I said to Phuong's sister, "I hope you've had the settlement witnessed by the notary public and the American Consul and the Church of Christ Scientist."*
I went into the passage. There was a door opposite me marked Men. I went in and locked the door and sitting with my bead against the cold wall I cried. I hadn't cried until now. Even their lavatories were air-conditioned, and presently the temperate tempered air dried my tears as it dries the spit in your mouth and the seed in your body. (4)
I left affairs in the hands of Dominguez and went north. At Haiphong I had friends in the Squadron Gas-cogne,* and I would spend hours in the bar up at airport, or playing bowls on the gravel-path outside. Officially I was at the front: I could qualify for keenness with Granger, but it was of on more value to my paper than had been my excursion to Phat Diem. But if one writes about war, self-respect demands that occasionally one share the risks,
It wasn't easy to share them for even the most limited period, since orders had gone out from Hanoi that I was to be allowed only on horizontal raids*-raids in this war as safe as a journey by bus, for we flew above the range of the heavy machine-gun: we were safe from anything but a pilot's error or a fault in the engine. We went out by time-table and came home by time-table: the cargoes of bombs sailed diagonally down and the spiral of smoke blew up from the road-junction or the bridge, and then we cruised back for the hour of the aperitif* and drove our iron bowls across the gravel.*
One morning in the mess in the town, as I drank brandies and sodas with a young officer who had a pas-sionate desire to visit Southend Pier,* orders for a mission* came in. "Like to come?" I said yes. Even a horizontal raid would be a way of killing time and killing thought. Driving out to the airport he remarked, "This is a vertical raid." "I thought I was forbidden. . ."
"So long as you write nothing about it. It will show you a piece of country up near the Chinese border you will not have seen before. Near Lai Chau."* "I thought all was quiet there-and in French hands?" "It was. They captured this place two days ago. Our parachutists are only a few hours away. We want to keep the Viets head down in their holes until we have recaptured the post. It means low diving and machine-gunning. We can only spare two planes-one's on the job now. Ever dive-bombed* before?" "No."
"It is a little uncomfortable when vou are not used to it." The Gascogne Squadron possessed only small B. 26 bombers-the French called them prostitutes because with their short wing-span they had no visible means of support. I was crammed on to a little metal pad the size of a bicycle seat with my knees against the navigator's back. We came up the Red River, slowly climbing, and the Red River at this hour was really red. It was as though one had gone far back in time and saw it with the old geographer's eyes who had named it first, at just such an hour when the late sun filled it from bank to bank; then we turned away at 9,000 feet towards the Riack River, really black, full of shadows, missing the angle of the light, and the huge majestic scenery of gorge and cliff and jungle wheeled around and stood upright below us. You could have dropped a squadron into those fields of green and grey and left no more trace than a few coins in a harvest-field. Far
ahead of us a small plane moved like a midge. We were taking over.*
We circled twice above the tower and the green encircled village, then corkscrewed up into the dazzling air. The pilot-who was called Trouin-turned to me and winked: on his wheel were the studs that controlled the gun and the bomb-chamber;* I had that loosening of the bowels as we came into position for the dive that accompanies any new experience-the first dance, the first dinner-party, the first love. I was reminded of the Great Racer* at the Wembley Exhibition* when it came to the top of the rise-there was noway to get out: you were trapped with your experience. On the dial I had just time to read 3,000 metres when we drove down. All was feeling now, nothing was sight. I was forced up against the navigator's back: it was as though something of enormous weight were pressing on my chest. I wasn't aware of the moment when the bombs were released; then the gun chattered and the cockpit was full of the smell of cordite, and the weight was off my chest as we rose, and it was the stomach that fell away, spiralling down like a suicide to the ground we had left. For forty seconds Pyle had not existed: even loneliness hadn't existed. As we climbed in a great arc I could see the smoke through the side window pointing at me. Refore the second dive I felt fear-fear of humiliation, fear of vomiting over the navigator's back, fear that my aging lungs would not stand the pressure. After the tenth dive I was aware only of irritation-the affair had gone on too long, it was time to go home. And again we shot steeply up out of machine-gun range and swerved away and the smoke pointed. The village was surrounded on all sides by mountains. Every time we had to make the same approach, through the same gap. There was no way to vary our attack. As we dived for the fourteenth time I thought, now that I was free from
the fear of humiliation, "They have only to fix one machine-gun into position." We lifted our nose again into the safe air-perhaps they didn't even hav^e a gun. The forty minutes of the patrol had seemed interminable, but it had been free from the discomfort of personal thought. The sun was sinking as we turned for home: the geographer's moment had passed: the Black River was no longer black. and the Red River was only gold. Down we went again, away from the gnarled and fis-sured forest towards the river, flattening out over the neglected riceflelds, aimed like a bullet at one small sampan on the yellow stream. The cannon gave a single burst of tracer,* and the sampan blew apart in a shower of sparks: we didn't even wait to see our victims struggling to survive. but climbed and made for home. I thought again as I had thought when I saw the dead child at Phat Diem, 'I hate war." There had been something so shocking in our sudden fortuitous choice of a prey-we had just happened to be passing, one burst only was required, there was no one to return our fire, we were gone again, adding our little quota to the world's dead.
I put on my earphones for Captain Trouin to speak to me. He said, "We will make a little detour. The sunset is wonderful on the calcaire. You must not miss it," he added kindly, like a host who is showing the beauty of his estate, and for a hundred miles we trailed the sunset over the Baie d'Along.* The helmeted Martian face looked wistfully out, down the golden groves among the great humps and arches of porous stone, and the wound of murder ceased to bleed.
(5)
Captain Trouin insisted that night on being my host in the opium-house, though he would not smoke himself. He liked the smell, he said, he liked the sense of quiet at the end of the day, but in his profession relaxation could go no further. There were officers who smoked, but they were Army men-he had to have his sleep. We lay in a small cubicle in a row of cubicles like a dormitory at school, and the Chinese proprietor prepared my pipes. I hadn't smoked since Phuong left me. Across the way a metisse*
with long and lovely legs lay coiled after her smoke reading a glossy woman's paper, and in the cubicle next to her two middle-aged Chinese transacted business, sipping tea, their pipes laid aside.
I said, "That sampan-this evening-was it doing any harm?"
Trouin said, "Who knows? In those reaches of the river we have orders to shoot up anything in sight."
I smoked my first pipe. I tried not to think of all the pipes I had smoked at home. Trouin said, "Today's affair-that is not the worst for someone like myself. Over the village they could have shot us down. Our risk was as great as theirs. What I detest is napalm bombing. From 3,000 feet, in safety." He made a hopeless gesture. "You see the forest catching fire. God knows what you would see from the ground. The poor devils are burnt alive, the flames go over them like water. They are wet through with fire." He said with anger against a whole world that didn't understand, "I'm not fighting a colonial war. Do you think I'd do these things for the planters of Terre Rouge?* I'd rather be courtmartialled. We are fighting all of your wars, but you leave us the guilt." "That sampan," I said.