Assignment - Bangkok

by Edward S. Aarons

  They walked on.

  Beyond some wild banana groves and tall bamboo that towered a hundred feet overhead, they abruptly found themselves entering a tribal village. There was no way to avoid it. The trail turned suddenly, and they were there. It was a typical fortified wieng in the Lao manner, following the course of another mountain stream. The houses were on stilts, with thatched roofs, teak verandas, a jumble of dogs, lean pigs, and chickens. Only women, children and old men were in sight. As Durell, ahead of Benjie and Kem, appeared, a silence fell over the people, who stopped what they were doing and stood and stared. One old man ran into his house and came out with a Sten gun, which he brandished at them and yelled something to his wife, who scuttled into the house, gathering up her children like a frightened, little brown hen.

  The old man held the Sten gun as if he knew how to use it. Another man, his ribs showing through his open shirt, came out with a Russian-made Kalashnikov rifle. Durell halted, and Benjie drew a long breath and stood frozen beside him.

  “Speak to them, Flivver. Tell them we’re friends.”

  The monk walked calmly toward the threatening guns. Except for a single barking dog that cowered in the shad" ows of a nearby house, the whole village had fallen dead silent. The sunlight gleamed on Kem’s shaven head as he spoke quietly.

  “We come as friends, old man. Where are your grown sons and daughters?”

  The man with the Sten waved toward the valley. “They all work. All the young men and women. Who are you?” “Travelers, pilgrims, seeking peace.”

  “Who is the bastard Chinese?”

  “A good man, a kind man, a friend. May Buddha’s gentle light fall upon you all.”

  “He looks strange to me. And the fahrang woman?” “Another friend.”

  “What do they want here?”

  “They look for the fahrang lady’s brother. He was here. We come to find him.”

  “There are only the Yunnan people, the engineers who build the road for certain others. Those Chinese are in the valley, too. They burned Xo Dong. Do you see it?” The old man pointed again. “We do not wish them to bum us, too.”

  From the village street, they could look down the valley to the river and a newly built road that started from a gorge about five miles away to the northeast. Tall granite cliffs and limestone scraps were capped with dense foliage that almost touched from each side over the pass. Durell used the binoculars to examine the scene. There were a number of trucks in the gorge, neatly hidden from possible air surveillance. There was some activity in the village on this side of the gorge, but the morning haze and the sharp black shadows of the mountainside made it difficult to see details.

  More villagers had gathered, old men and women, and their faces were closed and hostile. A number of them were armed with a variety of guns. Durell turned back to the old man with the Sten, who seemed to be the leader.

  Durell said, “We ask you again about the fahrang lady’s brother.”

  “We know nothing. We say nothing. We wish to be left alone.”

  “Was he here?”

  “We know nothing,” the old man repeated. “It is I who ask questions. Your accent is terrible. I think you—”

  Kem intervened smoothly. “It is of no consequence. We will journey on, old man.”

  “Father,” said the man to the monk, “you must wait here for the authorities. They will be angry with us, if we let you go.”

  “And yet we must go,” said Kem. “It is a holy mission, and we will continue with it.”

  Durell pointed down to the distant valley. “Do the Muc Tong frighten you?”

  There was a murmur from the crowd of villagers. The old man swung his Sten gun nervously and shouted at them for silence. Fear built upon his anger, and he jabbed the gun at Durell and Benjie. Sweat gathered on the back of Durell’s neck.

  “You,” said the old man to Durell. “Why do you ask about the Muc Tong? You are not one of them.”

  “You grow opium for them, do you not?”

  “It is our business. We grow rice and tea and bananas, too. We grow for whoever pays us.”

  “And opium is most profitable?”

  The old man spoke in rage. “You look strange to me. Not Chinese, not fahrang. Why the holy monk walks with you is not my business. The bhikkhu may go. You must stay.”

  “We wish no trouble with you.”

  “You are a spy from Bangkok. I can see that. All of you are spies. But we are believers in the Patriotic Front. The Front rules here. We pay them taxes, and they take our young men into their army. They take a reasonable

  share of our food. In return, they do not burn our wieng. We five in peace.”

  “It is the peace of slaves,” Kem murmured.

  “One moment.” Benjie stepped forward, directly toward the threatening guns. “Phan Do, why do you not remember me? You were my foreman at the tea plantation. You worked for me for three years, you and your sons and your villagers.”

  “I do not know you,” the old man snapped. “And my sons are soldiers now.”

  “They are opium smugglers,” Benjie said. “Not an honorable profession. Phan, you are being foolish. Do not threaten us with your gun. We will go in peace.”

  “I cannot permit it.”

  “We will go,” Kem said.

  He walked ahead through the crowd, with Benjie, and Durell moved ahead through the villagers. For a moment, it looked as if they would close ranks against them, and there would be violence. Durell was aware of the old man pointing his Sten gun at their backs, but he did not look at Phan. Kem’s saffron robe stood out brightly against the drab tribal costumes. The monk murmured to the women, touched a child’s head in benediction. There was no fear in his eyes. One woman suddenly ran into her house and came out with a wooden bowl of rice, which she offered to the bhikkhu. Kem accepted it gravely. Another woman said, “It is a long time since we were permitted to have a bhikkhu. Stay with us, holy man!”

  “I cannot. But I shall return,” Kem said gently.

  Phan shouted angrily at the other old men, but the women closed ranks and kept the armed men from interfering. Benjie’s face was pale, but her green eyes were steady. Once, in the village street, she stumbled, and Durell caught her quickly.

  “Keep walking.”

  “I want to look back. They’ll shoot us.”

  “Don’t. Stay near Flivver.”

  “What a hell of a name for a Buddhist monk,” she said. “I don’t know why I came up here with you.”

  There were posters of Mao Tse-tung and a number of signs in Chinese calligraphy, and a propaganda flag calling for the death of ah Western imperialists, plastered and painted on the village houses. Obviously, Bangkok’s security forces made no effort to penetrate this stronghold of the insurgents. The trail turned left, past a tall grove of bamboo, and went down toward the distant valley and the even more distant gorge. Durell heard the old man still shouting as they left the village behind them.

  19

  The village smelled of burned oil, cordite, dead bodies and offal. Xo Dong had died violently, the victim of a terrorist raid that had burned houses and fields and sent bullets smashing into women and children. Half the houses were razed, and provisions and river boats were stolen. Everything was stripped. Only a few rags moved forlornly from a rope of washing down by the river. It was nine o’clock in the morning.

  A small tributary stream ran along the main village street and emptied into the wider river that came out of the gorge, three miles east along the border. This time, the absence of villagers was permanent. No one challenged them as they carefully entered the wrecked town. Not even a dog or a chicken had been left alive.

  “Why did they do it?” Benjie murmured.

  “Maybe because of Mike.”

  “I don’t understand that.”

  “Maybe they gave Mike shelter and help,” Durell said.

  “Don’t think about it. It’s a good place to make our headquarters.”

  “Here?” She
was appalled at the desolation.

  “Nobody will come back here for a long time. We’ll be safe enough.”

  He discovered several houses that had escaped the raiders, near the river behind a screen of tall bamboo and banana trees. Durell chose one that seemed cleaner than the others, a wooden house with a wide veranda on poles built over the water. Most of the primitive furniture still remained, and a ruined motorcycle testified to a certain amount of affluence for the family that had lived here. It had been a long hike over the mountain from the tea plantation where they had hidden the plane, but if the sound of the Apache’s engines had made any alarm among the smugglers farther up the valley, there was no hint of it. Durell saw that Benjie’s face was too tight and too pale, and he distracted her by suggesting the use of the charcoal stove to make them a decent breakfast during the respite.

  “Yes, there’s some rice. Even some bacon.”

  “Leave the bacon. It’ll probably be spoiled. Rice and tea will be fine,” Durell said.

  “I’m not hungry, though.”

  “I am. Go on, Benjie.”

  “How do you plan to locate Mike?” She stood on the veranda of the abandoned house and squinted east into the morning sun that glittered on the muddy river. “Mike could be anywhere in these hills. Anywhere. There are a hundred trails going in every direction. Nobody pays attention to the borders here. Savag’s troops are supposed to maintain checkpoints in this district, but I haven’t seen anything of them.”

  “I’m sure they’re around,” Durell said.

  “But what about Mike?”

  Kem said quietly, “I will find him. You two can stay here. I will be back by noon, I promise. It will be safe enough for me. The villagers will help me—especially the women.” The bhikkhu grinned. “If Mike is alive, I will learn where he is.”

  “He must be dead,” Benjie said, discouraged. “The whole valley is swarming with Muc Tong and Red forces.”

  “If he is dead, then it is important to learn that, too,” Kem said gravely.

  He left his pack in the house and made Benjie a wai, palms pressed together serenely. Durell watched him for a minute or two as he lifted his orange robe and waded across the shallow stream that emptied into the river nearby. The bright robe flickered against the green of the jungle. There was another sign nailed to a teak tree on the other side of the river, which also read ‘Ham’—forbidden. A board under it was scrawled in Thai script, announcing the territory as belonging to the People’s Liberation Army of the United Thai Front. They always used attractive names and slogans, Durell thought grimly, and they always meant the opposite of what they said.

  He did not like the waiting. Patience was a prime necessity in his business, and waiting and watching and learning was part of the game, and sometimes to keep alive simply by sitting still and out-guessing the enemy in silence. But he didn’t like it. He was not happy that Flivver had gone out alone, while he remained here with Benjie, but it made sense to let the monk do the scouting.

  Benjie made the tea and rice and they ate together in the shade of the veranda, under the overhanging thatch roof. A hot wind blew off the river and kept the smells of the destroyed town from touching them. The girl was distant, thinking thoughts that Durell could not guess.

  “You look tired,” he said quietly.

  “I am. I don’t often admit it. But it’s not just from last night and today and all the things about Mike. It’s just all the years in the past.”

  “Are you worried about your losses at the logging camp?”

  She shook her head. In the shadows, the planes of her face were softened. She had tied back her long hair with a stray piece of bright green ribbon that made her eyes look more emerald than before. There was a rip in her shirt

  Assignment—Bangkok 115 that exposed one sun-browned shoulder. Her lower Up was full. Her mouth drooped.

  “All these years,” she went on. “What for? What’s it gotten me? I thought I had to take care of Mike, my little brother, and play the mother role to him. But he’s a big boy now, and I ought to accept it, Sam. I’m not his keeper any more.”

  “He doesn’t want you to be his keeper.”

  “I suppose not. I suppose he’s always resented the way I’ve tried to boss him around.” She smiled ruefully. “It’s not been easy, playing mother and father to him all these years.”

  “And you never paid much attention to yourself.”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t. I’m a mess, I guess. Not the sort of girl you’d take to a New York cocktail party, eh?” She laughed a little. “It isn’t that I don’t like myself the way I am. But I wonder if it’s all been worth it—the fighting for business advantages, keeping accounts, looking for new opportunities, competing with men in their world—well, I’m suddenly tired of it. I’d like to stay right here, forever, where no one would ever find us.”

  “We can stay only until Flivver comes back.”

  She said, “Do you trust him?”

  “I have to.”

  “But you don’t trust me?”

  “I think I do.”

  “But you’re not sure,” she persisted.

  “No.”

  She said, “You make me feel dirty, with all your suspicions. I feel as if I need a bath.”

  He smiled. “We both do. And there’s the river.”

  She was startled. “Now?”

  “Why not? It’s the last peaceful moment we’ll have for a while,” Durell said. “We ought to enjoy it.”

  “Are you making a pass at me, Sam?”

  “Yes.”

  She made a low whistling sound, laughing uncertainly, and said, “Wow. It’s been a long tune.” “Too long, I think,” Durell said quietly. He took her hand. “Come on.”

  Her pale body moved smoothly in the clear water of the mountain brook that tumbled down above the ruined village of Xo Dong. Sunlight dappled the quick-moving surface of the stream, and tall bamboo and wild flowers brightened the rocky banks. There was only the sound of the rushing water and the occasional murmur of the mountain wind, accented by the clear notes of brightly colored birds that flitted in the trees. Durell watched the girl swimming naked and alone in the brook. Her long hair streamed wetly behind her. She lifted a sun-browned arm that formed an abrupt white line above her breasts. He was surprised by the richness of her slender body.

  “Come on in, Sam. The water’s fine.”

  He left his clothes and gun on the bank, within quick reach if necessary. The dynamite and Benjie’s haversack were in the abandoned native house, only fifty yards away. “Sam . . .”

  She swam toward him, her hands reaching. They felt cold, colder than the water. Her green eyes were brilliant. Her smile was uncertain, and he thought he saw fear in her.

  “It’s such an awful thing,” she whispered, as their bodies touched.

  “What is?”

  “With all this destruction around us—all the tragedies of these poor people—for you and me to spend the hour doing—doing—”

  “Making love?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want to?”

  “If you do.”

  “Why? There must have been some men.”

  “No.”

  “You turned them down?”

  “I—I was too busy. There was no—no—”

  “Profit in it?”

  She pulled angrily away. “Oh, you are cruel!”

  He swam after her. The bright birds flickered in the foliage that overhung the pool. There were no other sounds. The sunlight made soft shadows under the bamboo trees on the bank.

  “Don’t think about it,” he said.

  “I can’t help it. I’m confused, Sam. I—I don’t know what I am, any more.”

  “You’re a woman,” he told her. “And a beautiful woman, at that.”

  20

  Afterward, she sat by herself, naked in the sun, and combed her long hair, watching her reflection in the brook. She still smiled, but there were no secrets in
her face now. She looked open and drowsy, and as she bent over the water, intent on her hair, Durell retrieved his gun and looked toward the deserted, broken village.

  “Get dressed.”

  “Why?” she asked. “There’s plenty of time.”

  “Kem is coming back.”

  “I don’t hear him.”

  “He’s coming. Get dressed.”

  She splashed toward him, her hips heavy with the effort of wading through the water. She was changed. Durell kept watching the village street, his gun in his hand.

  “What is it, Sam?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “Are you angry with me?”

  “Why should I be?”

  “I wasn’t very good, was I?”

  “You were wonderful,” he said. “Please get dressed, Benjie. Kem is a devout Buddhist, a monk, and he shouldn’t see you like this.”

  “What could he see?”

  He smiled. “It’s in your eyes.”

  She went toward the bungalow they were using. He thought he heard her singing. A moment later, the saffron robe of the monk appeared at the end of the ruined street.

  Kem sat down in the dust, his feet tucked under his thighs, his hands resting palms upward in his lap. His slanted eyes regarded Durell gravely. Without eyebrows, his thoughts were difficult to perceive. There was sweat on his shaven scalp, and his robe was stained with dust. Durell sat down facing him. “Did you find him, Flivver?” “Yes, I found Mike.”

  “Alive?”

  “He is alive. I did not see him. I only learned where he is hiding. But he is hurt. A small thing, only a turned ankle, but he cannot walk very well. He is alone, in the hills over there.” Kem did not use his hands to gesture. He simply looked beyond Durell, down the valley toward the distant, hazy gorge. “It is a very big caravan, Sam.”

  “The dope smugglers?”

  “There are two hundred, maybe three hundred men. They have gathered all the crop, and even some of the stuff that has been refined in village factories. There are jeeps, trucks, mules and horses. Some of it will be rafted downstream toward the Ping River. They are very open about their work.”