“Too old,” Dhang said.
“What?”
“The woman. She was too old, and her skin was wrinkled.”
“There will be younger women.”
“Perhaps,” he said, and fell silent.
We walked for what seemed like a good deal more than an hour until, from the top of a hill, we saw the town of Tao Dan in the distance. It was a fairly sizable city, a great change from the hut-encircled jungle villages we had passed through. A town of that size meant policemen and sundry officials, which in turn meant that I would draw an uncomfortable amount of attention. It was unsafe to go there, but at the same time the town seemed the most logical place to get word of Tuppence.
We walked about halfway there. Then I took Dhang by the arm. “Leave your weapons with me,” I told him. “I’ll wait out of sight in the brush. Go to the town and make inquiries. Say merely that you are a Thai and have made a journey from the west. Say that you have heard that black men and a black woman were to be seen in the area and see what you can find out about them.”
“And you will wait here?”
“Yes. Find out as much as you can, then come back here. You will be able to learn more now, when people are awake. Try to obtain clothing for yourself, and for me if it is possible. At night, when all is dark, then we will both be able to pass safely through the town.”
“You will wait for me, Heaven?”
“Yes.”
“If the police ask me who I am-”
“Tell them your name and your village, that is all. Do not tell them about me.”
“I will not.”
“Good.”
“Evan? How will I obtain clothing? Or food?”
“You have no money?”
He shook his head. I had no money, either; the guerrillas had taken my money belt along with everything else, for whatever good it was to them. I still had the flashlight, but the thought of Dhang attempting to pass a British gold sovereign in a provincial Laotian town was somehow disquieting. The only other articles of value in our possession were the rifle, the machine pistol, the machetes, and the canteens. I had the feeling that it would be impossible to exchange the guns for anything. They would simply be confiscated by the authorities. I asked Dhang if he thought he could use the machetes and the canteens for barter, and he said he thought he could.
“I’ll keep one canteen, though,” I said. “I’d hate to run out of water. And you’d better leave me some betel nut.” It was surprising I thought, how quickly habits could develop. “Be cautious with your questions. Try to attract as little attention as possible, but learn as much as you possibly can. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Evan.”
“Go, now. And return as soon as possible.”
“Yes. Yevan?”
“You’re doing it again, you said Yevan. Evan.”
“Evan. If I find a girl in the town…”
He looked at me, hope in his eyes. He would not find a girl, I thought, and if he did, she would have nothing to do with him. But it seemed less than kind to tell him this. Nor was there any point in ordering him to come directly back to me without wasting his time on whatever woman he happened to locate. If I told him to, he would still follow his instincts and then might be so dismayed at having disobeyed me that he would desert me altogether. The secret of command, I decided, lies largely in giving orders that are apt to be obeyed.
“If you should find a woman,” I told him, “may the gods grant you enjoyment. But do not dally too long with her and come back to me when time permits.”
I watched him head on down the road, a machete in either hand, a canteen slung over one shoulder. He did not cut a particularly heroic figure, that little man bobbing along, lost in the immensity of the Laotian landscape. His own self-confidence was at that moment the only confidence he inspired. I had a terrible feeling that I was dispatching him to certain doom, my own doom to follow shortly when he told the Laotian Communists where to find me.
I made myself reasonably comfortable in a clump of brush some twenty yards from the side of the road. I popped a chunk of betel nut into my mouth and chewed and spat and chewed and spat. It was quite possible, I thought, that Tuppence and the four musicians were being held prisoner within Tao Dan itself. From the long-range view I’d had of the city, it seemed likely to be the largest town in the immediate area. If the rumors I had sifted added up as I had added them, the five had been kidnapped by Laotians and taken into Laos. They would probably have wound up on this very road and thus would have passed through Tao Dan. They might well be there now.
If that were the case, the whole village would be aware of their presence. Dhang would learn where they were being kept. He would return before long, and under cover of darkness the two of us would sneak into the city. While Tao Dan slept we would find where Tuppence and the others were being held prisoner. Perhaps there would be a guard or two to overpower. Once that was done, we would liberate the prisoners and escape.
I thought the thing through about that far and then let go of it. The details to follow – just how we would escape and just where we would go and so on – I did not want to think about for the time being. It was simpler by far to sit back comfortably and chew the betel nut.
And then, after a long time of sitting and chewing and spitting, I heard the jeep.
It was just a low rumble at first, like the droning of a persistent insect. Then it came closer, and I recognized the sound as a car of some sort. I had been a long time in the wilderness, and this was the first mechanized vehicle I had heard since the guerrillas had halted my Land Rover. I peered through the underbrush and watched as a U.S. army jeep came into sight at the crest of a hill. For a hysterical moment I thought that I was being rescued by a detachment of Green Berets. Then reality intruded – evidently the vehicle was one that had been captured by the Pathet Lao’s troops during the fighting in the Plain of Jars.
The jeep passed me and headed on toward Tao Dan. There were two uniformed soldiers in the front seat and a third in the back. I watched the jeep disappear over the next rise in the road, then listened as the sound of its engine faded and died in the still afternoon air.
I shifted the hunk of betel nut from one side of my mouth to the other. I chewed like a cow munching its cud, then arced a stream of red juice off to the left. I told myself quietly that I should have stayed in New York. With all of its muggings and stabbings and race riots and air pollution, it was worlds safer than the hills of Laos. The FBI agents who bugged my apartment and the CIA clowns who read my mail were nuisances, but they had never done me any appreciable harm.
And at least in New York my life had a sort of purpose. I went to meetings, I sent articles to newspapers and magazines, I ground out theses for inept scholars, and I did what I could to support a wide array of noble lost causes. I made myself useful. Minna depended upon me, and so, in a more remote way, did my son, Todor, in Macedonia. Now Todor’s mother, according to word that had made its way from Macedonia to Athens to London to New York, was awaiting another child.
What good would I be to that unborn child or to Todor or to Minna or to anyone if I managed to get myself killed chasing wild geese in Laos?
I chewed. I spat inexpertly, and ruby saliva trickled through my beard. I wiped it away and said one of the English words I had taught Dhang. Somehow the sight of the jeep had brought reality home to me in an uncomfortable way. We were out of the jungle now. We had returned to a mechanized world, a world of cars and planes, of rapid-fire automatic weapons, of uniformed soldiers, of passports and visas and sundry documents. If Tuppence were a prisoner in Tao Dan, she was no doubt a well-guarded prisoner. They were not a band of primitive guerrillas. They would not have her hanging in a bamboo cage. I could not dance naked among the uniformed guards, babbling of magic tricks and gassing them with cyanide. Nor could I expect the town of Tao Dan to be sleeping when I visited it in the dead of night. There would be men on duty all night long, and one glance at me would assure them that something was wrong, and they would either shoot me or capture me or both.