He squinted at me: not as fresh and eager as he’d been two years earlier. There were lines of strain on his plain, sweating face, and I guessed that he was about burned out, as a lot of the press here were.
“Some of the Yank military brass are still claiming in interviews that the Government can hold the towns,” he said. “Christ. Are they kidding themselves, or just us?” Without waiting for an answer, he asked suddenly: “Have you seen Mike Langford lately? ”
I said I was seeing him that evening.
We were passing the curbside tables in front of la Taverne, where some French embassy people and a few foreign journalists were sitting over coffees and cognacs. Hands in pockets, Clayton glanced sideways at me, his expression a curious one: the disapproving, almost prim look of someone about to pass on news of human deviousness or corruption.
“Langford’s someone who won’t seem to accept the end here,” he said. “It’s weird. A bit of a bloody worry, in fact.”
Mike’s got a lot invested emotionally, I said. He regards it as his home.
Clayton shook his head. It wasn’t that simple, his look told me. He seemed determined to talk about it, and I remembered how much he’d admired Langford, and guessed now that I was going to have to listen to some sort of analysis of his idol’s flaws. Roger’s uncritical youthful fervency was lately giving way to a judgmental earnestness I found unattractive: it afflicts a lot of journalists.
“Mike knows bloody well that Lon Nol’s finished,” he said. “But he seems to be involved with this group around his mate Chandara—who’s been promoted to Colonel. I gather it’s the old Free Khmer revamped, getting ready to come again when Lon Nol loses. Against the Khmer Rouge! Talk about tilting at windmills: Jesus. But surely you’ve heard these rumors about Langford?”
Mike was a friend, I said. I didn’t listen to rumors.
But Clayton ignored my tone. “You know I regard him as a friend too,” he said, “and a great war photographer. Nothing will change that. But mate, he’s losing his professionalism.” He looked around him now as though we might be overheard. “You must have heard,” he said. “They reckon that out in the field, he’s picking up the gun. He’s not always covering; he’s bloody fighting, mate.”
I stopped, and faced him. I don’t believe that, I told him; and I didn’t.
“Look, it’s coming from quite a few sources,” Clayton said. “A NewYork Times correspondent came on him with a platoon of Lon Nol soldiers down near Takhmau, on Highway 1, where the Government’s still holding out. They’d just come out of a firefight, and Mike was carrying an M-16: he seemed to be in charge. ‘Jesus,’ said the Times guy, ‘what are you doing with that rifle?’ And Langford said: ‘We got cut off, and their captain was killed. Somebody had to take over.’ ”
I laughed, in spite of the concern that Clayton had succeeded in creating in me. Any other journalist would have laughed at that story too, serious though its implications were: but not Clayton. His stare asked that I come to my senses.
He probably had to fight his way out, I said. It happens; you know that. It’s happened to plenty of other cameramen. You defend yourself or you die.
“There are too many other stories,” Clayton said. “And Langford doesn’t hide his involvement with this bloody outfit. All he ever talks about is how Cambodia’s been betrayed, and how it’s got to be saved. He’s losing his objectivity, Harvey.”
Maybe he thinks now there are more important things in life than journalism, I said.
Clayton looked affronted, like a Bible teacher listening to blasphemy, and I patted him on the shoulder.
I’ll give Mike your regards, I said, and hailed a cyclo.
I’d arranged to meet Langford for a drink that night by the pool at the Hotel le Royal. I came down from my room at about eight o‘clock, and sat at a table to wait for him under one of the striped umbrellas, cognac and soda in hand.
The colored electric bulbs hung as always between the sugar palms, and the petrol lamps flickered on the tables like the fairground lights of childhood. In front of me, across the pool, rose the hotel’s ranks of shuttered windows. Beyond them was the drive, with its cyclos and taxis, and then the Phnom Penh dark: dense and profoundly’ unsafe. All was as usual here, yet not. The garden’s scented air suggested peace, but a peace in the process of mummifying: becoming as we sat here the peace of the past, masquerading as the present for a little while longer. I tried to imagine what would happen when the Khmer Rouge came up the drive.
The crowd around me was made up of embassy officials, Cambodian military officers and bureaucrats, Western correspondents, and a sprinkling of up-market Cambodian prostitutes in black silk sarongs. A small Cambodian orchestra on the café’s terrace was playing “Wonderland by Night.” My colleagues of the press, huddled over their table lamps, faces reflecting the flames of the lamps like those of nineteenth-century plotters, were the noisiest of the groups under the umbrellas. There was a note of hysteria in their laughter that night, and they were getting more drunk than usual. Outbursts of wild clowning alternated with emotional diatribes against the corrupt Lon Nol leaders—or simply the war itself.
One of these was being delivered at the next table by a British correspondent whose hair was held back by a red pirate’s scarf. I could pick up most of his thesis in snatches. Only the American hawks wanted to keep the war going now, and a Khmer Rouge victory would be the best outcome for the country, bringing peace and stability. They woulldn’t be the bogeys they were said to be: the wicked Khmer Rouge were a fiction created by right-wing war-lovers. They’d prove to be moderate Socialists, free from corruption and ready to rebuild a Cambodia at peace, with the exiled Prince Sihanouk back as head of state.
I’d heard this speech before, with minor variations. Meanwhile, in the markets, rumors of quite another kind were circulating, brought by the refugees from the countryside: horror stories about disembowelings, and heads being sawn off with the knife-edged leaf stems of sugar palms. You could take your pick: none of us really knew what the Others would be like.
There were very few correspondents that I knew here, this evening. I missed the Nurseryman, who was long gone; I missed Volkov. Jim Feng was in Saigon that week, Griffiths was back in the UK, and I expected Mike to come alone, or perhaps with Bill Wall. But when he appeared, walking down the steps from inside the hotel, I was startled to see him accompanied by Aubrey Hardwick.
Langford had introduced me to Hardwick in Saigon once, but we’d spoken very little; and that had been a number of years ago. Here in Phnom Penh, I’d seen the two of them together from a distance, at odd times—often having drinks or a meal at one of the little bars down near the Tonle Sap. They were usually alone, and I never attempted to join them. Sometimes they had Donald Mills with them, who was still Second Secretary at the Australian embassy in Saigon. Hardwick came and went, visiting our embassy here. He was said to be a military adviser, and his connection with Australia’s foreign mission was left somewhat vague—which should have fooled no one who knew about such things.
As they pulled up their chairs to the table, I studied him with some curiosity. He’s now quite old, as you probably know—a bachelor in his mid-sixties, belonging everywhere and nowhere. I’ve learned since that he has a flat here in Bangkok and a house in Melbourne; but he seems to stay nowhere for long. Like a lot of aging diplomats and Secret Intelligence people, he’s developed a veneer over the years that’s pretty well impenetrable. Aubrey’s veneer—old-school-tie and Melbourne Club—is a sort of self-caricature: fey and dated, pre—World War Two, with a touch of Noel Coward about it. But the veneer covers a quite different interior from that of a diplomat: there’s a hardness there that makes you metaphorically straighten yourself—and then feel annoyed with yourself for doing it.
Leaning back in his chair now, he looked like a military officer in mufti. Everything said it: the lean fitness; the hair—now quite white—cut to a Marine stubble; the clipped, quasi-British accent; the cotton shi
rt with patch pockets and the knife-edged tan slacks. He had the expected firm jaw, but the mouth was odd: pursed pink lips that were rather feminine: a fastidious elderly lady’s. One eyelid drooped slightly, in a frozen wink. There was no small talk: he wouldn’t allow any. As soon as he had a cognac in his hand, he turned his full attention on me, and proceeded to the only topic anyone here was talking about: the country’s death. He led into it with a dose of flattery.
“Good to meet you again, Harvey. Never miss your television pieces when I’m at home in Melbourne. Constantly listen to your radio reports on the ABS overseas service as well. Excellent; they keep me abreast. And I notice your assessments are seldom wrong. So tell me: how long do you think we have, before welcoming the Red Khmer into town?”
I told him a couple of months at most.
But he shook his head, his eyes fixed on me without blinking: shrewd, unusually light eyes, arresting the attention like a glimpse of frozen water. And a little mad: the only thing in his appearance that gave him away. All spooks are a little mad; they have to be.
“Not months,” he said. “Weeks.”
I asked him if this was a guess, or whether he had privileged information. If he had, I said, perhaps he might care to share it.
I probably sounded a little brusque; and I saw Langford glance at me quickly. But I have something of a distaste for spooks—and as well, you have to understand that in that February, in the atmosphere of final catastrophe enclosing the city, no one felt like playing the cat-and-mouse games any more which usually provide journalists, public officials and politicians with their adrenaline rushes. We were past these games; discretion and indirectness were being dropped. It was rather like being on a sinking ship.
Aubrey wasn’t put out, or didn’t appear to be. But he took his time about answering, leaning above the table lamp’s glass shade to tight a small cigar at the flame, his tanned old face deeply shadowed. There was a good deal of the actor in him. Leaning back and blowing out a long stream of smoke in the classic manner, he gave me the unblinking gaze again.
“With pleasure,” he said. “In desperate times, we scavengers should share every scrap, no? I’ve been talking today to my friend John Gunther Dean. Also to my old and dear friend Lieutenant General Sutsakhan.”
My friend John Gunther Dean; my friend Sutsakhan. I didn’t doubt Aubrey’s close acquaintance with both the American ambassador and the commander-in-chief of the Cambodian Armed Forces. But I suddenly sensed something passé about him: something of yesterday’s man. Sensed, but wasn’t sure. He was pretty certainly a high-ranking ASIS operative, and close to the center of things; yet the atmosphere he gave out just now, under the bland and confident manner, was of a man trying to hold his place, and feeling the ground begin to shift. It’s an atmosphere an old journo becomes highly attuned to, and I wondered why I sniffed it out in Aubrey. I still wonder, since he now proceeded to deliver some hard information of a reasonably surprising nature.
“The Government will almost certainly remove Lon Nol shortly,” Aubrey said. “Sutsakhan will probably replace him as head of state. They will do this in a bid to win international approval, since Lon Nol’s corruption now brings them into such dreadful odor. And what they hope then, poor things, is to get U.S. Congress approval for the major military air support they’re being denied. But alas, no. It’s too late. The troops are deserting in thousands, and almost every brigade defending the perimeter of the city has already been knocked out; you know this. The Americans have plans to evacuate the Government, and John Gunther Dean is preparing to pull the embassy out. It will be soon, Harvey, very soon; I can’t say more. And the ambassador believes that what will follow will be what he refers to as a bloodbath.”
Yes, we’d heard that often enough, I told him. Dean was always talking to the press about the future Khmer Rouge bloodbath, when he had us around to the embassy for drinks.
“True,” Mike put in. “The journos have even made up a song about it. You’ll probably hear it sung before the night’s over, Aubrey. The ‘Khmer Rouge Bloodbath Song.’ ”
Aubrey chuckled. “John Gunther Dean’s a pessimist,” he said. “I often tell him that.” He turned to me again; he seemed bent on impressing me. “There won’t be any bloodbath, you know—it’s nonsense. It reminds one of that poem of Cavafy‘s—are you a Cavafy admirer, Harvey?—’Waiting for the Barbarians.‘ ” He quoted, his voice taking on a musical cadence. “ ’Now what’s going to happen to us without barbarians? These people were a kind of solution.‘ ” He gave a throaty laugh, his eyes searching mine like those of the teller of a suggestive joke. “The Americans tend to need monsters to frighten the children with, don’t they? I love them dearly, but they do.” He leaned towards me, lowering his voice slightly and checking the tables on either side: the sideways glance one grows all too familiar with, in political journalism. “The question is, Harvey, what happens after the defeat? That’s what I’ve been talking about with Michael, here.”
I glanced at Langford; but he was listening in silence, his face showing nothing.
“When the city falls,” Aubrey said to me, “have you considered staying?”
I’d considered it, I said; but not with much enthusiasm. The Khmer Rouge didn’t seem likely to respect press neutrality.
“Now you’re seeing them as bogeymen, as the Americans do,” Aubrey said. “But our friends speak from ignorance about the Khmer Rouge, believe me. I know a little more about them. So do some of my colleagues in Foreign Affairs: it’s been our business to know. I know some of the KR leaders personally. Met them originally in Paris: just boys, then. And I maintained friendships with them here in Phnom Penh, when I was First Secretary here in the sixties. Real friendships: links that can be revived. You’ve got to realize what they’re actually like, Harvey—it might surprise you.” His voice took on a soothing tone, and he smiled: I began to see why Mike called him Uncle Aubrey. “They’re not monsters,” he said. “They’re Left Bank Marxist intellectuals: idealists. Somewhat naive. In other words, the sort of people we can deal with. And we will.”
Mike drained his cognac and put it down with a rap. He said nothing, but his raised eyebrows and faint smile caused Hardwick to glance at him sharply.
“Michael doesn’t agree,” he said. “I respect his experience of the Khmer Rouge soldiers in the field, Harvey, but not even he knows very much about the KR leadership.” His voice had an edge to it, and for the first time the hardness showed clearly: a particular kind that I’ve usually come across otherwise in senior policemen. But still Langford sat back and remained silent, his face mild and untelling, like a dutiful son hearing his father out.
Aubrey turned back to me. “Sihanouk has said in his broadcasts from Peking that the KR will only execute those they regard as traitors,” he said. “Things will settle down after that, we can depend on it. Then we’ll need to understand the regime—and not only Canberra but Washington will desperately need insights. That’s why a correspondent of your caliber should stay, Harvey. The links I’m talking about could be interesting to you. Links that our American friends simply can’t come by.” He drew on his cigar, watching me.
I’ll have to disappoint you, I told him. I’m a cowardly journalist: I don’t take chances. And I have a wife to consider. I’ll be out on the first helicopter, when the Khmer Rouge arrive.
Aubrey’s eyes remained fixed on my face, and his smile vanished. “Really,” he said, and said no more; he turned away to signal for a waiter.
He’d understood me, and now wasted no more time: the topic was dismissed.
A little later, he excused himself; he had a dinner appointment with an old and dear friend from the French embassy, he said.
Left alone, Mike and I sat on in a faintly awkward silence. Then I said: Your Uncle Aubrey doesn’t waste time. Does he usually try and recruit every journo he meets?
He grinned, fingering an ashtray. “Not usually,” he said. “But he’s dead keen to find people to hang on here, af
ter the Khmer Rouge win. People who can report on the new regime.”
I asked him if he intended to be one of them.
He stared at me for a moment, leaning back. In all these years, he and I had never discussed his association with Hardwick—and I’d never even hinted at my assumption that Aubrey was an ASIS man. But tonight had seemed a good opportunity. Everything had conspired to create it: the deepening mutter of disaster in the darkness beyond the umbrellas; the drunken, nervy laughter that came from underneath them; the sense of everything ending. And I was right; when Langford spoke again, he took my knowledge for granted.
“No,” he said finally. “I’ll be staying—but not: for Uncle Aubrey.” He looked away from me, still toying with the ashtray, and didn’t enlarge on this. Then he said: “Aubrey got me started as a combat cameraman when I was young and in trouble, a long time ago. I owed him for that. So I gave him a bit of operational intelligence over the years: stuff I picked up when I was moving around-stuff that his Foreign Affairs people couldn’t get. Some of it raised his stocks in London and Washington, as well as in Canberra. That was the ultimate feather in the cap for Aubrey. Our intelligence people love it when the CIA listens to them. He reckoned that some of it went as high as the Oval Office.”
He looked up at me quickly, putting down the ashtray. “I know what you’re thinking, Harvey. But there’s never been a conflict of interest. There would have been, for a words man like you; you’d have owed information like that to ABS first. But it didn’t arise for a photographer: it was nothing but background to me. And I really wanted to help Aubrey, back in the sixties. He’s quite an extraordinary bloke: not just any old spook.”
He felt in the pocket of his loud, aquamarine shirt and found a single, deformed cigarette there—no doubt scrounged. He leaned forward and lit it from the lamp, continuing to gaze into the flame with a faraway expression. “Aubrey’s Special Operations,” he said. He kept the cigarette in his mouth, which made his words indistinct, and his voice—no doubt deliberately—was softer than usual, so that I had to lean over to hear him. “He’s crucially involved, here and in Vietnam. He’s an adviser to the U.S. military, among other things. There’s not much that old bloke hasn’t been involved with, in his time. This is a man who started with British MI6 before World War Two, Harvey, when he was studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. He practically founded Australian Intelligence, under MI6 instructions.”
Highways to a War Page 45