A Distant Land

by Alison Booth

  ‘English,’ Kim said in French. ‘Canadian. They’re not American. We’re not soldiers. We’re international journalists and not Americans.’

  The soldier kicked Jim’s feet hard, and two more squatted down next to him. They yanked off his leather shoes, not bothering to untie the laces. Guffawing, they passed the shoes from hand to hand. Were they so funny, his brown leather shoes? Wrong for the climate, wrong for the jungle, wrong if you were wearing rubber Ho Chi Minh sandals. And what about the other journalists? What did they have on their feet? The soldiers laughed as they wrenched off their leather sandals. Only Mark tried to stop them, his reward a blow on the chin with a rifle butt.

  ‘American! American!’ one of the soldiers taunted.

  ‘Canadian, Canadian,’ Mark said.

  ‘English,’ Kim said, gesturing to Jim. ‘Canadian,’ he added, nodding in Mark’s direction.

  The soldiers began tossing the shoes and sandals, one to the other, as if they were playing Frisbee or some game of catch. They look like high-school kids on an outing, Jim thought. But they are not. His heart began to thump painfully as he remembered the small boy he’d found at school years ago pulling the legs off a live cicada. The look of pleasure on his face. What other sport might these soldiers turn to, once this game had palled? How long would it take before their hilarity turned to cruelty?

  A soldier noticed Michio’s spectacles and pulled them off his nose. Putting them on, he stumbled around the clearing, an old man who couldn’t see where he was going. Another threw a sandal high into the treetops, where it caught on a branch and clung there like some strange bird. The others cheered, and soon they were all playing toss-the-footwear.

  After being hurled into the air a number of times, first one of Jim’s shoes and then the other became entangled in the highest branches of the trees. His heart sank, together with his hopes of having them returned. He’d be walking in socks or bare feet from now on.

  Or perhaps this clearing was his final destination. If they were forced to carry on marching, they would be shot when their feet gave way. In war anyone who couldn’t keep up would be shot.

  ‘Dừng lại!’ shouted Kim, as his sandals became lodged in the treetops. ‘Stop!’

  ‘Dừng lại!’ came another shout. The Leader and Jimi Hendrix stood at the edge of the clearing. Between them hung a rubber poncho, slung from two branches and brimming with water. A few curt words from The Leader and the soldiers were absorbed back into the jungle.

  One by one the prisoners knelt in front of The Leader, while he poured water into their open mouths. A communion of sorts, Jim thought. As he raised his face to accept the offering, he saw a fleeting expression of what might be pity on The Leader’s face. Did he know they would soon be dead? Was this compassion, or anxiety about the water supply? Impossible to tell, and an instant later it was replaced by an emotionless mask. Smooth, impassive, he was a young man again.

  Di di di. Time to move once more. Without shoes, Jim stumbled along the rough path. Tripping on a root became an overwhelming injustice. So too did having his heels trodden on by Michio, and he had to bite his lip to prevent an angry outburst. Although his feet were sore, his socks at least gave them some protection; the others had nothing. He could see that Kim, walking in front of him, was increasingly finding the going difficult, and his arms were becoming swollen with the tightness of the ligatures.

  When it became dark, Jimi Hendrix and Fourth Brother turned on torches until the moon hove into view. It was Sunday night. The UPI would be worrying about them by now. At some point Zidra and Jim’s family and friends would hear the news. He remembered with painful clarity his parents’ faces as they waved to him at the departure gate at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport. His mother’s sadness, his father’s pride. He couldn’t bear to think of how his capture would affect them. Or his death.

  Hours later, when it surely must have been early morning, they stopped in a small clearing. More soldiers appeared, holding oil lamps: small glass bottles with a wick poking out of the top of each. Jim inhaled the oily stink of the burning wick as one of the soldiers, a thin man with lined skin, held up a lamp to his face. The man nodded at Jimi Hendrix, who untied the wires restraining the arms of each of the journalists.

  Fourth Brother pushed Jim’s head low as he shoved him forward. Down, down into a tunnel with sides of compacted mud. He collapsed onto the ground, the others beside him.

  Within seconds he was asleep.

  Chapter 12

  ‘They’ll have got counterinsurgency agents here by now,’ Mark said. It was early morning and through the opening to the bunker Jim could see guards squatting around a fire. ‘They’ll be wondering about our intelligence value. What they can learn from keeping us alive.’

  ‘They’ll learn nothing,’ Kim said. ‘We know nothing more than what we heard at the military briefing in Phnom Penh before we got captured, and that’s days old.’

  One of the guards squatting around the fire was stirring a blackened iron pot from which steam was rising. Hunger gnawed at Jim’s guts. His mouth began to salivate at the smell of rice cooking.

  ‘They don’t know that,’ Mark said. ‘They think at least two of us are with the CIA: me and Jim. Michio’s okay but Kim could be with the South Vietnamese Army.’

  ‘We’ve got our press cards.’

  ‘They’ve got our press cards,’ Mark said. ‘They’ve still got that bundle with their backpacks.’

  ‘Here they are, look. And they’ve got food.’

  The Leader and Jimi Hendrix stood at the mouth of the bunker, with a steaming basket of rice and a pot of tea. Drink slowly, eat slowly, Jim told himself, as his stomach contracted with the first mouthful. He ate no more until he’d finished the mug of fragrant tea and his stomach settled.

  After breakfast, The Leader beckoned the prisoners out into the clearing. Dazed by the early morning sunlight, Jim peered around. So dense was the jungle surrounding them you might almost think that there was no way in or out, although if you looked more closely you could see the trail at the far end, concealed by loops of vines. His head began to swim and he would have fallen if The Leader hadn’t seized hold of his elbow. He murmured some words that Jim had difficulty understanding. Only at the second repetition did he realise they were in French. ‘Visitor from high up to ask you questions. Come with me.’

  Jim followed The Leader across the clearing. Past the curious faces of the soldiers they went, towards the path at the far end. Where the narrow trail began, The Leader held back a swag of vines. Jim inhaled deeply to steel his nerves; best not to think of what lay ahead. Best to keep calm, to focus on the leafy litter covering the red earth, the dense understorey, the tall trees with mottled grey and white bark and buttressed roots, the cooing of a pair of green pigeons.

  They arrived at another clearing. Uniformed soldiers sat in a semicircle facing Jim. It was as if he were in court: a kangaroo court, a military tribunal, an interrogation – he didn’t know which. A frail-looking old man sat at a low table, and on each side of him sat others, all on upright wooden chairs. The old man wore a dark green uniform and a blank expression, and a pistol in a holster on his belt. The Leader motioned Jim to sit on a log facing them in the full sun. To one side of the clearing, a slender youth began to take photographs of him with a Nikon camera.

  The old man said something to the man on his left, who started speaking in halting French-accented English. His thick-lensed spectacles gave him an appearance of focused intensity. ‘You are in the hands of the Liberation Armed Forces. You must answer some questions slowly and clearly. What is your name, age and nationality?’

  ‘James Cadwallader, twenty-six, British.’

  ‘What is your rank?’

  ‘I have no rank. I’m a journalist. I’m a civilian.’ While Jim spoke, he noticed that the old man didn’t look directly at him. Inste
ad he appeared to be doodling on a piece of paper in front of him. On his other side, the third man was writing in a notebook.

  ‘What is your rank?’ the translator repeated.

  Perhaps the translator hadn’t understood his responses, or maybe he was trying to catch him out. He replied, ‘I don’t have a rank. Journalists don’t have ranks.’

  ‘What is your title?’

  ‘I don’t have a title. I’m a journalist. No, I’m not with the military. Je suis un correspondant.’

  Again Jim wondered how much of what he was saying the interpreter understood correctly. It was becoming apparent that the old man was growing restless. He spoke impatiently to the interpreter, who next began to ask questions about Jim’s salary. How much it was, where it was paid, who paid it, how long he had been in Cambodia, why he was a journalist. And why was he going down Highway Four? To find out what was happening. Why was he with the Lon Nol troops? He wasn’t with them, he followed them.

  The interrogation continued for another twenty minutes and then the panel stopped for tea and talked in low voices. Jim was handed a half-coconut shell of palm-sugar juice. He took a sip. It was too sweet and made him feel nauseated again. Behind the interpreter, he could make out a fig tree of some sort. Its mottled grey roots appeared to trickle like lava down a crumbling cliff face that, now he was seeing properly, was not a cliff at all but some ancient building that was disintegrating under the weight of the strangler ficus. The lava roots were advancing down the stones, advancing across the clearing, and might soon consume him too if he stayed there long enough. He had to keep alert; he needed to get some fluid inside him. Slowly he took another sip of the sweet liquid.

  After the break the questions continued. What did he think of the war? He thought it was too long. Why did he think it was too long? Because the different groups of people couldn’t agree; they believed different things were important. How long had he spent in Cambodia? Ten years? No, that wasn’t correct. It was only one year. Seulement une année. How often did Jim go to the American Embassy in Phnom Penh? How many Americans were in Phnom Penh? What were they doing there? Jim answered as accurately as he could. All that he was saying had already been written in reports; everything written by the journalists at UPI and the other wire services was monitored by Radio Hanoi. They had no secrets.

  ‘Why did you go down Highway Four? What did you write about it?’

  ‘Nothing. I didn’t get back to Phnom Penh.’

  ‘Whose victory do you think it was?’

  ‘It looked like yours but I didn’t see the end of it.’

  ‘Why did you run away?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to die.’

  ‘Why didn’t you stay with the Lon Nol troops?’

  ‘I didn’t come with the troops.’

  ‘Why did you go there?’

  ‘To find out what was really happening.’

  ‘You are a very brave man. You go down Highway Four in a battle zone for only one reason, to get at truth. This is very hard to believe. Very hard.’

  ‘I went down the highway to find out what was happening. It’s the only way to find out. How else would I know?’

  ‘Can you not listen to what your government tells you? Do they not tell you the truth?’

  Governments don’t tell the truth, Jim thought. They may tell an approximation of the truth, but it’s one that suits them, and the approximation may be very imprecise. He said, ‘The government gives one version of the truth. You give another version.’

  He held his breath, wondering if they would get angry at this. Anything he said that was more than one sentence seemed to take a long time to be interpreted. When the translator had finished rendering Jim’s words into Vietnamese, there was no change of expression on the old man’s face. Jim continued, ‘Because of that, we correspondents need to find out for ourselves what’s really happening. That’s what we’re paid to do. That’s our job.’

  ‘Who pays you to do this? Does the government pay you?’

  ‘No, the government doesn’t pay me. The press agency pays me. It’s a private company, quite independent of the government.’

  ‘But United Press is American, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, it’s based in America.’

  ‘So you must work for the American Government.’

  ‘No, I work for United Press International. It’s independent and it broadcasts all over the world. It broadcasts in Hanoi and Peking. You know that, I’m sure. Its reports tell listeners what’s happening, not journalists’ opinions of what’s happening. That’s why I went down Highway Four. To find the truth about what’s happening.’

  Now the cycle of questions began again, back to his salary, back to his reasons for being a journalist. Again and again the questions were repeated, as if the interrogators believed nothing of what he’d said, or hoped that eventually he’d be caught out and tell them what they wanted to hear. He tried to speak clearly and to answer consistently; it was vital not to make a mistake. Fearing his trembling hands betrayed his anxiety, he sat on them. He knew that as an employee of an American wire service, he would be viewed as more in the enemy camp than the other journalists, but at least he’d been travelling on his British passport.

  The old man now spoke to the soldier taking notes, while the translator sat quietly. Even if Jim had been able to understand Vietnamese, he couldn’t have distinguished what they were saying; their voices were too low. He felt faint. The sun was getting hotter and beating down on his head.

  Eventually the translator told him to stand up. The old man also rose to his feet. Slowly he ambled around the back of the table and towards Jim, whose heart began to skitter and palms to sweat. Though the old man stopped in front of Jim, he didn’t make eye contact. Instead he inspected his forehead, his hair, everywhere but his eyes. He was an object being sized up, and not a human being. Heart pounding, sweat now streaming down his face, he willed himself not to faint. At last the old man finished his inspection. Turning to one side, he started to walk around the log on which Jim had been perching.

  Jim begins to breathe deeply. In for ten seconds, out for ten seconds. In and out. Don’t lose your nerve. Don’t turn your head. You don’t want to know what’s happening behind you. Look in front, at the strangler fig tree. Look up now. Look up at the circle of clear blue above the clearing and at the infinity beyond.

  Over the hammering of his heart, he hears the chirring of insects and the plod plod plod of the old man’s feet as he marches around the log.

  Now the footsteps stop behind him.

  He hears the unmistakable rasp of metal on leather as the old man pulls out his pistol. Even now it is being directed at his head. Give me some time, he thinks. Please give me some time. Time to put my life into perspective, time to write to my family, time to tell them I love them.

  Hearing the clicking of the pistol’s safety catch being released, he takes another deep breath. He is floating now, floating above himself, floating out of this clearing, out of this jungle, out of this country. He is going home. Home to his beloved Jingera. The surf is beating on the beach. His family is with him and Zidra is by his side.

  All that remains here in the clearing of the Cambodian jungle is the shell of a young man, a shell that is waiting for the pistol shots to ring out.

  Breath held, resigned to his fate, he is counting out the seconds.

  Part III

  Mid- to Late October 1971

  Chapter 13

  Once the others in the newsroom had departed for a counter lunch, Zidra made herself a mug of coffee. She sipped it while distractedly staring out of the window at the street below. There were still a few days to go before Lorna met with Mr Ordinary, and she needed to get hold of some more material to augment the storyline she was developing. This afternoon she’d make a few phone calls to her contacts in polit
ical groups to see if they could offer any suggestions.

  Joe Ryan was talking on the phone again and even through his closed office door she could hear his voice. Outside, shafts of rain were being driven onto the pedestrians. Only some were shielded by umbrellas; others, caught without protection, darted about like ants before a storm. The wind changed direction abruptly. Raindrops now hit the windowpane at an acute angle and slid down the glass, as if reluctant to leave its surface and join the pool of water on the sill. With her forefinger she traced the path of one of the drops, and then another. She breathed on the glass and used a tissue to wipe away the smudge left by her fingertip. Methodically she continued polishing the entire pane until the tissue was black with grime.

  On the way back to her desk, she passed the foreign editor’s workstation. A wire-service bulletin from the United States lay on Dave’s table. She stopped, her attention caught by the large letters.

  ‘MISSING UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT REPORTED DEAD IN CAMBODIA.’

  In her haste to pick up the cable, she stumbled on the waste-paper basket and dropped her empty coffee mug. As far as she knew, the only UPI reporter missing was Tom Anderson, and that was months ago. But could his body have been found recently? Or perhaps the bulletin was referring to someone from the UPI bureau in Saigon. There were a number of correspondents there, she knew. She picked up the sheet of paper and began to read:

  Yesterday afternoon the body of a United Press International correspondent was found in south-western Cambodia. The body is believed to be that of the United Press International bureau manager in Phnom Penh, who disappeared three days ago, James Cadwallader.

  The body of James Cadwallader? They must have made a mistake. Jim wasn’t missing. He was in his office in Phnom Penh, not in south-western Cambodia. It had to be someone else they’d found. The press in Indochina was often getting things wrong. That’s what happened when the reporting was done from a bar in Phnom Penh or Saigon, Jim had said. Yet she experienced a fluttering sensation in her chest and began to feel faint. She might have fallen had she not been clutching at the desktop. She read on, heart pounding so much she could hear the blood beating in her ears: