CHAPTER TWELVE

A CHANGED NANG STOOD amid his fighters. He had not uttered a word or moved a muscle for nearly thirty minutes and the fighters struggled to match his perfection. He did not make his mind blank, did not meditate attempting to achieve some higher awareness, but simply stood in perfect awareness of the here and now. “He who breaks first,” Nang had told the group, “will face this scarred face in full sparring, just as he who breaks first is first heard and engaged by the enemy.” The boys and young men concentrated on their breathing, concentrated on remaining relaxed. Every day they practiced being still and quiet, each day for a longer period. Never had Number Two Rabbit challenged them, never had the stakes been so high. By his countenance they knew the situation had changed, evolved. At thirty-five minutes one boy wavered. Eyes locked on him, then flicked to Nang. The teacher, leader, master did not move. As the sides had drawn tighter about Kompong Thom and American high-level harassment bombing had increased, Nang used the sanctity of the inner city more and more to train new yotheas and chrops and his youth corps, to train them in techniques as diverse as spying and sparring, fading into a crowd and facing enemy tanks.

In the heart of Kompong Thom, Nang followed the developing situation throughout the Northern Corridor, followed it as closely as any full bird colonel followed enemy movements in his brigade’s area of operation. Come on, he had thought. Come.

Come both of you. Come and fight and kill each other. Come, wound each other. Then face the Rabbit’s wrath. Nang fantasized a thousand scenarios. In the swamps he saw himself spring from a spiderhole, disembowel an NVA trail guide. In the city he saw himself enter the FANK garrison in the southwest, saw himself toying with the rheostat and electrodes that had burned his feet, saw the Republican governor weeping, lying in a pile of shit, begging Nang’s pardon as Nang cranked the rheostat, no, ten rheostats, ten hanging imperialist lackeys losing control and defecating on themselves, saw himself with a long-handled knife slit the stomach of an NVA general tied neck to neck with a Republican, slit the flesh, scoop out the entrails, then fill the cavity with wet human dung. He fantasized an ambush for Met Sar, an execution for Met Sar, tortures for Met Sar. “This is the man who burned my feet,” he saw himself say to his leader. “Watch as I have his feet burned off.” As he thought he had touched his own feet and felt the scars. He had touched his chest and felt the thick lump where his ribs were mending, touched his face and felt the pebbled skin where the napalm had seared him. He stretched his hand open. So many months and still the hand was stiff, the fingers painful. Pain. He could bear it, bear it well, but that did not mean it wasn’t there. Oh, come. Let the battle rage. Let them bear this pain.

After an hour a large young man coughed. He attempted to stifle it, to muffle it, but from between his lips came a burst of air from spasmatic lungs.

“Strugglers!” Nang screamed. “Attack!”

Immediately the closest five, two from the young man’s own cell, plus three from an adjacent cell, spun, kicked, punched, jabbed.

“Halt!”

The room froze. “You have done very well today,” Nang said calmly. “Very well. Fighters, when is the enemy most vulnerable?” As he spoke he walked, glided, through the class toward the young man who had coughed.

“When the enemy is close to his own position he is self-confident and careless,” the young man said.

Nang stood before him at two leg lengths. “When else?”

“When two echelons meet on a path of march.”

“The enemy is most vulnerable when...” Nang rebegan the answer. The young man repeated the phrase and his answer.

“When else, Met Han?”

“The enemy is most vulnerable when returning to basecamp.”

“You have learned well. When else?”

“When his point element moves by us without detecting us because of our concealment, the rear elements are careless.”

“Excellent. But if we cough we will not remain concealed.”

“I...I couldn’t stop it.”

“Met Han, I cannot stop your cough. Only you can. You can. You must control yourself. Today you will be my partner.” Nang turned to the class, indicated that they should pair for sparring, three pairs on the floor at a time. Then he returned to Met Han. The young man stood a full hand higher than Nang yet he stood in awe of the Rabbit’s speed, proficiency and power. He had seen the instructor pull his punches to some, smash the ribs or jaw of others, depending on the value he, the instructor, placed on the trainee. Han gulped. He was not certain if he was viewed as a potential yothea or as an exemplary target.

“Begin.” Behind him two pairs descended into full-tilt, no-equipment bouts. Immediately one boy was thrown, pinned and choked, carotid artery blocked so he experienced the wooziness of preunconsciousness. Nang stood light on his feet, one hand relaxed, the other beckoning, wanting Han to throw the first kick or punch. Han shuffled forward, then quickly back. Then forward, feigned a left front punch, skipped back. To him Nang seemed almost asleep. He shuffled forward, raised his rear knee, spun and kicked to Nang’s solar plexus. Nang sidestepped, letting the kick snap into empty air. Immediately Han regrouped, backed off, rushed forward. Behind them the second pair had ceased after each boy had landed painful blows. All eyes were on the instructor. Han snapped a right punch straight out, kicked Nang’s shoulder, then a left punch to Nang’s jaw. He bounced back out of counterpunch range. His entire body was tense. He breathed heavily. To the class, Nang, as he glided in and out of Han’s kick range, said, “It is not enough to learn how to strike. You must learn to have the will to strike, to break the enemy.” Han lunged in, threw a weak front left punch followed by a fast roundhouse right kick. Nang, in one motion, parried the kick spinning Han to face away, then lifting and uncoiling a rigid foot side-kicked into Han’s ass, propelling Han across the room into a circle of fighters where he tripped, splatted face first, to the laughter of all the boys until Nang snarled, “Isn’t there even one amongst you who can fight for his life?”

From the door came a new voice. “Yes, Met Nang,” answered a small dark figure. “I can, eh? There will always be someone to keep you from erring. It is the wish of Angkar.”

“There isn’t a damn sonofabitch among em who can fight to save his ass.”

“I don’t know about that, sir,” Sullivan said to the major.

“I do.”

“Seems to me, sir,” Sullivan said in his most diplomatic voice, “some of the field reports show improvement.” The two men, along with Sergeant Huntley and a middle-aged Cambodian driver were on Highway 5 thirty kilometers north of Phnom Penh. The early morning was warm, pleasantly humid. The jeep had passed through the inner and outer defensive rings surrounding the capital and was now bumping along on the rough blacktop which paralleled the west bank of the Tonle Sap River to Kompong Luong where the road split, Highway 5 heading west, Highway 6 junctioning via the ferry crossing and running northeast to Skoun then north through Phum Pa Kham, Rumlong, Baray, Phum Khley and on to Kompong Thom. “FANK waxed ass yesterday at Prey Kry,” Sullivan said.

“That’s not your job, Captain,” the major countered. They rode without speaking for several minutes. The major fidgeted in his seat, twisting, turning, grabbing his M-16 from the snap clip attached to the windshield support, twisting his helmet, searching for an elusive comfortable set. As they approached the southern outskirts of Kompong Luong he threw his right hand into the air. “Christ! Look at that!”

“At what, sir?” Ron Huntley asked snappily.

“Isn’t that supposed to be a perimeter?”

“Where?”

“That!”

“You’d be amazed, sir,” Sullivan said, “at how quickly the families disappear at the first sign of trouble.”

The major let out a loud humph. The driver slowed the vehicle. A dozen young children played amid the FANK troops. To the major the scene was incongruous. The population of Phnom Penh had topped two million—including 1.3 million refugees—and here thirty-five kilometers north in a village which had been the recent point of attack of two NVA battalions, life seemed to be overly normal, overly casual. The major turned hard eyes on three saffron-clad monks standing beneath oiled paper parasols. The monks stared back, smiled, as the jeep passed. The major nudged the Khmer driver. “These good people, hey, Sambo?” The driver turned his head to the major, smiled broadly. As he turned, his hands followed and the jeep veered to the right. Someone shrieked. Quickly the driver corrected. The major heard angry women cackling. The driver’s smile broadened. “God!” grunted the major.

“He doesn’t speak English, sir.” Sullivan leaned forward and in French said, “Monsieur, my officer compliments you and your people on their goodness.” The driver nodded acknowledgment.

The jeep passed through the central marketplace and turned toward the river crossing. Huddled at the intersection was a pride of FANK APCs and scout cars. Each vehicle’s front, sides and rear were decorated with large, bright Black Cobra insignias. Children with buckets of riverwater were washing, polishing, as soldiers flashed toothy smiles at young girls.

“Look at that shit,” the major moaned. “They’ve got more patches than there’re places to put em.”

“This your first trip out of Phnom Penh, sir?”

“Look at those bastards. Little Tigers! They sure as hell aren’t like the ’Bodes in the Delta. Be lucky to keep the Viets out another three months. Hell, throw the Commies some Khmers. That’ll keep em off the ARVN’s ass.”

“First trip inta the country, ay, sir?” Huntley followed Sullivan’s lead.

“First and last. I’m telling Mataxis to send me back to Nha Trang. At least the indigenous there have some military posture. I’m unvolunteering.”

“Well sir”—Huntley nudged Sullivan behind the major’s back—“there’s a ARVN riverine craft at the dock. They’d be headin’ back ta double-P. Ya doan have ta be heah. Captain knows the procedure.”

After the ferry crossing they traveled east then northeast along Highway 6. They passed through thriving villages and through ghost villages where battles had left only heaps of uninhabitable rubble. Every kilometer of roadway was dotted with FANK troops, some in defensive posture, some looking more like boy scouts at a hot-afternoon jamboree without planned activities. The inconsistency appalled Sullivan though he said nothing. Not only were the FANK units uneven in attitude, but even in passing he could see their military issue differed drastically.

The major had left. The degree of his discomfiture with the Khmer countryside puzzled both Huntley and Sullivan who were among the few Americans of the MEDT who consistently ventured away from the capital. “Two tours in Nam Bo”—Huntley laughed after the senior officer had boarded the ARVN craft—“you’d think he’d be used ta this.”

“Ah, his wasn’t two tours in Nam. His was two tours in an air-conditioned American box. Could of been in a Holiday Inn for all he knew.”

“Yup!”

“Shit! Give him some credit. He came this far. Besides, he’s good with requisitions. Should of stayed a supply sergeant. He knows materiel.”

“He’s still a dork.”

Without the major, Sullivan relaxed and the trip, like the day, became enjoyable. The driver spoke sparingly, his French seemingly adequate for nothing deeper than directions and idle chitchat. At two in the afternoon they entered the small, seemingly deserted market town of Skoun, which lay at the southwest corner of a strategic traffic island formed by the junction of Highways 6 and 7, a three-sided island with sides of twenty kilometers. At the north corner was Phum Pa Kham and the road leading to Kompong Thom. In the east corner was the tiny village of Preas and the main road to Kompong Cham. Within the delta, scattered hamlets dotted the level plain of rice paddies. To the northeast lay two hundred square miles of some of Cambodia’s densest and richest plantations and to the northwest, all the way to Kompong Thom, lay a low country of intermittent lakes, swamps and swamp-forests with stretches of reclaimed rice fields. Skoun, in the southwest, sat like a cap on the base of a funnel formed by the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers, sat like a protective cap shielding the northern approach to Phnom Penh. In the crotch of Highway 6’s dogleg from east to north was the headquarters of FANK’s First Brigade Group.

The American MEDT had been authorized on 8 January 1971. Of sixty men, sixteen were allowed to billet in Cambodia. The MEDT’s first chief was Brigadier General Theodore Mataxis. On 17 April 1971 an additional fifteen U.S. officers were authorized, though the team was not immediately brought up to strength. In June, General Mataxis requested an expansion to two thousand men. Two weeks later the authorization came through channels, for fifty men in Cambodia and sixty-three to remain in South Viet Nam. The team’s primary mission was to ascertain FANK’s equipment needs, to judge if equipment requested was needed, if the requesting unit had personnel trained in its operation and if the equipment would help FANK pursue its military goals in conformity with U.S. policy.”

Sullivan checked his map. He directed the driver to the turnoff for the FANK garrison. “No go there,” the Khmer said in English.

“Ah’ll be dipped in shit,” Huntley blurted. “Mister Kon, you speak mah language.”

“No speak. No go. Bad man.”

“Who’s a bad man?” Sullivan said in French.

“Lieutenant colonel,” Kon said in English.

“You with us,” Huntley said in English. “No trouble you.”

“Monsieur Kon—” Sullivan began, but before he could say another word the driver stopped the vehicle and jumped to the road. “Monsieur, we will take you...”

Kon, his hands together high, bowed. “Merci. Merci. I walk. Wife’s brother in Skoun.”

“Geez,” Huntley said. He climbed from the rear seat and settled behind the wheel. “That gives me the creeps.”

A moment later, speeding toward them from the garrison came a red, yellow and black jeep mounted with a 106mm recoilless rifle, the tube painted like a purple and green dragon. In the jeep Sullivan could see six or seven soldiers, two bare chested, one, driving, in a formal white and green uniform. The jeep headed toward them. Huntley slowed, pulled to the edge of the built-up dike road. The jeep aimed square at them. Huntley moved farther, dropping the right wheels over the slanting edge. “God a’mighty...” he screamed at a hundred feet. “Fuck em.” Huntley jerked the wheel left, gunned the gas. The Khmer driver flicked the wheel hard right, left. Huntley’s wheels were stuck over the edge. The Khmers’ jeep veered, skidded, corrected, whisked past, soldiers shouting, laughing, racing out of sight toward town.

“Tonight, Captain”—a tall Khmer lieutenant colonel smiled broadly—“tonight we will eat and drink. Tomorrow you will come with my battalion to Turn Nop.”

Sullivan bowed his head to the map spread before them. Lieutenant Colonel Chhan Samkai pointed to a village about eight kilometers to the northwest. Between the garrison and the village the map indicated almost nothing but swamp forest. Chhan was amiable, his French fluid and elegant. About him his advisors were impeccably dressed, the central room of the headquarters immaculate.

“I would like that very much,” Sullivan said. “Do you suspect resistance in the area?”

“Turn Nop is an evil village.” The colonel retained his smile. “You see, we have had two reliable informers.”

“Are there NVA units?”

“No. No.” Samkai’s mouth was so stretched in smile that Sullivan was sure it hurt. He wanted to tell him it was okay not to smile so, but there was no tactful way to broach the topic. “The people are Rumdoah. Good Khmers but”—the colonel tapped his forehead with a finger—“they do not possess right thought.”

For several hours the Cambodian officer entertained Sullivan and Huntley with tales of derring-do, hardships and deprivations.

“Pourquoi, monsieur?” Samkai lamented. He gazed through the open door. The late afternoon rains had subsided to a drizzle. “To the army in Viet Nam, American aid is without limit, but to Cambodia every gram is weighed. Pourquoi?”

At half light, 9 August 1971, Sullivan heard the slow vibration of a military vehicle convoy. “Come on, Ron. We better saddle up.”

“Yeah.”

As they emerged from the guest sleeping room they were immediately engaged by Colonel Chhan. Sullivan glanced about for APCs, jeeps or trucks. He listened. He could feel the low rumble but couldn’t locate the convoy. A barefoot FANK soldier in a tattered uniform without rank was intercepted by one of Chhan’s aides. Khmer words flew harshly back and forth. The men stopped, bowed. The soldier froze in an insolent posture as the aide approached the colonel. Again words flew. Then the aide returned to the soldier.

“Something about petroleum?” Sullivan smiled to Chhan.

“You have learned Khmer, eh?”

“I’m very sorry, only a word or two. But petroleum...”

“Yes. It’s a French word, eh?”

“Oui,” Sullivan said. Then he asked, “Do you receive enough petroleum for your vehicles?”

“As I told you last night,” Chhan said, “it’s always a problem.”

“There’s enough to go to Turn Nop, no?”

“He’s a poor soldier.” Chhan indicated the barefoot man. “If he were good, he would buy petrol. Perhaps he drains the tank and sells it. Now he wants more.”

Upon entering the small compound the previous day, Sullivan and Huntley had scanned the perimeter. The section facing town was impressively fortified with three rows of tightly anchored concertina and tanglefoot, with a punji-stake moat between the outer and second rings. Now, as Huntley maneuvered his jeep behind Chhan’s and they passed out the rear gate, Sullivan shuddered. The back of the compound facing the heavy vegetation of the swamp forest had not even a single strand of wire. He turned to Huntley, their eyes met. Huntley’s did a quick 90 to heaven. Neither spoke.

Below the headquarters compound and separated from it by a wooded field and four hundred meters of paddy lay a second compound, a fetid ramshackle quagmire looking more like a concentration camp than a friendly military complex. Inside its gate two old, filthy olive-drab Isuzu buses jammed with infantry troops billowed blue smoke. Behind them was a single three-quarter-ton truck with an M-60 machine gun mounted on the cab roof.

Sullivan stretched his back, rose up in the seat to look deeper into the compound. Hundreds of starved-looking civilians—women, children, elders—stood clumped, watching, waiting for the men to leave for the daily patrol. “That’s not it,” Sullivan mumbled.

“Not what? That looks worse en that Neak Luong camp.”

“Where’s the armor? They’re supposed to have five APCs. There’s gotta be...Feel em? I can feel the vibration.”

“Yeah. Why don’t we stop that Chhan mothafucker? How come he or one a them aides can’t ride with us?”

“Then we’d be advisors.”

“Augh, shee-it! Kiss it. I just wanta know where ta go.”

“Yeah, well...”

“Well fuck. I’m gettin’ somebody.” With that Huntley revved the jeep, slipped the clutch. It engaged with a lurch. They pulled up beside Colonel Chhan’s vehicle. “Hey.” Huntley stood, yelled. Sullivan grabbed his shirt, tugged him back into his seat. “Hey, sir!” Huntley jabbed a pointing finger at the buses then to the empty backseat of his jeep. “Hey, Colonel...” (lowly) “jerk-off...” (then loudly again) “I need uno aide. Need me talk-talk.”

Sullivan lowered his head, covered his eyes. “Cool it, Ron. Cool it.”

“Get somebody we ken talk ta,” Huntley demanded.

“Whoa.” Sullivan stopped Huntley cold. “Let me handle it.”

“Shit...,” Huntley mumbled. He slapped his leg to feel for his .45, then reached beside the seat to make sure his ammo box of grenades was secure.

The lead bus belched and backfired. Two young boys pushed open the flimsy wire-mesh gate. The bus rolled forward straining to climb from the compound up the slight incline to the raised graveled road. The second bus, its mufflers or exhaust manifolds shot, roared slowly into position behind the first, the noise masking the colonel’s words to Sullivan. The colonel’s jeep pulled in behind the truck. “Let you handle it.” Huntley groaned. “Fuck!”

“There’s still gotta be five...”A quarter kilometer farther down the road, five clean, camouflage-painted M-113 APCs clattered softly from a third compound. Whatever noise their engines and tracks made was lost in the roar of the unmuffled bus. “Yeah. See! I knew I could feel em.”

“Where in hell they come from?” The buses rolled forward, stopped, let the APCs lead. A sixth armored vehicle remained on the side road leading to the third compound. “Look down there,” Huntley said, pointing with his chin, his back to Sullivan. The Americans stared into the third camp, a neat fortress with, as best as they could see, well-developed defense berms. “How ya figure, J. L.”—Huntley turned to Sullivan—“that one place ain’t fit for grandma’s pigs, one place is some sorta piece a furniture, en one place is for real?”

Sullivan cocked his head, winked, hooked a tight fist in the air. “Training,” he said. The appearance of the APCs made him feel secure, not because of their power but because of what he knew of the unit. “This group’s got one battalion trained at Nha Trang. Look at it. That compound’s a replica of a Special Forces site. I shit you not.”

“You shit me not, ah-right. Now, let’s get some dinky-dau fucker that can tell us what’s goin on.”

The FANK 1st Brigade Group convoy took up final staging positions a half kilometer east of the hamlet of Turn Nop 3. Five APCs moved to equidistant points. Behind them bus-borne infantry troops dispersed, spread out on line. West of the hamlet lay the main village.

“I’m sorry, Sir Colonel Chhan...” Sullivan said apologetically. He, Huntley and Chhan Samkai stood atop the sixth APC watching the action develop. Midmorning sun seared their backs. “...But it seems some of your soldiers have forgotten to follow your orders.”

Chhan Samkai pretended to busy himself with a map, then with a set of field glasses. The APCs clattered forward closing the deserted kilometer-wide semicircle about the hamlet. Behind them soldiers clumped into lines. Chhan Samkai coughed.

“I’m learning so much from your able command presence,” Sullivan said in fluid French, “but they must have forgotten your orders about dispersing and sweeping. And, Sir Colonel...well, my eyes aren’t as good as they should be...I can’t see the anvil force.”

Chhan Samkai pretended to be totally immersed in the operation. He coughed again, then asked an aide for the radio handset. In Khmer he growled harsh orders into the transmitter. In the field before them one vehicle stopped. Behind it a file of troops stood still. Four columns continued to move in.

“Captain Military Equipment Team,” one of Chhan’s aides called to Sullivan in English, “you must leave now. When the yuons attack you must not be hurt.”

In April 1970 the U.S. 5th Special Forces had opened three sites in Viet Nam to train Lon Nol’s soldiers. By August 1971 twenty-four battalions had been through the training cycle. Headquartered in Nha Trang, the FANK Training Command was charged with the task of transforming the Khmer army—one battalion at a time. On 1 March 1971 the unit was redesignated the U.S. Army Individual Training Group. Chhan Samkai, like some FANK brigade-level officers, felt the schooling was beneath his station. His armored unit, men and command, had been trained in June.

The APCs stopped just short of the hamlet. Huntley watched closely. The village appeared to be without life. A cluster of foot soldiers, then a second pack, sprinted forward firing wildly. Almost immediately a home burst into flames.

“Thank you for your concern for our personal safety.” Sullivan’s speech was slow, metered. As he spoke he and Huntley scanned the battlefield. The remaining soldiers swarmed toward the hamlet. Villagers were pulled from their houses, wrangled to a makeshift pen about the central well. “I would prefer to remain.” Even from a distance it was obvious Chhan Samkai’s infantry troops were looting homes, carrying out baskets of rice, rolls of cloth, anything transportable of value. “If I’m to be able to inform General Mataxis of your needs...”

Suddenly a skirmish broke out between an APC and a squad of infantry. Across the paddies Sullivan could hear the armor commander screaming at the ground troops. Some scattered. Some dropped their booty and marched toward the track. Other tracks began backing away from the hamlet and the infantry soldiers. Bursts of automatic weapons fire cracked hot over the ragged ground force.

“Captain,” the aide ordered, “you and your driver must come right now. If you are killed by yuons it will be a diplomatic crisis. You cannot die here. Maybe go to Baray.”

It was after midnight. Met Sar turned on the lamp. His paranoia was great. Although the Movement maintained its central headquarters on Mount Aural, Sar no longer spent consecutive nights there, no longer consecutive nights anywhere. The encampment east of Baray was dark, the hidden bunker was musty, cool. Sar shivered. The morning had been extraordinarily hot and the afternoon rain had barely moderated the temperature. By contrast the night was cold. Sar removed the batch of papers from his case, set the case at one end of the small collapsible table. He stared at the words he’d written. Yet on his mind was Nang. Word had come: he was alive, he was organizing Kompong Thom. Sar hunched, bit down hard.

...since we took charge of the revolution, despite great hardships, the Movement’s progressive philosophy has never caused a setback. Our decision of 1967 to launch armed revolution put us in the most advantageous position when Norodom Sihanouk was ousted in March 1970. Even though that decision was berated and spurned by both the North Viet Namese political leadership and our Chinese allies, it proved to be an enlightened move.

Sar paused. He pulled his heavy shirt up about his shoulders, pulled the collar up about his neck. A chill skittered across his broad back. It’s not yet time, he thought. Met Nang, he thought. We must maintain the appearance of a united front. He scratched through the last sentence then dog-earred the page and flipped to the beginning. For months he had scribbled notes, sketched pages, recorded his thoughts. What lay before him lay before Kampuchea. The sheet before him was no longer loose notes but the rough draft of the Khmer Communist Party history. In its final form it would not be a compilation of dates, anecdotes and personalities but a master plan for the future based on the Party’s view of the past, complete with strategy on how to obtain defined ideals and the righteous justification for those plans and goals. It would be a manifesto, a religious scripture, the pure word. Politically, the Krahom had matured. For years Sar and the Kampuchean Movement had developed in the shadow of Viet Namese communism, in the shadow of its unsavory ideology of a fraternal Indochinese union masking Hanoi’s desire for regional hegemony. The time had come to firmly cast that idea, and with it the Chinese Maoist thought which had so badly bungled that nation’s socialist construction, to monsoon gales. It was time, too, to shun the Russian model which to Sar was a Western ideology clothed in internationalist jargon, an Occidental fascism bent on neo-imperial expansion. It is time, thought Sar. Met Nang, he thought, it is time for us to have a document of Khmer purity—of Khmer independence, national sovereignty, self-reliance and revolutionary violence.

Sar flipped through the pages of the first section, paused to read, to check his thoughts. He scanned the twelve commandments—rules based on the teachings he’d developed for the Pong Pay Mountain school—now refined, honed, designed to create, in this period of turmoil and unprecedented opportunity, instantaneous loyalty to the Movement.

(1) Thou shalt love, honor, and serve the people of laborers and peasants.

(2) Thou shalt serve the people wherever thou goest, with all thy heart and with all thy mind....

(6) Thou shalt do nothing improper respecting women....

(10) Thou shalt behave with great meekness toward the laboring people and peasants, and the entire population. Toward the enemy, however, thou shalt feed thy hatred with force and vigilance.

Sar paused. After the word “however” in the tenth commandment he inserted a caret and between lines penned, “the American imperialists and their lackeys.”

(12) Against any foe and against every obstacle thou shalt struggle...ready to make every sacrifice including thy life for the people...for the revolution and for the Movement, without hesitation and without respite.

Again Sar paused. The Khmer word for “movement” did not please him. For a year Krahom cadremen had been using the Khmer word for “organization.” He reflected upon it, weighed it. “Organization” pleased him. It sounded less Viet Namese. Sar scratched through the word “movement” and over it in bold letters wrote Angkar. From henceforth, we are Angkor.

He sat back. The pleasure of changing the word was fleeting. He breathed heavily, the dampness in his lungs clinging like glutinous rice to the sides of a cooking pot. He coughed. Coughed again. Then a series of spasmatic hacks which broke loose slimy green grain-sized clots that flew to his throat and mouth, one onto the papers. He turned, hawkered on the dirt floor. Turned back and with a cocked finger snapped at the clot on the paper. The slime, instead of flying off the page, stuck to his fingernail and smeared against the sheet. Sar turned. Spit again on the floor. Wiped his finger on the far corner of the table. Then he sat there, puzzled. He looked about. With what could he clean the page? The bunker was bare except for the table, chair and lamp. He clenched his teeth, snarled, banged his fist, yet he did not call out. He banged his fist again. How could he possibly shame himself by calling his bodyguard, yet how could he clean the page? His suit was spotless—not the black cloth of the yotheas or even the green fatigues of the cadre, but a civilized light gray of the Gray Vulture of the eastern zone.

Sar slid the sheet with the offensive clot to his right, to the edge of the table. Then he broke down the remaining stack into four sections. His eyes fell to a top page: To defeat the American imperialists and their lackey, Lon Nol, we must achieve absolute internal unity....Cadre are cautioned against regurgitating “empty theories which will not achieve success in Kampuchea.” They are cautioned to accept only true and pure assistance from foreigners. In past transactions counterproductive results have ensued....Foreign advice has “hindered and even...destroyed the revolutionary movement and progress....” Until we took charge of the Movement our organization was in peril because of two-headed lackeys who betrayed certain cells.

Sar cleared his throat loudly, cautiously, lest he again foul a page. He lowered the lamp flame then called his bodyguard. Immediately a strack soldier entered. “Met Reth,” Sar said politely, “please get me some oil. The lamp is low.” The man left and Sar smiled. Again he scanned a top page:

With proper education everyone can develop the true proletarian attitude as long as the party has pure and correct leadership.

Cadre must be aware of the middle class and the intellectuals who retain the nature of their origin.

Cadre shall study the rice peasants in order to be like them, not so that they lead the cadre but so that they are comfortable in following.

Met Reth returned with a can of oil. “Here. Don’t spill it,” Sar said. “Sit there.” He indicated the edge of the table. Met Reth hesitated but Sar, seemingly distracted and anxious to return to his work, pointed. Sar turned slightly to the left as the guard eased down toward the small table. Quickly Sar turned back, grabbed the paper stack beneath the descending thigh. “Oops!” He lifted the stack against the man’s leg. “Not on these,” he sputtered. “Oh, shit! Don’t spill it! Do it outside!”

After his paper was cleaned, Met Sar again set to work, now on plans, not history. In a memo to members of the Center he penned, “It is time to bring renegade and independent elements under tighter control.” He thought of Nang in Kompong Thom, bit his lip, thought, What is he doing up there? Sar’s task, as he saw it, was to consolidate the control of the Center over the zones while keeping the zones isolated from each other. He wrote, “For too long each zone has been a separate whip flailing against the country-stealing puppets; each end has flailed but inflicted only shallow wounds. If we tie the whips like a cat-o’-nine-tails the power of the armies will multiply tenfold. Everyone is against us, yet our modest countenance adds purity to our cause.”

Sar paused again. Again he thought of Met Nang in Kompong Thom. Why had he not escaped? What was he doing there? The details had been sketchy. Sar covered his eyes with his pudgy hands. The greater cause, he thought. When a seed goes bad it must be eliminated. His own army!

Sar called for Reth. He handed the bodyguard the memo he’d composed and directed him to have a runner bring the memo to Met Meas, Sar’s scrivener, and to have Meas make copies for Center distribution.

Plans, Sar thought. Betrayals by allies. First in 1954 when the yuons gained half their country, leaving the Khmer Reds with nothing. Then in 1964, in the wake of American buildups, Hanoi supported Sihanouk at Krahom expense. Again in 1970, the North Viet Namese sided with Sihanouk’s government in exile.

Sar threw his pen, grasped his hair and pulled. Out loud, frustrated, angry, to no one but himself he seethed, “When I was a member of the IPC only treacherous yuons led. I carried their dung to the vegetable gardens.” Back to paper he wrote, “Kampuchea has been betrayed. Kampuchea has been victimized. Kampuchea has been humiliated. Either we strike with all our powers or the Viets and Americans will roast us and the Khmer race will vanish....

“From henceforth Angkar will have a presence in every village. The people must be gained. Republic functionaries must be eliminated. Absolute secrecy must be ensured. Party membership must be expanded. The army must be increased. Every effort must be made to train and equip the front line. We must struggle to gain mastery over command, control and coordination. We shall be modern in communications.” Sar ceased. He closed his eyes. The light of the lamp shone dimly through his eyelids but in the soft glow he saw a hundred answers and his enthusiasm exploded. “For Kampuchea, international communism is a lie. It serves only yuons. We shall mobilize the people to revolutionary battle. We must proselytize until they are committed. The Khmer Viet Minh must be usurped. Then we shall commit the army. Then, in victory, the Party shall emerge. The November battle at Kompong Thom was a heinous crime in which we lost six Krahom platoons for yuon gains. Never again. Never!

“The army is built of platoons, organized to companies. Now is the time to develop battalions. Viets can storm Khmer cities from the outside. We can win the people from within. Do not let the NVA take any major towns.

“Learn from what happened in 1968 at the New Year’s offensive. Learn from the American withdrawal from the eastern sanctuaries. Learn from that drive to cut the trail in Laos. The NVA is committed first to gaining the South. Each offensive pulls their troops from Kampuchea. Each setback means they must first rebuild. Wait! Be patient! Wait for the yuons to drain from our land. Then seize the offensive. Let the cities explode.”

He thought of his father. It was the third anniversary of the hundredth-day rite. To Chhuon his father was calmness, peace, right thought, right action. He was everything Chhuon no longer found in himself in his new role in the new land under the foreign administrators. He knelt before the family altar, bowed his head to the floor. Quietly he uttered a chant in Pali. In most of the homes in Phum Sath Din, the family altars had been dismantled at Hang Tung’s insistence—dismantled, scattered, secreted, not destroyed. In the home of Cahuom Chhuon an odd twist had taken place. With every additional order placed upon the people, Chhuon had added to his family altar. To each restriction on worship at the wat, Chhuon responded by first adding more family pictures, then pictures of the more distant relatives in Phum Sath Din and of those who had moved to neighboring villages or to a city. Soon he added a large painting of the Enlightened One and several statuettes, then another table and more flower vases and baskets and photos of other village families. Each addition made Hang Tung shudder, yet he’d borne the first in silence and acquiesced to what followed. He rationalized his laxity by telling himself that because he allowed this one quirk, Chhuon had fallen completely in line and was now a valuable member of the village’s new, fraternal Khmer-Viet administration. Indeed, cooperation between the old villagers, the refugees, the new settlers and the new government had never seemed better. Colonel Nui and Cadreman Trinh escorted administrators from other villages through the Phum Sath Din model village with such regularity the peasants no longer stopped to take note but simply continued their work and basked in the cognizance that they had accomplished a peaceful, if not desired, transformation.

“Come, Uncle,” Hang Tung called.

Chhuon did not answer. He took his time finishing his prayers, then arranging various articles and finally checking the rice bowl for Samnang in which there now was a constant small portion of uncooked rice topped by three delicate shrimp which Chhuon had carved from rosewood.

“Uncle, in four days the deputy commissar for political affairs from the A40 Office will visit. We must ensure that the new work is completed.”

“Eh?” Chhuon looked to Tung as if he, Chhuon, had been unaware of the young man’s presence. Then, “Oh. Yes. Yes. From the Central Office for Kampuchean Affairs? Ah well, another bigwig, eh?”

Hang Tung laughed. Perhaps, he thought, Uncle Chhuon is going senile.

As the two men walked, Chhuon hummed various traditional tunes. He spoke only when spoken to. In June the rice ration for the village had been increased without explanation. The rumor had spread, until it was universally believed, that Cahuom Chhuon had somehow, quietly, persuaded the Viet Namese. Some villagers believed Chhuon had traded the Chhimmy family homes for rice, had guaranteed to the Viets that the newest settlers, Viet army dependents, would be treated kindly if not truly welcomed. Some seethed at the chairman’s sellout. Some Khmers indeed welcomed the Viets. They were, after all, people. They could not help it if they had been fated to be born Viet Namese. Most neither welcomed the aliens nor scorned Cahuom Chhuon but simply accepted that the North Viet Namese power over them was absolute and they were no longer starving.

Through the village streets and out to the paddies, as Chhuon and Hang Tung headed to the new work site, children and rice farmers bowed or nodded or whispered a few words to Chhuon, showing him the respect of a traditional elder.

“You see, Uncle,” Tung said easily. “The revolution develops according to scientific law, yet there is not just one formula for advancing it. We must be pragmatic, flexible.”

“I am seeing that,” Chhuon said.

“The revolution cannot be pushed to meet subjective wishes. It succeeds only when the people’s sentiment has been raised to embrace it.”

“Yes, Tung. Yes. And as they embrace it more, my stomach burns less.”

Tung smiled. Before them men, women and girls of the village’s northwest quadrant production team, along with two squads of village militia boys and an entire platoon of Viet Namese regional force troops, labored, digging, carrying dirt, deepening trenches and building bunkers and fighting positions.

“Hello there, Uncle Chairman,” Khieng called. He leaned upon his shovel as two small girls lifted the basket he’d filled. The girls carried the basket on a pole between them, struggled to climb out of the deepening trench, then headed off to the growing fighting-point bunker.

Chhuon acknowledged Khieng with a smile. To Tung he said, “The progress is great. With this section the entire perimeter...”

“...will be complete,” Tung finished the sentence.

“And that...?” Chhuon indicated a second point, a circular mound which had risen, complete with vegetation, since he’d last inspected the section.

Hang Tung smiled, pleased that Chhuon had asked, that he didn’t know.

“What kind of barrel?” Chhuon had spied a tube with a large flash suppressor poking from the branches.

“Those are our AA guns.”

“Our what? No one bombs the village.”

“Colonel Nui wanted them to protect his family.”

“Better to have none,” Chhuon rejoined. “Better to keep the army far away and not give them an excuse to bomb, eh? What’s that?”

“A KS-19. One hundred millimeters. It shoots over 13,000 meters high. We can shoot B-52s.”

“Tung! This is crazy. That will bring the bombers.”

“Good. Then we’ll kill them, eh? The guns are radar controlled.”

“No! Tung, move them back!”

Early that evening Hang Tung left the Cahuom home to arrange a meeting at Colonel Nui’s home. In his absence Chhuon felt an emptiness. His mother was now very feeble and, though aware of every change, aloof. His wife was embittered. His only child still remaining under his roof was, even at six-and-one-half years, distant.

“They have made me join the Women’s Liberation Association,” Sok whispered.

“It’s a good group,” Chhuon answered aloud.

“Have you turned from me?” Sok said very sadly, very quietly. “The walls have ears and you...”

“We have nothing to hide,” Chhuon said.

“We have nothing left,” Sok retorted. “Today Peou came home from school singing revolutionary songs.” She stopped. Then in a muffled, heart-rending wail cried, “How did they corrupt you?”

“I’ve nothing everyone else doesn’t have. I look out for the people. Our people.”

“Better to dig their trenches than carry their words.” Tears moistened her eyes. “Quit. Tell them! Please tell them! You can no longer be their chairman. Let someone else...”

“Who?”

“Anyone.”

“If I leave who will succeed me?” Now Chhuon spoke in a whisper. “Who will watch out for the people?”

“How horrible you’ve become,” Sok cried. Tears dripped from her eyes. “The demon has you. My Chhuon would never support them. You’ve become one of them. Half the villagers say you’re yuon. Is it for me? To get more rice? To have the altar? Samnang’s spirit will find its way without the altar.”

“It is”—Chhuon’s voice rose—“dear wife, because the revolution has come. We still have the land. Still the rice grows. Still people need food. And people no longer suffer a trung tian bao ta. No more...”

“A what?”

“The middlemen. The riffraff agents who bled the peasants for the landlords or the governors.”

“You even use the yuon language as if...Ea-hump!” Sok squeezed her fists before her sagging breasts. More tears fell from her eyes but she made not a sound, not a movement.

“I must go.”

In the chair before the altar, Chhuon’s mother cleared her throat. A raspy voice emerged. “If one is to be corrupt, it is better to be corrupt for one’s own purse than for another’s spirit.”

The night sky was soft, laden with moisture. Chhuon walked the familiar path toward Colonel Nui’s. Tonight, he thought, but he did not complete the thought. He passed into the northeast quadrant and entered the long alley which led to the old Chhimmy Chamreum home which was now occupied by the Nuis. Three doors from the colonel’s house Chhuon stopped. In the alley the night was darker than along the village street. Chhuon listened. He bent as if to remove a stone from his sandal. Slowly he turned to check behind him. From below anyone walking would be silhouetted against the opening to the sky. Chhuon waited. Then he knocked quietly on the courtyard door. Two raps, a pause, two raps, a pause, one rap. Noiselessly the door opened. Chhuon rose, stepped in. The door closed. Inside, the courtyard seemed empty. Then Chhuon’s eyes discerned movement, as if the clay had come to life. He hugged the wall, paced the perimeter, edged to the dark of the kitchen lean-to. Arms grabbed him. He hugged the unseen man. “kpa,” Chhuon whispered. “without your spirit i would die.”

“without your help, uncle, all would perish.”

“just below the new bunker, there’s a shovel.”

“yes. we need shovels.”

From under his loose shirt and about his waist Chhuon removed his krama. Rolled in it were four kilos of rice. Quickly he unraveled the cloth and carefully poured the precious grain into Kpa’s sack, “in four days there will be a visitor.”

“who?”

“a deputy commissar from the A40 office.”

“we’ll eliminate him.”

“no. let him come.”

“yes?”

“yes.” Chhuon’s words were quick, excited, hushed, “the more they bring to integrate, the more they sow the seeds of their own downfall, the people will not resist until their sentiment is raised to embrace the resistance, let them come, they are the army’s weakness.”

Behind Kpa, in the shadows, three boys huddled. One shivered. Chhuon could hear his teeth chatter.

“we need medicine,” Kpa said.

“there’s very little, they count every aspirin, every capsule is dispensed as if gold.”

“sakhon has the fever, we can’t treat him. capture him. let them treat him.”

“no. take him back, the only kindness they’ll show him is a quick trip to the ancestors, find a way. you must learn to be self-sufficient, find the khrou. he’ll tell you which leaves or bark to boil, the deputy commissar, track him. allow him to come and go. big movements are coming.”

“we see the buildup, many trucks from laos. many large stockpiles, many soldiers.”

“kpa, i know, i know this, they’ve new orders, they’ll move soon.”

“where?”

“west, south, baray. the 32d and 33d regiments have joined the 7th division, they’re to cut the north from phnom penh.”

“major nui told you?”

“i saw his map. my brother had a friend, a republican. colonel chlay. get him word.”

“we can send word to baray. to kompong thom...”

“send it. i must go. kpa...”

“yes uncle?”

“knock out the AA radar.”

Chhuon tilted his head back. “Vo! Vo! Vo! Vo!” Colonel Nui, Hang Tung, Cadreman Trinh, Trinh Le and Colonel Hans Mitterschmidt chanted loudly in a rhythmic beat. “Vo! Vo! Vo! Vo!” The whiskey burned in Chhuon’s mouth. He let bubbles gurgle upward through the dark liquid as the others watched delightedly. “Vo! Vo! Vo!” Blup blup blup. Whiskey burned his throat though he kept most of it in his mouth, his jowls expanding like a water balloon. Hang Tung burst into laughter, clapped wildly. Others rolled forward, their laughter uninhibited, loosened by the whiskey, truly joyful. Chhuon lowered the bottle, spitting as much liquor back into it as he could unnoticed. He swallowed hard. The fumes in his mouth filled his nose, made his eyes water. Even his ears felt hot. Trinh Le accepted the bottle, tilted it up, voraciously sucked down whiskey and spittle to new chanting until all applauded and laughed and the bottle passed to the East German. Colonel Mitterschmidt held the bottle at arm’s length. To his comrades he was a huge man and he’d demonstrated with the first bottle a wonderful capacity to drink. “Vo! Vo! Vo! Vo!”

“To win,” Mitterschmidt said in his own tongue and Colonel Nui translated into Viet Namese, “you need not be perfect; only better than the enemy.” He drank to a quieter chant, chugging the remainder as Colonel Nui translated happily.

Before Nui finished the line, laughter burst from him. “Ha!...only better...Ha! We’re better than Germans.” He laughed.

Mitterschmidt reached over to Nui, put a strong arm about the smaller colonel and squeezed him like a little brother. “You fight hard.” His sincere admiration was tinged with melancholy. “You’ll win. Never has an army, except perhaps the Germans in Russia, faced such hardship with such commitment. Hardship means nothing to you. So committed! Your enemy is criminal, yet you fight. Americans have the most ferocious weapons, yet you fight. They are the crudest nation on earth. Still you fight. And win!”

Nui gestured across the table to Chhuon who had not understood the German. “For this man,” Nui said first in Viet Namese and then in German. He smiled broadly. “Viet Namese blood and Viet Namese bones will build solidarity in a sovereign Indochina.”

“You face a strong ARVN, a growing FANK, the South

Koreans and the Americans—Still!” Mitterschmidt was drunk. He had not heard a word Nui had said.

“Respected Colonel.” Cadreman Trinh chuckled after Nui translated. “There is no strength without the Americans. ARVN, FANK, they are balloons. When America withdraws, the lackeys will go pa-fa-fa-fa-fa like a child’s untied balloon.”

Nui translated again, then rose. As he did Mitterschmidt pulled from his breast pocket a small plastic-coated photograph of two young blond boys. He handed it to Cadreman Trinh. “This”—he pointed to the older boy—“is Hans. Like me. This is Dieter. Next year I’ll show them your picture. Ha!”

Nui unbuttoned his blouse and pulled it open, exposing a yellow, red, green and black tattoo, a snarling S-shaped dragon in the shape of the combined Viet Nams. Over Nui’s heart was a column of characters. He tapped them. “Born in the North to die in the South.” Nui laughed. Chhuon laughed and clapped and beamed his actor’s mask. Another bottle emerged and Hang Tung drank to “Vo! Vo! Vo! Vo!” Chhuon drank to a new chant, a slogan, “Free our enslaved comrades in Kampuchea and in the South.” Trinh drank to “Liberation! Our solemn mission!” The bottle made a full round and a second, and on the third Mitterschmidt killed it.

“I have seen the pictures,” Nui said to Mitterschmidt. “The Americans are like the old Gestapo before Germany was liberated. Their MPs beat people. Always! Everyone! The poor people of Saigon are bui doi—how to say it? They are dust. Orphans. The Americans stick the girls then throw them on the street and run them down with their trucks. When we bring the communal state, they will have the most beautiful lives. Americans, humph! They treat their dogs better than their wives. Ech! Ha! But in Laos, ha! they ran like beaten dogs with their tails stuck in their asses. What a disgrace. They should not be called soldiers. I am a soldier. We fight them. Danh cho den cuoi! Fight to the finish! They are...sadists. Yes? Sadists. Beat women! Torture children! Ah, but the glorious victories of the People’s Liberation Army makes them withdraw. That, Colonel, is why we fight. It is chinh nghia. You say it. Chinh nghia!”

“Chin na! Ha! Ha! What do I say?”

“It is a just cause. ‘Just Cause!’ You will see when you observe at Baray.”

Chhuon stumbled toward home, drunk. He had not been able to spit all the liquor back, had drunk enough to make him intoxicated. He fell as he reached the main village street, pulled himself to his hands and knees, then collapsed. Lying there he thought, I didn’t ask Kpa if there was word of Cheam. Poor Cheam. I didn’t tell Kpa of mother. Better. Better not for him to worry for her health. What’s happening to my country? To my blood! Kampuchea, you bleed like a butchered pig. And I lie in the mud. Blood for Kampuchea. Nui! Humph! Viet blood and Viet bones build...Chhuon belched. Heat from his stomach billowed like a fanned forge fire. He worked his knees back under him. Lifted his torso. His head seemed to swirl. He vomited. Blood for blood; he thought. Blood for blood. Aloud he muttered, “I shall become enlightened for the sake of all living things. I shall become...”

“You knew we watched you,” Eng said.

“I knew.” Nang smiled. “But with my new face you didn’t know who I was.”

“Sar thought you’d been killed. He was pissed.”

“It gave me more room to maneuver,” Nang said. He spoke almost apologetically, sheepishly, though there was no apology or humbleness in him.

They squatted in the shade of a lemon tree in the tiny courtyard of a Kompong Thom peasant home. The sun beat down upon the land with a wilting intensity achieved only during the little dry season, the midsummer break in the wet weather, beat down vaporizing all surface moisture and filling the air with oppressive humidity. Nang flipped to the last page of the document Eng had given him. Through Eng, he had reestablished contact with Angkar, the Center, Met Sar. “ ‘To be master of the country and master of the revolution,’ ” Nang read, “ ‘is to be engaged in a determined struggle for self-sufficiency and to show a spirit of creativity...’ ” In his mind Nang was once again under the older man’s guidance, though in reality he was now but a midlevel cadreman subordinate to the leaders of the northern zone. “ ‘...it is to endure all hardships, to be conscientious, thrifty and upright. This also means to show respect for freely accepted discipline....’ ”

“I was sure it was you all along,” Eng interrupted. “Night Rabbit, Little Rabbit. You’ve got a thing for rabbits. Ha!”

“Did he send you to spy on me?”

“No. He sent me with orders, guidelines. We must maintain absolute internal unity. You cannot operate alone. Soth and Horl from the old platoon will join you. Angkar is to have a presence in every village. In every way we are to gain the people. And the yuon drive must falter in open country.”

Nang laughed, did not answer, but continued reading to the end of the document. “ ‘...to love, defend, and respect the people. Finally, it means turning humbly to the people to learn, and sacrificing all to the interest of the nation and the revolution.’ ‘”

“We need a real base,” Eng said. By mid-August 1971, Krahom intelligence had disseminated, along with the new documents, tactical information about the advancing North Viet Namese divisions. Krahom double agents had also informed FANK intelligence; FANK agents had confirmed the direction and size of the thrust via ARVN and American aerial reconnaissance. “It’s Met Sar’s orders,” Eng said.

“The NVA 91st is moving south,” Nang said. “You know that, eh?” His eyes hardened. Soth, eh? he thought.

“The 5th, 7th and 91st. Who tells you? What do you know?”

“A ghost in the wind tells me.” Nang’s eyes twinkled. “Lon Nol has announced the launching of his operation, Chenla II, a ‘sweep’ north to secure the corridor to Kompong Thom, to expel all foreigners and Communists. A real base, eh?”

“Yes.”

“Then we should take Phum Voa Yeav. I have friends there.”

“I don’t know it,” Eng said.

“It’s eight kilometers north. It’ll be perfect and it’s well prepared. What is this Chenla II?”

“Like last year.” Eng shook his head thinking of FANK’s miserable effort. “They’ve formed a column north of Phnom Penh near Skoun. But, like last year, they move like snails.”

“This is a great opportunity,” Nang said. “We’ll fight for our lives as only you and I can, Eng.” Nang stood. Though the heat was debilitating, he felt strong. He felt as if he’d been toying with weak opponents, as if he’d been sitting back, waiting for an opening, waiting until now. “Gather the class,” he said. “It’s time.”

North Viet Namese and Khmer Viet Minh control over Phum Voa Yeav was minimal. The four small hamlets harbored Khmer Viet Minh agents and militia squads but because of the proximity to Kompong Thom there had not been a complete break from Republic control. Like many South Viet Namese villages five years earlier, the Communist infrastructure, backed by main force units in outlying areas, was a nocturnal government. The national government’s presence took the form of infrequent daytime troop patrols, daylight administration.

“The hamlet is well prepared,” Met Han told Nang and Eng the next day. The two cadremen had joined the young fighter and his small band in a hut in a treeline between paddies just east of Voa Yeav 3. “Eighty percent of the people support our movement.”

Eng smiled. He turned to Nang. “How many camps do you have like this?”

“Many.” Nang avoided Eng’s question. “Most have moved away from the corrupting influences of the city. Every hamlet has been assigned a squad.”

“And eighty percent of the people are with you?!”

“Understand, Eng,” Nang said quietly, “eight in ten are with every faction. Rice farmers are pragmatic, eh? If we win, they’re with us, eh, Met Han?”

“They really are with us, Met Nang. It’s been exactly as you’ve said. When we first came we told them we were the Movement and we’d come to help. They didn’t believe. We helped them repair broken dikes and they began to listen. We told them we were against all aliens. We planted rice with them and they listened more. We told them, as you’ve told us, it is our obligation as Khmers to protect Khmers.”

Nang smiled. “Don’t believe too easily,” he said. “Lon Nol’s henchmen say eight in ten are with him. Comrade Ote Samrin who is KVM, who has the NVA 91st behind him, reports eight in ten are Rumdoah and wish the yuons to win and return Sihanouk.”

“Met Nang,” Han said sincerely, “we’ve worked very hard with the farmers. We’ve served them and treated them with respect. They’ll stand with us.”

“Today”—Nang’s voice was filled with doubt—“perhaps.”

“Truly,” Han retorted.

“Truly?” Nang raised his brow.

“Yes.”

“Will they, in return, assist us?”

“Of course. Haven’t they kept track of the yuon 91st as we asked? Weren’t they the first to note the shift south? They’ll help us.”

“Good.” Nang became very still, very calm. His head was bowed. Then he raised it and looked directly into Han’s eyes. “In one hour they’ll set up a diversion.”

Two hours later Nang stood with Han and a hamlet elder at the gate to Voa Yeav 3. Han had introduced Nang as his teacher and the old man was both much amused by the idea of one so young being a teacher and much shocked by the terrible disfigurement of Nang’s face. The rains had begun again, not the deluge which would come in a week but a clinging drizzle. Han held a large banana leaf over the old man as Nang spoke of the need for national sovereignty. Again the old man was amused. He invited the boys to his home for rice, but Nang insisted they remain on the road by the village gate.

“The village chief comes now, eh?” Nang spoke in perfect rural northern dialect.

“If he’s not drunk.” The old man laughed.

“And with him the province tax collector?” Nang said.

“Snakes bed together, eh, Rabbit?” The old man chuckled. “You are very young to want to see them.”

“Anyone who harms you, who harms your crops, your people or your belongings, he is your enemy.” As Nang said the words an odd feeling descended upon him, coated him as the drizzle coated his skin.

“You are very wise for one so young.” The man smiled broadly.

“This chief,” Nang said, “he serves the Viet Namese and the governor, eh? And he drinks alcohol? He is very evil, eh?”

“He is always drunk.” The elder laughed.

“My father, who is now with Lord Buddha, used to say of drunks, ‘The way they act is to renounce their humanity.’ You will help Han change this man, eh?”

“I’m a poor man.” The elder giggled. “I must support my family.”

“We’ll change that,” Nang said. “All Khmers should share in the country’s wealth. We’ll change the village chief, too, eh? You help me, eh?”

The elder became more formal. “For many years the peasants want to change this man. Ote Samrin wants him to change, too. If you change him, how will Ote Samrin look? How will I look to my people?”

“Ote Samrin is humiliated because he has no effect. You shall be honored because you are with us. Look there.” Nang pointed into the gray drizzle where two vehicles were emerging. “For all eternity—” Nang began. Suddenly the lead vehicle blasted its horn. Three water buffalo had climbed, had been driven, from one paddy up the dike to the raised gravel road. The lead vehicle’s horn blared in repeated bursts. Two small boys whipped the buffalos with marsh reed switches. Nang laughed and Han and the old man joined in. The horns of both cars honked. The lead driver hung his head out the window, screamed at the urchins to clear their beasts from his path. The two boys ran into the paddy. “For all eternity...” Nang laughed loudly. Behind them on the hamlet street a dozen women had converged to witness the commotion and in the paddies the peasants straightened their backs. Suddenly a massive fireball tossed the rear vehicle into the air, then the noise and concussion slammed the viewers. Doors of the lead vehicle sprang open. Five armed men emerged running, clutching their weapons, running, collapsing to a fusillade unheard at the hamlet gate. Then the distant report of small arms fire reached the elder. Nang completed his sentence in an embittered tone, “...our blood will call for revenge.”

The old man no longer smiled. A large mob had grown in the hamlet street. Han stood shocked. His boys had delivered a diversion but neither they nor he had known for what. Nang turned to the mob. He grasped the trembling hand of the old man beside him, lifted it, held it high, then yelled as loudly and as enthusiastically as his voice would stretch, “From henceforth and for all eternity Phum Voa Yeav shall be protected by the Organization. By Angkar. Never again shall you pay taxes to the henchmen of Lon Nol or the lackeys of the yuons.”

From the fields about the wreckage of the cars two squads emerged; emerged like wraiths from a fog, emerged, walked, fourteen armed black-clad boys in single file, down the dike road toward Phum Voa Yeav.

The preparation for the takeover of Phum Voa Yeav had been complete enough that, in the absence of NVA support, before night had fallen twice all four hamlets and the village center had been subjugated by Krahom soldiers. Immediately the fence sitters acquiesced to the slogan, “Independence, national sovereignty, self-reliance and revolutionary violence.” Within another day Phum Voa Yeav had fallen under the spell of Wise Little Rabbit, and the village provided Nang and the Krahom with a platoon of stragglers and porters. Phase one, eliminate government control, was complete. Now Nang would implement the next phase, for which he’d prepared for almost a year.

Nang approached the FANK LP, the listening post, on the southeast flank of the column’s night logger. There was no moon and the ground was blanketed with a layer of mist, a fog which started just above his head and was perhaps three meters thick. Above the mist the night was crystal clear, yet below, the world was close and black.

He could hear the FANK troops moving, restless, afraid but not disciplined, most not even trained to be silent and still. They talked loudly, as if by giving away their position they would make any enemy closing on Kompong Thom circumvent the LP and target a main garrison. Nang pulled, pushed, prodded his three-boy team. Twenty meters from the FANK LP they settled, rested, waited, listening until the nationals were silent, asleep. At two in the morning Nang advanced, emerged within the LP’s perimeter as he had done so often, emerged to wake the sergeant in charge.

“ssst!”

“Huh! Huh! Who’s there?”

“ssshh. sakhon, it’s me, number two rabbit.”

“Oh! You did it again; Ha! What do you have for me? It’s been a long time.”

“tonight, the best present of all.”

“You brought a girl?!” The sergeant laughed out loud and several others awoke.

“tonight i bring liberation, tonight i bring angkar. come with me. i’ll show you.”

“Should I wake the others?”

“yes. ask them if they wish to come, all can come but only if they do so of their own free will.”

Without fear of making noise the sergeant passed amongst his small perimeter waking the tired, underfed and unpaid FANK soldiers. “Rise up. We’re moving.”

“Augh, Sergeant Brother—” one began, but Sakhon silenced him with, “Number Two Rabbit wants us to follow.”

The soldiers packed up and followed Nang into the blackness, each troop holding the man to his front, none knowing their small column included three armed yotheas of Angkar. Nang led them circuitously toward their garrison subpost, closer and closer, led them down animal paths and along raised treelines and finally through flooded paddies where the water had risen to waist high.

“sakhon, you and i shall go inside, the others must wait.”

“Rabbit, I can’t go in before dawn.”

“we’ll be quiet, we won’t wake the officer, i want to talk to brother yu and uncle neth. i’ve so much to give.”

Quietly Nang and Sakhon approached the perimeter. In a minute they stood with the sentries, two who recognized Number Two Rabbit. A minute later Nang, Sakhon and four sentries, the only other men awake in the subpost, were chattering quietly and opening the main gate.

In the paddies Eng slithered to the last concealment opposite the gate. Behind him Soth, Horl and eighteen men and boys, yotheas, porters and vassals, lay in the wet awaiting the signal. A softening of the misty shroud, first light, spread across the sky. Still no signal. The shroud grayed. At the gate two sentries emerged, unarmed, smoking cigarettes. They sat on their heels and stared across the lower black earth. Eng crept forth. In line with him came six armed yotheas creeping like one long segmented animal until they were a stone’s throw from the FANK gate and the sentries. Nang appeared at the garrison gate, squatted between the sentries. He pointed quietly, grunted, finally lifted one guard’s hand and pointed it toward Eng’s position. On that signal, Eng rose, walked forward, bowed to the FANK soldiers and said, “Follow me.” The two sentries left their post.

In the paddies the six yotheas stood, came to Nang, followed him into the garrison. As they entered, a group of five FANK soldiers, armed and with full gear, followed Met Soth out the gate. Then a second group of five followed Met Rong. In the billet area Sakhon and the two sentries woke soldiers one by one and told them to gather their entire issue. One by one the FANK troops obeyed until sixty soldiers had been woken, dressed, armed, and led off in groups of five, led first to Eng’s waiting squad where they were given rice balls, then away, north, with their weapons, meeting up with the troops from the LP, whispering phrases of purity, sovereignty and independence.

By dawn the garrison soldiers were six kilometers from their base, six kilometers and a light-year, surrounded by welcoming peasant-soldiers armed to the hilt.

“Many of you know me as Rabbit.” Nang spoke clearly. “I am Met Nang. You are welcome to join our Organization. Today I will ask you to give us your hearts and arms and we shall lead you to our forest home. I ask you to give me two days. If then you do not wish to join us, you may return to your Kompong Thom fortress.”

In a temporary treeline reindoctrination camp west of Phum Voa Yeav, the sixty-four FANK “volunteers” were treated as if they were lost sheep, as if they were brothers returned. Nang did all he could to impress them.

“How many of you have M-16 rifles?” Nang smiled. He knew only half a dozen could raise their hands. “With Angkar each shall have this.” He held up a Soviet Kalashnikov assault rifle. A yothea plant applauded and the FANK troops joined in. “Look at this,” Nang sneered. He lifted a 1916 Berthier 8mm rifle. “What poor rascal was forced to carry this antique? He had thirty-one cartridges. How would he get more?”

For three hours Nang spoke. “Angkar’s goal is a pure and classless society,” he told them. “Our soldiers are instruments of the Organization. They are heros of Kampuchean nationalism. It is their patriotic endeavor to roll with the Wheel of History.” Each word he spoke, each phrase Eng added, each act of encouragement the yotheas gave out was full of enthusiasm. The yotheas and cadre of Angkar ate with the volunteers, slept with them; led them on patrols. After two days the city militiamen were asked to choose: remain with Angkar for Kampuchean independence or return to the lackey puppet forces of the imperialist warmongers; vow poverty, chastity, obedience and hard work in the service of the people, the nation and Angkar or return to the graft, patronage, lust and sloth of Kompong Thom; usher in a millennium of happiness or sell the country into bondage.

Two thirds chose to take the vow, “I am desire not contrary to duty. I will do whatever Angkar asks. I will die for Angkar if it is so deemed.”

A third turned back to Kompong Thom, unharmed and unarmed. Before they reached the garrison, a second and third subpost were emptied. By the second week of September 1971, the Krahom army of the North could boast of new summer recruitment or conscription of nearly three thousand FANK militiamen, village men, boys and girls. Phase two, expand the army, was well under way.

A pull on his arm. Nang jerked fiercely. Again the tug. In the blackness of their hiding place Nang cocked his arm, ready to bludgeon the small boy. Nang’s chest tightened as he coiled.

Then he relaxed. Slowly he moved his hand forward, his index finger extended, stiff as a teak twig. His fingertip touched hair; he slid it down to, into, the little boy’s ear. Slowly he pushed. The boy’s head rolled with the pressure. Nang continued pushing. The boy’s body shifted. Soundlessly Nang bore down, pushing, pushing, the boy fell to his side on wet earth yet uttered not even the faintest whimper. Like a ballet couple, Nang flowed with him, pressing harder and harder, his fingertip jamming into the little boy’s ear canal. The boy’s head shuddered beneath the pressure, his body shook, he kicked his feet, clamped his teeth.

The commotion brought Eng. Almost imperceptibly he whispered, “stop!”

Nang halted. His finger was buried to the first joint in the flesh of the ear. Slowly he eased the force, withdrew the shaft and returned to his position.

Krahom recruitment success had created, in Nang’s mind, unwieldy problems that came close to outweighing the gain. First and foremost in his thoughts were the crybabies. “Just let us do the job,” he’d told Met Nim, a runner from Met Sar. “Half these runts need their mothers.”

“Train them, Met Nang. We must increase the army. Keep the young ones separate. Let them serve you in the most desperate situations.”

“Indeed!” Nang had uttered the one word. He understood. On line to his right, now, were four of these small children, tiny boys and girls trained by sugar and stick to mindless obedience. Nang thought bitterly about Nim’s directive. Further expand the army! he thought. Weaken it! Dilute it! Nang hated it. Feared it. It would destroy him. To him Kampuchea needed but a small, well-disciplined elite.

The second problem concerned the liberated hamlets north of Kompong Thom City. The NVA had shifted south and left their Khmer Viet Minh village cadre behind to control the people. When the Krahom moved into old NVA positions, the Khmer Viet Minh were caught between nationalist and internationalist Communist ideologies. Met Nim had simply given Nang the order: “Clean the Brotherhood of the Pure. Once our enemies are engaged we must have no inner contradictions sapping our energy or blocking its flow. Eliminate contradictions.”

Now, before him, them, sitting on stilts high above the ground, was the house of Ote Samrin. Nang lifted the boy he’d staked to the ground. “Now,” he said. “For Kampuchea. You will be known as a national hero.”

Down the line Eng told a six-year-old girl, “Soon you will see Buddha. He will dress you in white and you will eat the finest rice.”

To Nang the little boy cried, “I’m afraid.”

“Afraid! Afraid of what?”

Nang expected the boy to say, “Afraid of dying,” or “Afraid it will hurt.”

“I’m afraid of ghosts,” the boy said. “If I go will I get a ghost-face like you?”

“Angkar”—Nang’s voice was hard—“is greater than all ghosts. Angkar protects you.”

The little boy and little girl stood. Between them two toddlers rose. They grasped hands, sidled forth toward the base of the ladder leading to Ote Samrin’s house. The boy trailed a cord. The six-year-old girl began to climb but immediately Mister Ote’s bodyguard heard them and shone a flashlight down. “Halt! Who are you?”

“Mother’s ill, Uncle. We’ve come to get Grandpa.”

“Don’t move.” There was bustling on the platform but nothing to be seen. The little girl led her “brothers” up a few more rungs. “Halt, damn you.” The flashlight flicked on again. “Mister Ote lives here. Who’s your grandfather?” The toddlers began to whine. “Oh, come up. In this blackness it’s a wonder you found any house at all.”

As the girl topped the ladder she called loudly, “Grandpa?”

Nang began to count, “twenty, nineteen, eighteen....”

“Come here, child,” the bodyguard said.

“...thirteen, the toddlers should be up. nine, eight...”

“What are you carrying?”

“A basket for Grandpa.”

“I’m not your grandpa,” Ote Samrin said, coming onto the porch with a lantern. “I’m...”

“...two. one...” The boy was up. “zero.” Nang smacked the clacker. The boy exploded. The fireball and concussion detonated the other children and as their bodies were being thrown by the first blast they too exploded, blowing up with them the entire house, the bodyguard, Ote Samrin, his family and the KVM presence from Phum Voa Yeav. Phase three, eliminate contradictory elements, was complete.

“You’ve lost a lot of weight,” Pech Chieu Teck said to his wife.

“And you’ve gained it.” Vathana laughed politely.

“The children are too thin,” Teck said, his voice edged with involuntary harshness.

“We manage.” Vathana smiled. She lifted the eight-month-old Samol to her lap and gave her a small squeeze. The infant’s eyes shone as she gurgled and cooed and grabbed at her mother’s thumb.

Teck moved closer. He poked a finger into his daughter’s belly and laughed, quietly pleased as the baby giggled and churned her arms, her whole body wobbling with the motion. He looked beyond the baby to the mother. Though thin and shabbily clothed Vathana was still very beautiful. As he watched her face, the winds outside shifted and blew the scent of the camp and the odor of the hospital tent into the sectioned-off corner where Vathana, Sophan and the two infants had made their home. The smell went immediately to Teck’s stomach. His abdominal muscles tightened, his breathing stopped. He stood, backed away from the baby as if she might dirty his spotless uniform, then, first dusting Sophan’s bamboo slat cot with his hand, sat. “Where’s that phnong you let suckle the children?”

“Sophan? She’s not a Mountaineer.”

“She’s as black as one.”

“She’s Khmer. She’s at the river with your son. They went to bathe and get some fish.”

“The economy’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

“You didn’t come to see your children, did you?”

Teck dropped his head. At once he felt shame and pride, loathing for this creature who lived in filth, superiority and self-justification. “I...I’ve come to...” Teck stopped. “I’ll get to that in a minute.”

“If you haven’t come to see the children...” Vathana began. Teck’s uneasiness robbed her of her own harmony.

“There’s a fable circulating I want to tell you.”

“The one,” Vathana broke in, “of the tiger and the dragon. I’ve heard it. Ever since the Foreign Ministry revealed the ARVN atrocities and those men left, I’ve heard it. Every day they talk of it. When the ARVN closed the river base, there was a great celebration and an aacha told everyone of the tiger and the dragon.”

“No,” Teck said. He had not heard that fable and wished to, but he could not admit to his wife that she knew something he didn’t. “No. This is the fable of a cobra and an eagle and a crab. You haven’t heard it because I’m the first one to bring it to Neak Luong.” Teck paused. He crossed his legs beneath him as he spoke—spoke not in the manner of the traditional storyteller but spoke quickly, jerkily, at times pausing, seeming to have forgotten the tale.

“One day,” he began, “there was a lovely black cobra sunning itself upon a barren rock. The snake was very long and from its head looked down at its stretching, curving body glistening in the sun, and she decided she was too beautiful for any other creature. Yet, to win her love many creatures came and piled riches about her which she accepted. A rat came with diamonds laid in a gold ring which he slipped over the end of her tail. She smiled, slithered a bit off then coiled and sprang and ate the rat, leaving only its feet. Still more animals came, until the cobra had great treasures, yet still no one pleased her. Then came a crab and an eagle. The eagle soared high, looped and rode the winds above the snake and the cobra sang out saying, ‘If you will hold me and let me fly and show me all the world, I’ll be your bride.’

“ ‘Don’t go,’ whispered the crab.

“The snake turned, for in the pile of gems she had not seen the crab. ‘You’re ugly,’ the cobra hissed.

“Just then the eagle lifted the snake and showed her all the world and then lit in a grassy field where he fucked her very well. Later the cobra returned to her rock and found it barren once more. The crab had even eaten the feet of the rat.”

Teck stopped. Vathana said nothing. She didn’t know if there was a point to the fable, Khmer fables often being without moral. For a moment she fidgeted with Samol’s small shirt. “You know,” Teck began again. “We must take care of the people while keeping the boat level in the river.”

“Teck,” Vathana said, as she mustered her courage, “you’ve come for some reason. Does it suit you to divorce me?”

“No, it doesn’t. You’re my wife. Now let me finish.”

“I’m not certain you’ve begun.”

“I have,” Teck said sharply. “Listen. Half the rubber plantations have been burned, bombed or occupied by foreigners. If the Americans weren’t forcing this war on us, there’d be no war in Cambodia. We’re not strong enough for a military confrontation, so for our preservation we must offer multiple support. I’m sorry if you’ve gotten mixed up in all this, but you have.”

“Teck? What—Two months ago you said FANK...”

“We’re all Khmer Patriots,” Teck interrupted her. His voice lowered. “You must maintain absolute secrecy.”

“Absol—?!”

“ssshh.” He continued in a whisper, “i can offer your camp protection.”

Vathana let out a short burst of laughter, but seeing Teck’s serious face, her laughter ceased, “protection?” she whispered mockingly, “you?”

“I have been authorized by the Association of Khmer Patriots to say this. Also to bring you word of Peou.”

“Peou! Who sent...?” Confusion seized her. Words, thoughts stopped. She tensed.

“Because of American bombing about Kratie, he’s been returned to Stung Treng.”

“How...how do you know this?” Vathana’s voice was thin.

“From the Khmer Patriots,” Teck said. “We are Khmer Patriots.”

Vathana shook her head in disbelief. “Who...?” This man-boy, this flimsy failure who had barely mourned his father’s death, who’d spent all their lives together in dancehalls or opium dens, who only months earlier had embraced Lon Nol’s holy crusade, was now telling her he was a Khmer “patriot,” using not the word form meaning a person who loves his country but, just as her dark assailant had earlier, a form designating an organization. The incongruity shook Vathana to the core. She shifted. “Do you know what you say? Do you have word of my mother and father?”

“Perhaps.” A smile creased Teck’s cheeks. “Perhaps,” he repeated. “For the sake of your camp, Angel...” Inside, Teck was melancholy, disturbed, destroyed, yet he would not show it, not an inkling. Harshly he pushed on. “...And for your parents and your brother...”

“What? Do what?”

“As my father would say, ‘What will happen if we do nothing?’ Well, Angel, keep your American. Fuck him well. We all have responsibilities during our country’s most difficult time.”

“My Am...What do you know?!” Vathana lashed out. “What is it to you?! To your own wife you...”

“Don’t be afraid.” Teck seemed indifferent. “Others will come but no one will hurt you. I’m told that a mistake was made. Aah! Someday, Angel, we’ll live in a great villa.”

When Sophan returned with the two-year-old Samnang she found Vathana under a blanket on her cot clutching Samol like a child in the dark clutches a doll for security. Sophan touched Vathana’s head to check for fever. Vathana shook off the hand. “Angel,” Sophan said softly, “are you ill?”

“No, Sophan. Not ill. Only tired.”

“Doctor Sarin is here for rounds and there’s an American supply truck with mosquito netting, a thousand cans of milk and a thousand bottles of soda.”

“Sophan?”

“Yes Angel?”

“What do you think of Captain Sullivan?”

“What do I think?” Sophan laughed gently.

“Um-hum.”

“He’s good to you?”

“He loves me as if I were a porcelain doll.”

“You’re...Angel?”

“Do you like him, Sophan?”

Sophan turned, from Vathana. “He can’t help it if he’s American,” she said.

“If he were Khmer...” Vathana probed.

“Even if he’s American”—Sophan turned again to Vathana and smiled—“he’s very nice. Much better than a husband who abandons his children.”

Late that evening Sullivan pulled his BSA Lightning with a new metallic-red gas tank into the refugee camp at Neak Luong. It was raining hard. Wind buffeted the big canvas tents and the ground was slick deep mud. Sullivan revved the engine, alternately slipping and disengaging the clutch. The rear wheel spun and shot to one side then the other. He kept both feet off the pegs, legs out, catching and righting the machine as it tried to splat itself into the mire. Each time the bike tipped the headlight jarred to the side, and in the grass or in the gutters between tents, Sullivan saw rats, some scurrying, others bold enough to stand fast, their eyes reflecting like ruby beads.

Since July Sullivan had come to Neak Luong as frequently as his duties, travel restrictions and the war would allow. Each time the city had been surrounded by more barbed wire, and each time, seemingly, the outposts and perimeter had shrunk back toward the enclave. With the closing of the ARVN river base in August, the ferry crossings had come under ever-increasing pressure and night crossings were prohibited. Still he’d come. For the right price, no matter the time, it was always possible to find an independent riverman with a boat large enough to carry the BSA.

Throughout the summer it never occurred to Sullivan that Cahuom Vathana might have an ulterior motive for maintaining their relationship. To him everything was too right, too pure for there to be an evil element driving them together. He spoke freely about FANK personnel; who was good, who loathsome. He hid little about equipment delivered or about operations, though he revealed little for he believed Vathana wasn’t interested in details. These things made up but a fraction of their talk.

For her part, beyond the politics and pressure which she did not fully comprehend, Vathana had accepted the relationship as she had her marriage—as if it were a professional contract. In Cambodia, marriage was a sacred conjugation with ramifications rolling into the future as the Samsara rolling through time.

Teck’s visit had confused and embarrassed her. All day and all evening she’d worked cleaning the sick, feeding the disabled, scouring communal facilities and organizing rice and milk distribution. The camp had shrunk. With the announced closing of the ARVN base, thousands of able-bodied refugees had packed their belongings and headed upriver to Phnom Penh. Within a month the population, which had peaked at fourteen thousand and stabilized at nine thousand, fell to slightly under six thousand. Those left were the most disadvantaged and the sleaziest hustlers.

The bike revved one last time then died. Before Sullivan dismounted a dozen children surrounded him. In broken Khmer, pidgin English and basic French they welcomed him and he hugged them and lifted them onto the BSA’s tank, consciously hefting each marasmic child, thinking each was thinner or lighter this time than last. Then from his pocket he pulled two hundred-riel notes. “You take care for me,” he said to the oldest boy while tapping the motorcycle. “Understand?” he added in Khmer. “You help.” Sullivan pointed to a shy girl of perhaps eight. With a bill in each hand he said, “For you—and brothers and sisters. Buy food. No candy.”

“Cigarette?” a boy said.

“No cigarette. Rice.”

As he talked with the children he felt restless, almost frantic. It had been three weeks since he’d seen her, since he’d touched her dark skin, run his fingers in her thick hair. “Ouch!” The children giggled. The boy who’d asked for cigarettes had ventured to pull the bushy red hair on the back of his hand.

“Hello, J. L.” Vathana stood demurely by the tent flap. In the single light above, rain droplets glittered like descending sparks from the tail of a skyrocket. She stepped forward. “Where have you been?” Her French was the most beautiful sound he’d heard in what seemed like years. He stepped toward her. She burst into laughter. “You’re all mud.”

“You’ve two days to help me clean up.”

“We obtained for you an office. With so many gone you can have your own house.”

“Can you show me?” He blushed through his smile and through the mud that caked his face, and she felt the blush.

“Where have you been?” Vathana said later that night. “I’ve been so worried for you.” She cuddled onto his chest and brushed a hand in the swirls of hair.

“There’s so much,” Sullivan said. “The Northern Corridor’s as active as the border. My God, Vathana, they’re driving a wedge right down to the heart and those bastards, all of them, they’re like puppets, like caricatures, playing roles, reading lines without paying the least bit of attention to what the hell’s happening about them.”

“You’ve been up north again?”

“Oh, to Kompong Luong, Skoun, Phum Pa Kham and Baray. I took a helicopter to Kompong Thom. One of the nights I was there an entire FANK garrison just disappeared. No signs of a fight. Nobody knows what happened. I choppered back to Oudong and then back to headquarters.”

“That’s where...in the North, where General Lon says the thmils are massing, yes?”

“Thmils?”

“The foreign pagans.”

“Is that what that means?”

“Um-hum.”

“All along the corridor I heard that word but no one would tell me what it meant.”

“It’s a very sad word,” Vathana said. She laid her head on his chest. His heartbeat was strong, slow, rhythmic, and with each beat their bamboo cot shivered. “A long time ago the prophets forecast a dark age which would be heralded by foreign atheists who would conquer the people of faith.”

“Umm. Thmils.” Sullivan had difficulty with the idea of prophets and forecasts but he knew many Khmers strongly believed in them.

“General Lon Nol says the Viet Namese are the thmils and if the Communists win a dark age will descend upon Kampuchea.”

“I brought you something to keep that from happening.” Vathana lifted her head, put both hands on him and rested her chin on her hands. “It’s a TT-33.”

“And what is a TT-33?”

“It’s a pistol. I’m going to teach you how to use it.”

“Teach the FANK soldiers. They’ll protect me.”

“With what I’ve seen you may need to protect yourself and the children...from them.” Vathana was about to say something but he put his hand to her lips. “Don’t. I’m serious. It’s an NVA pistol I got in Baray. There’s four hundred rounds.” Again Vathana tried to speak and again he hushed her.

“This is how it happens,” he said. “It’s always the same pattern, always the same cause. The bastards don’t pay their soldiers. The soldiers are as poor as the refugees. Poorer. They’re ordered into a village to chase out a Viet Minh agent and they sack the place. Steal everything. Maybe rape a few women. Then that village hates FANK and they welcome the Khmer Communists and hide them. Again and again and again.”

“Do they welcome the Viet Namese?”

“No.”

“The ARVN?”

“No. No. They’re, how do you say it? thmils, just like the NVA.”

“And is FANK so bad?”

“That’s just it. For every corrupt son-of-a-bitch commander there’s a decent unit with an honest commander.” Sullivan huffed. His anger rose and as it rose he could almost see Colonel Chhan Samkai at Turn Nop. “Even when they’re paid,” he began again, “they can’t feed their families. Guys like this guy Chhan charge them for rations, for ammunition, for petrol for their vehicles.” Sullivan huffed again. “I hate it. I hate seeing it. You’ve got some wonderful soldiers. Some who are so Buddhist they shoot the ground to make certain they don’t hit anybody...but that’s okay. That’s really not the problem. There’s such a command failure...and my embassy’s part of it.”

“This Chenla II of Lon Nol’s,” Vathana whispered, “that will drive out the Communists, yes?”

Sullivan just growled.

“No?”

“Vathana, to defend terrain for a long period, one must have an offensive thrust which can keep the enemy at bay. Otherwise the enemy sits just out of reach and picks you apart.”

“But what of the bombers...they’re an offensive punch, no?”

“You can’t rely on them alone. They’re one tool...effective up to a point...against troop concentrations; but when the enemy’s dispersed or once they get in tight, you’ve got to have good basic infantry. Colby had the right idea.”

“Colby?”

“The CIA guy. He wanted to arm the population, get the people involved. The idea was to build a broad political base so each community would defend itself. Then some jerk forced divisional organization on FANK and the government disarmed the people. That concentrated the political base in a few hands and most of them were old corrupt hands Sihanouk left behind.”

“So why do you stay here!” Vathana sat up. She did not like to hear Sihanouk criticized by anyone, especially an American.

Sullivan was so disturbed by the thought that the war would go badly, he barely noticed her irritation and he ignored her words. “They do it like actors,” he repeated the idea. “As if they don’t see the enemy at all. The enemy schemes every waking moment; at first light with their first sip of tea they discuss plans and plot how to topple the next town. Every day a new scheme. Every day they initiate new terrorist acts or recruit new people. The best the government does is react after the fact. They’ve got to meet major offensive thrusts with counteroffensives and small scattered attacks with police action.

“Three NVA divisions are closing on the Northern Corridor and elements of the NYA 479th are infiltrating from Siem Reap. Vathana, I don’t know what’s going to happen. In Viet Nam the most ardent anti-Communists were the ex-Communists. The second most ardent were the Northern refugees who’d escaped their rule. It’s got to tell us something. Those among us most against them are the ones who know them best. The ones who know their lies.”

“John L. Sullivan. Why do you talk so much?”

“Oh, sorry....I...I got carried away. I keep thinking about what might happen.”

“So why do you stay?”

Sullivan paused. How to answer? “There’s a motto I believe in,” he said. He slid his hand up her bare back and softly caressed her shoulders. “De Oppresso Libre. It’s the Special Forces slogan. ‘To Free From Oppression.’ ”

“You are a very strange man, my Mister Sullivan. You tell me the Republicans oppress the people yet you stay to keep them from succumbing to the Communists.”

“FANK’s full of fools. It’s inefficient. It’s corrupt. But it’s not ruthless. Not in the Communist sense. If the NVA win there’ll be a dark age worse than anything Lon Nol predicts. If the people don’t learn, if they don’t understand ruthlessness and terror and absolute control, they’ll never be able to counter those pathological fanatics. That’s why I’m here. I’ll be back in Phum Pa Kham and Baray next week. I’m here to help them change, to help them learn about the efficient and righteous use of power.”

“Oh, John, doesn’t every side think it uses power righteously?”

Chhuon’s knees throbbed. Hot fluid burned from his stomach to the back of his throat. The taste in his mouth was foul, stale, vile. Near him, on her own sleeping mat, Sok shivered. Beyond her Peou and Grandma huddled for warmth. For a week the rains had been hard and there had been no food distribution, no lamp oil, no medicine, no clothing to replace that taken for the militias. Hang Tung flipped pages on the other side of the plaited wall, reading by the only light in the Khmer sector. Chhuon breathed deeply. His head ached. He wanted to claw his eyes from their sockets. Nimol and Chan were gone and in every village hut the people cowered in fear.

A week earlier Colonel Nui had had the bodies of the radar crew brought before the pagoda. The face of all four men had been burnt. Nui had ordered the carriers to bring them exactly as they’d been found, rags and ash stuffed in their mouths, their faces obliterated not by gasoline but by white phosphorus or by C-4 plastique, holes burnt four fingers wide and four fingers deep right through their skulls. And all had been disemboweled. They lay agitated, without peace, all day and all night as the villagers passed, sneaked glimpses and fled. Then the village had been assembled. In the rain Nui and Hang Tung passed through the rows, asking every soul, “Did you do this? Who did it?” A thousand times from Khmer mouths, “Da, khong biet,” “Da, khong biet.” A thousand times in. Viet Namese, “I don’t know, sir.”

That night a B-52 sortie released 120 five-hundred-pound-high-explosive and fragmentation bombs less than a mile north of Phum Sath Din, hitting a convoy of about forty trucks heading for the Northern Corridor. The bomb box was well clear of the village, yet two peripheral hits (bombs don’t always drop as expected; these were probably at the outer limit of what is termed “circular error probability”) exploded just beyond the village perimeter. Shrapnel and fireball pierced and ignited two homes. Three people were killed, seven more wounded. Still Colonel Nui demanded that the radar men be left unburied.

A day later the stinking corpses were removed and replaced by two headless, limbless torsos who were identified by their clothing. “First,” Hang Tung told the reassembled village, “resisters murdered four men of our heroic defense force. Now they have mutilated the vice-chairman and his wife. Only last week Ny Non Chan intervened on your behalf and requested the pagoda hours be liberalized, and Colonel Nui, who is a devout Buddhist, agreed.”

Chhuon rolled to his side. He had been asked to say a few words and he had offered a prayer but he had not listened to his own words. It was not he who spoke but the demon, which reemerged about his larynx. Now the order had gone out that all twelve- to fourteen-year-olds would be recruited and trained for village protection, and even Peou had been approached by Hang Tung. “Little Nephew, look at this. That’s it. Come here. Would you someday like to fire my rifle? Tomorrow I’ll let you shoot. Someday you’ll shoot an American, eh?”

Chhuon lay back. Dear Lord Buddha, he thought, take this fake authority from me. Take this responsibility. Let them catch me. Allow me to shed this horrible duplicity.

On the other side of the plaited wall, Hang Tung checked his notes, his scratch sheets and his time charts. He smiled to himself, pleased with himself. Every hour of every day for the past month was in a vertical column at the side of the page. Beside each line was a note on Chhuon’s whereabouts and activity. Here and there were blanks, and the blanks were beginning to form a pattern. Hang Tung closed his hands, squeezed his arms to his body. Uncle, he thought, a stick whittled at both ends soon collapses the tree.