Part 27 (1/2)

Lan stared at him aghast. ”How awful for you.”

Joseph started guiltily, as if in his self-absorption he'd almost forgotten she was listening. ”I'm sorry, Lan, I've never spoken of this before Moved by his vulnerable expression, she reached out and touched his hand. ”There's no need to apologize.”

”I think it made inc suspicious and distrustful of every woman I ever met after that - until I saw you again. You seemed so pure, so perfectly lovely. I'd never known anyone like you. When I saw you kneeling in the shrine at the emperor's tomb, I felt something I'd never felt before.”

For a long time they sat without speaking and when Lan finally broke the silence, she spoke in a whisper. ”Did your father ever find out?”

”I don't think so. I think he was very drunk that night. My mother didn't know that I was awake either Joseph's voice faltered again. ”My younger brother Guy was born at the end of 1925. My mother's never said anything, but I'm sure he's Paul's half brother.”

Around them on the shadowy terrace the desultory murmur of French voices had gradually died away, and seeing that they were left alone, she took his hand in both her own. ”I don't know what to say, Joseph.”

”It's all water under the bridge now.” He managed a faint smile, but saw that her face had become tense.

”I know I've always held my feelings back from you, Joseph,” she whispered. ”I've never been able to bring myself to tell you how painful it was for me to part with Tuyet after we found her together. I know she was never very far away, with Tam - but it always hurt me very deeply, and I know flow it was wrong.”

Her lower lip trembled, and he could see she was on the verge of tears. To console her he held her hands more tightly, and they lapsed once more into silence. When at last he rose to drive her back to her villa, to his surprise she took his arm and turned him gently in the direction of the French windows leading into the hotel. When he glanced down at her, she was studying the tips of her sandals intently as she walked.

In his room she flung back the heavy damask curtains from the long windows so that they could catch sight of the stars, and looking down over the tops of the pine trees they found they could also see their pinpoint reflections sparkling like gems in the black-lacquered surface of the lake. For a long time they stood close together in a reverent silence, then she undressed herself without any sign of shyness and let her hair fall loose down her back before walking into his arms. Barefooted, she seemed suddenly small, and despite the roundness of her purple-tipped b.r.e.a.s.t.s and the gentle swell of her hips, she could have pa.s.sed easily in the shadows of the room for one of the schoolgirls at the Couvent des Oiseaux who were at that hour gathering in the chapel to hear the nuns chant the rituals of the seventh service of the day. As she came to him, he felt the huge emotional dam he'd built inside himself half a lifetime ago begin to crack; her nakedness and the glowing look in her eyes moved him deeply, and he folded his arms about her trembling body at last with great tenderness.

8.

In his log and sandbag bunker seven hundred miles to the northwest, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Devraux at that moment lay dozing fitfully on his army cot. He was fully dressed in his camouflage battle dress and he still wore a surgical dressing on the scalp wound that was proving slow to heal; close to the cot a steel helmet hung on the back of a chair within easy reach. The jumble of paperwork heaped around the leather-bound field telephones on his work-. table was, like his wall charts and everything else in the underground bunker, covered with a fine film of red dust, but for the moment the showers of powdered earth that fell regularly from the low ceiling had ceased. Outside the night was unusually still; the sporadic Viet Minh mortar attacks, which had become almost routine in recent weeks, had gradually died away, and several of Paul's fellow officers had smilingly predicted that the Communists, realizing there was no alternative, must be preparing at last to gamble on an all-out infantry a.s.sault against the valley fortress.

There had, however, been many such hopeful predictions as the days and weeks pa.s.sed, and Paul had become accustomed to preparing repeatedly for an attack that never came. He had taken to making and renewing the command dispositions ordered by Colonel de Castries with is usual methodical thoroughness, then s.n.a.t.c.hing sleep in brief bouts while the endless minutes and hours of waiting ticked by. He had grown tired of trying to guess against which quarter of the thirty-mile perimeter the first enemy thrust might be made, and after six weeks of living underground the tension of waiting had become so familiar to him that it seemed little more than a minor irritant. Because he had been effectively shackled in the valley for so long, his mind too had become confined and bunkered, and since Joseph's visit he had given little thought to the wider implications of the war. Messages from General Henri Navarre's headquarters in Saigon frequently emphasized that the French Expeditionary Corps was still holding firm in the Red River delta and that the new operation being mounted against the Viet Minh in the central highlands was going well; success at Dien Bien Phu would augment the less spectacular achievements in these other areas, but if the strategy did not work out as planned, it would not be a major failure --- that seemed to be the view of the French high command and Paul had come to share it. The fact that the enemy at hand remained tantalizingly invisible in the surrounding mountains and had so far failed to mount any significant attack had lulled him, like most of the other senior officers at Dien Bien Phu, into fearing only that General Giap and the Communist leaders.h.i.+p might at the last moment decide not to attack in strength and so deprive France of the spectacular victory it had planned.

On waking after fifteen minutes' sleep, Paul heard in the bunker only the quick tick of the watch on his wrist. The silence was so complete that he sat on the edge of his cot for a moment listening intently for some sound. But he heard nothing; even the garrison's little force of aircraft, he realized, must have temporarily ceased operating. Rising stiffly to his feet, he filled saucepan with water and set it to boil on his spirit stove. He was in the act of spooning powdered coffee into his tin mug as he did a dozen times each day when the bunker was shaken suddenly by what sounded like a deafening roll of thunder directly overhead. Because of the silence that had preceded it, the noise shocked Paul into immobility. Quiet returned for a second or two, and he found himself listening hopefully for the pounding of rain at the head of the sap. But then the stillness was shattered by further explosions that shook the earth all around him, and he recognized then the unmistakable roar of heavy artillery. The terrible detonations quickly became continuous, and through the sack-covered doorway he heard the high-pitched whine of flying sh.e.l.ls begin punctuating the din.

Paul stood rooted to the spot, listening in an agony of suspense for the louder roar of the nearer French guns to open up in reply. It was probably no more than a matter of seconds before the first salvos of counter battery fire boomed across the valley, but to him it seemed an age and even when it came, the response seemed ragged and badly coordinated. His instinct was to fling himself to the field telephones to begin preparing a report for Colonel de Castries on the readiness of the various unit commanders around the fortress-but he held himself in check. They had prepared so many times for this moment that it would be insulting to them to intrude in the first chaotic moments of the attack. Like himself, the other officers must have been shocked by the weight and density of the artillery bombardment, which Colonel Piroth had insisted could be mounted only from outside the ring of mountains. As Paul listened, he wondered for the first time if Piroth could have been mistaken; if the enemy's howitzers had been placed on the outer slopes of the mountain basin they would have been at least five or six miles from the command center, but to his ears the guns seemed much closer. After a moment's pause he put on his steel helmet, then called the artillery commander on one of his field telephones.

”Charles,” he yelled at the top of his voice to make himself heard above the noise of the barrage, ”the enemy seems to be doing better than we thought with his artillery, am I right?”

At the other end of the crackling line Piroth's answer was not intelligible.

”Could they have got some 105S onto this side of the mountains?” shouted Paul, drawing his words out slowly. ”They seem nearer than we expected.”

”Yes I think somehow against all the odds they have.” This time Piroth's reply was audible, and Paul could hear that the familiar note of confidence was missing from his voice.

”Just a few, do you think, mon vieux?”

There was a long pause at the other end of the line. ”No,” replied Piroth at last with obvious reluctance. ”They seem to have more than a few 105s. Arid they've sited them very high too, I think.”

”But you're marking them now, yes?” prompted Paul. ”They won't be coughing and spitting at us for too long, will they?”

”We're doing everything we can to neutralize them!”

The line went dead abruptly, but the dismay in Piroth's voice was unmistakable, even over the field telephone. Feeling a knot of alarm tightening inside him, Paul s.n.a.t.c.hed up a clipboard and dashed through the connecting tunnel to the central headquarters bunker. When he entered, he found the commanding officer of Dien Bien Phu standing gray-faced beside his map table; with his head c.o.c.ked on one side he was listening to the unceasing torrent of noise that was filling the darkened heavens above the valley.

”Their firepower is much greater than we thought, isn't it?” asked De Castries in a strangled whisper.

Paul saluted and nodded grimly. ”Colonel Piroth says somehow they've managed to get 105-millimeter howitzers up high on this side of the mountains.”

De Castries turned away distractedly and began fiddling with a wooden ruler. ”But our counter battery fire will deal with them in due course. And all units are fully prepared to resist the ground a.s.sault when it comes, yes?”

”Of course, sir!”

”We've nothing to worry about then, have we? Contact the commander of each strongpoint for an a.s.sessment and report back to me again as soon as you can.”

Back in his own bunker the incessant roar of French and enemy guns made it impossible for Paul to get together a clear picture by field telephone of the destruction caused by the surprise opening barrage. Although some units reported that their troops were welcoming the attack jubilantly after the nerve-wracking weeks of waiting, most of the officers commanding the Legionnaires and paratroopers could not make themselves heard. A worrying number of his calls also went unanswered, and when he heard a rolling explosion blot out all other sounds outside, Paul raced up the sap to the bunker entrance and stared out into the night.

The sight that met his eyes brought an involuntary gasp of horror to his lips. One of the enemy's mountaintop salvos had scored a direct hit on the garrison's napalm and gasoline store, and a spiraling tower of orange flame was climbing into the black sky above the valley. By its light Paul could see the charred hulks of several aircraft caught and destroyed beside the little airstrip, but what made him catch his breath was the sight of the mountainsides at the northern head of the valley. As he watched, the lower slopes were coming alive with wave after wave of Communist infantrymen; swarming like countless ants in the glare of the blazing fuel dump, several thousand green-uniformed soldiers wearing flat bamboo helmets were pouring out of their jungle trenches and heading towards Beatrice and Gabrielle. The two vital hills were defended by crack units of the Foreign Legion, hut neither commander had responded to Paul's persistent efforts to contact them, and it became clear suddenly that the main weight of the first bombardment had fallen there.

As he watched, Paul's attention was distracted by the arrival of a jeep outside an adjoining bunker. In the orange glare from the flames he recognized the tall, bulky figure of Colonel Piroth; to his astonishment he noticed that the artillery commander had driven himself back from his gunnery headquarters without a helmet, and although Paul called out to him, he climbed down from the jeep and headed unsteadily towards his own hunker without acknowledging him. Sensing something was wrong, Paul dashed across the open ground and caught Piroth by the shoulder.

”Charles, you should take more care of yourself. Where's your helmet?”

When the one-armed artillery officer turned his head, Paul was shocked by the sudden change in his appearance; the long-jowled face, composed when he'd last seen him in its habitually haughty lines, was suddenly haggard, the face of a man haunted by guilty knowledge. His eyes too were distant, glazed almost, and he made no attempt to answer.

”Come to my bunker and I'll make us some coffee,” said Paul insistently. ”I need you to give me an estimate of the enemy's artillery strength.”

”They've done the impossible! Their guns must be embedded in the rock on the very peaks of the mountains - we can't knock them out. Three of our 155s have been destroyed already.” Piroth stared over Paul's shoulder. ”It'll be a terrible ma.s.sacre. There's nothing we can do to stop them- and it's all my fault.”

”Pull yourself together, Charles.” said Paul sharply. ”We're all responsible. Come to my bunker and calm down.” He tried to tighten his grip on Piroth's remaining arm, but the distraught officer tore himself free.

”I've got something urgent I must do first,” said Piroth sharply. ”I'll conic in a few minutes.”

Paul stood and watched him as he hunched his shoulder to duck through the sack-covered entrance to his bunker. Then as he disappeared from view Paul looked back to where the attacking force was beginning to mount the lower slopes of the two northern strong points. The artillery bombardment was gradually petering out as the Communist troops neared their main objectives, and Paul heard clearly the roar of the single explosion that came from inside Piroth's bunker.

As he raced down the entry tunnel he recognized the acrid smell of the explosion fumes. Inside the bunker itself he found the artillery commander of Dien Bien Phu sprawled on the earth beneath his own cot. When he turned him over his face was no longer recognizable, and he saw that the grenade which he had pressed against his own heart in the depths of his despair had blown off his remaining hand as it killed him.

9.

The white-painted Red Cross Dakota carrying Joseph back to Dien Bien Phu skimmed in fast and low through a break in the mountains, banking and turning sharply to avoid flying across areas where the Viet Minim had burst through the defense perimeter in strength. Through a side window Joseph caught his first glimpse of the endless trenches which had been dug rapidly across all the hillsides, like contour -lines, as the Communists had moved inexorably down on the camp. At some points he saw that they had already advanced to within a mile of the command center, and inside the perimeter itself, the wreckage of burned-out aircraft, trucks and devastated gun emplacements bore tragic witness to the great toll that the enemy's daily artillery barrages had already taken on French resources.

”Those two hills to the north, Gabrielle and Beatrice, were overrun in the first few hours of the attack,” said a grim-faced French medical orderly who was flying in with blood and plasma supplies to help evacuate wounded from the overflowing field hospital. ”Since then the Communists have pulverized the camp with their guns nonstop for fifteen nights.” He leaned closer to Joseph and pointed to the heart of the fortified camp where a swarm of troops arid vehicles was coming and going. ”That's the field hospital. It was built underground to deal with only forty wounded at a time because our masters in their wisdom thought all casualties could be flown out to Hanoi. Now the Communist guns keep the airstrip closed for all but an hour or two a day, and hundreds of injured men are lying around in tunnels leading into the hospital. Every night the monsoon rain floods the tunnels, and gangrene has become as common down there as salt in the sea.”

The medic's voice was bitter and resentful, and Joseph could only nod wordlessly; although in Hanoi the French high command had admitted the battle wasn't going well, the visible deterioration in the camp since his last visit shocked Joseph deeply. In the early morning light he could see that the overnight storms had left the area awash with gray and ocher slime, and the entire valley floor was littered with muddied parachute silks. It was obvious from the air that a high proportion of the food and ammunition packages being dropped to the garrison were now falling among the enemy outside the shrinking perimeter, and Joseph wondered how Paul had been faring in all the mud and chaos of the past two weeks. Battles had raged constantly day and night during that time, and he knew from the press conferences he had attended in Hanoi that several officers on the staff of Colonel de Castries had been wounded or had collapsed under the strain.

As the plane turned its nose towards the battered airstrip, anxieties that he'd been holding at bay during the long flight from Hanoi crowded back into his mind once more. With the military situation deteriorating rapidly in the Viet Minh's favor, his desire to spirit Lan and Tuyet away to some safer place in Asia had become an obsession that haunted his thoughts day and night. He had been sleeping badly and had spent much more time than was necessary chasing battle reports and badgering military contacts in Hanoi for information. Each new admission of Viet Minh success had heightened his feeling that time was running out, and seeing how fast the defenses of Dien Bien Phu were crumbling, he was filled with new fears that all would be lost if he didn't act quickly.

The growing signs of devastation in the French camp below him by some strange a.s.sociation also made him feel more acutely than ever the wretchedness of his betrayal of Paul. Struggling courageously against the odds in his fetid bunker, the French officer suspected nothing of his long deceitful liaison with Lan and was utterly unaware of Tuyet's existence. The thought of confessing to years of deliberate deception, although he ached to do it, filled Joseph with horror, and as he watched the trenches and barbed.. wire entanglements rise towards the plane, he suddenly found that with part of his mind he was almost hoping he might find Paul already dead: the chances that he wouldn't survive the terrible siege had to be high, and despite the ign.o.ble nature of the thought, Joseph found himself wondering if that wouldn't be the kindest trick that fate could play. Already deeply disillusioned about Vietnam's future and his own attempts to make amends for the past, how would Paul be able to endure defeat and the news that his wife had betrayed him over many years with a man he had always trusted as a loyal friend? The truth about that, thought Joseph miserably, would almost certainly prove the last straw. Or would it? he wondered, with a sudden wild surge of hope.

Perhaps the bond of friends.h.i.+p they shared might even be strengthened by his forthright confession. Might not Paul respect him the more for his honesty? He might even welcome the news once he got over the shock. After all, it had been Paul himself who had admitted that his marriage had long been a failure. Freed of the burden of a hopeless future with Lan, wouldn't Paul be able to see the war and his own role in it in a clearer perspective? He might realize then he must at long last tear himself away from the hopelessly lost cause Vietnam had become for him and look again to France for his future. .