers and me. Then they walked out again. They were agents of the Khmer Rouge.

  —She still didn’t move or raise her head or look at me. I couldn’t find anything to say except how sorry I was. I put my arm about her shoulders, and felt the stiffness of her body.

  —I loved my father, she said. I want the Khmer Rouge to pay for what happened to him, and to others. I won’t see my father die for nothing. That is what I have made my aim in life. That’s why I haven’t married.

  —She put her head down on my shoulder. I want to marry you. But you must understand why I have to fight them.

  —I understand, I said. But why turn yourself into a sacrifice? What’s the bloody use of that? .

  —She looked up at me, and this look made what I’d said sound silly. Who was I to judge someone whose father had been shot in front of her? I was just another spoiled Western correspondent, standing on the sidelines of what was happening here. And in a way, it was all unreal to me. Here she sat in the dark, talking about revenge for her father’s death like someone in a melodrama. But who was I to make judgments? These were emotions she believed in; they’d actually pulled her life apart. A lot was now explained about her: even her joking, which must often have covered pain.

  —I don’t want to die, I want a life with you, she said. But I must go on fighting the Khmer Rouge—even if they should win this war. You see? And if they take over, maybe your people will be looking for ways to bring them down. I could help.

  —And she looked at me in the dark as though expecting something.

  —My people? I said.

  —I want you to introduce me to your friend Mr. Aubrey Hardwick, she said.

  —I stared at her. I’d once mentioned Aubrey to her, telling her how he’d helpe
d me to get started as a cameraman—but I hadn’t told her what he did. I’d just described him as a diplomat. I should have known that she’d find out eventually he’s an ASIS operative: most things get found out in Phnom Penh. I asked her why she wanted to meet him.

  —Please, Mike, she said. Don’t have secrets from me. I know about Mr. Hardwick from Cambodian Army friends. Friends of my father’s. They met him here in the old days before the war. They say he’s a very important spy. They say he has close connections to the British and Americans. I know he’ll help Cambodia, if the time comes. I want to meet him: I want to help him as you do.

  —I don’t help Aubrey any more, I said. I don’t really trust him. I don’t trust any spies—even when they’re on our side.

  —But she wasn’t listening: she had her heart set on meeting Aubrey, and that was that. And α mean notion came into my mind: that she was making use of me. Is she? Yes and no. She loves me, and for this very reason she sees it as natural that she should get to Hardwick through me —and she thinks I should see it that way too. Cambodian women are very practical.

  —Will I introduce her? I suppose so, in the end: it won’t be avoidable. She’ll know when he’s in town. But I have a bad feeling about it.

  JUNE 20TH

  —Yesterday, Ly Keang got her wish. I’ve used a gun, and now everything’s changed.

  —I was out with Major Chandara down in Takeo, in that flooded flatland of grass and reeds. He was leading a company on a sweep. Late afternoon, and Chandara and I were walking a little ahead of the unit with one of his sergeants. Suddenly, α group of Khmer Rouge opened up with assault rifles. They were dug into a bunker in the reeds up ahead, and we hadn’t seen them.

  —In that instant, Chandara and the sergeant and I were cut off. The rest of the company was only about twenty yards to our left and a little behind us, and had α number of armored personnel carriers to give them cover—but there was no way we could get back to them across those few yards. The unit was returning fire, but because of the surprise, quite a few of them had been killed.

  —We threw ourselves flat under an old mango tree, hugging the twisted gray roots. Chandara was firing with his M-16, and the sergeant was firing too; but the Khmer Rouge were well dug in. I began to be afraid that they’d soon launch one of their human wave attacks. I didn’t raise my head, and made no attempt to get pictures.

  —Then I saw that the sergeant was getting to his feet. He was α tough old Khmer with a weathered brown face, and completely fearless. He unhooked α grenade from his webbing, pulled the pin, and hurled it towards the Khmer Rouge bunker. Standing up was madness in the circumstances, but Cambodians are always doing it. The grenade thrown, he threw himself fast to the ground; but not fast enough. There was α burst of fire from the reeds, and the sergeant spun and cried out, clutching his left side below the ribs. A big patch of blood spread between his fingers on his shirt; I couldn’t tell how bad the wound was, and I was about to move closer to help when I heard Chandara call my name, and saw him point.

  —They were coming. They were out of their bunker, which had been hit by the sergeant’s grenade, and were splashing towards us through the reeds, rifles at the ready: not many, perhaps α dozen in their black pα-jamas, checked kramasaround their necks. Here they are at lost, I thought, the Black Ghosts, and the shining, dark green leaves of the mango got very distinct just above me.

  —The unit was still putting out fire from our left, and two of the Khmer Rouge fell. But the others came on, and were very close. The sergeant lay quietly, eyes half closed, his rifle beside him: α captured AK-47. Chandara leaned over and picked it up and thrust it at me, speaking very fast, shouting above the noise.

  —I think you must use this, Mike, he said. Use it! And if they capture us, use it on yourself. You know what Khmer Rouge will do.

  —I didn’t hesitate. I took the AK, settled down against α root of the mango, and got a black figure in my sights. I’d long ago learned how to use an assault rifle, filling in time with the troops in periods when we were waiting for action, and I was glad this one was α Kalashnikov and not an M-16, remembering that the AK never jammed. Feeling the stock against my shoulder, smelling the oil, I seemed always to have been doing this.

  —I fired at the man in my sights and missed; didn’t have control of the gun. They were nearly here now; I could see their faces. Chandara fired, and I saw one of them fall. Then I targeted another of them. He was α young man in his twenties with α very dark, hard Khmer face and α wild shock of hair; fired another burst, and he threw up his hands and went down straightaway. Two more fell, one of them to Chandara; then our troops managed to land α mortar shell among them: one was blown into the air and another was spun backwards from the force of the blast.

  —Silence came back, and I realized there were no more of them. Instead of being relieved, I was let down, in those first instants. I’d been ready to go on fighting. Then I came to my senses, and put down the Kalashnikov.

  -Chandara was smiling at me, wiping his sweating face with his scarf. No doubt about it, Mean Samnang, he said: you are the Lucky One.

  —The remaining soldiers in the company began to move across to join us, and Chandara and I bent over the sergeant. He was lying on his back, a big pool of blood soaking into the ground beneath him, eyes half closed, his Buddha amulet between his teeth. He was dying. He spoke α few low words, α half smile on his face, and Chandara looked up at me.

  —He says he sees her, he said. The Lady.

  —I asked him what lady.

  —Lady Death, Chandara said. Many of them see her, when the time comes. They say she’s warm and kind.

  —When the medics got to us and began to move the sergeant onto α stretcher, Chandara stood up and began to call out orders, and some of the soldiers moved out to inspect the Khmer Rouge dead and wounded. Then Chandara turned to me, and suddenly took my hand. He was half laughing, and gripped it hard.

  —So we’re still here, you and I, he said. I knew you’d use α gun one day, Mike. Now you’re one of us. Now you’ve become α soldier after all.

  -In that moment, for good or for bad, I felt that what he said was true. We’d fought to save our lives together, he and I, and α link had been formed like no other, which would tighten. Some day, I’d fight with him for Cambodia: it had always been going to happen.

  —The motors of the APCs started up, the troops talked and laughed in relief, and everything was as always, after a battle. Yet everything had changed.

  FIVE

  FALL

  1.

  HARVEY DRUMMOND

  It took two more years for Phnom Penh and Saigon to fall, and my life became a tale of two cities. In this period, Langford begins to slide in and out of focus.

  ABS had now based me here in Bangkok, and Lisa had joined me. I divided my visits to Vietnam and Cambodia fairly evenly, but I wasn’t covering in Indochina all the time. So I wasn’t in touch with Mike consistently: there were gaps. I’d see him in Phnom Penh over a period of weeks, and then not for months. Or I’d run into him in Saigon, where he’d still turn up on assignment for his American newsweekly. And as things neared their end in Cambodia, in the early months of 1975, I began to feel unsure that I still really knew him.

  In that February, I’d lie awake in bed each night in the Hotel Royal, listening to the distant Khmer Rouge artillery. I’d wonder how soon it would be before I found myself on a last flight out from Pochentong Airport—and sometimes I’d wonder whether I’d be able to get on one at all.

  Phnom Penh was now an island, ringed by its enemies. It was extraordinary that the city held on for so long; yet it did, and amazingly, it still had its charm. It was still pretending for much of the time that the war wasn’t there; still offering all the old pleasures to those of us who could afford them. The nightclubs and French restaurants were doing good business; the afternoons were still lazy; the crowd by the pool at the Royal was still well supplied with brandy and champagne. Yet the a
nnual Khmer Rouge dry season offensive was in full swing.

  They were closing in on the last Government enclaves left in the country, and closing in on Phnom Penh. The Government troops were fighting with hopeless bravery, but the Communists were now only fifteen kilometers from the edges of the city. Their rockets were soaring out of the swamplands to the south to kill and maim civilians in the suburbs: people eating noodles at a stall; children walking to school. The power supply flickered on and off like daylight in a nightmare, and the Mekong was finally closed: the last little supply ship from Saigon had got past the fire from the riverbanks to unload its cargo on the Phnom Penh dock. But the Americans continued to airlift supplies in, and the optimists talked about a reprieve when the rains came. No one could quite believe that the end would actually arrive, even though it loomed over the city like a thunderhead cloud. There was the false tranquility of craziness in the air.

  It was in that time that I began to notice the change in Langford. Before, his secret life had been peripheral; something on the edges of his personality. Now, it seemed to me to be taking over.

  I first grew concerned about him through a conversation I had with young Roger Clayton.

  I met Clayton by chance outside the Telecommunications Building, near Post Office Square. It was around four o‘clock on a Monday afternoon: the end of siesta, and the city still drowsy in the heat. This was my first day back in the country after something like a month away, and I’d been putting a story through to ABS in Sydney on the radio-telephone circuit. Clayton and I walked towards the square together, comparing notes.

  The square was half deserted: the scarlet flame trees by the white French post office burning intolerably in the sun; a couple of cyclo boys creaking by in slow motion. As we crossed the road a Cambodian Army truck roared past, and Clayton grimaced.

  “There they go,” he said. “They’re press-ganging boys off the streets now. And there’s no point at all, Harvey, is there? The Yank airlift won’t save them. Nothing will.”