June 1975 – January 1976 Despite the incident at Ban Dong Nasok camp, about which, despite many rumours, no firm details ever emerged, life continued normally – or what passed for normal. Rance met John Chambers on 23 June and told him of the strange way he had been allowed into the camp and so unceremoniously turned out. He also reported to the Ambassador and told him of his failure to reach Vang Vieng. The two men were, in fact, released some days later, none the worse for wear but ponging a bit as washing facilities had been limited. They confirmed that the Beaver would have been impounded had it been so foolhardy as to have attempted a landing.
The British Defence Attaché asked for a meeting with the Defence Minister and, once in his office, told him what little he knew, apologising for not having been as helpful as he would have liked to have been. In fact, Lanouk already knew what had happened and Rance found him more jovial than he had expected to find him.
‘Colonen Rance, you have failed neither your country nor mine. You have tried harder than was your due and, in a most impressive way, managed to keep your name unsoiled. You have my personal and the country’s thanks. Not only were a number of those twenty-seven men I was worried about killed and wounded, the remainder have flown back to Sam Neua.’
One day in early July Rance was walking back to his villa when he was overtaken by someone riding on a bicycle who, as he was passing, said, ‘I’ll come round and see you tomorrow after dark.’
Rance looked up and recognised Phoun. Next day he ordered Leuam to be on hand after work until Phoun came, just in case he could be of any use. Phoun came at 8 o’clock. Rance welcomed him in, took him upstairs and offered him a drink and waited.
‘You surprised us that night when you so unexpectedly turned up,’ he said. ‘Why did you come?’
‘I was asked to give a lift to a cadre from the check point up Route 13 to the camp. The sentry on the gate told me to go where I did. I, for my part, was never more surprised to see you all crouched there. What happened after I’d gone?’
‘So you really have no idea?’ Phoun asked in astonishment. ‘Apparently someone had killed the Soviet DA who had also unexpectedly arrived and was killed himself. Charlie had to kill the man who came with the European and who was trying to kill him, Charlie. No, Charlie didn’t know who the man was. Many of the men inside the hall had been killed or wounded. Our group safely escaped across the Mekong that same night. I came back to meet my wife but found a PL guard on my house so I am going back over the river tonight. I have met Le Dâng Khoã who gave me a message for you: “The four of us you know are safe and bless you for your help and stubborn dedication to a cause not your own, that he had taken possession of a ring that the Russian had been wearing when he had been shot by Nga Sô Lựự’” – a name that meant nothing to Rance – “and that the traitor Mana Varamit was dead. Tell the English Colonel that his path is now his own,” were his words and I hope that means more to you than it does to me.’
And Rance remembered Leuam’s thirty-two-month prophecy, his thirty-two phee body souls were now placated. Mana’s death was a blessing in disguise. Did Charlie ever recognise his brother? he wondered. From what Phoun says it seems not.
In London, Lieutenant General Sir David Law KCB, CBE, DSO, MC, Head of Defence Intelligence, wound up a meeting, called to close the activities concerning ‘Operation Four Rings’. He was in sombre mood. ‘… so there you have it, Gentlemen. It was a forlorn hope at the best of times. It was a bold step on our part and, for all the good it’s done, we might never have bothered. However, it has taught us a great lesson that we here in Britain disregard at our peril. It is not for me, on the eve of my retirement, to be glib and say that until the government and the people realise that the Welfare State and the Permissive Society are no substitute for a faith, a cause or a purpose, Communism of one sort of another will continue trying to devour others until it implodes and burns itself out. But no one will listen – it’s too hard work! However, what I want to say is that until we take ourselves seriously, and our methods seriously and plan seriously and react seriously and try to maintain the initiative, until then the desperate, last-minute, hit-and-miss attempts that we decided to use as a substitute for long-term planning are our only recourse: under these circumstances I believe we have done better than any of us could ever have imagined. If we take the Indo-China case book and extrapolate the northwest European one from it, we could well be wiser, if not sadder, but better prepared than we are now.
‘Certainly, what reports we have had over the years from the DA indicate that Laos, the Laotians, to say nothing of so many other countries and people, have yet to find the happy medium of how to live in dignity: too much or too little and always too late.
‘So, that’s it. Just for your interest, I told Colonel Rance when I briefed him that I’d put him in for the OBE if he got the King crowned! I was being flippant when I said it but the fellow has done just as much as, if not more than, any Town Clerk or Pop Singer who will appear in the Honours List. So I’ve put his name in. Even though his days of service will be over, tone and tint, I hope he will have something to remember his time there.’
In the Cabinet Office in Whitehall, representatives from the Cabinet Office itself, the Treasury, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Secret Intelligence Service met to consider and make recommendations about Britain’s role as Co-Chairman of the 1954 and 1962 Geneva Accords for Indo-China and Laos respectively, in the light of the worsening financial situation in and the diminishing credibility of the United Kingdom as a Great Power. It was not a topic to inspire confidence, some of the participants feeling that it was an infringement of their valuable time when they had other and more pressing tasks to do.
The last meeting had been held in November 1974, a year prior to this one, and, even without reading the minutes, it had become blindingly obvious that no more British aid would be given to Laos unless for humanitarian reasons and then only in the direst of emergencies.
There was hardly any comment when it was formally agreed to cease giving aid, including payment to the Foreign Exchange Operating Fund, which would have to be disbanded as soon as the Co-Chairmanship had formally been dispensed with. Sir James Redfeather, KCMG, the Mandarin who normally chaired such meetings, had recently retired and in his place was a much younger man, nearing forty, called Jeremy Coulson. He was summing up: ‘… so, Gentlemen, as our interests always have been tenuous, as was our influence nugatory and presence unwanted, this is a fitting and timely end to our involvement in Indo-China in general and Laos in particular.
‘I wonder if we ever have a Defence Attaché in Laos. If we did then we must withdraw him and close his office. I cannot for the life of me see what he was wasting good taxpayers’ money for. Those military gentlemen are, I believe, an expensive luxury who can never possibly achieve anything. What sort of fellow did you put out to grass there? Some “pear-shaped has-been” probably who could not be placed anywhere less useful.’
No wonder Britain is ‘going to the dogs’ thought both military and intelligence representatives, not bothering to answer the pompous and ignorant man chairing the meeting. Better to keep quiet and let the others know their real feelings by their frigid reaction.
Six weeks after the thirtieth anniversary of the Independence of Laos, celebrations were held in great style on 23 October 1975, when the country was officially united as one, and there was an important announcement: it was to the effect that, by request of the people, the King had been deposed and the country renamed the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and that the new government would be headed by a president – Tan Souvannouvong, once known as the Red Prince. It would be ruled by a Politburo of dedicated cadres who had been working for such a regime as this for just over thirty years, most of the time from the fastness of Sam Neua, combating the imperialist Americans, feudalist Thais, reactionary, right-wing elements of their own countrymen but always buoyed up by the fraternal support of the comrades of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the People’s Republic of China. There would be a formal appearance of the Politburo at the President’s Residence, the old feudal royal palace, in Vientiane on 5 December. Representatives of the diplomatic community would be invited to attend.
In London the FCO gave formal recognition on the same day that the new President and the Politburo showed themselves to the world. From half past 6 onwards, that Friday evening, on the lawn in front of the large building, so recently done-up for coronation ceremonies and celebrations, waiting for the new rulers to show themselves, there was a mixture of ill-mannered levity from the representatives of the puppet states, Cuba being particularly ill-served, and the Soviets. The Chinese were quieter. The non-communist representatives were Rance, a new American, the French and the Thai, the rest having gone.
The new national flag, red and blue with a white circle in the middle, was everywhere in profusion. Shortly before 8 p.m. all heads were turned to the top of the steps leading down from the main door and, at 8 p.m. exactly, lights were turned on, revealing, for the first time in public, the new men. The lighting was such that they looked like death heads but, as they descended the steps, the illusion gave way to reality – a bunch of pallid-featured, humourless fanatics. The guests had been drawn up in correct pecking order and, in their turn, they reached Rance who, by then, was doyen of the Attaché corps, so stood at the right of the other Attachés.
The new leaders passed by, the President in front, each man inclining his head slightly at each guest. As a sop to credibility, one of the old regime remained as an adviser, Souvanna Phouma, the one-time Neutralist Prime Minister. As he passed Rance, almost as though there stood the last remaining vestige of the life he had once known and worked hard for, he came forward and shook the Englishman’s hand, giving him a long, sad look with troubled eyes, then, with the ghost of a smile, passed wordlessly on. And the last four men who passed by, the youngest and most recently joined members of the Politburo, came near enough to shake hands with Rance, who, in the semi darkness, felt that each one wore a ring on the little finger of his right hand. A smile of thanks was just visible on their lips as they passed by.
January 1976. London: But there was something for Jason to remember his time in Laos as Lieutenant General (retired) Sir David Law KCB, CBE, DSO, MC found out when, towards the end of January, he received an invitation to the wedding of Colonel Jason Percival Vere Rance, OBE and Miss Inkham Hatsady, with Major Xutiati Xuto as Best Man. As Sir David told his wife, ‘That will make “a fifth ring with a golden belle”.’
Laos, 2005: The caves at Sam Neua were no longer even a tourist attraction but, nevertheless, an unusual party was being held. There was an elderly Englishman and his still pert and pretty Lao wife, younger than her husband but still burdened by years. They were being fêted by four elderly Lao gentlemen.
‘It is sixty years since cataclysmic events started and thirty since the upheaval that changed not only the way the country was governed but the flag, the national anthem, the currency and even the postage stamps,’ one of the four was saying, playing, as he did with a large ring on the little finger of his right hand.
‘I left the country feeling sad to a degree I never thought I could have done when I first set foot in it,’ said the Englishman. ‘I found the Lao people so pleasant and understanding but utterly lost at the way events outside their control were taking place.’ He rubbed his bald pate reflectively.
‘Yes,’ joined in his wife. ‘I thought I never could come back here but Jason persuaded me, just for the very last time. And I am so glad to find the place unchanged yet changed in so many ways.’
‘Pray explain yourself, dear lady,’ said another of the four gentlemen.
‘It is difficult to express it properly,’ she answered, smiling as delectably as ever she had.
‘I’ll stick my neck out and try for her,’ said her husband. ‘The Lao have a wonderful way of managing their affairs at a practical level, that is the level below what the politicians talk about, that has hardly changed over the centuries.’ He looked round at the four Lao gentlemen and saw that each was nodding his head and smiling. ‘My wife is, I think, trying to say that matters have almost returned to what they were before the upheaval thirty years ago that started thirty years before that. Much has been lost but much has been gained so the equilibrium has been maintained.’
‘Jason, you are correct as usual,’ said his wife, looking at him adoringly.
The spokesman of the four said, ‘Let me have the last word before we have a last cup of tea and move off. Phannyana Maha Thera, when abbot of Sam Neua and later as Chief Bonze of Laos in Luang Prabang, were he here today, could not have put it any better. He would also have said that any political virus, like the Communists espoused, would have diseased seeds that only produced crooked timber and genuine, satisfying and clean religious thought has to win through to the end.’
Heads nodded in agreement. As goodbyes were being said, one of the four said, ‘It is all a question of Perseverance,’ which the one-time Princess Golden Fairy corrected, ‘Not “it” but “he”, my Jason Percival Vere Rance …’