by Peter May
They were to travel light, but Elliot insisted that Slattery pack a shortwave radio-receiver. Tuk had promised to have everything delivered to a pick-up point near the border once it had been decided exactly where they were to make their crossing. And now that he had been paid, he was full of false bonhomie. Not one of the men in the back of the car trusted him.
Aranyaprathet had been transformed from a sleepy, forgotten little border town into a thriving and expanding mini-metropolis by the influx of refugees, and by the medical and relief agencies that had moved in to meet their needs. The town was thick with foreigners and commerce and traffic of all kinds. Bars and shops and clubs had sprung up everywhere, as they had in the North American goldrush boom towns. Only here the gold was flesh, and the currency human misery. There was a large Thai army presence and a growing administration complex, the fruits of a burgeoning bureaucracy, to control the comings and goings of all manner of people – refugees, journalists, troops, traders, prostitutes, and large numbers of workers from the international relief agencies. Trucks lumbered in from Bangkok throughout the day, bringing the decadent goods of an alien Western culture to feed the black-market economy.
‘The trucks only travel by day,’ Tuk said. ‘The road is controlled by bandits after dusk. Cars and trucks are attacked and robbed, and the drivers often killed. The army surrenders control after the sun goes down.’
They spent a hot sticky hour below a broken ceiling fan in a room filled with the human flotsam of war, while Tuk spoke long and heatedly with recalcitrant Thai officials. Finally Tuk and the officials disappeared into another room. When they came out again, ten minutes later, Tuk was smiling broadly. ‘All fixed,’ he said. ‘We can go now.’ Vacant eyes watched them leave.
Outside the heat of the sun seared the skin and the senses, and it was a merciful relief to slip back into the air-conditioned comfort of Tuk’s car.
Mak Moun came as a shock, even after the poverty and corruption of Bangkok and Aranyaprathet. This largest of the Cambodian encampments on the border was little better than a rural slum. The place was black with flies, a huge depressing sprawl of small huts crammed together, refuse piled in stinking heaps, broken bottles and empty cans, decaying scraps of food scraped from meagre plates, a flyblown chicken carcass. Men and women and children squatting to defecate in a nearly dried-up stream running through the camp were almost obscured by the flies. The stench of human excrement was choking. Young Thai soldiers carrying rifles or automatic weapons wandered arrogantly between the rows of huts, occasionally shouting at the children. Any who dared to argue with them were rewarded with a blow from a rifle butt.
As they drove through the camp they watched a soldier strike an old woman several times about the head with a long cane, until blood appeared oozing from her hair. Elliot felt his scalp tighten with anger. Tuk grinned back at them and shrugged philosophically. ‘Life in the camps,’ he said. ‘But what can one do?’
‘We could kick the shit out of that bastard for a start!’ Slattery growled.
‘That would not be very wise, Mr Slattery. Van Saren’s people would only shoot you. The Thai army presence here is for show only. They are happy to let Van Saren police the camp. People are often shot trying to leave. Van Saren could not have his position undermined by allowing a foreigner to attack a soldier. Oh yes, and remember,’ he added, ‘to call him Marshal. Marshal Van. He is a little eccentric, but his control is very effective.’
‘Effective in what way?’ Elliot asked.
‘He controls distribution of the food that the ICRC and UNICEF truck in every day. And on the border, Mr Elliot, food is power.’
The car drew up outside a hut near the camp’s administration centre and they all got out. Tuk waved at the hut. ‘Van’s kingdom,’ he said. Not ten metres away a squalid, half-starved group of women were trying to wash themselves in the same dried-up slick that doubled as an open sewer.
‘And I thought I’d seen everything,’ Slattery said, brushing the flies from his face. ‘Jeez, if the world needed an enema this is where they’d stick the fucking tube.’
Elliot glanced at McCue, who had remained silent throughout their journey. He was impassive, his face betraying no trace of emotion. But his eyes missed nothing, and Elliot sensed a tension in him. He was beginning to regret having come here at all.
They climbed the steps and entered the empty hut. It was a shambles: two-tier bunk beds down one wall, crates of beer stacked against another and under the beds, empties strewn everywhere. Slattery kicked one across the floor and it rolled into a corner. There was a large desk and a swivel chair by the window. An electric fan whirred and clattered on the desk making erratic sweeps and stirring the papers strewn across the desktop. Several sheets had fallen to the floor. Crumpled cigarette packs lay on the desk, ashtrays brimming with half-smoked cigarettes. A window blind had slipped down to hang at an angle. The floorboards were crusted with dried spittle and the room stank of human sweat and stale cigarette smoke.
‘Cosy little place,’ Slattery said, and spat out a fly that had crept in at the corner of his mouth.
Tuk turned in the doorway. ‘Ah, here comes the Marshal now.’
Van Saren strode across the compound towards the hut, a small figure, ridiculous in US army trousers tied above the ankles, open sandals, a khaki shirt open to the waist and a pork pie hat set squarely on his head. A large crucifix hung round his neck, glinting in the sunlight. He had a cocky swagger emulated by the three thugs who accompanied him, all in khaki, bandoliers slung across shoulders, AK-47s tucked under arms. Each had a dirty scarf tied around his head.
Van grinned as he saw Tuk, revealing several gaps in a mouthful of yellowed teeth. He greeted him in Thai. The thugs ignored the newcomers, pushing past and propping their automatic rifles against the far wall. One climbed on to one of the top bunks and flopped across the sweat-stained sheet. Another dropped into the swivel chair and cast an indifferent glance over the strangers. The third sat on the edge of the desk and lit a cigarette.
Tuk made the introductions. He seemed out of place and ill-at-ease in these surroundings, dabbing again at his forehead with a now grubby handkerchief. ‘Saren, this is Mr Elliot and his colleagues.’
Elliot nodded and Van looked at them appraisingly before smiling broadly, as though proud of his bad teeth. ‘Welcome to Mak Moun,’ he said. ‘Here you under my protection. Protection of Khmer Serei.’ He paused. ‘You want go Cambodia, Than tell me. No problem. You enjoy stay my country.’ And he laughed uproariously, pleased with his joke. ‘I take you. No problem. When you want go?’
‘A week or so,’ Elliot said. ‘But I want to talk to some of your refugees first.’
Van waved a hand dismissively. ‘They talk you. No problem. I tell them. You want drink?’
‘Sure.’
Van giggled. ‘Hah! “Sure.” I like “Sure.”’ And he snapped an instruction at the thug sitting on the desk. Wordlessly the man rose and opened half a dozen bottles of beer to hand them round.
‘Not for me, Saren,’ Tuk said.
Van chuckled. ‘Sure you drink with us, Than. No problem.’ He turned to Elliot. ‘Than like glass with beer from refrigerator. He think we very uncivilized here.’
Tuk took a bottle reluctantly from the thug, who showed his first emotion in an evil grin. Van said something in Cambodian and all the thugs laughed. Then he raised his bottle. ‘Death Khmer Rouge bastard!’ he shouted.
Elliot took a swig from his bottle. The beer was hot.
The sound of raised voices made them turn. Through the open door, across the compound, outside the administration hut, they saw two white men engaged in an argument. One was big, unshaven, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, a Colt .45 stuck in his paunch. The other man was smaller, fair-haired, in pressed trousers and white shirt. The argument was heated and in English, although from the hut there was no telling what they were saying.
Suddenly the big man stepped forward and pushed the other back, his voice rising to a pitch of fury. The smaller man stood his ground, trying to calm aggression with reason. Then the big man swung a fist like a football and hit him full in the face, so that he staggered back and fell in the dust, blood pouring from his nose. As the big man advanced he scrambled backwards, getting hurriedly to his feet. He stood off, holding a handkerchief to his face, shouting angry words before turning and striding quickly to a jeep parked at the edge of the compound. He got in and drove off fast, tyres spinning in the dirt.
As the big man started towards their hut, Van turned grinning to the others. ‘That Garee,’ he said. ‘He clearing today food distribution with Red Cross. No problem.’
Tuk moved next to Elliot and said quietly, ‘I would advise caution with this man. He can be – unpredictable.’ He turned to McCue. ‘A fellow countryman of yours, Mr McCue.’ And Elliot saw McCue’s jaw set.
‘Cool it, Billy boy,’ Slattery said softly. McCue said nothing.
The big American climbed the steps and stopped in the doorway, taking in the new faces. ‘Who the hell are these guys!’ He didn’t look happy to see them.
‘Friends of Mr Tuk, Garee,’ Van said. ‘They want we take them cross border.’
The American grunted.
Tuk said, ‘Mr Ferguson is Saren’s Minister of Defence for the National Liberation Movement of Cambodia.’ Elliot picked up the irony, but it seemed to elude Van and Ferguson.
‘Marshal Van is the father and saviour of all Cambodia,’ Ferguson said, in a way that defied anyone to contradict him. He pushed his way past McCue and Slattery and flicked his head at the thug in the swivel chair. It was vacated at once. Ferguson slumped into the chair. ‘Fucking Red Cross think they own the place!’ His feet thudded on to the desk.
‘You tell them different, Garee,’ Van said.
‘Fucking right I do.’ He looked at Elliot. ‘And I’m not taking any shit off you guys either. Got that?’
‘Sure,’ Elliot said evenly.
‘Hah,’ giggled Van. ‘“Sure.” I like “Sure.”’
But Ferguson was glaring with ugly hostility at Elliot. ‘I don’t like your tone, pal. You show some respect for my father.’
Elliot looked at him steadily. ‘I’m surprised you have one.’
Ferguson frowned. He simmered for a moment, then seemed to explode from the inside out. ‘Marshal Van is my father! You trying to say something different?’ He was on his feet, hands on his hips, swivel chair clattering backwards.
Elliot said, ‘I said I didn’t think bastards had fathers.’
Slattery wondered at Elliot’s coolness and he began to feel good, adrenalin pumping. He glanced quickly round the room. The three thugs were taut and alert. Tuk was pale with fear and had stepped back towards the door. Van just watched, apparently quite relaxed. Outside somewhere a baby was crying. Ferguson was puce with rage. He drew his pistol from his belt and levelled it at Elliot’s head.
‘You apologize to my father!’ he shouted. ‘Or you’re a dead man!’
Slattery caught the slightest movement out of the corner of his eye, and a long blade glinted at Ferguson’s throat, the point drawing blood. McCue. He’d forgotten about McCue. Slattery swivelled round, snatched an AK-47 from the wall and turned it on the three thugs, almost before they could move. ‘Don’t even think about it, boys.’
Ferguson had gone rigid and he glanced quickly sideways to see McCue’s face very close to his own. He felt the heat of his breath, smelled the beer on it. McCue’s eyes chilled him. ‘Move that trigger a hair’s breadth and I’ll cut your fucking head off – pal.’ McCue’s voice was barely a whisper.
Elliot reached out and took the Colt from Ferguson’s hand and tucked it back in the belt below his paunch. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s dangerous to point guns at people?’ he said.
The tension was broken by Van’s laugh, high-pitched, almost a giggle. ‘Good. Very, very good. Nice thing they on our side, huh Garee?’
Elliot nodded to McCue and Slattery. Slattery lowered the automatic and McCue slowly withdrew the knife, his eyes never leaving Ferguson for a moment. Ferguson slapped at his neck and looked at the blood smeared on his fingers. ‘Hey, you guys,’ he said. ‘Just a goddam joke.’
‘’Course it was.’ Elliot smiled and turned to Van. ‘How about letting me talk to some of those refugees now?’
‘Sure, sure. No problem. Garee, he take you.’
They walked through the camp, Elliot, Ferguson and one of the thugs, who kept a wary eye on Elliot. Ferguson seemed preoccupied, animosity apparently forgotten. ‘Hey, Elliot,’ he said. ‘Who is that guy?’
‘McCue?’
‘The runt with the knife.’
‘Vietnam vet.’
‘Shit, ain’t we all?’
‘Tunnel rat,’ Elliot said. ‘Did three tours.’
Ferguson whistled, an expression of awe. ‘Hey, I heard about them guys.’
Elliot smiled. ‘Be glad he didn’t fillet you.’
Ferguson lapsed again into contemplative silence, leading them abstractedly between rows of mean little huts. A group of children stopped and stared at them. Big brown eyes in shrunken faces, looking out through a film of indifference. There were no games played here, no cries of joy or petty squabbles, just the lacklustre eyes, brittle sticks of arms and legs poking out from torn T-shirts and dirty shorts. There was no curiosity in their stares, not even fear. Flies crawled over their faces, in mouths and nostrils, children too inured to them to bother.
Elliot was uneasy, disconcerted by their gaze. He had felt eyes like these on him before. But it was only now, for the first time in his life, that he realized what it was in these eyes that so troubled him. It was an emptiness. Where there’s no hope, what else could there be? It was a look he and the others had seen for more than sixteen years in the eyes that looked back at them from their shaving mirrors each morning. Strange, he had never thought of soldiers as victims before. Soldiers fought, lived or died, won or lost. These, these children, they were the real victims of war. Yet he knew that he, too, somewhere, at some time, had become a victim. He looked away, seeing only himself reflected in the dull stares. Ferguson shouted at the kids and waved an arm. But they continued to stand watching, unmoved.
*
It was dark in the huts after the glare of the sun. The air was fetid. Rows of makeshift beds, groups of ragged refugees, sometimes whole families camped in the gloom, eating, sleeping, dying there. The food dished out by Van Saren’s thugs was never quite enough, the medical services provided by the overstrained relief agencies at best inadequate. Prompted by the threats of Ferguson, often translated by his indifferent rifle-toting deputy, they told their stories. Elliot had wanted to ask questions – numbers of Khmer Rouge, the lie of the land, roads, rivers. But all he could do was listen, silenced by the simplicity of the narratives, the unemotional, undramatized pictures of hell painted in single bold brushstrokes.
One man sat on his own, squatting on the filthy blanket that covered his bed. His hair was matted, his face blank, his eyes dead. Ferguson’s deputy barked at him in Cambodian. The man ignored him and looked at Elliot. ‘I speak English,’ he said. ‘Are you another newspaper man?’
Elliot shook his head. ‘Just interested.’
‘No one is interested without a reason.’
Elliot felt rebuked, though there was no hint of it in the man’s voice. He acknowledged the truth. ‘I have a reason.’
The man shrugged. He didn’t want to know what it was. He had no cause to be interested. Ferguson sat on the bed opposite, picking his teeth with a bamboo splinter. ‘Get on with it!’
Elliot caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and saw McCue standing there. Ferguson glanced at him with unconcealed hostility. He didn’t like anyone to get the better of him, especial
ly another Yank. ‘Where’s Slattery?’ Elliot asked.
‘Drinking.’ McCue pulled up a broken stool and sat down. ‘Thought I’d listen in.’
‘I ain’t got all day,’ Ferguson snapped. He prodded the refugee with his cane. ‘I told you to get on with it.’
The man shrugged. He told them his name was Chan Cheong and that he was twenty-eight. Elliot was shocked. He would have taken him for forty. ‘I was a truck driver in Lon Nol’s army,’ he said. ‘I lived with my wife, Key, and my two sons, in Phnom Penh. My oldest boy was eight, my youngest not yet two. When the Khmer Rouge came I threw away my uniform and when they emptied the city we took what we could carry and went north.
‘The road was choked with people just like us. Thousands and thousands of them, young and old, sick and dying. When the old and the sick fell in the road the soldiers made their families go on, and if the ones left behind were not dead already, they were shot and pushed to the side of the road or dumped in the fields to rot. That first day there were so many people on the road we covered no more than two or three miles. By the end of the day we had thrown away most of what we had, because it was too heavy to carry. And always the soldiers pushed us with their guns to make us hurry, or fired shots in the air.
‘Every so often there were checkpoints where they asked questions. Endless questions. And those they thought had been soldiers they took away, and made the rest go on. But we knew that the soldiers were shot. For myself, I said I had been a taxi driver and they believed me. They made us walk for days, and we did not dare to stop to rest or sleep. We had to walk through the night and carry our children. Children cannot walk for ever without sleep.
