Toll for the Brave

There was an angry shout and a young officer appeared from the entrance of one of the huts. He pulled out an automatic and pointed it at St Claire’s head.

St Claire ignored him. ‘Hang on to your pride, boy, you’ll find it’s all you have.’

He went off like a strong wind and they had to run to keep up with him, the young officer cursing wildly. Strange the sense of personal loss as I found myself alone again but I was no longer tired – St Claire had taken care of that at least.

They left me there for another hour, long enough for the evening chill to eat right into my bones and then a door opened and an n.c.o. appeared and called to my guard who kicked my leg viciously and sent me on my way.

Inside the hut, I found a long corridor, several doors opening off. We stopped at the end one and after a while it opened and St Claire was marched out. There was no time to speak for a young officer beckoned me inside.

The man behind the desk wore the uniform of a colonel in the Army of the People’s Republic of China, presumably the Chen-Kuen St Claire had mentioned.

The eyes lifted slightly at the corners, shrewd and kindly in a bronzed healthy face and the lips were well-formed and full of humour. He unfolded a newspaper and held it up so that I could see it. The Daily Express printed in London five days earlier according to the date. English war hero dies in Vietnam. The headline sprawled across the front page.

I said ‘They must have been short of news that day.’

His English was excellent. ‘Oh, I don’t think so. They all took the story, even The Times.’ He held up a copy. ‘They managed to get an interview with your grandfather. It says here that the general was overwhelmed by his loss, but proud.’

I laughed out loud at that one and the colonel said gravely, ‘Yes, I found that a trifle ironic myself when one considers his intense dislike of you. Almost pathological. I wonder why?’

A remark so penetrating could not help but chill the blood, but I fought back. ‘And what in hell are you supposed to be – a mind reader?’

He picked up a manilla file. ‘Ellis Jackson from birth to death. It’s all there. We must talk about Eton some time. I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of the place. The Sandhurst affair was certainly a great tragedy. You got the dirty end of the stick there.’ He sighed heavily, as if feeling the whole thing personally and keenly. ‘In my early years as a student at London University, I read a novel by Ouida in which the hero, a Guards officer in disgrace, joins the French Foreign Legion. Nothing changes, it appears.’

‘That’s it exactly,’ I said. ‘I’m here to redeem the family honour.’

‘And yet you hated the idea of going into the army,’ he said. ‘Hated anything military. Or is it just your grandfather you hate?’

‘Neat enough in theory,’ I said. ‘On the other hand, I never met anyone yet who had a good word for him.’

I could have kicked myself at the sight of his smile, the satisfaction in his eyes. Already I was telling him things about myself. I think he must have sensed what was in my mind for he pressed a button on the desk and stood up.

‘General St Claire spoke to you earlier, I believe?’

‘That’s right.’

‘A remarkable man – gifted in many directions, but arrogant. You may share his cell for a while.’

‘An enlisted man with the top brass. He might not like that.’

‘My dear Ellis, our social philosophy does not recognise such distinctions between human beings. He must learn this. So must you.’

‘Ellis.’ It gave me a strange, uncomfortable feeling to be called by my Christian name. Too intimate under the circumstances, but there was nothing I could do about it. The door opened and the young officer entered.

Chen-Kuen smiled amicably and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Sleep, Ellis – a good, long sleep and then we speak again.’

What was it St Claire had said of him? One of the nicest guys you’ve ever met? The father I’d never known perhaps and my throat went dry at the thought of it. Deep waters certainly – too damned deep and I turned and got out of there fast.

During the journey to Tay Son, we had made overnight stops twice at mountain villages. I had been put on display, a rope around my neck, as an example of the kind of mad-dog mercenary the Americans were using in Vietnam, a murderer of women and children.

It almost got me just that, the assembled villagers baying for my blood like hounds in full cry and each time, the earnest young officer, a dedicated disciple of Mao and Uncle Ho, intervened on my behalf. I must survive to learn the error of my ways. I was a typical product of the capitalist imperialist tradition. I must be helped. Simple behaviourist psychology, of course. The blow followed by kindness so that you never knew where you were.

Something similar happened on leaving Colonel Chen-Kuen’s office. I was marched across the compound to one of the huts which turned out to be the medical centre.

The young officer left me in charge of a guard. After a while, the doctor appeared, a small, thin woman in an immaculate white coat with steel spectacles, a face like tight leather and the smallest mouth I’ve ever seen in my life. She bore an uncanny resemblance to my grandfather’s housekeeper during my early childhood, a little, vinegary lowland Scot who had never been able to forgive John Knox and therefore hated all things male. I could taste the castor oil for the first time in years and shuddered.

She sat down at her desk and the door opened again and another woman entered. A different proposition entirely. She was one of those women whose sensuality was so much a part of her that even the rather unflattering tunic and skirt of her uniform, the knee-length leather boots, could not hide it.

Her hair was jet black, parted in the centre, worn in two plaits wound into a bun at the back in a very Eastern European style, which wasn’t surprising in view of the fact that her mother, as I discovered later, was Russian.

The face was the face of one of those idols to be seen in temples all over the East. The Earth Mother who destroys all men, great, hooded, calm eyes, wide, sensual mouth. One could strive on her forever, seeking the sum total of all pleasures and finding, in the end, that the pit was bottomless.

She had only the slightest of accents and her voice was indescribably beautiful. ‘I am Madame Ny. I am to be your instructor.’

‘Well, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean,’ I said, ‘But it sounds nice.’

The old doctor spoke to her in Chinese. Madame Ny nodded. ‘You will undress now, Mr Jackson. The doctor wishes to examine you.’

I was so tired that undressing was an effort, but I finally made it down to my underpants. The doctor glanced up from a file she was examining, frowned in exasperation.

Madame Ny said, ‘Everything, please, Mr Jackson.’

I tried to keep it light. ‘Even the Marine Corps let you keep this much on.’

‘You are ashamed to be seen so and by a doctor?’ She seemed genuinely surprised. ‘There is nothing obscene in the human form. A most unhealthy attitude.’

‘That’s me,’ I said. ‘Cold showers just never seemed to work.’

She leaned down to speak to the doctor and again they examined a file between them, presumably mine.

I peeled off like a good boy and waited. I must have stood there for twenty minutes or more and during that time various individuals, both men and women, came and went with files and papers. A study in conscious humiliation.

When it had presumably been judged I’d been punished enough, the doctor stood up abruptly and went to work. She gave me a thorough and competent examination, I’ll say that for her, even to the extent of taking blood and urine samples.

Finally, she pulled forward a chair, sat down and proceeded to examine my genitals with scrupulous efficiency. It was the kind of free-from-infection check that soldiers the world over get every few months. That didn’t make it any easier to take, especially with Madame Ny standing at her shoulder and following every move.

I squirmed, mainly at the old girl’s rough handling and Madame Ny said softly, ‘You find this disturbing, is it not so, Mr Jackson? A basic, clinical examination carried out by a woman old enough to be your mother and yet you find it shameful.’

‘Why don’t you jump off?’ I told her.

Her eyes widened as if gaining sudden insight. ‘Ah, but I see now. Not shameful, but frightening. You are afraid in such situations.’

She turned, spoke to the old doctor who nodded and they walked out on me before I could say a word. I wasn’t tired any more but I found it difficult to think straight. I felt as angry and frustrated as any schoolboy, humiliated before the class for no good reason.

I had just struggled back into my clothes when Madame Ny returned with the young officer. She had a paper in her hand which she placed on the desk.

She picked up a pen and offered it to me. ‘You will sign this now, please.’

There were five foolscap pages, closely typed and all in Chinese. ‘You’ll have to read the small print for me,’ I told her. ‘I haven’t got my spectacles with me.’