For the Sake of All Living Things (67 page)

Met Meas broke into Sar’s thoughts. “Sar. There’s news from Phnom Penh.”

“Yes! What?”

“Lon Nol has declared a state of emergency and abolished the constitution!”

“He’s done what?!”

“Abolished the...”

Before Meas could repeat the news, Sar broke into a loud guffaw. “Ha! Ha! Haw! Oh what a wonderful buffoon,” he shrieked. “He’s such a fool. Such a fool....Such a fool.” Sar gasped for breath. Staff men laughed with him, at him. “From him,” Sar boomed, “it’s like plucking candy from a baby. Ha! Now, get back to work! We’re closer to victory than ever.” Sar’s smile wrinkled his whole face. “Meas,” he said quietly. He motioned him over. “Make a copy of Met Phan’s plottings of the yuons. Be sure it reaches the right people.”

Again Sar leaned forward and hung his head from his hands. This time he did not close his eyes. To see their concentration break, he thought. To see Afigkar annihilate them, annihilate their
thralls
and drive the yuon army from Kampuchea. Then Angkar will inherit the revolution and all powers will pass to Khmer Patriots who will be led by the Brotherhood of the Pure.

“You know how your transistor works, yes?”

“Yes.”

“This is the same,” Nang said. “Met Duch, you must struggle to overcome your fear of learning.”

“It’s so heavy.”

“Ah, but you are a proven fighter and very strong. I wouldn’t entrust the radio to just anyone.” Duch glanced up at Nang. His face showed suspicion and dread. “Also,” Nang added, “because you’ll be doing extra work, your ration shall be doubled. Two rice tubes each day.” Immediately Nang saw Duch’s reluctance fade.

“You know the American radio?” Duch said matter-of-factly, hiding his easy acquiescence.

“When I was trained in the far north we learned all radios.” Nang was delighted. For an hour he and Duch practiced calling Met Mita’s command post, practiced coordinating the squeeze-to-transmit, release-to-receive lever. “You learn so fast,” Nang encouraged the boy. “When I first tried, it took me days.”

“Perhaps,” Duch answered his commander, “I Have a better teacher.”

Nang put his hand on Duch’s back and rubbed. “Angkar is very proud of you.”

Before dawn, 25 October 1971, Nang’s Krahom infantry company 2/KT 104 received its first radio order. They were to send, immediately, a runner to the battalion command post for orders. The mechanics of communication were easier to assimilate than the principles and practice of passing commands over the air.

The farmers were slow that day leaving the hamlet for the paddies. Their work was far ahead of schedule with the assistance of the black-clad boys. The women, too, seemed to drag out the morning chores. Everyone had learned of the radio. Now they wished to hear the news the runner would bring.

The rains had abated but not stopped and the morning broke gray, as it had for weeks. Children sprinted from peasant house doorways to the village edge where the land fell away into the paddies. They stood there, watching, shrieking, jumping about, happy. Then they ran back home, wet, excited. During the night the earth to the east had quaked and the elders had grumbled and repeated slogan-thoughts taught by Nang and other yotheas, repeated fears and hates about bombs they’d never experienced. The quaking had been far off. Some had not felt it at all and these grumbled about the platoon of
neary
who’d come, caught the other outsiders, assassinated them and their two village assistants, then left, vanished, leaving only the unburied bodies in the near paddy.

Yotheas joined the children, enjoying the morning leisure, enjoying the company of the villagers as if they were family they had not seen in an age, and enjoying the company of one another, free, for the moment, of struggle. The congealing of an infantry unit is strange chemistry and the 2d of the KT 104th was, as a unit, new. Less than a month earlier they had been six separate squads whose only common bond was a loose or strong tie to Met Nang. In short order they’d been increased, filled out so each squad had four three-man cells, then formed, been formed, into three platoons: Tiger, Monkey and Rabbit. The platoons were given leaders, joined to form the company. The idea of each yothea being responsible to a battalion called the 104th was awkward in their minds. Responsibility to Angkar was easier, for Angkar was, to them, Kampuchea—was Kampucheans for Kampuchea, was the very soul of the revolution.

But the bonding to middle echelons of organization was weak. And the bonding to one another, in the absence of combat, also was pale. At times they fought not for one another, that would come later, but for an ideology built on slogans and catchphrases and a mixture of love, respect and fear of Met Nang.

“He’s coming!”

“Where?”

“I saw a flash in the trees.”

“You can’t see that far!”

“Says who...”

“He is coming!”

The runner loped from the concealment of the trees to the exposure of the dike. At first he looked small, looked as if he were barely approaching, as if he were stationary bouncing up and down afar on the long dike. Slowly there was more paddy behind him than in front. His speed seemed to quicken and he became a man, no longer a toy.

“Nang! Met Nang!” the runner screamed as the distance fell to fifty meters. “Nang! Get me to him!”

“What message are you carrying?” yotheas asked.

“They’re coming,” he panted. “Get me...to...Nang!”

“Who?” yotheas shouted, trotting with the runner.

In minutes Met Hon emerged from the house into which the runner had disappeared. “Met Nang wants the platoon leaders and one man from each cell. Now.”

Farmers who had reached the close paddies returned. Women who had set to work braiding palm mats or preparing the day’s meals put the tasks aside. The unnamed hamlet had never experienced such suspense, never, until the 2d of the 104th moved in with its violence.

The cell and two of the three platoon leaders exited the house of Hem Teng where Met Nang had been invited to set up his CP. To the boy they were somber, cold. Not one deviated from a direct line to his cellmates. Not one answered a question from the villagers. Not one let even the slightest grin or warmth betray his face. Immediately they armed themselves, packed their rucksacks and formed. At first the villagers were amused, then a pall crept over them and permeated their damp souls. Slowly they meandered to the village center, toward the end where Nang, Hon, Rath and Duch remained sequestered with the hamlet chief, his wife and his two sons.

Met Bun, leader of Rabbit Platoon, burst through the growing crowd. He’d been fishing in a nearby creek swollen with floodwater yet full of hundreds of silvery fish with red bellies. “There are new orders?” He blurted the words as he entered the house.

“Yes,” Nang answered loudly. “The Americans will bomb here in thirty minutes.”

“Then we must evacuate.”

“Yes. We’re giving the fighters a few minutes to collect their gear and tell their hosts. In a moment we’ll tell those outside. The evacuation has been organized.”

In the hamlet the yotheas circulated, not to tell their hosts but to disarm the militia boys. In the few peasants who witnessed these actions a wariness of the yotheas spiked. Unseen by most, the black-clad company abused their Khmer hospitality, rifled the homes at which they’d been welcomed, taking food, money, knives, machetes, any items they desired.

“The Americans are going to bomb!” Nang shouted. “Everyone must go. Everyone.”

“Wait, let me tell them.” Hem Teng grabbed Nang’s sleeve. Nang whipped his arm away.

“The bombers are coming,” yotheas shouted. “Go home. Grab a blanket. Follow us. Run to the treeline.”

“You said...” Hem Teng was at a loss. In his house Nang had been adamant about reducing panic but now he and every yothea promoted it.

“Run. Run. Run. Let me help you. We must rush.” “No. Leave that.” “Don’t take anything. One blanket.” “The bombers killed a village last night. Now they’re coming here.” “Follow us.”

The first families poured onto the dike down which the runner had come. Before them, two cells urged them to quicken the pace. Yotheas dropped back to help the youngest children and the very old while those in front demanded that the quick clear the dike road as soon as possible. “When they come they’ll strafe the dike,” yotheas told the peasants, told one another. “They shoot everyone. Get to the treeline. We’ll bring the children.”

More families poured onto the muddy dike. Peasants fell in the slick slime only to be jerked up by yotheas. “Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Run.”

In the hamlet many lingered—some refusing outright to leave, others packing belongings. “Don’t take that. You’ll be back tonight. One day at the most.”

Rush! Rush! Rush! The pace was frenetic and in less than ten minutes all but the stubborn had reached the dike conduit to the sanctuary of the treeline. Even Hem Teng, his wife and eldest son had left.

“There are no bombers.” Hem Daravong laughed cynically when Nang reentered the village chief’s home. Nang smiled but did not answer. “What will you do to them?”

“They’ll be protected,” Nang said softly. “The bombers did kill a village last night.”

“What village?” Daravong’s nares flared. This ugly boy was repugnant, his ideas repulsive, his organization loathsome.

“To the east,” Nang said.

From the dike there were shots. The first people were reaching the trees. “Don’t stop,” yotheas ordered. “Follow that trail. It leads to our last camp in the grove to the north. Not you, Grandma. You go this way. It’ll be best if the old and very young take shelter amongst the column on the highway. The Americans won’t bomb there. We’ll be sure you’re brought back together. Head for the road. Head for the highway.”

“Would you like to join us?” Nang asked Daravong. “You know we are the only true representatives of the Khmer people.”

“So you say.”

“Come with me.”

“If I don’t? Are you going to kill me?”

“No. I won’t kill you. If you wish to kill yourself that’s up to you. Now”—Nang’s voice became stern—“go to the dike.”

“No.”

“I’m under orders to deny you to the Viet Namese.”

“To what?”

“If you don’t come with us, you’ll be captured and conscripted by the yuons. You’ll be used against your own people.”

Reluctantly, bitterly, Daravong acquiesced, moved. “We won’t return, will we?”

“There is a more beautiful village in the North,” Nang answered. Again his voice was soft.

On the dike the two boys turned. Black-clad figures were scurrying from house to house. Smoke rose from beyond the closest row, then from every structure. Flames leaped from the smoke. From the paddies about the hamlet air was sucked into a swirling rising firestorm. In minutes the settlement ceased to exist.

A tremendous thunderclap jerked Sullivan from his bent-back sleep. He sprang up, awake, alert yet disoriented. In the dark his left hand searched for Vathana, his right grabbed the M-16 he’d commandeered a week earlier. Another thunderclap jolted him, jolted the sky, and the rain shook loose and crashed hard on the sedan roof. He shook his head. Amid the sky’s cacophony he heard other rumbles. He squeezed his eyes. Opened them. His night fantasies vanished as if he’d never dreamt.

For ten days Captain Sullivan had visited various FANK units, visited, observed, was pleased, was horrified. Rita Donaldson had dogged him at first but her mission was to grab a story and scoot back to the capital to file it before another reporter filed the same observation, thought or impression which they called news. Still he, Sullivan, found himself looking over his shoulder each time he approached a FANK unit.

Two weeks had passed since the vanguard of Colonel Um Savath’s task force had reached Kompong Thom and the column had settled, stalled. On the raised roadway twenty thousand troops plus dependants bivouacked. From Skoun to Pa Kham and up through Tang Kouk, Rumlong, Baray, Tang Krasang, Puk Yuk and on into the provincial capital, FANK had camped without spreading out, staying high if not dry, in the lanes of Highway 6 above the flooded land. Officially the road was open, but the congestion of the column made it, for cargo trucking, all but impassable. Sullivan had been able to move up as far as the Chinit River bridge north of Baray only by bribing his Khmer escort and driver and they in turn bribing various unit control personnel. There he unobtrusively counted the men of one battalion carried as 450 strong. He’d found forty guarding the bridge, seventy-five to eighty living with their families in the dependant camp. In his mind he’d shaken his head. It was the worst unit he’d found. The degree of deceit appalled him. Ten percent was one thing, seventy-five another. These bastards, he’d lamented in his mind to Vathana, this elite scum. Immediately “elite” brought to mind Madame Pech, or Sisowath as she now called herself, and the “elite” who were milking the American cow while honest commanders had to beg for supplies, while troops of the most vile had to pay for rations, medical supplies and ammunition.

The return trip had presented more difficulty. On the twenty-second a trickle of peasants had mixed with the dependants. At first he’d thought it was farmers and hamlet women come to sell their produce and wares but the people had had nothing with them, had not stopped, had not set up shop. By the twenty-third it seemed clear that only the old and very young were coming to the highway. “Has someone talked to these people?” he’d asked his escort. “Of course,” the liaison had answered, indignant. Immediately he’d known he’d blown an opportunity, had placed the man on the defensive. The next day the highway had been clogged not only by the column but with hundreds of pushcarts, with thousands upon thousands of children and thousands more of enfeebled elders shuffling along north or south, or simply sitting on any open bit of blacktop—all without provisions, without pots to cook in, without tarps for shelter. They begged for food. Surrounded by six hundred square kilometers of ripening rice they begged because they had no way to harvest, to thresh, to winnow or to cook.

By the afternoon of the twenty-fifth, as the sedan crept at a speed slower than a child’s walk, Sullivan had not been able to stand it any longer. Rumors of forced hamlet evacuations and impending bombings were rampant. Some elders wailed with unrestrained grief while children sobbed or shrieked. He had reached the town of Tang Kouk, the section of roadway which ran tangentially west of the town, when he requested the escort and driver to let him out to stretch and urinate. From there he’d meandered amongst the people.