Red Joker
Page 25
He stopped and closed his eyes and Elizabeth let his head down gently on to the pillow. Faraday thought he’d fallen asleep and began to get up, but Prentice held his arm. ‘It’s all right lad. Just taking a breather.
‘Anyway, that morning, as we went off with the Marines, we flew out over the Mekong River and we saw on the far banks and on the small islands in the middle, the Khmer Rouge, those bastard cannibals of Communism, just waiting for us to clear off before they came in for the slaughter.
‘And I looked across and I thought “Christ! Marvin is crying! ” Well, I don’t know now and never will whether he was or not, because for a long time he kept his face to the window. Finally he turned to me. “Alf,” he said. “Alf, they’ve done it. The shits have won again.” ’
Elizabeth held Faraday’s hand and he saw the tears welling in her eyes.
‘You know what Marvin would say now, lad, if he were here?’
‘Yes, Alf. You’re right. They’ve won again.’ But already Prentice had turned his head away and Faraday felt Elizabeth’s tears as she rested her face on his outstretched arm.
He leant back against the stretcher as the aircraft banked sharply on to a new heading north-west, for Mombasa and the Kenyan coast.
JOINT RESOLUTION BY THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
3 October 1962
‘That the United States is determined to prevent by whatever means may be necessary, including the use of arms, the Marxist-Leninist Regime in Cuba from extending by force or the threat of force its aggressive or subversive activities to any part of this hemisphere and to prevent in Cuba the creation or use of an externally supported military capability endangering the security of the United States.’
‘It’s absolutely crazy that a small Caribbean state like Cuba can send expeditionary forces around the world and the United States cannot stop it. It is incompatible with peaceful co-existence and we cannot continue to accept it.’
Dr Henry Kissinger
February 1979
About the author
Michael Nicholson is one of the world’s most travelled and most decorated television foreign correspondents. He has braved 18 war zones over the past 40 years, picking up a host of awards. Michael is a familiar face in Britain’s homes as a former anchor of ITV’s Evening News and a correspondent for long-running current affairs series Tonight.
He has won numerous British and international awards for his reports – from Biafra, Cyprus and Vietnam – and has twice been named the Royal Television Society Journalist of the Year. For his coverage of the Falklands War he was given the prestigious Richard Dimbleby Award by BAFTA. In 1991, Michael was awarded the OBE for his reporting of the Gulf War.
His books include The Partridge Kite, Red Joker, December Ultimatum, Pilgrims Rest, Across the Limpopo and his memoir A Measure of Danger. His book Natasha’s Story, the gripping account of how he bought an orphan from war-torn Bosnia home to the UK, was made into the Hollywood film Welcome to Sarajevo in 1997.
PUBLISHING INFORMATION
PUBLISHED BY APOSTROPHE BOOKS LTD
www.apostrophebooks.com
ISBN: 9781910167670
First published Granada Publishing Limited 1980.
Digital edition produced in 2014 by Apostrophe Books Ltd.
Copyright © Michael Nicholson 1980.
Michael Nicholson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1980 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Apostrophe Books Ltd Reg. No. 7612239
Cover image: public domain illustration.
Cover design by Jamie Downham.