Saigon: A Novel Part 7

Dong and his younger brother moved closer together. "After we ran away from you we traveled as far as Quang Nam - that's where we met the French recruiter who arrived here tonight with your truck," said Dong hesitantly. "He and his Annamese cai tricked us. They gave us six piastres and told us it was advance pay for work on a rubber plantation not far away. They said we'd receive eighty cents a day for six hours work and promised us good food, good houses to live in. They then put us on trucks to bring us here and anyone who tried to escape was beaten senseless." Dong's voice became tearful at the memory. "We tried to escape but every time they caught us and beat us. We. tried to write letters to you - but they were taken away by the cai and burned Around them the coolies punished earlier whimpered and groaned in their sleep. Others snored and all the time the rain pounded loudly against the thin palm thatch above their heads.

"But why did you run away from the hunting camp in the first place?"

Both brothers s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably on the wet ground but did not answer.

"Why, Dong, why?" he asked again in a gentler tone.

After another long silence Dong found his voice. "We were ashamed, Father."

"Ashamed of what?" A slight break in the older man's voice suggested he already suspected what the answer might be and was afraid.

"Ashamed of what was happening Dong's answer came in an almost inaudible whisper. "We hated what our mother was doing-and you knew!"

Loc let out a little moan of anguish. "I thought you were too young Loc understand! I should have tried to explain." He groaned again. "Now it is too late."

Hoc gripped his father's arm in alarm. "Why is it too late?"

"Because all I can do is to pray to the spirits of our ancestors for forgiveness The despair in their father's voice had sent a sudden chill of apprehension through the brothers. "What do you mean? Where is our mother" asked Dong. "Why have you left her alone to come here?"

Ngo Van Loc reached out in the darkness and clasped both his Sons' hands tightly in his own. "Your mother is dead."

"Dead?" Both brothers echoed the word in horror.

"Yes. She died two months ago - in prison."

"How in prison?"

Loc hesitated, then took a long breath. "We supplied information to different revolutionary groups for many years about Devraux's work for the Surete. I often traveled abroad with him as his driver when he investigated the activities of our revolutionary emigres. When the Quoc Dan Dang was formed two years ago we joined secretly and agreed to continue spying on Devraux His voice broke with emotion and faded to a whisper. "That's why she did what she did - so that Devraux wouldn't suspect us. She hated it! And I hated it too! It didn't happen often, but when it did, we tried to put it from our minds - to remember only what we were trying to do for our country."

Hoc buried his face in his brother's shoulder and began sobbing silently. For a long time the furious rhythms of the storm and the grunting of the exhausted men around them were the only sounds to be heard inside the hut.

"But why was she taken to prison?" asked Dong in a choked voice. - "I had to go away for several days and while I was gone your mother saw some papers in Devraux's desk. She hid them in our quarters, thinking they might be of use to the party, but Devraux found them and she was taken to prison. I was warned by the party and didn't return to the house." He paused, fighting again to control his emotions. "A month later I learned she was dead. The French say she died of ill health! But I know from the jailers that she was tortured! The French are terrified of the revolutionary movement and are torturing all prisoners for information, with electricity."

"He killed her!" breathed Dong. "Devraux killed her!" He pulled his sobbing brother to him and they rocked back and forth together making little moaning noises between their clenched teeth, trying to ease their agony.

A moment later the sounds of the storm were magnified suddenly in the hut as the door at one end flew open. A flashlight searched back and forth across the sleeping bodies of the coolies as the hulking figure of Duclos advanced down the barrack in a dripping black rain cape. The beam came to rest on the Ngo brothers, and after a moment's hesitation Duclos bent down and seized Hoc by the arm. "Come, my pretty lad, you're coming with me!" He hauled the sobbing boy to his feet.

"This is no time to sleep. There's a spot of extra work for you tonight."

Beneath the shelter of the plantation house verandah, Auguste Lepine was standing, his eyes glazed with opium, watching the rain. When he saw Duclos striding back across the compound dragging a young Annamese boy behind him, he smiled quietly to himself, stepped back into his bedroom and began fumbling with the b.u.t.tons of his silk s.h.i.+rt.

5.

The plangent notes of the dawn gongs rousing the coolies from their barracks faded and died as Claude Duclos drained his third and last cup of cafe noir on the verandah of the plantation house. The scowl of irritation on his face was more marked than usual, and the moment he replaced the cup on its saucer the congaie, Who had been hovering behind the screen door, hurried out to remove his breakfast tray. Sniffing the moist morning air, he fancied he could still detect sickly traces of the opium smoked by his guest, and his scowl deepened. He found the personal habits of the coolie recruiter deeply repugnant and this only increased the resentment he felt at his helpless dependence on him for replacements to his dwindling labor force.

From inside the house the scratchy gramophone burble of "Muskrat Ramble" was providing an incongruous counterpoint to the screech of the wild birds wakening unseen in the roof of the surrounding jungle, and Duclos sighed and closed his eyes to concentrate better on the music. For a minute or two he relaxed; with something approaching a smile on his face, he sat drumming his fingers on the tabletop and tapping the toe of one of his jungle boots on the verandah boards. Then he opened his eyes again to peer at his watch and the expression of irritation returned.

From the nearby compound of Village Number Three he could hear the Annamese cai marshaling the shuffling coolies for roll call. He listened for a moment to their angry shouts and the occasional thud of their rattan canes, then he stood up and jammed his pith helmet squarely on his head; automatically his hand checked the presence of his bone-handled knife in its sheath. As he made to step down from the verandah he heard a footfall behind him and turned to find Lepine, already immaculate in his 'white suit, ready to leave. Although the recruiter had obviously bathed, he still exuded the faint mustiness of the habitual opium smoker as he pressed past Duclos to take his place at the breakfast table.

"Bonjour, Auguste, mon vieux. I hope you've enjoyed your first visit to Vi An," said the plantation director with a forced affability.

Lepine confined his greeting to a surly nod. Without looking up he poured himself coffee and sipped it noisily. "Your Annamite was scabrous - and he sniveled constantly," he complained in a sour voice.

"Tant pis, tant pis! Perhaps next time I'll have more time to prepare. I know what to look for now." Duclos offered his hand, anxious to be gone from the unwholesome presence of the recruiter. "Please excuse me - I must begin my work."

Lepine shook his hand perfunctorily without rising. "I trust from now on you will employ your work force sparingly. Replacements for your plantation won't be so easy to come by in future."

The recruiter's voice had become undisguisedly offensive and Duclos, after a moment's hesitation, stepped off the verandah and strode angrily away without replying. When he reached the barracks of Number Three Village the sky to the east was already lightening but the cai had still not finished handing out the morning quinine. Immediately the anger and irritation he had brought with him from the house erupted in a howl of anger. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up a handful of the medicaments and began distributing them himself to the coolies in the front rank. Halfway along the line he came across the Ngo brothers, and his eye fell on Hoc. The Annamese boy was standing in an att.i.tude of despair, his chin sunk on his chest. His coupe-coupe and his other tapping tools hung limply in his hands at his sides, and he didn't raise his head at the Corsican's approach.

The sight of the youth who had so displeased the detested recruiter and thereby jeopardized his future supply of coolies stopped Duclos in his tracks. Hoc's puny shoulders and bowed head reminded the furious Corsican suddenly of his own helplessness in the face of the unreasoning demands from Paris, and without warning he struck out at Hoc with his free hand, knocking him to the ground." You sniveling wretch! Stand up straight and show respect to your superiors - or you will feel the irons of An Dap about your ankles again!"

Hoc struggled upright with difficulty. For a moment he stood gazing balefully at the Corsican's back as he turned away to pa.s.s on down the line. Then his eyes, red-rimmed from weeping, widened dementedly and he lunged from his place, swinging the long blade of his coupe-coupe high above his head.

One of the Annamese cais yelled a frantic warning, aid Duclos was starting to turn when the sharpened edge of the heavy blade split his helmet. Because he was swiveling his head to look behind him, the blow skidded off his skull, severed his left ear and bit deep into vital veins and arteries at the base of his neck. The anguished force of the stroke drove the Corsican to his knees and, paralyzed with shock, he remained in this posture, groping ineffectually for the bone-handled knife as his blood spurted onto the red dust around him.

Hoc and his brother shrank back in momentary horror from the man dying at their feet; then Hoc began sobbing loudly. All around them the other coolies stared in disbelief at the sight of their tormentor so astonis.h.i.+ngly struck down before their eyes; then the floodwaters of their hatred burst some invisible dam, and several men dashed forward screaming incoherently to slash at the kneeling man's head and shoulders with their coupe-coupes. He fell on his side under the onslaught, and one coolie wrenched the bone-handled knife from his helpless fingers. With a wild yell of triumph the Annamese dropped to his knees and plunged the knife to the hilt in the dying Corsican's chest.

The moment Duclos fell, his two young French a.s.sistants and the cai started instinctively towards him; but seeing the electrifying force of spontaneous, hate-inspired rebellion sweeping through the crowd of five hundred coolies, they froze where they stood, their faces blanching with fear. The coolies sensed their fright instantly, and in a moment forty or fifty of them were advancing menacingly on the little group of overseers, brandis.h.i.+ng the implements they had used for so long to tend the rubber plantation under their ruthless. tutelage.

Caught up in the hysteria of the moment, Hoc ran blindly with the milling crowd, still clutching the bloodstained coupe-coupe with which he'd felled the Corsican. His brother, Dong, ran yelling beside him, as shocked and bewildered as all the other coolies by their sudden freedom. Knowing they could expect no mercy from the revenge-crazed mob, the Annamese caj were the first to turn and flee, and the two terrified Frenchmen followed them. They reached the shelter of the brick-built cainha far enough ahead of their pursuers to lock themselves in, and for several minutes the coolies milled around the building, trying without success to smash the stout wooden doors and shutters. Then a voice yelled: "Burn them out! We must burn them out!" and Dong and Hoc joined a party of two-dozen coolies in a headlong dash to the tractor sheds to fetch drums of oil.

The two boys were splas.h.i.+ng the fuel frenziedly over the walls and windows of the cainha when their father found them. Flushed and wild-eyed like all the others, they resisted at first when he tried to drag them away.

"The alarm will be raised soon! The provincial garrison at Bien Hoa will be called out! We can't take on the whole French colonial army - we must escape. Now!" Loc seized them both by the arm and forced them to run with him towards the jungle.

As they reached the trees they heard a wild burst of cheering and turned to see the first tongues of flame licking up the walls of the cainha. Several hundred coolies were Surging round the building baying for the blood of the overseers inside.

"They will hive guns in there! They'll shoot their way out!" cried Loc, urging his sons on again. "Many coolies will be killed. They are foolish to stay."

"But where are we going, Father?" asked Dong frantically. "Whenever we tried to escape before we were always captured by the Moi. It's impossible to get through the jungle to Saigon from here."

"We're not going south! Runaways from these plantations have always tried to reach Saigon because it is the nearest big city. That's foolis.h.!.+ We will go the other way - to Hue, to Hanoi. It's much farther but there we can carry on the fight. The Quoc Dan Dang is stronger in the north!"

A sudden flurry of shots rang out from the direction of the cainha, confirming the older man's prediction, and without further argument the two boys turned and followed him into the jungle at a run.

On the verandah of the plantation house Auguste Lepine heard the commotion in the compound but in the half-light could not see clearly enough to identify its cause. As a precaution he returned leisurely to his bedroom to collect the case containing his business papers and the revolver he habitually carried. On his instructions his luggage had already been carried to the Citroen by the congaie. When he stepped out onto the verandah again, to his astonishment a mob of twenty or more Annamese was swarming across the garden dragging between them drums of oil and petrol stolen from the tractor sheds, intent on firing the house.

They recognized him instantly and half-a-dozen coolies wielding coupe-coupes separated from the rest and dashed towards him. s.n.a.t.c.hing his revolver from his case, he emptied the gun into the advancing group from a range of only thirty yards; three or four of the coolies stumbled and fell, but the rest came on screaming with even greater frenzy.

Sweating with fear, Lepine dashed along the verandah and flung himself behind the wheel of the Citroen. The engine started first time and the car shot away down the dirt road, but he could not prevent the leading coolie from leaping onto the running board beside the driver's door. As the motor car gathered speed, the Annamese flailed wildly at the winds.h.i.+eld until the gla.s.s splintered in the recruiter's face, blinding him. Revving fast in low gear the Citroen swerved in a half-circle and smashed into the bank at the roadside, flinging the coolie clear. Lepine was knocked unconscious by the impact and a few seconds later his head was hacked from his shoulders by a flurry of coupe-coupe blows rained on him in the driving seat by the surviving coolies. They tipped the contents of one oil drum into the car and threw in a burning rag. W[hen its petrol tank exploded a few minutes later, the flames from the blazing car, the house and the cainha lit the dawn sky more brilliantly than the first rays of the rising sun.

6.

Dao Van Lat studied his naked body in the long mirror and was seized afresh with an exhilaration of awe. For an instant, too, a detached sense of pity welled up inside him at the body's seeming frailty in the face of its task; could the slight, sloping shoulders carry the heavy burdens of leaders.h.i.+p, the thin arms arid bony wrists hold a long steady course? Would the sharp-jutting pelvis, the spindly, narrow-thighed legs support all the endeavors of the rest? His amber skin was suffused with the roseate glow of a red Tet lantern hanging from the ceiling, and because it cast shadow across the dark valley of his groin he brushed his hand quickly down the funnel of his lower belly as though seeking rea.s.surance of his completeness.

Poetic wishes for longevity and health written in Chinese calligraphy on blood-red streamers decorated the walls of the shabby room adjoining the printing shop of the Hanoi newspaper for which he worked. On the little altar to his ancestors beside the mirror, lighted candles stood amidst tiny dishes of fruits, pork, fish and rice, and behind him incense burners and small bra.s.s pans of aloe wood set on a low lacquered table sent perfumed smoke drifting in gentle spirals towards the ceiling.

When he raised his gaze to inspect his face, Lat found his eyes agleam with the intensity of his fervor. Round, high-cheeked, boyish but with a scholar's high brow, it was the face of a man of twenty-seven years of age nerving himself for an extreme deed, a supreme effort of will. It was a face that Joseph and Flavia Sherman would have recognized instantly from their encounter with the Annamese journalist in the palace of Khai Dinh at Tet exactly five years earlier because it had changed little, if at all, in the interval of time.

Eat searched his own eyes and saw reflected there the mingled emotions that haunted his mind. He was proud that the invisible spirit animating the slight frame had dared to conceive the intended deed as his duty; but he was afraid at the same time that he would lack the courage to endure the pain and carry it through.

"Our hearts are like iron and stone; they will never tremble!"

Between clenched teeth he quoted the words of the nineteenth century poet Phan Van Tri. Written nearly eighty years before as marauding French forces seized their first tracts of territory in Cochin-China, they reflected his own deep conviction, derived from a totally different experience, in the ultimate supremacy of the spirit of man. Hadn't he studied in France and seen the men of this supposedly superior civilization living amid their mighty machines and their great inst.i.tutions? Hadn't he read the philosophers of France, of Germany and of other European nations? Didn't they all agree with Phan Van Tri that the seeds of victory were to be found only in the spirit of man? And wasn't the disciplined, self-denying spirit of Nietzsche's Superman the finest expression of this high ideal? After all, hadn't the insuperable iron s.h.i.+ps, the powerful weapons, the all-conquering engines of the colonialists been born first in the determined spirit of Western man? If Western nations could produce the philosophical Superman of Nietzsche, why not Asian nations too? The time had come at last for Confucius to bow to the sages of the modern world!

He nodded avidly in affirmation of his train of thought and turned so that the light fell directly on the front of his body. Again he ran his gaze down his reflection from shoulder to loins. The physical manifestation of his manhood, as always in repose, appeared a shrunken, insignificant part of him. He wondered anew that the great and glorious power of life could flow so fiercely and endlessly through such a shriveled and unbeautiful fountainhead. It hardly seemed possible that powerful, destructive pa.s.sions could spring unendingly from such an unpromising source! He shook his head in a little motion of disbelief but he knew there could be no turning back. If he was to rise above the constant lure of carnal l.u.s.ts that distracted him daily, if he was to dedicate and devote his life to freeing his country from the monstrous rule of France, there could be no choice! He clenched his fists at his sides to strengthen his resolve. If he was to become the Asian Superman of Nietzsche's teachings, he must cast aside all thought of pleasure and sensual gratification and concentrate only on the task before him!

Closing his eyes, he forced himself to think of his hatred for the colonial French. Behind his back they called him a "jaune" - a "yellow" with its unmistakable implication of cowardice; if feeling more tactful they called him an "Annamite" - but wasn't that only in truth a man of China's ancient colony, the "Pacified South"? True, they had been va.s.sals of China for nine long centuries but hadn't their hearts "like iron and stone" enabled them at last to throw off the Chinese yoke when the Tang dynasty crumbled? Hadn't they hurled back the Mongols from their frontiers and defeated the invasion forces of the Sung and Ming emperors? And when their great Emperor Gia Long finally rose from the Mekong delta a century ago to unify all the peoples from Saigon to Hanoi, hadn't he triumphantly renamed his new empire "Viet Nam'? That was what they must keep in mind! The arrival of the French colonizers a few decades later had merely given them another chance to demonstrate their indomitable spirit. The white foreigners may have part.i.tioned and ruled their land for seventy years, but that didn't make him and his countrymen "yellows," "Annamites" or "Annamese." They were men of "Viet Nam"! They were Vietnamese! And in their spirit lay the dormant power that could make them proud, free men again! That power must be released, allowed to gush forth. Yes, and he must lead them and inspire his companions by his example!

He opened his eyes and glanced at the clock beside his bed. In five hours time it would be midnight. The first day of the first month in the Year of the Horse was at hand. In the Western calendar a new decade had just begun - it was the right time for a new beginning!

The intensity of the emotions evoked by his train of thought quickened his breathing and he rushed across the room to the bookshelves in the shadows beside the ancestral altar. He ran his fingers along the spines of the books he'd brought back from the other side of the world; books owned illegally since the French not only censored newspapers but decreed which books he and his fellow countrymen might lawfully read. There were the works of Flaubert, Kant, Plato, Nietzche.... He plucked the little blue leather-bound volume of Nietzche's Thus Sprach Zarathustra from the shelf and held it towards the light of one of the flickering candles on the altar.

The well-thumbed book fell open at the single page headed "Of Chast.i.ty" and his lips moved as he recited a pa.s.sage to himself in a hushed whisper.

'And behold these men! Their eyes confesseth it - they know naught better on earth than to lie with a woman.

The ground of their soul is filth. Alas if there be yet mind in their filth! *

Would at least ye were perfect, as are the beasts. But to the beast belongeth innocence.

Do I counsel you to slay your senses? I counsel you innocence of the senses!"

Lat let the book fall closed in his hands and looked up at the altar. It consisted of three lacquered tables of different heights. Elaborate carved figures of clouds, dragons and trees intertwined endlessly across their surfaces and on the highest table stood a box lacquered in red and gold which contained a list of the names of his ancestors, stretching back over several centuries. His gaze fixed itself on the box with great intensity, as though he were willing the spirits of his forebears to understand alien thoughts. Then he closed his eyes. "Thus Spake Zarathustra!" he whispered fiercely, and as he did so tears squeezed out from beneath his closed lids and rolled down his cheeks.

He stood unmoving for several minutes and then opened his eyes and inhaled deeply until he had regained his composure. With something approaching reverence he replaced the book on the shelf and went into the kitchen and opened a drawer. The long knife that he withdrew glinted dully in the light from the altar candles and after gazing at it for a moment he took a whetstone from the same drawer and began caressing the already razor- sharp blade with it.

7.

Less than a mile from the shabby little room where Dao Van Lat was contemplating his act of self-sacrifice on the eve of Tet, 1930, Jacques Devraux was working late at his new desk in the Hanoi headquarters of the French Surete Generale. Lines of anxiety furrowed his brow as he sifted through yet another batch of infuriatingly sketchy agents' reports. A new cache of crude native arms had been found in the Red River valley that day - cement grenades and homemade sabers again; that brought the total to six in the past fortnight. Plotting for a widespread uprising was obviously well advanced, but still no coherent plan was discernible from the Surete's intelligence.

Devraux swung around thoughtfully in his swivel chair to stare at the map of Tongking on the wall behind him. He had flagged the locations of the previous arms caches with red markers but they were scattered over a large area ranging from the lower delta near Haiphong to the limestone mountains of Upper Tongking. He got up arid pushed a new flag into the map, then resumed his seat to study the result.

Newly installed as a full-time inspector three months earlier at the suggestion of the governor general, Jacques Devraux was not the only Surete officer working late on the eve of the Annamese holiday. Because increasing evidence of unrest was surfacing throughout the north, lights still burned in many of the other offices, and in the top security archive in the bas.e.m.e.nt below his feet half-a-dozen clerks were busy updating the twenty thousand secret dossiers and the fifty thousand related cross-reference cards that Surete agents in Asia and Europe had painstakingly compiled over the past decade on those Annamese suspected of posing a threat to French rule in Indochina.

When the door of Devraux's office opened to admit the top- ranking officer of the Surete Generale in Indochina, the special commissioner for political affairs, the former hunting guide noticed immediately that the bulkiest file in the whole archive was coutched beneath his arm. Its "Secret d'Etat" designation - "State Secret" - was clearly visible stamped in big red letters on the cover and the commissioner dropped it on Devraux's blotter with an audible sigh of exasperation.

"Your wily adversary has given our Canton people the slip again, Jacques," he said irritably, perching himself on the corner of Devraux's desk. "Disappeared from his haunts yesterday." A lifetime of secret police work had given a permanently watchful, narrow-eyed cast to the commissioner's gaunt features, and through the smoke of his meerschaum he subjected Devraux to as -careful a scrutiny as he ever gave any suspect.

The file before Devraux bore the t.i.tle "Nguyen Al Quoc" with its translation in brackets beneath - "Nguyen the Patriot." A list of half-a-dozen other Annamese' and Chinese aliases known to have been used by the subject during twenty years of undercover revolutionary activity in Asia, Russia and Western Europe were also listed on the cover. Devraux knew them all as well as his own name; many of the reports that made the file SO bulky, he reflected as he drew it towards him, were his own. He opened the dossier and glanced at the photograph pinned inside the front cover; it showed a thin-faced Annamese with intent, heavy-lidded eyes that had a curiously compelling quality. He had spent many days and nights watching for that face; he had tracked Nguyen the Patriot when he had gone shaven-headed and disguised in the robes of a Buddhist monk in Bangkok, had watched undercover while the Annamese sold matches all day on a street corner in Singapore, seen him mingle with Chinese peasants in Canton, humping a swing plow on his shoulder. All these disguises had been a.s.sumed by the Comintern agent in the course of his efforts to build Communist groups throughout the Far East, and Devraux's skill in d.o.g.g.i.ng his footsteps accounted largely for what little was known of his activities to that date. Other Surete agents had not been so successful, and Devraux shook his head in exasperation as he ran his eye quickly over the newly decoded telegram from Canton on top of the file. It stated simply that Nguyen the Patriot could no longer be traced at his address there. "Interrogation of another Annamese Communist in Canton," the telegram added, "suggests he has departed for Hong Kong. He is believed to be under Comintern orders from Moscow to try to unite the warring factions of the Annamese Communist movement and form a cohesive Indochina Communist Party."

"I thought of sending you to Hong Kong, Jacques, to try to pick up his trail," said the commissioner slowly when Devraux finally glanced up at him. "You know his habits better than anyone. But I think it's clear enough that the Communists are too busy fighting among themselves just now to do us much damage. Perhaps you could just send our Hong Kong people a guidance brief. The need for you is far greater here." He glanced round at the little cl.u.s.ters of flags on the wall map. "Another Quoc Dan Dang arms dump has been uncovered today, yes? Do we have any clearer idea of how and where they mean to strike?"

Devraux shook his head quickly. "No. I thought this morning we might have a lead. We arrested a new suspect - a young girl, a teacher from a village just outside the city. I've questioned her myself, but so far she won't even admit she's a member of the party." He let out a long sigh of frustration. "Another informant has told us there's to be an important cell meeting tonight 'somewhere in Hanoi'-but the location isn't known."

The commissioner puffed on his pipe in silence, studying the ceiling above his head minutely. Then he glanced down at Devraux again, his eyes suddenly hard and calculating. "We're very glad, Jacques. you agreed to give up your hunting and come to us full time," he said quietly. "We're going to need every good man we can lay our hands on in the next few months. Things look bad - much worse than I've ever seen them." He paused and puffed fiercely on the pipe again. "We can't afford to treat the 'yellows' with kid gloves any longer. I've never seen anything like these arms dumps before. They're obviously out for blood this time, and we've got to get the ringleaders before they strike. Otherwise the whole thing might spread very quickly. It's no good being squeamish or worrying what we might do, or not do, elsewhere. French lives are at stake. It could be your head - or mine - that gets chopped off if we fail." The commissioner ceased looking at Devraux and puffed hard on the pipe again. "I know from your fine military record and everything else you've done, Jacques, that you're not just a strong man - you temper your strength with a respect for justice. But sometimes in this line of work you have to turn a blind eye."

Devraux, unsure of his superior's meaning, leaned back in his chair looking at him with a little frown of puzzlement on his face.

"What I'm getting at," the commissioner continued, avoiding his subordinate's gaze, "is that we can't afford not to make the most of every suspect we bring in. They have vital information - we need it badly. I've just had a special interrogator brought here from the police commissariat in Cholon a big metis. He's got a fearsome reputation - they say in Cholon he can get a corpse to talk. I'll have him sent up." He blew a long spiral of smoke towards the ceiling, then rose from the desk and walked towards the door. "Use him, Jacques - he'll get the girl to tell you what you want to know." The commissioner opened the door, then paused as he was about to step into the corridor. "There's no need of course for you to be involved yourself," he said quietly. "You understand that, don't you?" Without waiting for a reply he turned and hurried away towards his own room, the smoke of his pipe slip-streaming over his shoulder behind him.

A few minutes later there was a respectful knock at the door and one of Devraux's French aides ushered in a heavily built French Annamese metis who was holding in one hand what appeared to be a large carrying case for a French horn. His Eurasian features were heavily fleshed and he stood silently before the desk, his head tipped forward towards the Surete inspector in an att.i.tude of guarded deference.

"This is special interrogator Lung, Sir, who's just come in from Cholon." The aide made the introduction in a flat voice without looking at the metis, as if he was anxious to disa.s.sociate himself from him, and withdrew immediately.

Devraux studied the new arrival in silence. Loose-limbed, heavy browed and hunched at the shoulder, he held himself awkwardly as though uncomfortable inside his big, hybrid body. As he waited for his orders his eyes flicked uneasily from the Frenchman's face to the toes of his boots. To conceal the distaste he felt at his presence, Devraux half turned to face the map on the wall. "Lung, how much do you know about the Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang?" he asked tersely.

"Only that it's one of the many secret societies dreaming of making a revolution." The metis spoke his French in a dull, sibilant monotone that only increased Devraux's irritation.

"Maybe that's how it looks from Saigon," he said testily. "Here in the north the Quoc Dan Dang is something more than a crazy secret society." He paused and gestured towards the map. "We've uncovered half-a-dozen arms dumps in the past two weeks in the provinces of the Red River delta. They are plotting some kind of b.l.o.o.d.y rebellion. We think the party may have possibly fifteen hundred members scattered through the region. They're organized in little cells of fifteen or twenty members that are hard to track down. And time is running out. Do you understand?" Devraux looked around sharply at the metis, who s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably under his scrutiny then nodded.

"We believe a crucial cell meeting is being held somewhere in Hanoi later tonight - but we don't know where. We arrested a suspected member of the party this morning but so far we haven't obtained the information we require."

For the first time a spark of interest lit the dull gaze of the metis. "Is the suspect a man or a woman?"

"A girl - a village schoolteacher of nineteen."

A sudden smile loosened the heavy features of the metis and he moistened his lips quickly with his tongue. "Then it will be easy. I will soon make her talk for you."

Devraux eyed the man before him with open distaste. He still held the big bulbous case tightly in his hand although it was obviously heavy. "What methods do you use?" he asked quietly, looking away and shuffling some of his papers together on his desk.

The noise of the locks snapping open surprised Devraux and he looked up again to find the metis kneeling beside his open case. "I always carry my own instruments. I know how they feel in my hands, you see, and I'm confident then, because they've always worked for me in the past."

The voice of the metis had become suddenly animated, and Devraux saw then why he used the old French horn case; several long bull-hide whips were wound carefully around the inside of its large bowl and an a.s.sortment of other instruments were attached by hooks and fastenings to the velvet interior. As Devraux watched, the metis unhooked one of the whips and held it up so that he could see that it was bound around its entire length with fine copper wire.