Saigon: A Novel Part 27

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Of course, sir!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The sudden mortar barrage that greeted the Dakota's arrival on the airstrip broke into these muddled thoughts, and Joseph clutched the sides of his seat as the plane's wheels made contact with the pitted surface. It braked rapidly to a standstill, and while groaning French soldiers on stretchers were hurried aboard amid the din of exploding sh.e.l.ls, Joseph crouched beneath the aircraft's fuselage; when its hatches were slammed closed he rode back to the command center in one of the makes.h.i.+ft ambulances and got the driver to drop him at the chief of staff's dugout. He hadn't tried to give advance warning of his arrival this time, and when he knocked on the side-post and pulled back the sacking covering the entrance, Paul looked up from his paper-strewn table in astonishment "Mon Dieu, I don't believe it! I must be suffering hallucinations." The French officer rose from his seat and gripped Joseph's outstretched hand fiercely. "You're either very brave or very foolish, Joseph, to come back. Not even French journalists are venturing out here anymore."

"The Gazette decided they had to have one more worm's eye view report from Dien Bien Phu, and I jumped at the chance to come and drink some more of your cognac." .Joseph grinned, but inwardly he was taken aback by Paul's appearance. Part of the head bandage visible beneath his steel helmet was grimy and discolored, his eyes were bloodshot, and his face was gray with fatigue. His movements too were stiff and slow, signaling clearly the strain he'd undergone in the past two weeks.

"You'd better put this on." Paul handed Joseph a steel helmet and waved him to a chair. "Even the worms are wearing them in the valley now." He sank back into his seat with a weary smile, and from outside, the sudden stutter of small arms fire became audible, interspersed with deeper-throated artillery salvos.

"Things look much worse than when I was here last," said Joseph tentatively. "And you look about all in, Paul."

The French officer shrugged. "There's not much point in trying to tell you otherwise. mon vieux - the situation's grim. From the moment we lost Gabrielle and Beatrice we knew Dien Bien Phu wasn't going to produce any magic victory for us. They lay down a heavy bombardment on us every night, then follow up with ma.s.sive 'human wav& attacks. Our own artillery's been virtually knocked out, and it's only a matter of time before the runway's destroyed. Then we'll really he at their mercy." He paused and lifted a warning finger in Joseph's direction. "I don't advise you to stay here very long. Not many more planes are going to get out."

Joseph shook his head in dismay. "What does Colonel de Castries plan to do?"

"I'm afraid de Castries has taken it all very badly," replied Paul with a troubled look. "He's hardly been out of his bunker since the attack began. He doesn't chair the daily command meetings either. Colonel Pierre Langlais, a Breton paratroop officer, has virtually taken command. He's planned what countera.s.saults have been made on Elaine, Dominique, Francoise and Huguette - those are the hills closest to the command center." Paul broke off and pointed to the map on the wall behind him where the shrinking perimeter had been re-marked daily in red. "But as you can see, the enemy are squeezing us into a smaller area all the time. As soon as we succeed in putting the flag of France back on one hill, the Viet Minh run theirs up on another."

"How many men have you lost?"

Paul's face darkened. "Maybe a thousand dead all told and twice that number wounded. We estimate that we've killed five times as many of the enemy, but Giap is making a calculated sacrifice, and he can replenish his forces indefinitely. With the airstrip almost unusable, only paratroops can replace our casualties. Most of the Algerians and the Thais have deserted already and gone to live in holes in the riverbank." Paul's shoulders sagged and he slumped lower in his chair; outside the noise of a new action on one of the group of hills close to the command center was growing, but Paul ignored it. "If I were you, Joseph, I'd get out on the next plane that comes in I'll get my adjutant to give you a quick tour in a jeep for your story - then get back to Hanoi as fast as you can." He picked up a field telephone, ordered the vehicle, then grinned wearily at the American. "Things may be bad but that's no reason to let a good friend get caught here like a rat in a trap."

For several seconds Joseph sat listening indecisively to the sounds of the battle raging outside; then he drew a long breath. "Thanks, Paul. I appreciate your help very much - but I hate the thought of you having to stay on in this h.e.l.lhole."

The Frenchman shrugged and said nothing. He shuffled some paperwork abstractly on the desk, then glanced up at Joseph again. "And how's everything in the outside world, old friend? What have you been up to since you were here last?"

"I've divided my time between Saigon and Hanoi mostly, trying not very successfully to keep tabs on this mystifying war of yours." Joseph hesitated, wondering with a feeling of panic whether Lan might have mentioned in a letter meeting him in Dalat, "I managed to s.n.a.t.c.h a couple of days off at the Lang-Biang Palace. It's all changed there now - but the scenery's still magnificent."

"Lan's at Dalat too right now, I think," said Paul, sorting idly through his paper again. "Did you see anything of her?"

"Yes. When I heard she was there I paid her a visit to tell her I'd seen you." Joseph found himself hard-pressed to keep his voice casual. "I told her you were well despite the circ.u.mstances."

Paul nodded without looking up. "And how was she?"

Joseph hesitated, feeling his heart begin to beat faster. "As lovely as ever, Paul. She seemed very concerned about you."

Paul raised his eyes and stared at Joseph, but at that moment the door curtain was pulled aside and his adjutant entered. Paul c.o.c.ked his head on one side, listening for sounds of gunfire, but the valley had gone quiet. "You'd better get your reconnaissance trip over while this lull lasts," he said with a sudden briskness. "We'll drink some cognac when you get back."

Joseph followed the adjutant up the sap with a profound feeling of relief and clambered into the jeep beside him. During the next hour he was glad that he had to concentrate on the junior officer's briefing as the little vehicle raced around the remaining strongpoints. When he returned to the chief of staff's dugout, Paul had already opened a new bottle of cognac, and he rose and poured generous measures into two mugs.

"And what are your impressions of our gallant fortress now, Joseph?" His voice was heavy with irony, and he pushed a mug towards the American with a resigned smile. "You see some changes have occurred since your last inspection, yes?"

Joseph nodded unhappily. "It all fits with what you told me before I went out, Paul. It doesn't look very promising."

"Then let's drink to better times in the future, mon vieux. It's better not to dwell too much on the present." Paul lowered himself wearily into his seat once more. "There's another ambulance plane on its way in. My adjutant will drive you out to meet it- there may not be another one in today."

Joseph nodded his thanks, and they drank in an uneasy silence.

"Joseph, my friend, I can't help feeling that something's worrying you besides this nasty business." Paul gazed at him intently over the rim of his mug. "In the past we've always been open with one another, but now somehow you've become a different man. You never look me in the eye anymore - you have a furtive air about you."

"It's just the d.a.m.ned war, Paul," said Joseph quickly. "Cot respondents may not do any fighting - but they suffer from battle fatigue, too."

"Are you sure that's all it is?"

Joseph avoided his eyes. 'Sure I'm sure."

Paul continued staring at him, and Joseph shuffled his feet uncomfortably under his gaze. "Maybe life in this d.a.m.ned rabbit warren is warping my senses, mon ami," he said speaking very quietly, "but to my eyes you looked s.h.i.+ftier than ever when I asked you about Lan. Is she doing something I don't know about? Is she having an affair with somebody?"

Joseph had been standing beside the desk looking down at Paul, but the question struck him like a whiplash, and he turned away.

He searched his mind frantically for some suitable evasion, then realizing that he had already betrayed his feelings, he turned slowly back to face Paul again. "The last thing I wanted to do was to speak of this here," he began hesitantly, his voice barely under control. "In fact, Lan made me promise I'd say nothing to you until it was all over. But now that you've said what you have, Paul, maybe it's better for all of us that you know the truth. It's been agony for me keeping it from you."

The Frenchman went very still in his seat, and all the color drained from his face. "What are you talking about?"

"It's me, Paul - I'm in love with Lan. I have been ever since I first met her all those years ago."

Paul's only reaction was a slight narrowing of his eyes; otherwise he remained motionless in his chair.

"I've been meeting her secretly off and on for a year or two now in Saigon. I'm desperately sorry this has happened, you must know that."

Paul removed his helmet and placed one hand gingerly against the soiled dressing covering his head wound as though it suddenly pained him - but still he said nothing.

"It isn't something that's just begun recently," continued Joseph in a desperate voice. 'Lan and I were lovers once, long before you married her. It all began before she agreed to become your wife. I asked her to marry me first - but she refused."

"Where did you become lovers?"

"In Hue at the time of the last Nam Giao ceremony Joseph hesitated and drew another long breath. "Lan begged me not to tell you this, but I think you should know the whole story. A baby girl was born to her before she married you - my daughter. I knew nothing of her existence until I came back to Saigon at the end of the war. She was eight then and she'd been brought up secretly by one of the family servants in a village in the north."

Paul straightened slowly behind his desk. "Does she still live there?"

Joseph shook his head. "While you were recovering from your wounds, Lan and I drove north to look for her. We found her just in time. She almost died of starvation. We took her back to Saigon and she was brought up secretly in the household of Lan's brother, Tam,"

There was a long silence and outside they heard the noise of gunfire start up again. As he stared at Joseph, Paul's face darkened with anger. "So you've been meeting secretly behind my back all this time in Saigon."

Joseph nodded miserably. "I hated deceiving you, Paul, but I couldn't help myself. Lan and I didn't become lovers again until we met at Dalat ten days ago - that was the first time Since 1945. She always insisted on remaining loyal to you before. But now Fm sure we can be happy together. I want to make amends for the past. I've asked her to marry me--and I'm going to offer Tuyet a home with us too."

On the table Paul's knuckled whitened abruptly as he clenched his fists. "Has she agreed to go with you?"

"She's refused to give me any decision until Joseph's voice died away and he s.h.i.+fted guiltily under Paul's gaze. "Until she's seen you again."

"You mean until she knows whether I come out of here dead or alive!" Paul rose slowly from his chair, his features contracting into a grimace of cold fury. "You're both waiting, aren't you, to see whether the Communists clear the way for you!"

"Paul, you told me yourself your marriage hadn't been right for a long time." Joseph's voice took on an imploring note. "Don't you see, knowing that changed everything for me."