The Quiet American

CHAPTER IV

From the bell tower of the Cathedral, the battle was only picturesque, fixed like a panorama of the Boer War* in an old Illustrated London News. An aeroplane was pa-rachuting supplies to an isolated post in the calcaire* those strange weather-eroded mountains on the Annam* border that look like piles of pumice, and because it always returned to the same place for its glide, it might never have moved, and the parachute was always there in the same spot, half-way to earth. From the plain the mortar-bursts rose unchangingly, the smoke as solid as stone, and in the market the flames burnt palely in the sunlight. The tiny figures of the parachutists moved in single file along the canals, but at this height they appeared stationary. Even the priest who sat in a corner of the tower never changed his position as he read in his breviary.* The war was very tidy and clean at that distance.

I had come in before dawn in a landing-craft from Nam Dinh. We couldn't land at the naval station because it was cut off by the enemy who completely surrounded the town at a range of six hundred yards, so the boat ran in beside the flaming market. We were an easy target in the light of the flames, but for some reason no one fired. Everything was quiet, except for the flop and crackle of the burning stalls. I could hear a Senegalese sentry* on the river's edge shift his stance.*

I had known Phat Diem well in the days before the attack-the one long narrow street of wooden stalls, cut up every hundred yards by a canal, a church and a bridge. At night it had been lit only by candles or small oil lamps (there was no electricity in Phat Diem except in the French officers' quarters), and day or night the street was packed and noisy. In its strange medieval way, under the shadow and protection of the Prince Bishop,* it had been the most living town in all the country, and now when I landed and walked up to the officers' quarters it was the most dead. Rubble and broken glass and the smell of burnt paint and plaster, the long street empty as far as the sight could reach, reminded me of a London thoroughfare in the early morn-after an all-clear: one expected to see a placard, "Un-exploded Bomb."

The front wall of the officers' house had been blown out, and the houses across the street were in ruins. Coming down the river from Nam Dinh I had learnt from Lieutenant Peraud what had happened. He was a serious young man, Freemason, and to him it was like a judgement on the supstitions of his fellows. The Bishop of Phat Diem had once visited Europe and acquired there adevotion to Our Lady of Fatima-that vision of the Virgin which appeared, so Roman Catholics believe, to a group of children inPortugal.When he came home, he built a grollO in her honour in the Cathedral precincts, and he celebrated her feast day every year with a procession. Relations with the colonel in charge of the French and Vietnamese troops* had always been strained since the day when the authorities had dis-lfiaed the Bishop's private army.* This year the colonel-who had some sympathy with the Bishop, for to each of them his country was more important than Catholicism-made a gesture of amity and walked with his senior officers in the front of the procession. Never had agreater crowd gathered in Phat Diem to do honour to Our Lady of Fatima. Even many of the Buddhists-who formed about half the population-could not bear to miss the fun, and those who had belief in neither God believed that somehow all these banners and incense-burners and the golden monstrance would keep war from their homes. All that was left of tbe

Bishop's army-fais brass band-led the procession, and the French officers, pious by order of the colonel, followed like choirrboys through the gateway into the Cathedral precincts, past the white statue of the Sacred Heart* that stood on an island in the little lake before the Cathedral, under the bell tower with spreading oriental wings and into the carved wooden cathedral with its gigantic pillars formed out of single trees and the scarlet lacquer work of the altar, more Buddhist than Christian. From all the villages between the canals, from that Low Country landscape where young green rice-shoots and golden harvests take the place of tulips and churches of windmills, the people poured in. Nobody noticed the Vietminh agents who had joined the procession too, and that night as the main Communist battalion moved through the passes in the calcaire, into the Tonkin plain, watched helplessly by the French outpost in the mountains above, the advance agents struck in Phat Diem.

Now after four days, with the help of parachutists, the enemy had been pushed back half a mile around the town. This was a defeat: no journalists were allowed, no cables could be sent, for the papers must carry only victories. The authorities would have stopped me in Hanoi if they had known of my purpose, but the further you get from headquarters, the looser becomes the control until, when you come within range of the enemy's fire, you are a welcome guest--what has been a menace for the Etat Major* in Hanoi, a worry for the full colonel in Nam Dinh, to the lieutenant in the field is a joke, a distraction, a mark of interest from the outer world, so that for a few blessed hours he can dramatise himself a little and see in a false heroic light even his own wounded and dead. The priest shut his breviary and said, "Well, that's finished." He was a European, but not a Frenchman, for the Bishop would not have tolerated a French priest in his dio-ces.* He said apologetically, "I have to come up here, you understand, for a bit of quiet from all those poor people." The sound of the mortar-fire seemed to be closing in, or perhaps it was the enemy at last replying. The strange difficulty was to find them: there were a dozen narrow fronts,

and between the canals, among the farm buildings and the paddy fields, innumerable opportunities for ambush. Immediately below us stood, sat and lay the whole pop-ulation of Phat Diem. Catholics, Buddhists, pagans, they had all packed their most valued possessions--a cooking-stove, a lamp, a mirror, a wardrobe, some mats, a holy picture--and moved into the Cathedral precincts. Here in the north it would be bitterly cold when darkness came, and already the Cathedral was full: there was no more shelter; even on the stairs to the bell-tower every step was occupied, and all the time more people crowded through the gates, carrying their babies and household goods. They believed, whatever their religion, that here they would be safe. While we watched, a young man with a rifle in Vietnamese uni-form pushed his way through: he was stopped by a priest, who took his rifle from him. The father at my side said in explanation, "We are neutral here. This is God's terri-tory." I thought. It's a strange poor population God has in his kingdom, frightened, cold, starving ("I don't know how we are going to feed these people," the priest told me): you'd think a great King would do better than that.' But then I thought. It's always the same wherever one goes-it's not the most powerful rulers who have the happiest populations.' • Little shops had already been set up below. I said, "It's like an enormous fair, isn't it, but without one smiling face." The priest said, "They were terribly cold last night. We

have, to keep the monastery gates shut or they would swamp us."

"You all keep warm in there?" I asked. "Not very warm. And we would not .have room for a length of them." He went on, "I know what you are thinking. it is essential for some of us to keep well. We have

the only hospital in Phat Diem, and our only nurses are these nuns." "And your surgeon?"

"I do what I can." I saw then that his soutane was speckled with blood. He said, "Did you come up here to find me?" "No. I wanted to get my bearings."* "I asked you because I had a man up here last night. He wanted to go to confession. He had got a little frightened, you see, with what he had seen along the canal. One couldn't blame him." "It's bad along there?"

"The parachutists caught them in a cross-fire. Poor souls. I thought perhaps you were feeling the same."

"I'm not a Roman Catholic. I don't think you could even call me a Christian." "It's strange what fear does to a man." "It would never do that to me. If I believed in any God atall, I should still hate the idea of confession. Kneeling in one of your boxes. Exposing myself to another man. You must excuse me. Father, but to me it seems morbid-unmanly even."

"Oh," he said lightly, "I expect you are a good man. I don't suppose you've ever had much

'to regret."

I looked along the churches, where they ran down evenly spaced between the canals, towards the sea. A light flashed from the second tower. I said, "You haven't kept all your churches neutral."

"It isn't possible," he said. "The French have agreed to leave the Cathedral precincts alone. We can't expect more. That's a Foreign Legion post you are looking at." "I'll be going ^long. Goodbye, Father." "Goodbye and good luck. Be careful of snipers." I had to push my way through the crowd to get out,

past the lake and the white statue with its sugary out-spread arms, into the long street. I could see for nearly three quarters of a mile each way, and there were only two living beings in all that length besides myself-two soldiers with camouflaged helmets going slowly away up the edge of fhe street, their sten guns* at the ready. I say the living because one body lay in a doorway with its head in the road. The buzz of flies collecting there and the squelch of the soldiers' boots growing fainter and fainter were the only sounds. I walked quickly past the body, turning my head the other way. A few minutes later when I looked back I was quite alone with my shadow and there were no sounds except the sounds I made. I felt as though I were a mark on a firing range.* It occurred to me that if something happened to me in this street it might be many hours before I was picked up: time for the flies to collect. When I had crossed two canals, I took a turning that led to a church. A dozen men sat on the ground in the camouflage of parachutists, while two officers examined a man. Nobody paid me any attention when I joined them. One man, who wore the long antennae of a walkie-talkie,* said, "We can move now," and everybody stood up.

I asked them in my bad French whether I could ac-e.ompany them. An advantage of this war was that a European face proved in itself a passport on the field: a European could not be suspected of being an enemy agent. "Who are you?" the lieutenant asked. "I am writing about the war," I said. "American?" . ."No, English."

... "He said, "It is a very small affair, but if you wish to come with us..." He began to take off his steel helc"et, "No, no," I said, "that is for combatants." "As you wish." We went out behind the church in single file, the lieutenant leading, and halted for a moment on a canal-bank for the soldier with the walkie-talkie to get contact with the patrols on either flank. The mortar shells tore over us and burst out of sight. We had picked up more men behind the church and were now about thirty strong. The lieutenant explained to me in a low voice, stabbing a finger at his map, "Three hundred have been reported in this village here. Perhaps massing for tonight. We don't know. No one has found them yet." "How far?" "Three hundred yards." Words came over the wireless and we went on in silence, to the right the straight canal, to the left low scrub and fields and scrub again. "All clear," the lieutenant whispered with a reassuring wave as we started. Forty yards on, another canal, with what was left of a bridge, a single plank without rails, ran across our front. The lieutenant motioned to us to deploy and we squatted down facing the unknown territory ahead, thirty feet off, across the plank. The men looked at the water and then, as though by aword of command, all together, they looked away. For a moment I didn't see what they had seen, but when I saw, my mind went back, I don't know why, to the Chalet and the female impersonators and the young soldiers whistling and Pyle saying, "This isn't a bit suitable." The canal was full of bodies: I am reminded now of an Irish stew containing too much meat. The bodies overlapped: one head, seal-grey, and anonymous as a convict with a shaven scalp, stuck up out of the water like a buoy. There was no blood: I suppose it had flowed away a long time ago. I have no idea how many there were: they must have been caught in a cross-fire, trying to get back, and I suppose every man of us along the bank was thinking,

'Two can play at that game.'* I too took my eyes away; we didn't want to be reminded of how little we counted, how quickly, simply and anonymously death came. Even though my reason wanted the state of death, I was afraid like a virgin of the act. I would have liked death to come with due warning, so that I could prepare myself. For what? I didn't know, nor how, except' by taking a look around at the little I would be leaving.

The lieutenant sat beside the man with the walkie-talkie and stared at the ground between his feet. The instrument began to crackle instructions and with a sigh as though he had been roused from sleep he got up. There was an odd comradeliness about all their movements, as though they were equals engaged op a task they had performed together times out of mind. Nobody waited to be told what to do. Two men made for the plank and tried to cross it, but they were unbalanced by the weight of their arms and had to sit astride and work their way across a few inches at a time. Another man had found a punt*

hidden in some bushes down the canal and he worked it to where the lieutenant stood. Six of us got in and he began to pole it towards the other bank, but we ran on a shoal of bodies and stuck. He pushed away with his pole, sinking it into this human clay, and one body was released and floated up all its length beside the boat like abather lying in the sun. Then we were free again, and once on the other side we scrambled out, with no backward look. No shots had been fired: we were alive: death had withdrawn perhaps as far as the next canal. I heard somebody just behind me say with great seriousness, "Gott sei dank."* Except for the lieutenant they were most of them Germans. Beyond was a group of farm-buildings: the lieutenant went in first, bugging the wall, and we followed at six-foot intervals in single file. Then the men, again without an order, scattered through the farm. Life had deserted it -not so much as a hen had been left behind, though hanging on the walls of what had been the living-room were two hideous oleographs of the Sacred Heart and the Mother and Child which gave the whole ramshackle group of buildings a European air. One knew what 'these people believed even if one didn't share their belief: they were human beings, not just grey drained cadavers.*

So much of war is sitting around and doing nothing, waiting for somebody else. With no guarantee of the amount of time you have left it doesn't seem worth starting even a train of thought. Doing what they had done so often before, the sentries moved out. Anything that stirred ahead of us now was enemy. The lieutenant marked his map and reported our position over the radio. A noonday hush fell: even the mortars were quiet and the air was empty of planes. One man doodled* with a twig in the dirt of the farmyard. After a while it was as if we had been forgotten by war. I hoped that Phuong had sent my suits to the cleaners. A cold wind ruffled the straw of the yard, and a man went modestly behind a barn to relieve himself. I tried to remember whether I had paid the British Consul in Hanoi for the bottle of whisky he had allowed me.

Two shots were fired to our front, and I thought, 'This is it. Now it comes.' It was all the warning I wanted. I awaited, with a sense of exhilaration, the permanent thing. But nothing happened. Once again I had "over-prepared the event." Only long minutes afterwards one of the sentries entered and reported something to the lieutenant. I caught the phrase, "Deux civils."*

The lieutenant said to me, "We will go and see," and following the sentry we picked our way along a muddy over-grown path between two fields. Twenty yards beyond the farm buildings, in a narrow ditch, we came on what we

74

sought: a woman and a small boy. They were very clearly dead: a small neat clot of blood on the woman's forehead, and the child might have been sleeping. He was about six years old and he lay like an embryo in the womb with his little bony knees drawn up.

"Malchance,"* the lieutenant said. He bent down and turned the child over. He was wearing a holy medal* round his neck, and I said to myself, 'The juju doesn't work.'

There was a gnawed piece of loaf under his body. I thought, 1 hate war.'

The lieutenant said, "Have you seen enough?" speaking savagely, almost as though I had been responsible for these deaths: perhaps to the soldier the civilian is the man who employs him to kill, who includes the guilt of murder in the pay-envelope and escapes responsibility. We walked back to the farm and sat down again in silence on the straw, out of the wind, which like an. animal seemed to know that dark was coming. The man who had doodled was relieving himself, and the man who had relieved himself was doodling. I thought how in those moments of quiet, after the sentries had been posted, they must have believed it safe to move from the ditch. I wondered whether they had lain there long-the bread had been very dry. This farm was probably their home. The radio was working again. The lieutenant said wearily, "They are going to bomb the village. Patrols are called in for the night." We rose and began our journey back, punting again around the shoal of bodies, filing past the church. We hadn't gone very far, and yet it seemed a long enough journey to have made with the killing of those two as the only result. The planes had gone up, and behind us the bombing began.

Dark had fallen by the time I reached the officers' quarters, where I was spending the night. The temperature was only a degree above zero, and the sole warmth any-where was in the blazing market. With one wall destroyed by a bazooka* and the doors buckled, canvas curtains couldn't shut out the draughts. The electric dynamo was not working, and we had to build barricades of boxes and books to keep the candles burning. I played Quatre Vingt-et-un for Communist currency* with a Captain Sorel: it wasn't possible to play for drinks as I was a guest of the mess. The luck went wearisomely back and forth. I opened my bottle of whisky to try to warm us a little, and the others gathered round. The colonel said, "This is the first glass of whisky I have had since I left Paris." A lieutenant came in from his round of the sentries. "Perhaps we shall have a quiet night," he said.

"They will not attack before four," the colonel said. "Have you a gun?" he asked me.

"No"

"I'll find you one. Better keep it on your pillow." He added courteously, "I am afraid you will find your mattress rather hard. And at three-thirty the mortar-fire will begin. We try to break up any concentrations." "How long do you suppose this will go on?" "Who knows? We can't spare any more troops from Nam Dinh. This is just a diversion. If we can hold out with no more help than we got two days ago, it is, one may say, a victory." The wind was up again, prowling for an entry. The canvas curtain sagged (I was reminded of Polonius* stabbed behind the arras) and the candle wavered. The shadows were theatrical. We might have been a company of barn-stormers.

"Have your posts held?"

"As far as we know." He said with an effect of great tiredness, "This is nothing, you understand, an affair of no

impor'tance compared with what is happening a hundred kilometres away at Hoa Binh.*

That is a battle." "Another glass. Colonel?"

"Thank you, no. It is wonderful, your English whisky, but it is better to keep a little for the night in case of need. I think, if you will excuse me, I will get some sleep. One cannot sleep after the mortars start. Captain Sorel, you will see that Monsieur Fowlair has everything he needs, a candle, matches, a revolver." He went into his room. If was the signal for all of us. They had put a mattress on the floor for me in a small store'-room and I was surrounded by wooden cases. I stayed awake only a very short time-hardness of the floors was like rest. I wondered, but lafidly without jealousy, whether Phuong was at the flat. The iossession of a body tonight seemed a very small thing-perhaps that day I had seen too many bodies which belonged to no one, not even to themselves. We were all expendable.* When I fell asleep I dreamed of Pyle. He was dancing all by himself on a stage, stiffly, with his arms held out to an invisible partner, and I sat and watched him from a seat like music-stool with a gun in my hand in case anyone shold interfere with his dance. A programme set up by the stage, like the numbers in an English music-hall, read.

"The Dance of Love. 'A' certificate." Somebody moved at the back of the theatre and I held my gun tighter. Then I woke.

My hand was on the gun they had lent me, and a man stood in the doorway with a candle in his hand. He wore a steel helmet which threw a shadow over his eyes, and it was only when he spoke that I knew he was Pyle. He said shyly, "I'm awfully sorry to wake you up. They told me I could sleep in here."

I was still not fully awake. "Where did you get that helmet?" I asked.

"Oh, somebody lent it to me," he said vaguely. He dragged in after him a military kitbag and began to pull out a wool-lined sleeping-bag.

"You are very well equipped," I said, trying to recollect whyeitherofusshouldbehere.

"This is the standard travelling kit," he said, "of our medical aid teams. They lent me one in Hanoi." He took out a thermos and a small spirit stove, a hair-brush, a shaving-set and a tin of rations. I looked at my watch. It was nearly three in the morning. (2)

Pyle continued to unpack. He made a little ledge of cases, on which he put his shavingmirror and tackle. I said, "I doubt if you'll get any water."

"Oh," he said, "I've enough in the thermos for the morning." He sat down on his sleeping bag and began to pull off his boots.

"How on earth did you get here?" I asked. "They let me through as far asNam Dinh to see our trachoma team, and then I hired a boat." "Aboat?"

"Oh, some kind of a punt-1 don't know the name for it. As a matter of fact I had to buy it. It didn't cost much." "And you came down the river by yourself?" "It wasn't really difficult, you know. The current was with me". "You are crazy."

"Oh no. The only real danger was running aground." "Or being shot up by a naval patrol, or a French plane. Or having your throat cut by the Vietminh." He laughed shyly. "Well, I'm here anyway," he said. "Why?"

"Oh, tHere are two reasons. But I don't want to keep you awake."

"rmnotsleepy.Thegunswillbestartmgsoon." "Do you mind if I move the candle? It's a bit bright here." He seemed, nervous.

"What'sthefirstreason?"

"Well, the other day you made nae think this place was rather interesting. You remember when we were with Granger... and Phuong." "Yes?" - -

"I thought I ought to take a look at it. To tell you the truth, I was a bit ashamed of Granger. " "I see. As simple as all that."

"Well, there wasn't any real difficulty, was there?" He began to play with his bootlaces, and there was a long silence. "I'm not being quite honest," he said at last. "No?" ".

. "I really came to see you." "You came here to see me?" "Yes." . "Why?" He looked up from his bootlaces in an agony of embarrassment. "I had to tell you--I've fallen in love with Phuong." '. I laughed. I couldn't help it. He was so uaexpeeted and so serious. I said, "Couldn't youliave waited till I got back? lsha.llbe.inSaigonnextweek"

lYou might have been killed," he said. "It wouldn't have beerihon"urable. And then I don't know if I could have stayed away from Phuong all that time." "You mean, you have stayed away?" "Of course. You don't think I'll tell her-without you knowing?" "People do," I said. "When did it happen?"

"I guess it was that night at the Chalet, dancing with her."

"I didn't think you ever got close enough." He looked at me in a puzzled way. If his conduct seemed crazy to me, mine was obviously inexplicable to him. He said, "You know, I think it was seeing all those girls in that house. They were so pretty. Why, she might have been one of them. I wanted to protect her."

"I don't think she's in need of protection. Has Miss Hei invited you out?"

"Yes, but I haven't gone. I've kept away." He said gloomily, "It's been terrible. I feel like such a heel, but you do believe me, don't you, that if you'd been married-why, I .wouldn't ever come between a man and his wife."

"You seem pretty sure you can come between," I said. For the first time he had irritated me.

"Fowler," he said, "I don't know your Christian name...?"

"Thomas. Why?"

"I can call you Tom, can't I? I feel in a way this has brought us together. Loving the same woman, I mean." "What's your next move?"

He sat up enthusiastically against the packing-cases. "Everything seems different now that you know," he said. "I shall ask her to marry me, Tom." "I'd rather you called me Thomas." "She'll just have to choose between us, Thomas. That's fair enough." But was it fair? I felt for the first time the premonitory chill of loneliness. It was all fantastic, and yet, and yet . . . He might be a poor lover, but I was the poor man. He had

.in his hand the infinite riches of respectability.

He began to undress and I thought, 'He has youth too.' How sad it was to envy Pyle. I said, "I can't marry her. I have a wife at home. She would never divorce me. She's High Church*-if you know what that means."

"I'm sorry, Thomas. By the way, my name's Alden, if you'd care..."

"I'd rather stick to Pyle," I said. "I think of you as Pyle." He got into his sleeping bag and stretched his hand out for the candle. "Whew," he said, "I'm glad that's over, Thomas. I've been feeling awfully bad about it." It was only too evident that he no longer did.

When the candle was out, I could just see the outline of his crew-cut against the light of the flames outside. "Good-night, Thomas. Sleep well," and immediately at those words like a bad comedy cue the mortars opened up, whirring, shrieking, exploding. "Good God," Pyle said, "is it an attack?" "They are trying to stop an attack." "Well, I suppose, there'll be no sleep for us now?" "No sleep."

"Thomas, I want you to know what I think of the way you've taken all this-1 think you've been swell, swell, there's no other word for it." "Thank you."

"You've seen so much more of the world than I have. You know, in some ways Boston is a bit-cramping. Even if you aren't a Lowell or a Cabot.* I wish you'd advise me, Thomas." "What about?" "Phuong."

"I wouldn't trust my advice if I were you. I'm biased. I want to keep her."

"Oh, but I know you're straight, absolutely straight, and we both have her interests at heart." Suddenly I couldn't bear his boyishness any more. I said, I don't care that for her interests. You can have her inte-rests. I only want her body. I want her in bed with me. I'd rather ruin her and sleep with her than, than . . . look after her damned interests." He said,

"Oh," in a weak voice, in the dark.

I went on, "If it's only her interests you care about, for God's sake leave Phuong alone. Like any other woman she'd rather have a good . . ." the crash of a mortar saved Boston ears from. the Anglo-Saxon word.

But there was a quality of the implacable in Pyle. He had determined I was behaving well and I had to behave well. He said, "I know what you are suffering, Thomas." "I'm not suffering." "Oh yes, you are. I know what I'd suffer if I had to give up Phuong"

"But I haven't given her up."

"I'm pretty physical too, Thomas, but I'd give up all hope of that if I could see Phuong happy." "She is happy."

"She can't be-not in her situation. She needs children." "Do you really believe all that nonsense her sister. . ." "A sister sometimes knows better. . ." "She was just trying to sell the notion* to you, Pyle, be-cause'she thinks you have more money. And, my God, she has sold it all right." "I've only got my salary." "Well, you've got a favourable rate of exchange any-way."

"Don't be bitter, Thomas. These things happen. I wish it had happened to anybody else but you. Are those our mortars?"

"Yes, 'our' mortars. You talk as though she was leaving me, Pyle"

"Of course," he said without conviction, "she may choose to stay with you." "What would you do then?" "I'd apply for a transfer."

"Why don't you just go away, Pyle, without causing trouble?"

"It wouldn't be fair to her, Thomas," he said quite seriously. I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused. He added, "I don't think you quite understand Phuong."

And waking that morning months later with Phuong beside me, I thought, "And did you understand her either? Could you have anticipated this situation? Phuong so happily asleep beside me and you dead?" Time has its revenges, but revenges seem so often sour. Wouldn't we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife a husband, a lover a mistress, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that's why men have invented God-a being capable of understanding. Perhaps if I wanted to be understood or to understand I would bamboozle myself into belief, but I am a reporter; God exists only for leader-writers.

"Are you sure there's anything much to understand?" I asked Pyle. "Oh, for God's sake, let's have a whisky. It's too noisy to argue." "It's a bit early," Pyle said. "It's damned late." I poured out two glasses and Pyle raised his and stared through the whisky at the light of the candle. His hand shook whenever a shell burst, any yet he had made that senseless trip from Nam Dinh.

Pyle said, "It's a strange thing that neither of us can say 'Good luck'." So we drank saying nothing.