The Tale of the Lazy Dog

by Alan Williams

  As he spoke the port engine failed. A couple of splutters, a quick rattling sound, and the prop swung to a standstill. Ryderbeit’s hands worked energetically at a row of switches. Nothing happened. His eyes were on the static gyro-compass now, unblinking, as he moved a lever to the left; then said to Murray, in a voice grown small and tight: ‘Better get back and start putting on parachutes. The kickers’ll show you. And hold the little girl’s hand for me.’

  Murray staggered back down into the hull of the aircraft; but when they counted up they found there were only seven parachutes for the eight of them. Murray gave one to Jackie Conquest and made some miserable joke about first-class passengers on the Titanic. The chief kicker tried to sacrifice his own parachute, but Murray declined it with mock-heroism; he was not exactly afraid of having to jump — it was just that he had a feeling that while he kept faith with the plane and its pilots, they might still get through. Putting on a parachute which he’d never used before, and jumping into some unknown crevasse of jungle, seemed the final surrender.

  He knew they were losing height fast now. A series of lurching drops that jerked at his guts, wrenched his neck back, made him giddy and muzzy-eyed. The Thais were standing round Jackie Conquest, strapping her into the harness, securing the line to the steel bar along the roof, explaining that the parachute opened automatically. One of them began to demonstrate how to fall, elbows pressed to his sides, knees jack-knifing under him, until he looked like a foetus.

  At this moment Jackie Conquest vomited — a spew of instant coffee, quickly swept across the floor and into the cloud. She straightened up at once and glared at Murray with a look of embarrassment and rage. ‘I am sorry!’ she shouted, in English.

  He gave a dim smile: ‘It’s the least of our troubles!’ — reflecting, almost sadly, that this physical act had been the first really human thing he had seen her do since they had met.

  The Thai kickers throughout had maintained an impeccable inattention, like waiters during an ugly scene in a restaurant involving valued customers. Murray meanwhile decided on a discreet withdrawal, making his way again towards the pilots’ cabin, the floor rocking downwards this time, as the one engine struggled bravely to hold them out of that final, fatal spin. He found Ryderbeit working frantically at the controls, exchanging gestures with No-Entry Jones who was still bent over charts, checking dials — a wordless exchange of hand signals that was meaningless to Murray, yet wonderfully calm. He stood propped against the back of Ryderbeit’s seat, watching the finger of one of the altimeters creep back round the dial, anticlockwise, the 1,000 feet digits recorded in decades — 80, 70, 60 — falling fast, while the second dial, recording the hundreds of feet, was now beginning to spin. The view through the windshield was still of dull blind cloud. He waited — ten, fifteen, thirty seconds. Then suddenly Ryderbeit relaxed: ‘How are the passengers, soldier?’

  ‘The girl’s been sick. She could do with some brandy.’

  ‘You scheming bastard!’ He laughed as he handed up the flask: ‘But no smoking back there, right?’

  ‘Right. Where are we?’

  ‘Where are we?’ Ryderbeit yelled at No-Entry who called back, ‘To my estimation, we’re down to five thousand, on a zero Gee-Bee, which would indicate we’re down through it, and that the Lord has been pretty damned generous!’ He sounded like the popular idea of how brave emancipated Negroes in the American Armed Forces are supposed to sound.

  Ryderbeit nodded grimly. ‘This boy Jones is what we in the flying business call a navigator. There is no navigator in the world like Jones. He has just got us through the pass, blind. But then of course, he has the advantage of voodoo.’

  The joke was obviously stale on the Negro, who merely shouted at Murray: ‘I advise you, Mr Wilde, to get back and strap yourself in.’

  Ryderbeit added: ‘We’re going to try and land on a strip that was not built for any kind of aircraft like this. Send my compliments to the lady, and don’t both o’ you drink all the brandy. I’m goin’ to want some myself, if we get down.’

  They came down on what Murray had come to think of as a sentimental cliché — ‘On a wing and a prayer’. The port wing with its dead engine went down over a field that looked like a layer of rusted corrugated iron. Everyone in the back — Murray, Mrs Conquest, the six Thais — were strapped in, parachutes cast off, hunched forward with knees and elbows gripped close to their bodies, waiting for the bone-crushing impact. The rollers on the empty rails began to turn on their own momentum.

  Then a sudden, awful quiet.

  The second engine had cut out. There was a rattling of loose gadgets and rice-rollers, the soft roar of the slip-stream that had fallen to less than forty knots. The floor sank lower, to meet some uncertain surface of mud and water and half-grown rice shoots that could scarcely bear the weight of a big greedy insect.

  Wild thoughts careered through Murray’s mind: Were things prearranged? The meeting with Sergeant Wace in the Bangkok bar; accepting a drink from the fat friendly Pol in the little restaurant in Phnom Penh? There was a truth somewhere — not God necessarily, but a kind of rhythm of reason. Or of non-reason. If there was any God — or perhaps two of them — they were up front bringing down this great hunk of metal, slowing her down with a sudden scream from the starboard engine, then a whirring roar as they touched the ground, lifting and hitting again much harder this time, with a thick sloughing sound as the port wing went down and cut deep into the ground so that the whole weight of the plane began to turn as though on a wide pivot — a plough biting into the earth, grinding and bumping and biting still deeper, its wing tip snapped off, its engine gone too, the whole wing crumpling like silver paper, torn from the body of the plane as the machine seemed to settle for a moment, solid and perplexed but still in control — then started to bounce with a beating of the head, limbs numb but feet shocked and thudding against the steel floor, the whole world going round and round and people and metal all screaming round; then stillness.

  They hung in their safety belts at an odd angle, and there was blood on one of the Thais’ faces. Jackie Conquest sat upright, quiet and gentle and very beautiful, Murray thought, hanging in her seat like a doll with her uniform bulging under the arms with the newspapers he’d given her, and the heavy camera swinging from her neck.

  The plane had stopped. He found he was sneezing violently, his whole body shaken, eyes watering and nose blubbering like a baby. Afterwards they told him it was because of some cornmeal that had been spilt in the back of the plane during a previous flight and that on the sudden dive and impact of landing, it had blown back up the plane. Murray suffered from mild hay fever, but he was not entirely happy with this explanation. As had happened several times before, he was terrified of being seen to be terrified. Was this one sign of courage, or just the hangover from a comfortable over-educated background?

  He was still wondering and muttering to himself when Jones dragged him out of the plane. They walked side by side, unplugging their boots from the mud, and he kept looking back at the cracked silver tail of the plane, while the Negro jogged his arm and said, ‘C’mon, man, it’s O.K., it’s O.K.’

  He had no idea where he was.

  PART 4: THE SERGEANT’S TALE

  CHAPTER 1

  They found themselves in an odd little town, grey and wretched, but still bearing the imprint of French civilisation. There was a tiny square surrounded by flaking colonnades; and the legs of some statue — a general or perhaps a poet — standing in the middle of the cracked concrete, its jagged shanks sprouting some rich ugly weed.

  The Americans — in the singular, as it turned out — had their USAID headquarters in one of the old French houses, freshened up with paint the colour of flesh. The one American inhabitant was even larger and more close-cropped than usual — a lanky raw-boned man with a big white smile called Wedgwood. The walls of his office were papered with enormous crude paintings of men in uniform — squat brown-faced men with square shoulders and straight arms, very
badly drawn, as though by a child. Under each was printed: KNOW YOUR ENEMY: NVA REGULAR. NVA IRREGULAR. PATHET LAO REGULAR — etc; then a detailed list of the weapons these men might be bearing. There was also one corner devoted to the fold-out pin-ups of at least six months’ issues of Playboy.

  Murray stumbled over to the iced drinking water tank and helped himself to a couple of paper cupfuls. There was a dull throbbing in the side of his head, yet he seemed to notice things with a heightened awareness. He noticed, when he sat down again, a tiny mole just behind Jackie Conquest’s left ear where her hair broke forward across her cheek. She was sitting next to him beside a furled Stars and Stripes, and now that she had removed the copies of the Bangkok World, her combat tunic was draped loosely over her breasts.

  Wedgwood called to a Lao assistant who went away to brew up some coffee, while Ryderbeit and No-Entry began a long, but not quite complete account of their aerial mishap. They made no mention of having transgressed North Vietnamese airspace, concentrating only on a failed port engine and how they’d feathered the plane down through eight thousand feet of mountains, over-running the airstrip and finishing up in an untilled rice-paddy.

  Wedgwood took notes, shaking his head wonderingly and saying he couldn’t understand how any of them came to be alive. When the Lao assistant came back with the coffee Ryderbeit gave his most engaging smile and said, ‘Could we possibly have something stronger, Mr Wedgwood, sir?’

  ‘Why sure, boys!’ And a moment later the American was back with a full quart bottle of Four Roses bourbon, plus the inevitable paper cups. They all drank, except No-Entry, while Wedgwood began to make plans to fly them back to Vientiane. He might be able to lay on a chopper before nightfall to get them down at least as far as Luang Prabang. It might take longer to find transport for the Thai kickers, who had mysteriously and discreetly disappeared.

  The bourbon had begun to deaden the throbbing in Murray’s head. Later Wedgwood, taking the bottle with him, led them all out into a narrow muddy street, to a house with arches and ornate balconies which he said was the nearest thing to a restaurant in town. He wouldn’t stay because he had to get back and send some radio messages; but he left them the bourbon.

  It was very hot inside, full of slow fat flies and the foetid smell of fish. After a moment they moved out to the back where there was a small patio with a shallow pond and three goldfish flicking about in the dark water. The proprietor, a polite Tonkinese, brought out chairs, a table, and four glasses. The meal he served was peculiarly vile, but none of them had any appetite. After a second glass of bourbon Ryderbeit contented himself with sitting back with a hunk of stale bread, rolling little lumps between his fingers and dipping them in his bourbon, then tossing them into the pond, watching the fish dart up and swallow them. Each time he gave a low mirthless laugh, waiting intently for their reactions. One of the fish rolled to the surface, its mouth out of the water, gasping; the other two, after a couple of bites each, sank to the bottom, twitched for a moment, then lay still.

  ‘There you are!’ he cried, swinging his chair round: ‘There you have the whole human predicament — the ones that float and the ones that sink. I think we’re the ones who float — wouldn’t you say so, No-Entry? You’re not drinkin’, No-Entry, you miserable bastard!’

  The Negro lifted his head wearily from his elbows, his eyes wrapped again in their dark glasses. ‘You know I can’t drink, Sammy.’

  ‘After a flight like that one, you bloody well drink!’ Ryderbeit roared.

  ‘Cut it, Sammy. I’m tired.’

  Ryderbeit scowled, splashing more bourbon into his glass. ‘The rest o’ you’re drinking?’ he said, turning to where Murray and Jackie Conquest sat nursing their glasses in the shade of the wall. ‘C’mon, those need freshenin’ up,’ he added, leaning across with the bottle.

  ‘We’re doing fine,’ said Murray, not liking the look of Ryderbeit at all. The bounce and gaiety he had displayed back at the USAID headquarters was dissipated now into a sour, needling moodiness, as the level of the bourbon dropped and the other three spoke less.

  ‘Tell us about the Congo,’ Murray said wearily. It was Ryderbeit drinking in silence that worried him most.

  ‘I’ll tell you all you want to know about the Congo, Murray boy — but later. First I’d like to hear what lovely little Mrs Conquest here was doing on my plane. You come to spy on me, darling? All rigged up in yer battle kit like some bloody film extra, with her bloody great camera thrown in for the act — then back you go runnin’ to Mister Bloody Maxwell Esquire and tell him that Samuel D. Ryderbeit just happened to wander a few miles over North Vietnamese airspace, then went and flipped his plane down in a rice-paddy — all because he’d been takin’ a few sniffs at the old brandy-flask! Isn’t that right, darling?’

  ‘Take it easy,’ Jones murmured from the end of the table.

  Ryderbeit grinned. ‘I’m takin’ it nice and easy, No-Entry. Just want to know what this sweet little married lady’s been doin’ on my flight.’

  ‘You know what I was doing,’ she said stiffly. ‘I got the official clearance, just like Mr Wilde here. I came to take photographs.’

  ‘Photographs of a load o’ bloody cloud — or the mountains of North Vietnam? How many frames did yer take?’

  ‘That’s none of your business!’ Her eyes had high dark lights in them, emphasised by the sudden parched whiteness of her cheeks. ‘Just because you’ve saved my life doesn’t mean you can order me around like a servant!’ she cried. ‘I can look after myself very well — don’t worry, Mister Ryderbeit!’

  Ryderbeit gave a crooked, downward smile at the fishpond. ‘I’m sure you can look after yerself, Mrs Conquest. Bein’ married to the Central Intelligence Agency gives you rather an edge over the rest of us. As for me, I expect to die every day of the week.’ He rolled another pellet of bread, dipped it in bourbon and this time put it in his mouth. ‘I just want to know what you were doing on my flight, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ve told you. I came to take photographs of a rice-drop. Anyway, what concern is it of yours?’

  ‘It’s every bloody concern of mine, Mrs Conquest. Because I’m the chief pilot — I was in sole charge o’ that plane — and it’s of the greatest concern to me who comes on my flights, and why.’

  ‘I’ve told you why.’

  ‘Cool it, Sammy,’ said Jones again; and Murray began to stiffen in his chair, watching Ryderbeit closely now, knowing the man was spoiling for trouble. Ryderbeit’s glass was empty. He reached out for the bottle and refilled it; then, tilting his chair perilously far back, he decanted a cigar from a pigskin case, getting his lighter out and grinning at Jackie over the flame like a snake with a bird. ‘So what yer goin’ to tell that bastard hubby o’ yours when yer get back, Mrs Conquest?’

  ‘He doesn’t even know I’ve come.’

  ‘Doesn’t even know!’ Ryderbeit brought his chair down with a crash, sounding genuinely surprised. ‘Why the hell not?’

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Murray snapped. ‘She’s told you why she came — to take some photographs, enjoy herself on a dull morning. Now just leave it at that.’

  Ryderbeit turned, cocking one eye with a slow enigmatic smile. ‘O.K., soldier. O.K.! If you say so, I’m not goin’ to argue. Your business here is my business. If you’re not worried havin’ along the wife of the Central Intelligence Agency, then I’m not worried either. But’ — and he swung back to Jackie, jabbing his glowing cigar at her like a gun — ‘if you breathe one word to contradict the official report that that boy Wedgwood’s sending out — one little whisper about us transgressing North Vietnamese airspace — I’ll take your pants down and give your pretty little backside such a thrashin’ you’ll be takin’ your meals standin’ up for a week!’

  She flushed darkly, and Murray closed his fist. But before either of them could speak, Ryderbeit suddenly laughed and sat back again, breathing smoke up at the square of grey sky above. ‘You wanted to hear about the Congo? I’ll tell you about the
Congo — the best days o’ my life I spent in that lovely place.’

  Anything, Murray thought, to kill time till the chopper arrived to take them to Luang Prabang. Ryderbeit’s mood had become more mellow, as he talked of his light twin-engined Piper Comanche and how he’d flown over the elephant grass with the other mercenaries going through like beaters after game, and how the Simbas had come running out in their lion-skin head-dresses, howling like dogs while he shot them down in rows with his fifty-calibre machinegun — sometimes splitting them almost in half, sometimes letting one run free for a mile or so, teasing him with low passes, waiting till he tried to dodge back into the bush, then knocking him flat with one short burst.

  Some of his tales were scarcely credible for their horror; it was almost as though he were taunting them for some violent reaction, although he got practically none. Even his constant references to ‘munts’ and ‘kaffirs’ seemed to leave Jones totally unmoved — dozing with his head on his arms, as though he’d heard it all before, and didn’t much care anyway. Jackie sat pale and very straight in her chair, smoking and sipping her drink, without any discernible expression except mild boredom.

  With more than half the bourbon gone, Ryderbeit seemed to tire of atrocity stories — torture, rape, cannibalism — and now moved to a lengthy dissertation on his fellow mercenaries in the Congo. Murray was scarcely listening, enjoying his bourbon and the relative peace of the hot sticky afternoon, thinking that the worst was over with Ryderbeit — just a nervous tantrum following the crash perhaps — when something rather odd happened.

  Ryderbeit had admitted he wasn’t too keen on the Belgians: they were smug and fat and ran too fast when the going got rough. There were also a few Britons, mostly poor whites who’d run out of Kenya and Nyasaland; and a couple of public school boys who wanted to be heroes and were about as much use as two left boots on a one-legged munt. And some of the South Africans and his fellow Rhodesians weren’t much cop either — unemployed layabouts who wanted to earn an easy buck shooting black men. No, the ones he admired most were the French — the ones who’d come down from Algeria. ‘Especially the Legion. Those Legion boys were bloody good!’ He sat back, sipping his drink, sounding almost tearfully nostalgic. ‘Rough but good. Lots o’ Krauts among ’em, o’ course — and real bastards they were! But good soldiers. No parlour-pink nonsense about the Geneva Convention with those boys. They really knew what fightin’s all about.’