morning and watching a woman in a red dressing-gown brush her hair." Joe said it was being in bed with a Chink and a negress at same time."
"I'd have thought that one up too when I was twenty." "Joe's.fiffty."
"I wonder what mental age they gave him* in the war." "Was Phuong the girl in the red dressing-gown?" I wished that he hadn't asked that question. "No," I said, "that woman came earlier. When I left my wife. "What happened?"
"I left her, too"
"Why?" Why indeed? "We are fools," I said, "when we love. I was terrifled of losing her. I thought I saw her changing--I don't know if she really was, but I couldn't bear the uncertainty any longer. Iran towards the finish just like a coward runs towards the enemy andwinsa medal. I wanted to get death over." "Death?" "It was a kind of death. Then I came east."
"And found Phuong?"
'Yes." :
"But don't you find the same thing with Phuong?" "Not the same. You see, the other one loved me. I was afraid of losing love. Now I'm only afraid of losing Phuong." Why had I said that, I wondered? He didn't need encour-arement from me.
"But she loves you, doesn't she?" "Not like that. It isn't in their nature. You'll find that out. It's a cliche to call them children--but there's one thing which is childish. They love you in return for kind-ness, security, the presents you give them-they hate you for a blow or an injustice. They don't know what it's like -just walking into a room and loving a stranger. For an aging man, Pyle, it's very secure-she won't run away from home so long as the home is happy."
I hadn't meant to hurt him. I only realised I had done it when he said with muffled anger,
"She might prefer a greater security or more kindness." "Perhaps." "Aren't you afraid of that?" "Not ^o much as I was of the other.'* "Do you love her at all?"
"Oh yes, Pyle, yes. But that other way Fve only loved once.*'
"In spite of the forty-odd women,'* he snapped at me. "I'm sure it's below the Kinsey average. You know, Pyle, women don't want virgins. I'm not sure we do, unless we are a pathological type."
"I didn't mean I was a virgin," he said. All my conversations with Pyle seemed to take grotesque directions. Was it because of his sincerity that they so ran off the customary rails? His conversation never took the corners.*
"You can have ahundred women and still be a virgin, Pyle. Most of your G.I.S* who were hanged for rape in the war were virgins. We don't have so many in Europe. I'm glad. They do a lot of harm." - "I just don't understand you, Thomas."
"It's not worth explaining. I'm bored with the subject anyway-Fve reached the age when sexisn*tthe problem so much as old age and death. I wake up with these in mind and not a woman's body. I just don't want to be alone in my last decade, that's all. I wouldn't know what to think about aH day long. I'd sooner have awoman in the same room-even one I didn*t love. But if Phuong left me, would I have the energy to find another?. . ."
"If that's all she means to you. . ."
"All, Pyle? Wait until you're afraid of living ten years alone with no companion and a nursing home* at the end of it. Then you'll start running in any direction, even away from that girl in the red dressing-gown, to find someone, any one,who will last until you are through." Why don't you go back to you rwife, then?" "It's not easy to live with someone you've injured." A sten gun fired a long burst-it couldn't have been more than a mile away. Perhaps a nervous sentry was shooting at shadows: perhaps another attack had begun. I hoped itrwas an attack-itincreasedourchances. "Are you scared, Thomas?" "Of course I am. With all my instincts. Bat wiihmy reason I know it's better to die like this. That's why I came east. Death stays with you.'* I looked at my watch. It had gone eleven. An eight-hour night and then we could relax. I said, "We seem to have talked about pretty nearly every-thing except God.We'dbetterleavehim to the small hours." "You don't believe in Him, do you?" . "No"
"Things to me wouldn't make sense without Him." "Thee don't make sense to me with him." "I read a book once. . ."
I never knew what book Pyle had read. (Presumably it wasn't York Harding or Shakespeare or the anthology of contemporary verse or The Physiology of Morriage-perhaps it was The Triumph of Life.) A voice came right into the tower with us, it seemed to speak from the shadows by the trap-a hollow megaphone voice saying something in, Vietnamese. "We're for it,"* I said. The two guards listened, their faces turned to the rifle-slit, their mouths hanging open. "What is it ?" Pyle said. Walking to the embrasuTe was like walking through the voice. I looked quickly out: there was nothing to be seen-1 couldn't even distinguish the road and when I looked back into the room the rifle was pointed, I wasn't sure whether at me or at the slit. But when I moved round the wall the rifle wavered, hesitated, kept me covered: the voice went on saying the same thing over again. I sat down arid the rifle was lowered. "What's he saying?" Pyle asked.
"I don't know. I expect they've found the car and are telling these chaps to hand us over or else. Better pick up that sten before they make up their minds." "He'll shoot."
"He's not sure yet. When he is he'll shoot anyway." Pyle shifted his leg and the rifle came up. "Ill move along the wall," I said. "When his eyes waver get him covered." Just as I rose the voice stopped: the silence made me jump. Pylesaid sharply, "Drop your rifle." I had just time to wonder whether the sten was unloaded-1 hadn't hothered to lookwhen the man threw his rifle down. I crossed the room and picked it up. Then the voice began again-1 had the impression that no syllable had changed. Perhaps they used a record. I wondered when the ultimatum would expire.
"What happens next?" Pyle asked, like a schoolboy watching a demonstration in the laboratory: he didn't seem personally concerned. "Perhapsabazooka.perhapsaViet." Pyle exauained bis sten. "There doesn't seem any mystery about this," he said. "Shall I fire a burst?"
"No, let them hesitate. They'd rather take the post without firing and it gives us time. We'd better clear outfast." "They may be waiting at the bottom."
"Yes."
The two men watched us-1 write men, but I doubt whether they had accumulated forty years between them. "And these?" Pyle asked, and he added with a shocking directness,
"Shall I sihoot them?" Perhaps he wanted to try the sten. "They've done nothing." "They were going to hand us over." "Why not?" I said. "We've no business here. It's their country." -
I unloaded the rifle and laid it on the floor. "Surely you're not leaving that," he said.
"I'm too old to run with a rifle. And this isn't my war. Comeon." It wasn't my war, but I wished those others in the dark knew that as well. I blew the oillamp out and dangled my legs over the trap, feeling for the ladder. I could hear the guards whispering to each other like crooners, in their language like ,a song. "Make straight ahead," I told Pyle, "aim for the rice. Remember there's water-1 don't know how deep. Ready?" "Yes"
"Thanks for the company." "Alwaysapleasure,"Pylesaid. I heard the guards moving behind us: I wondered if they had knives. The megaphone voice .spoke peremptorily as though offering a last chance. Something shifted softly in the dark below us, but it might have been a rat. I hesitated. "I wish to God I had a drink," I whispered. "Let's go."
Something was coming up the ladder: I heard nothing, but the ladder shook under my feet. "What's keeping you?" Pyle said. I don't know why I thought of it as something, that silent stealthy approach. Only a man could climb a ladder, and yet I couldn't think of it as a man like myself-it was though as an animal were moving in to kill, very quietly and certainly with the remorselessness of another kind of creation. The ladder shook and shook and I imagined I saw its eyes glaring upwards. Suddenly I could bear it no longer and I jumped, and there was nothing there at all but the spongy ground, which took my ankle and twisted it as a hand might have done. I could hear Pyle coming down the ladder; I realised I had been a frightened fool who could not recognise his own trembling, and I had believed I was tough and unimaginative, all that a truthful observer arid reporter should be. I got on my feet and nearly fell again with the pain. I started out for the field dragging one foot after me and heard Pyle coming behind me. Then the bazooka shell burst on the tower and I was on my face again.