Highways to a War

by Koch, Christopher J.

  That very thick, breathless darkness you get in April was coming on fast. But we made out that one of the buildings was a bulk store of some kind, with rice sacks and crates outside, and two wagons parked there harnessed to oxen. It was a trading post, but still we could see no people; they must all be inside. We stopped on the path in front of a stand of tall bamboos, and began to discuss the situation. We considered trying to see if we could find some sort of transport here, to take us the last few kilometers to Kompong Cham.

  But then we heard a voice call an order from behind us, sharp and loud, and my heart jumped in my chest and hit like a hammer.

  Oh shit, Mike said, and put his hands up without turning.

  Dmitri and I did the same. As we turned, I was sure we would find Khmer Rouge. But instead, what we saw were three soldiers in the uniform of the Army of North Vietnam: light-green fatigues, belted at the waist, and floppy cotton bush hats like the one Mike wore.

  They had come from behind the bamboos, and they were pointing assault rifles at us: AKs, with their banana-shaped clips. They jerked the guns upwards to tell us to raise our hands higher. We obeyed, looking at each other, and one of the soldiers moved closer, gun pointed, examining each of our faces in turn. He looked at me longest: I think he could not decide whether I was a Cambodian Chinese or a foreigner. He had to look up at us; he had the Vietnamese small stature and light-boned frame, and could not have been more than twenty-two. All three were little more than boys; but all looked battle-hardened.

  Nha Bao,Mike said quickly. He was telling the soldier that we were journalists.

  The soldier spoke rapidly in Vietnamese; but Mike shook his head, and so did Dmitri and I. Actually I spoke more Vietnamese than Mike and Dmitri did, and had understood that the soldier wanted to know what we were doing here—but an instinct told me to conceal my knowledge of the language.

  The soldier was now pointing at Mike and Dmitri. American, he said. This was the only English word he’d ever speak: we’d soon discover that none of these soldiers knew anything but Vietnamese.

  With their blond hair and U.S. Army fatigue trousers and jungle boots, Mike and Dmitri did look like Americans—or an Asian’s idea of an American. And Mike had on one of his bad-taste cowboy shirts.

  No, Mike said. Australian. He pointed to his chest. Toi la nguoi Uc dai loi.

  The soldier looked puzzled; then he turned to Volkov and me.

  Français, Dmitri said. Phap, understand?

  Chinese, I said. Tau.

  It seemed easier to say this for now than to explain that I was a British subject, and a citizen of Hong Kong.

  The soldier went on staring for a moment; I don’t think he believed any of us. Then he spoke again in Vietnamese. He waved his rifle to signify that we should walk towards the bulk store, and we obeyed. Here we were made to wait in the doorway while one of the other soldiers vanished inside. He came back with what looked like vine rope; we were ordered to turn our backs, and our hands were tied behind us. Another thin rope was used to link us together; then the soldier who’d been speaking to us waved his rifle again, and shouted. Di di!

  We were being ordered to march. Two of them walked beside us, guns at the ready, another in front. They were heading south down the cattle track, away from the highway and the settlement, out across the empty rice fields. And I realized what this meant: they were taking us towards the Mekong.

  As soon as you’re a prisoner, your feeling about yourself changes. Being a captive wasn’t real, at first; it was like a mistake, or a game. I immediately began to look for the possibility of escape: to watch for anything that would let me hope for it—or even pretend to hope for it.

  I also took comfort from the fact that these soldiers were North Vietnamese and not Khmer Rouge. I told myself that this gave us some hope of survival, where otherwise there would have been none. Nevertheless, I knew that anything might happen; they might quite easily decide to shoot us. It was surprising that they were on the west bank of the Mekong, now that the North Vietnamese were said to be leaving all combat inside Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge, and I wondered what they were doing here. Later we’d discover they were negotiating purchases of rice. This went on all the time up here, like the trade between the two sides in rubber and arms.

  It was strange to see these North Vietnamese at close quarters. In all my years in Indochina, I’d only ever seen them as prisoners of war; or else I’d viewed their dead after a battle, when they looked very small, like dolls. Now, here they were, in their green, baggy uniforms and Ho Chi Minh sandals made from car tires. They don’t believe that we’re correspondents, I thought: when they understand, perhaps they’ll release us. But this idea didn’t last long.

  Di di mau! they kept shouting. Di di mau!

  We couldn’t seem to go fast enough to satisfy them, no matter how we tried. We were still slung with our cameras and camera bags, and the vine rope binding my wrists was very tight, and hurt. I was last in line, linked to Dmitri, who marched behind Mike—and whenever Dmitri or I stumbled on the rutted earth of the paddy field, the rope jerked and cut deeper into our wrists, and no doubt into Mike’s too. Then the soldiers would shout at us again. I heard the Count curse under his breath; but when we’d tried to speak to each other, our guards had immediately ordered us to be silent, and we hadn’t tried again. We plodded forward, clumsy and helpless, heads bowed, sweating in the night’s heat. We seemed to march for a long time, since they allowed us no halts; but I’ve realized since that it can’t have been far: seven kilometers or so.

  I smelled the Mekong before I saw it; then its big brown spaces appeared, shining under a half moon. The black trees of the far-off east bank were hard to make out; there were no lights over there. There wasn’t much sign of settlement on this side either; just a single peasant house on stilts beside the water, next to a grove of mangoes. One of the soldiers took a flashlight from his pack and put the beam on each of us; then he shone it on the house, and called out softly.

  An old bent Cambodian in a limpet-shaped straw hat and black pajamas came down the steps. He led us along a path on the bank to a motorized sampan tethered in the reeds. The soldiers ordered us on board, making us crouch in the bow, one of them keeping his gun on us. Then the old man started the motor and steered us into the stream.

  Out on the water, I breathed in the soft, cooler air, and looked about me. From the middle of the stream, I saw a big cluster of lights upriver on the west bank, and realized I was looking at Kompong Cham city. I could just make out the distant shapes of the two-storied yellow French warehouses on the riverfront. I turned to Dmitri and Mike, and saw that they were looking there too.

  Dmitri muttered under his breath, jerking his head at the town. Shit, he said. We could be eating pork and noodles there now. Think of it, men. Having long cold beers.

  We grinned at each other, and licked our lips: all we’d eaten that day had been croissants and coffee for breakfast at the Hotel Royal, and we were hungry as well as thirsty.

  You got your wish, I told Mike. We’re going to the east bank.

  Yes, Dmitri said. Maybe he has set all this up, the bastard.

  We all started to laugh under our breath. We found we wanted to laugh; things no longer seemed so bad then.

  Once on the east bank we were marching again, plodding and stumbling. Our thirst was now very bad, and we asked the soldiers a number of times for water, in Vietnamese. But they ignored us.

  Nuoc, we said. Nuoc. We sounded like tired kids.

  Finally one of them brought us a very small amount of water in a canteen, and untied our hands. Even as I drank, I hoped that the water was boiled: in all these years in the field, I had never drunk unboiled water. To catch an infection would cut our chances of survival in half. We offered the soldiers cigarettes; they each took one and nodded, lighting up with expressions of pleasure; we knew how they coveted American cigarettes. But they didn’t smile, and they tied our hands again.

  It was darker now, and lon
g, ghost-white rows of rubber trees appeared, like columns in a ruined temple. We were into plantation country. The Vietnamese had little fear of enemies here, and talked quite loudly. After a time of further nonstop marching, I heard the barking of dogs, and knew we were coming to a village. Small lights appeared, and the usual thatched roofs like haystacks among groves of mango and banana trees. We were marched quickly between stilted houses, where people stood looking down at us from the verandahs. Lit from behind by oil lamps, they were just black shapes. I heard someone laugh: a woman.

  Two of the soldiers disappeared into a house; the other took us on to the end of the village and a little beyond: to a small clearing among big dark tamarinds and fan palms, where a single thatch-roofed hut stood. Halting us here, he untied our hands. We shook them, trying to restore circulation, wincing at the pain. There were weals on our wrists that had begun to bleed; our clothes were dirty, and our faces swollen with mosquito bites. The soldier ordered us inside the hut.

  It was very small, and had a mud floor; it was furnished rather like an office. A wooden table stood in the center with a tiny oil lamp burning on it: a simple glass bottle with a wick. There were a number of plain wooden chairs, and nothing else. The soldier ordered us to sit on the chairs in front of the table, and kept his gun trained on us.

  We looked at each other and were about to speak; but two men came in immediately and seated themselves on the other side of the table. One of them wore the usual green cotton uniform, but with three ballpoint pens in his top pocket. And now I understood what was happening.

  Because of the Communist doctrine of equality, the soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army displayed no rank badges or insignia; the only way you could tell a high-ranking officer was from the number of ballpoint pens in his pocket. So this man was an officer. None of the young soldiers who had brought us here had displayed pens; none of them was an officer, and they would have had to get us to someone of higher rank in order to know what was to be done with us. That was why they had brought us across the Mekong, I thought.

  The other man at the table surprised me. He was very thin, quite old, and wore spectacles and civilian clothes: a white, short-sleeved sports shirt and dark trousers. He had the look of an official, and did not appear to me to be Vietnamese.

  The military officer began speaking to us in Vietnamese. Mike and Dmitri shook their heads, and so did I. I think it seemed a good idea to all of us to conceal what knowledge of the language we had. The officer frowned, as though disbelieving us. Dmitri repeated the Vietnamese term for press—bao chi—but the officer simply stared, the light of the oil lamp putting deep shadows on his face. It was a plain, peasant face, but not a good one, I thought. His jaw was heavy, his mouth without kindness, and his eyes were small, flat as mud and resentful. I have seen men with such faces practice great cruelties.

  He now looked sideways at the old man, who sat smoking a cigarette in a holder, legs crossed, studying us. The old man leaned forward, and I found he was looking at me. He spoke for the first time; and the language he used was Mandarin. This didn’t surprise me; I had already guessed him to be Chinese.

  You are Chinese? he asked.

  Yes, I said, and I told him I was from Hong Kong: a British subject, and an accredited news cinecameraman, working for British Telenews. My friends were also accredited war photographers, I said. I put my press cards on the table, and Mike and Dmitri did the same.

  The two men examined the cards slowly, and the Chinese official smiled. Yes, he said to me, and pushed the cards back. Accreditation by the puppet government of Lon Nol. His expression was amused, but not pleasant.

  We are independent journalists, I said. We’re here to film and report on the war, without taking sides. Why are we being held? We would like to return to Phnom Penh.

  But the official drew on his cigarette holder and studied me without answering. While he did so, the NVA officer leaned forward, pushing out his jaw, and spoke suddenly in broken English. His eyes had the strong gleam of a man who is holding back anger with an effort.

  You are CIA, he said. All of you. This is what we think.

  He was shouting, and his voice filled the hut. If true, he shouted, you will be executed as spies. You understand?

  I went cold all over. I tried to keep my face composed, but I was very tired and hungry and began to be alarmed, just as he wanted.

  No, no. Mike was speaking, leaning forward and smiling. His voice was soft as always, and he appeared almost as fresh as he’d done this morning. We’re not Americans, he said. And we’re not CIA. We’re news photographers. It’s our job to show what’s happening—nothing else. We’re glad of the opportunity to talk to you. We’d like to report on how the war is going from your side. The public in the West would be very interested.

  But the officer still frowned; he had not understood all of this. He looked at the Chinese official for help, and the old man translated. Instead of responding, the officer grunted deep in his throat, like a boar. He widened his eyes, looking at Mike in disbelief. This grunt had conveyed great threat, and I feared that he might become violent. But now the old Chinese spoke, and this time in quite good English.

  Certainly you will not take pictures, or take back information, he said. In fact, you may not go back at all. It depends on what we are able to learn about you. We want you to provide answers to some questions.

  He leaned down now, coughing softly, and picked up a green canvas bag from beside his chair, drawing out papers and some ballpoint pens. He pushed one of the papers into the circle of light from the oil lamp. Huge jungle moths circled around the lamp, and their shadows crossed the paper.

  You will tell us whether you know any of these names, he said.

  We all craned to read them; they were handwritten. From their mixture of origins and their use of middle initials, they could be guessed to be American; but we recognized none of them, and said so.

  The two men looked hard at us; I don’t think they believed us. Then the Chinese official pushed some blank sheets of paper across the table to us, and some pens. You will write down here all personal details, he said. Your name, the names of your parents, your place of birth, your rank, the name of your organization. You will then state what you were doing alone on foot near Kompong Cham, and by what means you came there.

  Dmitri spoke now. And when we have done this to your satisfaction, he said, and you realize that we are members of the press—you will release us?

  We will not be the ones to make that decision, the old man said. Write, please.

  We wrote, while they watched us. I could hear the occasional calls of night-birds, out in the forest; mosquitoes whined in the little hut, and the old man went into another long cigarette cough. It was very hot and still; my hands sweated, and sweat dripped from my nose onto the cheap paper. The moths flitted, like bad spirits. It was like being in a schoolroom doing a test, sitting on those hard chairs.

  And if we don’t pass this test, I thought, we will die. I grinned at the foolishness of the thought; and looking up, I caught the officer watching me. That smile will probably be a mark against me, I thought.

  When we’d completed our statements, we were ordered outside the hut, and saw no more of our interrogators. Two of our three soldiers now took charge of us again.

  First they gave us water from a pannikin, which we drank greedily; then they allowed us to take a piss beside the path. After that they led us back into the village. It was now nine o‘clock by my watch, the road between the houses was deserted, and I assumed that most of the villagers were asleep. But there were a number of Vietnamese soldiers squatting under the houses among the carts and chickens and storage jars. Clearly this was an NVA controlled village.

  We were led under one of these houses, and ordered to halt beside a bedstead covered with matting. Smoke rose from a clay oven nearby; two soldiers were cooking, and I could smell cinnamon and fish mixed with the wood smoke. Hunger cramps went through my stomach, and a wave of weakness
came over me. But still we were offered nothing to eat. The soldiers now took away all our possessions: cameras, camera bags, tape recorders, wallets, press passes, pens, notebooks. They even took our watches, and I mourned for my Rolex, which I was sure I would never see again. But they left us our cigarettes and lighters. Then they ordered us to remove all our clothes, including our underwear and boots, and to throw them on the bedstead with our pile of possessions.

  The third soldier now appeared out of the dark with a big wooden bucket of water and a bar of soap, and we took it in turns to wash on the spot. I’d been aching all over, and felt refreshed and much more cheerful when I’d had my turn; I was beginning to be grateful for little things. Then the soldiers produced some cotton Vietnamese underpants and pale green NVA fatigues like their own, which they handed to us, gesturing for us to put them on.

  Pulling on trousers much too small for him, Mike grinned and winked at Dmitri and me. I think we’ve just joined the People’s Liberation Army, he said.

  Immediately, one of the soldiers told him in Vietnamese not to speak.

  Mike pointed to his feet, asking politely for sandals. None of us had been issued with these. But they shook their heads. We remained barefoot, which filled me with a helpless surge of anger. Our feet would be cut to pieces, if we marched.

  They had now taken everything from us: everything that linked us to our former identities, except for the lucky charms we wore on dog tag chains around our necks. They had tried to take these as well: Mike’s brass Viet Cong belt buckle with the Communist star, Dmitri’s Saint Nicholas medal, my Cambodian tiger claw. But Dmitri had made a loud speech in French, pleading with them, telling them that these things protected us—and Mike and I had joined in. The soldiers had no French, but they quickly understood our superstition; after all, they were peasant boys. They murmured to each other; finally they shrugged, and let us keep our charms.